My daughter carries string cheese in her lunch along with a serving of nuts.

well my dentist thinks my gum is just inflamed and said to come back if its not better in 10 days.

scales are down again today...woohoo

Raining here today, and I do so hope that we're not starting the rainy season here extra early this year!

Heather -- you are so close to Twoderville and it will happen. And you'll be an inspiration to the rest of us to keep on keeping on. Just promise you'll still post on this thread!

2fat2jump -- Hopefully the weigh in went better than you're thinking it might. It's so hard to stay on plan, exercise, and not feel rewarded for the efforts. I admire your dedication with sticking with it.

Dgramie -- Glad that your tooth is just inflamed. Did he give you any suggestions for treating it?

Pam -- thanks for the kind words.

The Atkins whoosh has been great this week (other than never getting too far away from a bathroom), and I now have 3 more pounds to lose and then I'll be back to where my ticker says I am. I did update my signature with one of my goals to indicate that I'd reached it twice. In doing so, I realized how slow my weight loss got beginning in May and I just lost a couple of months with the weight gain. So, hopefully I've gotten myself back in the game and will start with the losing again. I would love to lose 40 more pounds by the end of the year, but at this point I'll settle for just losing every month instead of gaining again!

@ 2fat2jump - Hope your weigh-in was in your favor and showed a loss! I feel you on the working hard, and seeing little reward at the moment. It is so tough, just keep going. You may have hit a plateau though, so don't lose hope and fight!

@ betsy, care to send some of that rain to Nevada or the Rim fire? Congratulations on also getting back to what your ticker reflects. I imagine you will surpass that in the next week or so. Keep it up!

This morning, still the same. I am exhausted though. My arms hurt from the weights I lifted two days ago, and today is actually the day I do my arms! Hope the burn isn't too insane when I do the exercise tonight. I know I won't be making the gym because tonight is lab and lecture night in Cisco I. I still have to catch up with my lab project when I get off from work too.

So I will be popping in Leslie Sansone (sp) or Jillian Michaels 30 day shred. The shred I can only do for a handful of minutes before the room spins and I get sick. Hope to build up to a full workout with her.

betsy- she gave me a script for a mouth rinse but also said peroxyl from colgate that is over the counter is good. We happened to have it on hand from where hubby got dentures this summer.I had been on antibotics for a week and i think that is what really helped. I can see improvement again today.

I have 3 of my 4 grand kids today. I love them to pieces but with me having a day care with 3 kids it makes me have my hands full.

Easy food is planned for today.

Heather -- Wow! I'm impressed that when life gets in the way of going to the gym, you just do it at home. I'm not that disciplined yet with the exercise part. And, yes, I would love to send some of this rain your way. It's way too early to be starting the rainy season up here.

Dgramie -- glad that she gave you some rinses to help with that tooth as well as the antibiotics before. Your day with six kids sounds exhausting. I'd be doing easy food as well.

Two more pounds off this morning. I know this is not going to continue much longer -- in fact I don't want to keep losing at this pace -- but I'd dearly love to see my weight reflect my signature weight. I have accepted that the rest of my life I'm going to have to really watch my carb intake -- I'm just too resistant to them to not do that. Off to the gym. And then I guess I'll do something at home since I can't even get down to the garden to see what's ready to be picked -- the zucchini will be the size of watermelons with all this rain!

I really need some advice, especially from people who have been my weight/close to my weight.

I literally have watched the scale stay from anywhere from 393-388 for the past almost month at this point. I have pretty much stopped all forms of exercise since this "plateau" happened, but have continued eating on plan or under plan for the majority of it. is my plateau because of my sudden stop of exercise? or should that not matter because of how well I'm eating, I should still see something?

this is beyond frustrating. like really beyond. the reason I stopped exercising was because school just got literally too much to handle, I had no choice but to focus every bit of "free" time on it. although I plan to begin exercising formally again next week (like actually going to the gym), but I have also technically upped my activity level from walking all around the school and what not. guess it's just not enough? I'm at a loss (hah, not really) and I know everyone's just going to tell me to keep going and be positive, but let's be real -- no one can always be positive.

Wheezy- I'm not sure what plan you are doing, but maybe you should mix it up? Have a high calorie day if you doing low calorie, or a high carb day. For me, sometimes my body gets used to what I'm doing and I have to shake things up and surprise it.

Hey everyone! I haven't said hello in awhile, my daughter started preschool and it was a rough week for us all. We are trying to get adjusted to a new schedule. I hope you all are doing great!

Wheezypi -- I agree with Workinghard to get things moving by shaking up your diet plan. I started out on IF and did gang busters. Then I got bored and started the little cheats here and there -- nothing major but those combined with eating the same things constantly really slowed the loss down. So, when I switched over to Atkins, things really started moving again. My suggestion would be to try an entirely different diet approach for a few weeks. Sometimes our bodies just need some variety to get the weight loss going again.

Workinghard -- glad you're posting and hope that this week with pre-school goes more smoothly.

This is going to be chore day for me since somehow yesterday just seemed to whiz by without much getting accomplished. Going to wash the car, cut the grass, clean out the RV and assume that all of that activity will make up for not going to the gym.

Wheezypi - stress is always a HUGE factor in plateaus/weight gain for me. Which sucks, because there's very little you can do about that. Just wanted to throw that out there, in case you have some stress-reduction options. And I feel you on the positivity, too. Sometimes it's just too hard. I'll be pulling for you, if that helps at all!

So I've had a little change in my world lately - after 13 years in the same (terrible!) job, I finally found a new one! I'm still very nervous, but excited. Worried about the change in my routine.

Interestingly, the therapist I'd had to stop seeing due to my lack of money (huge insurance deductible!) called me right before I got the job and invited me to come back as a pro bono case. But now with the new job, I don't think I'll be able to take her up on it. I just can't go into a new job and have to take two hours (including travel time) off every week to go to the therapist. Oh well. I'm just happy about the new job!

I'm back! And I have some serious weight to lose. Mostly water retention from hiking, but I want it gone! Betsey Congrats on all the whooshes!

Wheezy I stalled out for close to five months. Majorly discouraging. How are you calculating your intake? Are you too far down for your bmr?

Jane -- glad you're back and am always impressed with people who actually go hiking. Hope you had a great time.

We're having a second summer here after a horrible week of rain, rain, rain last week. Up in the 80s -- one of the warmest summers we've had in a long time. Maybe I'll actually be able to get most of the yard work done that I've planned on doing!

Scale has actually been down, back down to 388. I don't know how to calculate my BMR, I go by MyFitnessPal but I definitely don't eat 2100 calories per day like it says I should be. :/ I am actually having a REAL TOTM for the first time in months (not just depo bleeding) so I think my weight gain/stalling was from my body adjusting to having a normal cycle again. Hopefully it'll be down from here on out. I'm 5 lbs down from last week's AM weigh ins.

Regulating your period will really mess with your weight for a while. I lost about three pounds of water weight this morning, not that I deserved a loss. I was good until I got home from work, but then I had way too much chocolate.

I'm turning 28 in about ten days, and I'm having some blues over the wasted years. I really didn't make good use of my 20's and I regret that. So I ate the chocolate. And I regret it.

oh man, I'm going to be closer to 30 than 20 here in a few months. I'm looking back at my teens and early 20's right now and thinking the exact same thing. I've wasted so much of my life. now I'm finally picking up the pieces. I remember thinking to myself as a teenager, man, I don't want to be this fat when I'm 21. then it turned into I don't want to be this fat when I'm 25. now it's I don't want to be this fat when I'm 30. I'm thinking finally at 30 I'll be where I want to be, and I'll be done with college. so I guess 30 will be my actual beginning to life.

Wheezypi and Jane -- It kind of breaks my heart to read you both say that you feel as though you've kind of wasted these years. I am not saying I don't understand that -- being in my mid 60s, I feel that I missed out on doing a whole lot of things for the last 40 years due to my weight. But were they wasted years? No. From you're posts, it obvious you're both kind people. You're both working hard to make changes in your lives. And making them in your 20s will mean that you have the opportunity to still experience many things. So, yes, it's ok to wish that you had done things differently. But wasted? No. You're both too valuable as human beings to feel that you've wasted these years.

My big news is that I got to change my ticker this morning for the first time in 2 months. I only changed it by one pound, but after the 15 pound gain, I'm beyond thrilled that I was able to turn it around. I'm really fighting the fight of nighttime snacking. I realized the other night that it's just habit as I stopped and asked myself if I was really hungry. Since the answer was no -- I had just finished dinner about 20 minutes before -- I realized it was just habit and carb cravings. So I toughed it out and about an hour later realized that the cravings had completely gone away. But, this is going to be a lifelong battle. I really admire or envy (both?) people who say that they have no trouble with their trigger foods any more. They will always be a problem for me.