Hi Sara! to our group!

Once again, I'll agree with Carol ... Patience! I've had so many twists and turns on this IE journey that my head doesn't seem to stop spinning, but the road is getting easier! It's easy to be stuck in "diet mode" thinking that we must do everything perfect, but allow yourself some elbow room for experimenting to find exactly what will work for you. As always, we're here to help if we can and to cheer you on too!

PS. 867-5309 lol ... that song takes me way back!

Hello everyone else! Hope everyone is doing well.

Have a great day!

Hi Carolr and everyone else

I'm still here. Reading and staying on plan. Still doing IE and incorporating the cognitive therapy of Beck. I believe this is helping me a lot. I am eating sensibly and starting to lose slowly. I like one thing that is said in the therapy that I think y'all might like and I say it several times a day. It is this... "My weight is not who I am. It is not a measure of my worth. It is just a number that gives me important information". How many times do we look at the scale for how we feel about ourselves. I'm learning that while the scale might be telling me that am I eating too much or too little that it might be telling me something as simple as I ate too much salt or that if I ate out I may have got extra salt or something I wouldn't have otherwise. Or it could just be a hormonal change. It doesn't mean that I have gained weight or that I've necessarily lost. Only time will tell if it is a weight gain or loss or just a temporary thing. In other words, we put too much emphasis on the scale for determining our worth and who we are.

I'm having trouble with my back down into my left leg and foot. So I haven't felt like much computer time. Hope it doesn't mean I have to start making trips to the chiropractor again. It feels like it might be a sprain or a pinched nerve. Treatments are usually 3 days a week and ties up a lot of time I don't want to spend at the docs office. So we will see.

Hope everyone else is doing well. Y'all have a good day!

Hi Trish, interesting you should post this. As I was getting dressed today I thought to myself "this is not who I am on the inside" (referring to my still overweight body). I was thinking about all the changes I've made lately ... ditching dieting via IE, cutting back on the caffeine, cutting way back on my salt intake, paying close attention to what I am eating and adding a little structure to my eating plan, working out 5-6 times a week (if not more). This is the new me, the me on the inside.

So, for me, it wasn't the scale taunting me, but trying to find clothes that fit half-way decent. But I know that the body I'm in right now is only temporary. The changes I've made inside of me will lead to more permanent changes on the outside ... eventually!

(PS. Hope you feel better soon!)

Good to see everyone. I notice that things taste so salty now so maybe that's a perk of eating intutively.

Hi, i am still around doing great with exercise and eating. losing and lowest now i have been in over 30 years. 26 lbs to new goal. have kept the other 35 off for over 4 years. so happy with me. i feel so good. thanks for everyones help to. love my curves and back to exercise bike last nite. now got to get with my walking and will be soon. i have always loved exercise and make it fun. jsut got out of it. my daughter got me curves for christmas and love it. go 6 days week. only 17 lbs from lowest i have ever been and that was in 1976 so getting there. good luck to all my online friends. LaDean

Carol, this is something I am actually noticing myself. I haven't been eating gobs of sugar-laden foods as well as watching the salt. Now when I am eating I am actually paying attention to the textures and noticing the taste of foods without added sugar and salt. I think we, as a society, have become so accustomed to eating processed foods with all that sugar and salt that when you stop eating so much of it you can actually taste the natural sodium and sweetness of foods. Who knew? lol I know I was on sugar and salt overload but getting away from it has really helped me. I haven't banned salt or sugar from my food intake, just really paying close attention to how much of it I eat.

LaDean! Congratulations to you! How exciting for you! Keep up the good work!

Have a great day everyone!

Hi LaDean. How tall are you and what is your goal weight? I don't think I will ever see my high school weight again, but I'm real happy going down slowly and not gaining.

Haha, me either. But I don't want to. I weighed 120 pounds. That was without any dieting or major exercise. It was just my natural weight at that time. The thing is, I didn't have muscles then. I like my muscles I also had less chest (although perkier )

In an unrelated note ...

I've finally started exercising again, after post-New Year sporadic exercising became just plain not exercising - although I was still walking 1-3 miles a day. It's amazing how quickly (i.e., pretty much immediately) this has improved my general mood, energy and outlook. And not that I was eating terribly during this time, but having exercised first thing in the morning just has such a huge effect, at least for me, on my food choices. I just don't want to eat unhealthily.

I can't ever say that when the alarm goes off at 5 am that I intuitively feel like getting up! But I think my early morning daily exercise is one thing worth using a little discipline to do. Everything else is just so much easier after that.

Off to AR today to see my brother and family. It is a 12 hr. car trip so I might not be on here for a few days. Keep up the good work, all.

Hello everyone!

Hi Julie! Me too, and I agree totally with what you said. This is my third week of getting regular exercise (Monday thru Saturday with Richard Simmons - tho I did miss last Saturday). Exercise has had a huge impact on my mood, energy and outlook, too. Before, I was depressed all the time and just didn't want to do anything. I pretty much felt hopeless. Getting in a regular workout has just about become routine for me now, and, like you, eating better is just coming naturally. It feels good to get out of the rut, doesn't it? Keep up the good work!

Take care, Carol and enjoy your family!

Have a great day!

Hi Everyone

Sara to the group. Patience with yourself is very important. I too like IE because I don't have to think of food all the time and because I don't have to think of foods in terms of good foods/bad foods. Still have hard time thinking "diet". I'm using the Cognitive Therapy of the Beck Diet book. Count calories to get an idea of how much I eat, but won't do the counting always. Still eat when I'm hungry and don't when I'm not. Also reading 2 of Anne Fletcher's books about people who successfully lost weight and kept it off for years. I read of one who has kept the weight off for 12 yrs. I like seeing that there are more people who do it and keep it off. It has all helped me see food for what it is "just food". None of it is good or bad. I've read of people who never bring their "trigger" foods into the house to those who allow themselves the privilege of enjoying them especially favorite foods, but eating in moderation. They learned to control it by going ahead and eating what they truly enjoy eating. IE teaches us to do the same thing. We know that if we really love a food that we should eat it and truly enjoy it. And if we don't like something we don't have to eat it. I am learning that there aren't all that many foods that I really have to have or even want and enjoy. I do enjoy what I do like.

Blue, Julie and LaDean I didn't get in as much exercise as I wanted to this week because of my back and leg, but it is really amazing how good I felt with what I did. I wasn't sure I could do the lower body exercise yesterday because of the way my leg and back had felt, but decided at around 10 to do it any way and see. That way I would have an hour of planned exercise besides moving more for the week. Not only was I able to do it, but I felt so good. Not just physically, but emotionally. I had such a feeling of accomplishment and self-confidence rise up in me. Today and tomorrow I will try to get some stationary biking in to give me a good finish for the week.

carolr Have a good, safe trip and enjoy being with your brother and his family.

Have a good day and everyone have a great week end.

Hello All!

Carlor.. Have a great trip!!

LaDean.. You are doing wonderful, Keep it going!!!

I am doing great and getting used to on IE, am not using the food choices that is in the book.. I am eating what I want and carrying a food bad with peanut butter . I finished reading and it is similar on the overcoming overeating book.

I weighed myself and lost 2 Lbs!! I upped my walking to an hour daily.

Enjoy your day and Have a great week!!

Correction.. Bag not bad..

to all you Mom's out there. Hope you have all had a great day.

I weighed myself this afternoon after my one hour walk..am down addition 10 Lbs!! Total 34 Lbs bye bye!! Weight loss is easy!!