Mars...my hubby said his mom was "pounding" chips and salsa and he said "6 chips has 100 calories". JOYKILLER! LOL Just think of him when you eat the chips next time.

Jacqui and Mars...y'all are in my spot...water weight is the worst. I hate when you see a lower number then it takes a while to get back there, but we will get there again.

Chickadeee- what are you cooking up???

Carol Sue: I guess the ones that take off their clothes have more damage in that part of their brain that controls inhibition? My mother died from brain cancer and she started taking off her clothes after it had spread to a certain area...she was extremely modest in real life. She always wore skirts and when she first had her brain hemorrhage that kind of alerted us to her brain cancer, the firemen were on the way and she grabbed a woman and said "PULL MY SKIRT DOWN!" She's laying here in a medical emergency worried a paramedic will see her knees. So I guess that. My aunt would strip and walk the highway. The grandmother would wander at night (I think that is called Sundowner's???) and my uncle I think was just extremely repetitive. I truly hope you and I don't get it b/c I have downed my share of diet mtn dew in cans.

Mary, I don't know how you stopped at 5 cheeseballs! Good job! I definitely seem to go through phases of water weight keeping me stalled around a certain number for a few days. It can be irksome, especially when it lasts for a week or two, but it eventually works its way down. I just hope I never hit a serious plateau until I'm at a lower weight that I can be satisfied with being at for a while!

Mars, your cheese and salsa grazing, that's more my style, lol! That tendency is why I cannot take bites of things off plan. My all-or-nothing personality won't allow it. People who can snack just a little and then stop think I have great control for not snacking in the first place, but no. It's only an illusion of control. The truth is I have no control at all! They are the ones with the real control for being able to stop once they start! If I had that kind of control, I wouldn't have gotten to 220 lbs to begin with!

Hopefully, I'm on my way back down for good now! We will see!

Week 14:
8/2--193.5
8/3--194
8/4--193
8/5--
8/6--
8/7--
8/8--

Today's Meals:
Breakfast:
2 fried eggs
2 slices of bacon
Greek yogurt with Mio
Mio water

Lunch:
Field greens and veggies salad with leftover fried chicken (skin peeled off), walnuts, leftover black beans, and ranch dressing
Mio water

Snack:

Dinner:
Field greens and veggies salad with Manwich hamburger sauce on top
Greek yogurt with Mio
Mio water

Today's Exercise:
2-mile walk around the track, 20 minutes HIIT elliptical, 3 sets of 12 reps each on 10 leg, waist, and back machines, stretching at home

Mary, great job!

Rennie, I feel you more than you know!

Jacqui, I hope things get sorted for you soon! Are you getting enough fat? Are you still using coconut oil in your eggs? I don’t normally have issue in that dept but I’m noticing the added fat/oils is making things go much smoother. I hope you are feeling less sluggish. I have been feeling that way and wonder if it is a lack of potassium or drinking too much water? IDK. I think you have a 2 story house so you probably never get a real rest day so it could be too much exercise?

Carol Sue, you SHOULD be proud! That was great restraint at the buffet and party. That is interesting that you collect cookbooks and about the RRay low carb one. I get her digital magazine (freebie from hotel points) and from the cover to the end, I always just glance quickly because everything looks delish but not usually on my plan. I’ll look closer this month as the front cover is stuffed peppers that look like colorful pizzas.

Mars, so sorry about your torqued knee! I hope it was okay returning to the stepper. I bet my grazing beat your grazing! I appreciate your words of wisdom as always. I like that I am not white-knuckling on this WOE, but I am also always in “are we there, yet?” mentality. I gotta stop that. My male friend went as far as to tell me to quit weighing this morning and trust the process. HE claims my gains are not real gains. He is such an enabler, I want to smack him sometimes for telling me things that I want to hear.

I climbed several mountains yesterday … with my SUV. I did get a good bit of walking in, but mostly climbed steps and up and down hills to look at the waterfalls or touristy stuff. It was an exhausting trip and my back didn’t like the traveling portion even though it was a light day compared to my usual “travel days”. I tried the fully bullet proof coffee in my big travel mug to get me through the day. I only had 3 tiny sausages at 6am and by 9am, I was starving. But, I never stopped for food. As I stated, I would not post menus anymore but would fully admit to any detours: I did stop at the liquor store on the way back. And they didn’t have any sugar free mixers so I ended up buying Sprite there because I was too tired to stop again. So, off plan I went. I did stay below my max cap of sugar/bad carbs but the lack of willpower that drinking on an empty stomach gave me caused me to eat the bulk of my low carb calories late in the day. I am proud of myself for not giving into that attitude that I am blowing my diet on Sprite so why not get chips or other carbs to go along with the blowing. With that said, I don’t like that I ate a week’s worth of cauliflower in one sitting. To conclude, the scale is up as expected. Shocking that I only gained (Edit) 4/10ths of a pound, but I’m not going to get cocky because it could be a delayed jump. I don’t know why but I’m not feeling guilty.

Bewildered, yes, I'd say I'm getting plenty of fat. I eat bacon each morning and I am still frying my eggs in coconut oil. I don't know why some people have more trouble with constipation than others. I was able to "go" this morning, but I still think I might look into a laxative because I tend to suffer from this more than average, which I find surprising since I get plenty (but I don't think too much) soluble fiber. I've tried a stool softener before to see if that would help and all it did was cause me to hold water. I wasn't sure it didn't make matters worse! Nice of you to try to help me come up with a solution! And good job on stopping with the Sprite when you could have bought so many junk foods to go with it! I'm thinking that 4/10th will drop back off pretty quickly!

So today, I started looking at exercises that are good and bad for lumbar lordosis (a type of spinal curvature that makes it look like you are arching your back and sticking your butt out), which I have had all my life. I'm supposed to avoid squats, hack squats, military presses, and Roman chair situps. I don't do squats because they have always been a problem for me. My gym doesn't have a hack squat machine, which looks like you're doing a squat at a slightly inclined position with overhead weights. The Roman chair situp I've always recognized as something I could not do. But I learned today a military press is the same thing as the overhead shoulder press, the machine at the gym that gives me so much trouble! No wonder, lol! I still have to go to the gym today, but I've been trying to do some of the stretches at home which are recommended for lordosis, and oh, am I going to be sore tomorrow!

Carol Sue, Chickadeee, Rennie, and Obie,

Sounds like everyone is doing well! That's good! Today is day 5 without any starchy carbs. The scale has just moved a smidge and my blood sugar is still too high. I might as well go eat a loaf of bread! But I will be patient.

Jacqui, I'm really surprised that a stool softener didn't help you. My DR had me taking them after I had my bowel surgery (Colace Caps) and they worked great for me. I no longer take them on a regular basis but I keep them on hand and take one at bedtime when I'm having a problem. Next morning the problem is solved! I don't do well with laxatives. When DH had shingles he got constipated from the pain meds. Colace didn't help him. I gave him jello laced with Miralax and that did the trick! I just added a bit of the Miralax powder to the jello powder and mixed it all up with the water. He didn't even know it was in there!

Jacqui I had the same issue on IP and found Smooth Moves herbal tea solved the problem. I drank it in the afternoon/evening, I think, and it worked in the am. There are a few flavors, but I could only stand the mint. I'm impressed that you removed the fried chicken skin--dunno if I could have done that!

Hang in there Carol Sue! It sure seems like a lot of this healthy lifestyle stuff involves waiting for results. Good that your scale is down & I'll bet your BG will follow in short order. These days I'm happy with even a smidge down on the scale. I hadn't heard of Rachel Ray, gonna have to read up. Do you have a favorite?

Thanks Bewildered. I think my knee may be showing its age, but will give it more time before chalking it up to arthritis.
Good for you for not being enabled your male friend! He sounds like he's supportive, too. I dunno, as much as weighing can drive me nuts, not weighing feels too much like being in a free fall for me. And sticking to the Sprite was a total NSV! It sounds like a lovely day.

Mary My brother would say "slammin chips" lol! Nothing like a reality check with the ole calorie count! I was actually using the cheddar slice to dip into the salsa. I think it tasted better than chips would have. Right after i ate it, I read someone's post on 3FC about how salsa always makes her retain water. So I wasn't a it surprised with the scale this morning. Guess I'm more salt sensitive than I realized.

Today was pretty good with eating. It helps to be busy!

Rennie & Chickadeee & Obie

Week 1 June 9 169.9
Week 8 High 167.4 Low 164.6 AVG 165.8
Week 9
8/1 165.4 Carb Day (+.8)
8/2 167 (+1.6)
8/3 166.2 (-.8)
8/4 167.2 (+1)
8/5 165.4 (-1.8)
8/6
8/7

B mushroom omelet whey shake/coffee
L salad, beans, chicken, quinoa, evoo
D turkey chili, cauliflower
S quinoa, shredded roasted cabbage
2L vanilla spice cold tea (yum!)
e 3 miles (at work)

Back to pre day Carb Day wt, whew.

Jacqui, I hope you find something helpful for your lumbar! I have terrible arthritis in that area and the only thing that feels good is the stomach push ups. The curvature design was not well planned in my opinion.

Carol Sue, woohoo on 5 no starchy Carb days!

Mars, congrats on retrieving your pre Carb day weight! I agree about the no weighing free fall. I would be thinking all was right with the world of on plan eating if I hadn't seen the numbers that disagree. Reminding me that tweaking is in order sooner rather than later.

I am not speaking to or about my scale today. I think calorie counting will be in my future.

Week 1 - High 238.6 - Low 234.0 - Avg Daily 236.0
Week 2 - High 237.0 - Low 232.6 - Avg Daily 234.6

Week 3

8/01 - 233.6
8/02 - 233.8
8/03 - 234.0
8/04 - 234.4
8/05 - 235.8

Exercise: upper body weights ysd
Exercise bike 5.1 miles today

Bewildered WTG on the exercise!!!! I'm glad you have a go-to to relieve that lumbar arthritis.

Aw, I gotta say you are doing really well, even with the [unmentionable] scale. Here's my 2 cents, fwiw, it's not a bad thing to count or track just to give you a handle of where you might be able to tweak without rocking the boat too much (meaning the 'boat' of liking your food & feeling satisfied). I find tracking to be a little like the scale--it can get obsessive, but then again it's kind of entertaining, and can be a great planning tool. I enter my day's plan into myfitnesspal.com. I don't update my deviations because I know I deviated.

All in all, it's been helpful for me to learn my body's hunger cues. If I feel ravenous at the end of the day and ate my normal feel-good amount, I know to first see if there is something emotional that I need to pay attention to, or boredom, or just looking to unwind with food. Then I try to turn to low calorie comfort food. I don't have a grip yet on my own sense of hunger, so the tracker has helped. I think now I could know what & how much to eat without the tracker, but I'll probably keep at it for a little longer until WOE & goal wt are more established.Again, it's just my 2 cents and does not necessarily fit everyone.

Thanks Mars! If I could go through life on my stomach, my back would feel much better.

I appreciate the reminders of things that I know, but seem to forget...I used to use MFP and had built quite a database. I need to re-sign up as I have no idea what my user info was. I might do that along with old school jotting it down. As a matter of fact, I'm going to start today just to get an idea of the calories I am consuming. Then I can just blame it all on hormones.

LOL! Isn't that what they're there for?

Carol Sue, you are doing so great! Your high blood sugar really has me baffled. This isn't the first time I've heard of people on a low-carb diet having high blood sugar, so I'm thinking the connection can't just be dismissed as some kind of fluke. There must be some reason. So I started researching it and there are no easy answers but there does seem to be a connection for some people. One webpage claimed that the hormone cortisol is responsible:

"The truth is, you can have chronically high blood sugar even while religiously avoiding every starch and sugar in sight. Low-carb forums are littered with posts asking a very relevant question: Why is my blood sugar so high when I’m not eating any carbs? The answer is simple, yet often overlooked. The Hormone that Raises Blood Sugar: No Carbohydrates Required. If the body were an engine, glucose would be its fuel. Most people think glucose only comes from carbohydrates (sugar and starch), but protein can also be turned into glucose when there aren’t enough carbs around to do the job. This is called gluconeogenesis, and it’s performed by one of the major stress hormones cortisol. When you have high cortisol levels (from diet, lifestyle, etc.), the cortisol rapidly breaks down protein into glucose, which can raise blood sugar levels considerably. For some folks, this results in chronically high blood sugar–even if they are on a low-carb diet."

That's pretty much all it has to say. I think the purpose of the webpage is to sell a metabolism book, but since I've quoted this excerpt, I'll include the webpage where it's found: http://www.livingthenourishedlife.co...gh-blood-sugar.

So then I started looking up how to lower cortisol naturally (because you know there are probably countless products claiming to be able to do so), and I found a few websites with some suggestions. I'm including three of those:

http://www.livestrong.com/article/28...els-naturally/

http://teeccino.com/building_optimal...-Cortisol.html

http://www.todaysdietitian.com/newar...11609p38.shtml

The thing is you eat very well. But I do wonder if adding a little bit of citrus fruit and whole grains might help level things out for you. (Yes, bread!, lol) I don't know for sure, of course, but they are mentioned. Exercise also seems to be key, although I did see one site (and of course I can't find it again now) that said not to overdo it on exercise because too much, especially cardio, can actually raise cortisol levels. I know you would be reasonable on doing exercise but in case anyone else may be reading this, I don't want them to go out and start exercising like crazy thinking it will help their cortisol levels! Anyway, I know you do a lot of research online also, and maybe you've run across this topic of cortisol and blood sugar before. I do think it's worth more investigation!

Thank you for the suggestion of Miralax in Jello! The Slow Carb Diet allows sugar-free Jello so that just might work! I'm still not quite feeling back to normal.

Mars, yay on being back down on the scale! That's the way to do it! I had completely forgotten about Smooth Moves! Rennie mentioned that a long time ago and I meant to try it but never got around to it. I'll have to look for it. Thank you!

Bewildered, thank you and I'm sorry to hear you have arthritis in your back. That has to be painful! My scale is not cooperating right now either, lol! But I know I do this thing where I go around and around and up and down on the same numbers for a bit. Plus, my irregularity right now may also be playing a part. I'm not sure if counting calories is the solution, but there is something to be said for doing what you feel most comfortable with! We each must do what works best for us!

Chickadeee, Mary, Rennie, Obie,

I am maintaining today. It looks like I may not make it back down to my low of 192 this week. I am still feeling bloated and irregular and kind of miserable. I think I'm going to go to the store today and pick up a supplemental probiotic again, as well as look for Smooth Moves Tea and Miralax. I won't try them all at once of course but it wouldn't hurt to have them on hand and try one at a time to find what works!

Week 14:
8/2--193.5
8/3--194
8/4--193
8/5--193
8/6--
8/7--
8/8--

Today's Meals:
Breakfast:
2 fried eggs
2 slices of bacon
Greek yogurt with Mio
Mio water

Lunch:
Field greens and veggies salad with turkey, walnuts, and ranch dressing
Mio water

Snack:

Dinner: @ local pizza place
Garden salad with ranch dressing]
8 mild chicken wings with ranch dressing
Water with lemon

Today's Exercise:
4-mile walk around the track, 3 sets of 12 reps each on 8 arm and chest machines

Jacqui, I'm so sorry that you are still out of sorts. I bet that <192 is in your future once you have a good BM. The only supplement I take these days are probiotics and I do feel bad all around when I run out. It could be the placebo effect, but whatever works. I hope you get some relief soon! I am sure you are aware of a less natural remedy and worse case scenario, Milk of Mag is like a freight train for cleaning things out. And I think the mint flavor is sugar free, but I haven't bought it in awhile. Wal M@rt's brand has the same ingredients for much less than the Ph!llips. It doesn't taste good, but if you take a couple of T and drink 2 glasses of water, man does it work.