That sounds like a fantastic day, and you shouldn't begrudge any part of that experience. If the scale does go up, it will just be a blip, and probably water weight.

I ate out last night myself, but the scale is still on a downwards trend, with bumps along the way. I'm taking ownership of 140 on the ticker today, since I've been at or below that for 3 days.

I decided to look on Amazon for a book that has the values I'm looking for. I found one, albeit a bit old, but the cost of .01 was worth it! Well, S&H add 3.99 and then .32 tax, but still, a real steal. Now I'll have a better idea of both sodium and potassium!

Well, down 0.2 from starting point. What a long, circular road! It's all good. I have a feeling June is going to be more in the right direction. This will be day 8 of my Give it 100 on conscious movement; I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do to fulfill it - there are many good options.

saef, that sounds like a really nice weekend. Yes, you will be okay - okayness should be scale-independent! Kudos for taking some time to nourish your spirit with human connections; I'm sure your friend enjoyed it too!

I looked at the Mayo Clinic link that Andrea posted - I was surprised that watermelon is such a good source of potassium! I thought it wasn't a good source of anything except water, and a bit of natural sugar.

This weekend was an adventure - our 12-person relay team ran a 178-mile race (total, not each!) over two days, at high altitude. It was a lot of fun, despite the lack of sleep, the driving, the altitude making us sick as we ran... somehow it was still a blast. Though I am now a zombie at work today.

There was one man who ran the entire thing BY HIMSELF. His name is Juan and his "team" name was Army of Juan - very clever. We were in complete awe every time we saw him on the course, he never looked tired. It made my 19 total miles seem very paltry. He was an absolute running machine.

I've just finished entering my foods into MyFitnessPal. The report shows that I've had 1716 mg of potassium. I know that can't be right. So I checked the few sources that I've found that have potassium counts on some of the foods I ate. Manually adding that up came up to 2644 mgs. Still there were things that I ate or added to my food that I couldn't count as I can't find the figures. See now why I need a source?

This is what I ate today:

1 banana
4 dried apricots
1 c cottage cheese
1/2 cup mixed fresh berries
1/2 cup yogurt
1 cup acorn squash
basamati rice with shredded chicken
chicken and spinach manicotti (with a light "Alfredo" type sauce)
salad
tomato juice

I had to guess on amounts with the manicotti that I fixed.

Michele, here's the latest thinking on calcium for prevention of osteoporosis:

From: J Bone Metab. 2014 Feb;21(1):21-28. Epub 2014 Feb 28.
"Advocacy for the use of calcium supplements arose at a time when there were no other effective interventions for the prevention of osteoporosis. Their promotion was based on the belief that increasing calcium intake would increase bone formation. Our current understandings of the biology of bone suggest that this does not occur, though calcium does act as a weak antiresorptive. Thus, it slows postmenopausal bone loss but, despite this, recent meta-analyses suggest no significant prevention of fractures. In sum, there is little substantive evidence of benefit to bone health from the use of calcium supplements. Against this needs to be balanced the likelihood that calcium supplement use increases cardiovascular events, kidney stones, gastrointestinal symptoms, and admissions to hospital with acute gastrointestinal problems. Thus, the balance of risk and benefit seems to be consistently negative. As a result, current recommendations are to obtain calcium from the diet in preference to supplements. Dietary calcium intake has not been associated with the adverse effects associated with supplements, probably because calcium is provided in smaller boluses, which are absorbed more slowly since they come together with quantities of protein and fat, resulting in a slower gastric transit time. These findings suggest that calcium supplements have little role to play in the modern therapeutics of osteoporosis, which is based around the targeting of safe and effective anti-resorptive drugs to individuals demonstrated to be at increased risk of future fractures."

Suffice it to say, I no longer prescribe calcium supplements for my patients. I tell them to eat food. Shocking for a doctor, I know.

I'm in this! I will get these last 3 lbs off in June I'm still calorie counting but was a bit high on calories and was really tired today which equals bad eating. Need to lower my fat intake and get some exercise in tomorrow. Getting in bed early tonight

Watermelon is why I started calorie counting last year. I had been doing South Beach on and off for years and then switched to the 17 day diet for about a year (off and on). It was July, I was at an all time high, and I had the following thoughts: "This is ridiculous! Watermelon is low in calories and is good for me and I can't eat it because the 17 day diet says so. And I can't eat any fruit after two pm. Forget it! I'm going to count calories and eat what I want, when I want". Thank goodness for watermelon!

That is unbelievable that Juan could run that long/far. He must not of slept! That's crazy. I saw a high school girl on TV who held a plank for something like eight hours. I'm so proud of my two minutes!

Random note: I do not like cantaloupe. My whole family loves it so I buy it for them. I wish I liked it because they rave about how great it is every summer. There is a stinky one in the refrigerator now, haha.

Thanks Andrea! I'll definitely talk to my doc at my physical this summer about this.

My non-medical opinion is that people need vitamin D supplements more. What do you think about that, Andrea?

A doc told me that most Americans test low on the vitamin D blood test. (And I do, too.) People living north of 34 degrees latitude (think a line through San Francisco) don't get enough UV in winter to make vitamin D at that time. I live far south of that, but another factor is that people are using sunscreen so much that they block their own production. Or, they avoid going out in the sun.

I test low, and my doc has me taking extra D. I'm also trying to get the 15 minutes of direct sunlight per day. As a child, I had borderline rickets, so I might have a biochemical problem as well.

An eight hour plank. No way. Really! Like, with no rest at all?

I too despite cantaloupe. It is the only fruit I really hate.

The vitamin D debate is interesting. I've seen some tentative links made between chronic vitamin D deficiency and diseases like MS, particularly in women of certain ethnic backgrounds, and with heart disease. But, there is conflicting information as to the need for dietary supplementation in people that get enough sunlight (too much, in my case). Here's one article I saw recently (the part about living north of Atlanta meaning you can't get enough vitamin D in winter was interesting!):
http://health.usnews.com/health-news...-for-vitamin-d

Not sure where that puts me - I'm not elderly or particularly dark skinned, so I'm not in a risk group for deficiency. And I live on the San Francisco "line" per JayEll's post.

Hello maintainers,

I've put my body through the wringer with 2 weeks of hiking, a week of steep deficit calories followed by a music festival with copious amounts of dancing, eating less than was burned, and other associated things. I've been craving SLEEP like nothing else, and have overeaten to varying degrees on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. All were instances of social overeating, not binging.

I anticipate a dropoff in the urge to overeat. For now, I have no appetite as BF's stepdad passed away last night, and times are sad. I will probably cancel on a friend's baby shower to play violin at his funeral, depending on when it is held.

So sorry Krampus about your BF's stepdad. Hope BF and family are okay.

Krampus-- I'm also sorry to hear about BF's stepdad. Deaths are never easy.

I'm looking for a little willpower at the moment. I went into the staff room (to potty) not remembering they were having an ice cream sundae party for staff with all the toppings. It was all I could do to drag myself out of there. So far so good but now I need to stop thinking/obsessing about it.

In other food news, a new Sprouts just opened by me. I went to their pre-grand opening last night with dd and it looks like a very nice store. Picked up a few deals and will definitely be back as I'm sick to death of my Safeway which is my nearest store. I also love Trader Joes and go there on Sundays but it's not very close to me. What grocery stores to you frequent/love?

I'm on my way to Trader Joe's after work to pick up a few things. It's a little out of the way so I don't go as often as I'd like. Almost all my other grocery shopping is done at Albertson's. We get a Whole Foods in the fall. We used to have a place called Henry's but the name has been changed. I think it was bought out by Sprouts. I'll have to check next time I'm out that way. I've been in there a few times but it doesn't seem anything special to me at all. Yes, I just Googled it, it is Sprouts.

Do you shop at Smart & Final? I used to LOVE going there when I needed large serving dishes and whatnot for Thanksgiving. Lots of great deals on cleaning supplies and party supplies. The last time I was in there it was more than half grocery items. And nothing that was a better deal than at the grocery store. I don't like that at all.