Hi all you lovely people! Just thought I'd do a quick check in. See some very familiar faces and some new ones, which is always exciting.

Maintenance is going well, mostly. Been a rough year(ish) - hubby had a stroke last year and I was very busy caring for him. He's doing well now and is well on his way to recovery.

I ended up having to have some major abdominal surgery which has taken way too long to recover from (I'm always impatient). Good news is I now have actual abdominal muscles (after the doctor stitched them back together), bad news is I put on 10 pounds recovering from surgery. Not really trying to lose it at this point - need to finish up physical therapy first and then I will get on those pounds. Mostly just still healing and concentrating on not gaining any more.

Going back to catch up!

Hi Ruth Ann!!!!

I am so happy to see you. I have thought of you often. So sorry to hear that both you and DH have had health issues.

Just seeing your name posted made me smile

You're so sweet! Happy to see you too!

Yeah, life has a way of coming around and biting us sometimes. But we seem to be on the up side now - fingers crossed, knock wood!

Ruth Ann!!! So glad to see you here again! Sorry to hear about the health problems for yourself & hubby, but so glad you are both 'on the mend.'
Only 10 lbs after all you have been through is still a triumph, right now is focus on healing - the other will have its turn later.


Liana

Hi Ruth Ann,

So good to hear from you. what a year you have had. Glad DH is on the mend and you to. Take it easy and good plan to focus on getting better.

Hi Ruth Ann!! I am sorry to hear about your husband. But glad ya'll are doing well!! 10 lbs isn't bad! You did good to go through all you did and only gain 10lbs!! Glad to see you again!!

Still plugging along. Like Jenny, I am actively avoiding 'bad' foods - ie, Taco Bell, Papa Johns, etc. but overall, I am not worrying about food as much anymore or logging in MFP. I usually have a treat meal every week and allowed myself a little leeway for my nephews wedding over Memorial Day weekend

I am currently ranging in the low 150's, but clothes fit better than when I was 145! I have gained muscle and lost fat.

I bought a set a calipers and my chiro used them - I've gone from about 28.5% body fat (Omron scale) to 25% (calipers). I have serious GUNS!

I've been actively training again (ie 20 - 25 miles of running per week) and absolutely love cross training with weights!

Also, DH & I do our second 13.1 tomorrow

Ruth Ann!!!

So good to hear from you! Sorry to hear about the health problems for you and hubs, but glad you are both on the mend.

I have to brag a little. I did a 14 mile bike ride last weekend! My personal best so far.

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!

AWESOMESAUCE!

WTG, Andrea & Beth!!

touchdown dance for you both, lol

Liana

Hi all: So fun to see some familiar faces. Hope you are all well. Happy Summer!

I am back from a reboot that was a little longer than I'd hoped (i passed that whole scream weight idea and went right into wailing weight unfortunately) and am now just ramping into P4. I never really got the hang of P4 last time as I moved and left my clinic. I maintained for a long time anyway but then... life happened. Nonetheless, I just did my P1 and P2 and P3 and here I am.
I "think" i have the days down ... roughly p3 for breakfast, lunch that can be higher in fats but should be light on carbs (i find myself usually avoiding carbs and it ends up being a P2 lunch usually), then dinner can add carbs but should be lower in fat. That one is trickier but I find it easy to revert to P1/P2 dinners when i'm at home. If I want to add a carb, I do.
My question: do we have to think about snacks along the same lines ie when we're eating them? I said something to my coach about having a small cup of fat free yogurt with berries after dinner and he said ... too many carbs. But didn't really offer up a solution other than IP foods - which I like but... need real food solutions. (sadly, this clinic is much more "buy the products forever" based...)
What do you think about snacks?

vach - I often have berries and yogurt for an evening snack, especially when I don't have many carbs at dinner. (I've been maintaining for a little over 3 months). Some other snack ideas - celery with PB2 or nut butter, some cheese, handful of almonds/nuts, fruit, veggies, somersaults (these can be addictive though, and you just get a few). Watch portion sizes though for all of these.
For the first couple of months in P4, I tracked my macros on MFP to be sure I wasn't "over-snacking" or snacking on the wrong things. If you haven't been doing that, give it a try, I found it really gave me a comfort level with my choices, and I've reached a point where I'm only tracking occasionally.

Not really much of a problem for snacks - do em how you like em, but be careful it doesn't move into 'junk food type' snacks. And remember that they are just snacks, not meals (heh heh, it's easy to get carried away with stuff you like). Like blueskies said, try tracking for a while and see where your carb macros end up for the daily total.
I found a great hummus the other day that works wonderfully for maintenance... it is President's Choice Butter Bean and Roasted Garlic Hummus. Most hummus is the wrong ratio of fat:carbs but this lets you pair lots with it because it is 9g fat to 3g net carbs and seriously yummy. Only problem is I want to eat the whole 280 g tub, nevermind the dinky 30g serving.
Liana

Thanks both ... i did laugh out loud at eating all the hummus ... who knew we'd have THAT as our vice - too many servings of hummus? Hee Hee
When you say you look at the macros for the day ... my current clinic - nor the IP paperwork I have - really talks about total macros. I have the P3 breakfast guidelines and I've seen a couple of places where we can go find a BMR ... how did you set your total day macros then ... is that something IP is supposed to give me?
The clinic seems to talk about it more as a meal by meal fat-sparing or carb-sparing but no guidelines on the day or even what macros those "sparing" ideas track to.
I have seen a couple spots online that talk about body type and macros ... do you just use those?
Many thanks for humoring the "second time is the charm" maintainer.

You're right, IP doesn't really seem to want to give you numbers for P4, I had the same problem when I started P4, other than telling me where to find a BMR calculator. I had to go in with really specific questions, and in fact I found more answers from the good people here.
While it's all well and good to tell you to keep the carb/fat separation, and keep your meals one or the other, IMHO, that's something to work toward once you've reached a comfort level with calories, macros. So for me at least, i really needed the numbers for a few months.

There are a couple of places to find your BMR - lowfatlowcarb.com is a good one - follow the TOOLBOX link
Put in your exercise level (daily activity) and it should give you a pretty good indicator of how many calories you should be eating to maintain your weight.

Most people start by setting their macros to 40% carb, 30% protein, 30% fat, but you can adjust these later if it suits you.

Are you using MyFitnessPal? If not, I'd recommend it.

Glad to hear you made it through the reboot, too bad your clinic isn't very helpful with the P4 part, but that's not uncommon from what others have said. No worries, you'll get P4 figured out!