Monday morning at 161.6, from the steak dinner that I cooked for my visiting mother, who likes a good steak. I overate when I could have divided the steak in two pieces somehow along the bone.

I have stage nerves over the day and a half class that I'll be co-teaching. The two analysts with whom I'm working decided to overhaul the lesson plan, but they overpacked it. Also they're using to lecturing, not teaching, so it wasn't very interactive. I don't feel confident in my mastery of their new material.

Good luck today, Saef!

Shannon and Saef, so sorry about your relatives.

I have been so off the ball on eating right. At least I'm working out though, which is a step in the right direction. I need to stop making excuses, but I can't seem to make myself do it.

So sorry to hear about your cousin, saef. Good luck with the course today.

After exploring dietary highways and byways, I think I'll be returning to eating how I did when I lost weight before.

Adding to the medical side: my great-aunt (in her early 90s) broke her hip Saturday. They took her to surgery yesterday - they told her she was the highest risk group possible, but that if she didn't have surgery there was a good chance she'd never walk again. She said "let's do it". Surgery went great, she's already standing today.

My coworker is donating a large part of her liver to her sister today. We're all nervous for her. I've made a few stupid mistakes at work, and am feeling too anxious to concentrate well. Have to pull it together.

Hope things went great today, Saef!

Birchie- what was your eating plan that worked before?

JayZeeJay- I’m glad the hip surgery went so well.
How did your coworker do with the liver surgery?

JayZeeJay, do hope all went well with the liver surgery.

Michele, something like:
B - herbal tea, muesli, berries, milk, coffee. [I'm now quite full and satisfied with herbal tea, tbsp muesli/berries/yoghurt soaked in milk.]
S - apple, cottage cheese. [Will have a cup of coffee instead as I'm still full from B, no longer doing heavy lifting so I don't need food afterwards, and I only have one cup of coffee a day because it irritates my bladder so badly. Also I can't get the cottage cheese I like any more.]
L - big salad usually with oily fish, no dressing, 2 oatcakes. [Salad but not the oatcakes as they don't agree with me any more. Possibly a slice of bread.]
S - this was the problem time. Usually fruit, peanut butter. [Now thinking of apple and nuts. An orange doesn't work and peanut butter is too processed compared with nuts - I eat more than I would with nuts, and anyway the body absorbs more calories from the pnb than the nuts. Or cottage cheese, if I can find it.]
T - meat/fish/lentils, green leafy veg, other veg, other carb. [Same but usually no pasta/rice/potatoes etc. This works well if there are lots of veg and I like veg.]

I like having the routine as it frees me to think about and do other things. I think the cup of coffee as mid-morning snack is a brilliant idea (thank you to my older relatives who've always done this) as I won't be clogged up with digestion of food and can get on with physical tasks.

'Reading around the subject' worked well when I was losing weight. There is a lot of rubbish about, unfortunately but recently I've been reading Precision Nutrition's free papers. Krista Scott-Dixon works for them now and I've enjoyed her writing in the past.

Other things that worked well for me were gymn (mostly weights) exercise (I don't go to the gymn any more but I do regular weights), good sleep (still challenging from time to time, mostly because I share a bed), and walking (I now collect the DB every afternoon and the new place is adjacent to a local nature reserve so I'm doing rough walking every day). Also weighing myself every day.

Let's see how this goes. The old system worked well and I think sufficient time has elapsed and enough changes have been made for this to work as well. Fingers crossed because I really can't carry on with the present state of affairs.

Tuesday at 160.1.

Strangely warm and windy weather, like a tropical storm, with temperatures in the 70s -- and fallen orange leaves swirling about, and November just a week away. My visiting mother departs for Upstate NY, having helped with hefting the window unit airconditioners and putting them in my storage bin.

It's this afternoon and all day tomorrow that I'm teaching. Yesterday, I was just anxious all day. I have about half the day to be anxious today. I think that once I face the class, I will be all right. I remember then that it's teaching, not a stage play demanding a performance. Well, only partly.

Birchie-- sounds like a solid plan! Good luck finding your cottage cheese-- I hate when I like a product and then I can't find it anymore or it gets discontinued.

I did a body pump class yesterday (weights/ barbell)-- I haven't done that in months. I'm very, very sore. So, I was pleased that my weight was down .4 today as I thought the muscle soreness might equate a gain. I'm hoping bikram this afternoon will help the sore muscles-- it has worked well in the past.

Wednesday morning at 161, during a break in class.

Yesterday I had a good half-hour session. In the afternoon, it wasn't as good as I deviated from the new script which had required an overview. Today I had a section to myself but I felt awkward in it and another facilitator came in and mansplained all over me.

My condolences to everyone who is suffering loss. I've been on vacation and not keeping up with things.

I'm not sure where I am weight-wise with the vacation. We were active, but not as much as I would have liked because my sister was along and with her diabetic neuropathy (type 1 diabetes for 54 years) it makes it hard for her to walk (she uses a cane and has to really pay attention to where she puts her foot down) and I didn't feel like leaving her behind to go hiking.

So I have to go back to the doctor on Friday for some genetic testing. Apparently my sister knew that my dad had breast cancer years ago, but because of the stigma about it, no one in my family discussed it. I mentioned the test to my sister and SIL and my sister said she'd never heard that having a male relative, especially your father, with breast cancer greatly increases your chances of getting it. So I get my mouth swabbed for the test to see if I have the brca gene. Kind of scary.

Allison, fingers crossed on your genetic testing.

My coworker made it through surgery. Her part was 7 hours on the table. Hoping her recovery is smooth.

I'm doing my usual pattern: weeks that I'm off clinic duty = plenty of exercise and happy eating. On clinic duty = wheels start to fall off. At least our recent move has forced me into a longer bike commute, now I have 8 miles of riding built into each day with some hills. And apart from a week of pouring rain, so far October weather this year is far better than that of last year. I did ride to work in the in heavy rain in the dark last week, so I feel like I might be able to keep it up until snow/ice descend.

Thursday morning, at 148.7. That's from pacing a lot in front of the class yesterday, not wanting any of the snacks they put out and having a pretty light dinner once I got home last night.

I thought I'd feel great relief with the class all done, but I have two presentations to give today in meetings -- one just to one person, who's nice, and the other to my direct reports, who kind of have to sit through it no matter how bad it is.

Yesterday's class was up and down. More mansplaining over me. I have to take that analyst aside and talk to him about that. I'll be interested to hear the participants rate the class. The analysts lecture, they don't actually teach. They get impatient with questions that stop their lecture. They don't like breaks in the class for hands-on activities because, again, it stops their lecture. This is not how people learn.

Saef-- do the participants get to rate the class? The feedback might put your mind at ease if so.

I've been off and on not feeling great this week-- allergies-- fighting something-- not sleeping well... I slept better last night and it's amazing how much more energy I have and how much better my mood is (so far). And my weight was down .4 which always improves my mood.

Planning on Hot Pilates this afternoon which I look forward to as well...

Astros looked amazing last night! On to game 3 in Houston!

I've been exactly the same weight for three weeks now. In this time period, I have had a few days where I had a cocktail. I had three days last week where I ate breakfast sandwiches instead of my shake drink while meeting maintenance level calories for the day. I had one day where I went WAY over maintenance calories. I had a stressful situation with DSS, a death in the family, a crisis at work, and various other drama. I haven't had as much protein as my body really likes. I have exercised consistently. With all of that considered, I'm not beating myself up for hanging in place. OR, at least not much.