And here's another rhetorical question for you Gen: is that why we eat crap, because it makes us feel better?

You got me thinking with that question, and I'm not sure if I can answer it. Hmmm… I'll have to think about that.

Lindor are you OK? Anything we can do?

I was pretty lazy yesterday - I sat on my front verandah and played Scrabble with a friend. Today I'm going to do domestics and try and clean my house, and I might try and do a few hours work later.

I've got a very busy 10 days coming up, and then I go on holidays for a couple of weeks.


Ani

To be honest, Ani, I think it stops us feeling full stop while we are eating. As long as you are shoving lovely tasting crap in your mouth, you don't have to think about whatever is upsetting you. It's a sadly mistaken way of thinking you are treating yourself, when really you are just punishing yourself more.

The worst thing is, I know this, and I still do it. Heh.

I've read ervyones posts and because it has been forever there is way to much to reply to. Hope everyone has had a good weekend. I have finally finished the semester and my clinical. I loved it. Now I can find some VONNI TIME and time for everyone else too. First on my list for vonni time is 2 weeks from yesterday I am getting my massage and egyptian godess milk bath. So I am going to try losing a kilo before hand. I put on 2 kilos the past 2 weeks at clinical. grrrr. but back on track now.

Cheers
Vonni

do we eat crap because we buy it in the first place and it is in the house??? if it was not in the house and we were feeling down would we really be bothered to go out and buy the crap????
I dont know... i might......... depends on the day i was having....
Lindor - i hope you know i was joking about cheering your bad day on... trust me though i know EXACTLY how you feel.... my hubby keeps buying M&Ms and not little packs coz he has figured out how cost efficient it is to but them in bulk.... so when i have HAD it with the child sooking or not sleeping or whateva and i want/need a snack...... i have PLENTY of crap to distract myself with and then realise what it would have done to my weightloss chances for the day and ho hum......

i am doing the shakes thing tomorrow, did it for brekky today but then bbq etc meant i didnt do it for lunch or dinner today.... if i get another result of less than 500gram loss i am going to go 'back' to calorie counting
except that i dont think of calorie counting as a diet anymore.... hard to explain.... shakes was meant to be a quick fix to get rid of 5kg but how fast i expected it to work i dont know..........

ani - holidays for a couple of weeks?? where are you going??

gen, vonni, julia, lindor, ani, barb, kylie - are any of us in the zone right now??? what is going on??

i'm going to body pump in the morning but think friend coming over for lunch bringing takeaway (still not enough kitchen to offer to make lunch) so will not have food for dinner will have shake for brekky and dinner...... it really is a dodgy situation... that i am cheating..... ho hum

Yep, I'm back in the diet zone. Although I've realised that after losing my 12kg in 10 weeks at the start of the year, I've lost a grand total of about 3kg in the 9 months since then!! What a pathetic result after 9 months of calorie counting, exercise etc.. aah well, at least I haven't gained 9 months worth of kilos, I suppose.

Kel I just postponed my holiday until mid-January, and then I'm off to central NSW to see my mum, then up to Queensland for a week.

And yes, I'm in the zone. If I manage a loss tomorrow morning that will be my 5th week in a row of dropping some weight.

Gen before this recent little purple patch I went for 13 weeks and lost nothing. But sometimes the fact that we haven't gone back up to our previous weights is a bigger achievement than we give ourselves credit for.

My average weight loss over the last 66 weeks has been 0.32kg/week. I've worked really hard to get rid of my "all or nothing" tendencies - because I don't think they're the best way to achieve long-term weight loss. I set out, at the start of 2007, with the motto of "freedom and balance", and that's what I am aiming for.

Now I just try for moderate exercise, sensible calorie counting and plenty of water - and I don't beat myself up when I have bad days or weeks. But every Monday morning when I do my weigh-in I remind myself of the promise I made to myself to never undo the good work I have done.

One of my biggest battles is with impatience. I want this to be over - I feel like I've been working so long, and so hard… Yet I still have such a long way to go. Even after 66 weeks I am still obese, and I still feel (and look) like a fat chick.

But the thing that keeps me going, and keeps me motivated, is the fact that I am just beginning to believe I can do it. And I can finally see that my body is beginning to change its shape.

And I suppose the thing that has really made me change my attitude is that I understand now that this is a lifelong journey. Getting to my "goal weight" will not be the end of it for me, it will just be the beginning. And maybe by being the resident tortoise, and facing my emotional hurdles along the way, I will have learned enough once I get to goal to be able to maintain it.

Oh good grief! Where did all that waffle come from? You wouldn't think that prior to writing this I spent tonight writing a 3000 word article - and a tough one at that!

I'll shut up now!

i second that, i am so amazed that i have been able to maintain while living..... i have been 'trying' to lose weight but in the back of my mind the fact i am not gaining has been keeping me plodding along..
it was and is the impatience thing (and up and coming christening and baby's first birthday) that has made me try another shakes diet.......

my friend that was bringing maccas has piked on lunch for the 4th time (i have piked once due to the fact i was spewing and pooing....) so i can have a shake for lunch and maybe ALL DAY stick to the allowable snack list if i need to snack at all.....

getting kitchen vinyl laid today, one step closer to completed kitchen and therefore no excuse not to become a better housewife and mother and start feeding myself and hubby and baby better foods.......

192.6 pounds!

Up 1.2!

Great!

Sorry to hear about your gain Lindor I know it's hard but do try not to let it get you down. Today is a new day after all

I had some sad news yesterday, a guy that I went to school with and whom I had a brief "thing" with last year died yesterday morning He was my age - around 28-29 and it seems that it was something to do with his epilepsy.

Ani my dear, you are certainly in the right job. You are a great writer and I always get a lot from whatever you have to say

I've got a new plan of attack as of today. I'm going to stop counting weight watchers points for a couple of weeks and see how I go. I do know what I should and shouldn't be doing so perhaps a slight change will do me good.

My life is about to change lots too as last night I started a new job in addition to my normal one. I'm going to be working at "The Warehouse" (I think you guys have it in Oz??) from 7-12pm Monday thru to Friday. The pay is pretty rubbish, especially when secondary tax is taken out but I need to earn as much as I can to try and save for my trip to the US next year so I'm going to give this a good go. I'm on a temporary contract so can give it up whenever I want or need to.

So ... Monday to Friday I'll have 2 hours between my 2 jobs to get some exercise and have my dinner. Fortunately the 2 jobs and my gym are all within 100 metres of eachother so I will be able to go from work to the gym to the other job without too much effort. They've said that I can do whatever hours I want so I've decided on the above so that I still get to keep my weekends free.

This should help my diet as the time when I do the most damage is in the evenings when I sit and watch tv and nibble on crackers and cheese and things!

In other news, I've started to love the smell of freshly brewed coffee. Very strange as I've never drunk the stuff in my life! I think that having stopped smoking and cut down on drinking that I need a new vice and coffee may be it. I'm starting off slowly and have had a trim mocha this morning and now I am buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzing!!

WOW Julia - that's going to keep you busy, and it will change your routine in a huge way. I am really sorry to hear about the death of your friend - it's especially awful when people are young and it's sudden

By the way thank you for what you said about my writing. I sometimes feel that I waffle too much in here

Lindor, look at it as an opportunity matey. It's probably because you're retaining fluid (there's a heap of salt in processed food, including Tim Tams), and there's a really good chance that you'll drop weight quickly this week.

Me - I dropped the grand total of 0.1kg! Nothing to brag about, but it's in the right direction. I didn't exercise at all last week, even though I ate well and drank plenty of water.

This week I will work to do better.

One of my current challenges is that my housemate eats the most unbelievable rubbish, and there is endless junk food in the house. I'm not used to that - and even though I would never consider touching her food, it tends to "plant" things in my mind.

Last night she came home from her weekend away, and was eating takeaway food. She followed it up with a packet of Twisties, made a big hole in a family-block of chocolate, and washed it down with cordial. A little while later she must have been peckish because she scoffed a handful of chocolate biscuits.

Now if I tell you she is an insulin-dependent diabetic who has to give herself needles every day, will you be as horrified as me?

She isn't particularly overweight (if at all), and when she first came here, and I got a clue about her regular diet, I wondered how I would cope - so many triggers around here now - but sofar it has made me feel sick to watch her scoff all this rubbish. And sorry for her.

Hey Kel, can I make a suggestion? I don't think it's going to work if you try and take the best of both worlds and create a Kel-diet from them… that's very Kath and Kim

If you really want to lose weight you've got to give some serious thought to whether Maccas and Hungry Jacks - and those naughty M&Ms are worth it. Because you won't lose weight whilever they're a regular part of your food plan. It isn't just the calories - it's the amount of salt and fat in them.

Can you reduce them to once a week or fortnight, and try to find yummy, healthy alternate choices?

Anyway… enough waffle for one morning. Must jump in the shower and get to work.


Ani

"Last night she came home from her weekend away, and was eating takeaway food. She followed it up with a packet of Twisties, made a big hole in a family-block of chocolate, and washed it down with cordial. A little while later she must have been peckish because she scoffed a handful of chocolate biscuits."

Ewwww, Ani. Just imagine what must be going on inside the woman! Gurgle Gurgle. Talk about gut rot

I second that Ani, your wise musings always make sense to me! Sound much more eloquent than I'd manage, too. My average over the past year (almost at my 1 yr weight loss anniversary on Nov 30th!) is 290g/week. Doesn't sound so bad put like that - at least it's a year of almost weekly weight maintenance or loss.

I agree, we tend to see this as a 'diet' that will end when we get to our goal weight.. when in fact, if we're doing it properly, it won't ever end.

i agree with everyone!
i stopped seeing calorieking as a diet and am going to 'go back' to it after this stint of shakes......
i have blown the shakes thing in regards to not getting full potential out of it by cheating myself with snacking and the one meal allowed....
calorieking to me is just a checklist for what everyone else does and what i am meant to be doing as a normal person... it is hard for me to figure out though why i have so much trouble STOPPING eating when i am not hungry...

i seem to enjoy food, so i just know i have to distract myself in times when i am not hungry or drink water or something

lindor is that gain in pounds??? that is nothing!

i've blown it already.... i am ashamed of myself... no excuse.... even though i will blame kitchen......... i ate a whole packet of M&Ms which i just found out is 4040KJ or 40grams of fat.... i will go ask calorie king how many calories that is.... should have gone for the shake first then i wouldnt have been hungry.... i suck TOMORROW never comes but i keep wanting to say tomorrow i will do better, a shakes diet that is not all or nothing doesnt seem to be working for me.
gotta go baby has learnt to crawl and now nothing is safe.....

Kel, you don't suck. It sounds to me that perhaps you're not getting enough from the shakes and so you're filling up with other things. M&M's are hard to stop at just a few, they're so moreish I'm not surprised you ate a whole pack, it's easily done.

Now, ahem, I'm sorry but I'm excited so her is a blatant brag from me. On Friday I fly to Cairns for a work trip. Itinerary looks great .....

Friday: Arrive and head out on a Daintree Tour
Saturday: Cape Tribulation Day Tour, Flames of the forest dinner which looks amazing
Sunday: Day out on the Great Barrier Reef
Monday: Hartley's Crocodile Adventures then a workshop in the afternoon
Tuesday: Hot air ballooning, Kuranda Markets, Skyrail, Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park, whitewater rafting
Wednesday: Fly home