hey singles! sheriva and si - you 2 are too funny!!!

welcome peg - nice to have you join us! and congrats on your weight loss success. it sounds like you have a good plan for getting thru the holidays. are you following any particular eating plan??? the baked goodies at work are overwhelming!

sheriva - i didn't know people starched their seams either!! as for being a matriarch....you are only as old as you feel. i am 39 and love a good nite with a movie in my slippers too.

have a good humpday!!!
kathy

Thanks Kathy! I am not following a structured plan. Have done it all with small changes, eating more balanced and exercising regularly. My philosophy is all things in moderation and that is working. Work hasn't been to fraught with bad stuff so that has helped. Tonight is the work Holiday Party though so we'll see how that goes.

Peg

Pulling us back to page 1 again. Wow. It's been dead here the past week or so!

We're up to 7 or 8 pages in the thread again. Are we about ready for a new thread or would you guys prefer to wait until after the first of the year?

hi singles! sorry i haven't been to visit. i am having a very bad week. my best friend lost her 15 year old son on monday. it is a tragedy. the dr. diagnosed him with the flu and he had appendicitis. so i have been with her a lot. the viewing is tomorrow and it too will be a long day. on top of all that i am trying to get ready to go to florida next week and i was organizing our work xmas party that was tonite. what a week! i'm glad it's almost over. i am physically and mentally exhausted.

i didn't make it to ww this week because i was so busy, but boy did i blow my eating plan right out of the water this week. especially tonite with our "dish to pass" party. so many goodies. the rest of the week i have been on the go so much i have been eating whatever and whenever i get the chance.

sheriva - thanks for keeping us up front. maybe we should wait because we probably won't have many post with xmas coming up and we can start fresh. i'll let you make the decision. i hope your week is going well!!

kathy

Oh Kathy, I'm so sorry to hear about your best friend's son. How tragic. And at the holidays yet. Jeez. That kind of thing just breaks my heart, because I know how, forever after, the holidays become associated with that loss and it just makes it harder.

My best to you, your friend and her family.

I'll wait til after the first of the year to start a new thread to make sure that everyone is able to find us when they get back to posting.

hi sheriva - thanks for the thoughts. yesterday was one of the hardest days of my life, but we got thru it amazingly well. this xmas is a bad one but i think it will be ok next year. my friends just had another baby right before their loss so he gives them something to go on for. he is our saving grace.

i guess everyone is busy with their last minute holiday stuff. i am finally all set. i finished the wrapping tonite. now i have this week to focus on getting ready for my trip. not doing so well in the eating dept., i haven't been able to get a grip on it.

have a good week singles!!
kathy

Kathy, I'm glad to hear about your friends' baby...that certainly will give them something to focus on in their grief, because you can't ignore the needs of a baby as they are totally dependent on you!

Glad to hear you are all set for the holidays. I am done except for wrapping, which will get done today/tonight, I hope. I actually enjoy wrapping to some degree so it isn't as much of a chore for me as for some.

Sure hope to see the rest of the gang returning here sometime soon!

I had to let you all know in light of our recent conversations re: pizza that I ordered another one and only ate the 2 pieces I intended to eat last night. Had another 2 for lunch today. I haven't eaten perfectly today (the coworkers brought literally a conucopia of food today) but at least I didn't come into the day following a 1/2 a pizza!

Peg

congrats peg on sticking to your plan. it is a great accomplishment to set a goal and achieve it. pass along some of that strength please...

sheriva - i'm sure things will pick back up after the holidays when people get their resolve back. as for me...work is getting overwhelming with xmas goodies. stress is not helping my resolve any.

have a good tuesday!
kathy

You go girl! I really wanted pizza at some point this weekend and didn't have the stuff to make the healthy kind it home (the crust) but I wouldn't allow myself to call Domino's because the last 2-3 times have been scary in terms of watching myself lose control so I just didn't wanna go there again.

Weird thing is that, before I started eating healthy, I ordered pizza WEEKLY and rarely overate. I'd have 2-3 slices, pop it in the fridge and maybe have another 2 the next day for lunch before throwing the rest away. But now, it's like my body is saying "OOOOH forbidden fruit! Must eat it all!" and it is really scary to feel myself unable to control that impulse.

I am able to be so controlled in so many ways but I guess we all have our weak spot and "real" pizza is definitely one of mine.

Sheri,
It seems like that forbidden fruit thing is almost self-fulfilling for me. I have chosen almost entirely (I haven't had fast food fries and soda only once that wasn't a drink mixer...honestly 2 things that have no redeeming value nutritionally or emotionally for me) to choose to try and teach myself to eat in moderation all things instead of setting things up as 'not allowed'. I know this doesn't work for a lot of people but for me so far, I have tried to id what caused a problem and tried it again to find a way that it would work for me. So instead of not allowing myself to order pizza (and I did consider that tack), I ordered again with a different approach. It worked that time. I think the other problem with declaring things 'off limits' is there are times that it probably won't work and times it will be fine so it sort of rubs me wrong to just declare them 'gone'.

Mostly thinking out loud but I hear many of us (especially on the CT board) sort of declaring things 'off limits' a lot and I just don't necessarily agree that is the best approach. Not being able to live with some sort of food in your house or whatever seems like something to 'work on' not just 'avoid at all costs'. Of course, it's all about whatever works for you but I think this is just another symptom of 'all or nothing' thinking for me when I do it. Of course, I like you, rarely ate 1/2 or more of a pizza before I started eating healthier so binge eating isn't really the issue. I suppose if I was facing that, I might approach this wayyyyy differently.
Peg

But see, Peg, I actually AGREE with everything you just said. In fact, when people ask me "how did you do it (i.e., lose weight, eat healthy)?" I say that I don't consider any food "evil" and off limits forever (a mistake that I made for years in my "dieting" past); i.e., everything in moderation. As you've seen me say elsewhere, I plan for my days of having half a good restaurant burger and half an order of fries and eat it with relish! I also have a chocolate chip cookie when I want it (I buy ONE cookie from the Whole Foods bakery section). I eat a bite-size piece of Dove dark chocolate nearly every day for dessert. So the concepts of "there are no evil foods" and "everything in moderation" work great for most things.

But, for some reason, pizza is just another thing entirely. I can SAY (as I did the last time I ordered from Domino's) "I'm only going to eat 2 slices." but, once those two slices are gone, I find it nearly impossible to keep from going back for more. It's like a physical addiction that takes over my body and it is very unpleasant, especially considering that I am able to maintain control over almost everything else. This doesn't mean that, if I'm at a friend's house and he says "Let's order pizza." I would say no...it's not at all that I am expecting never to eat "real" pizza again. I am just accepting defeat, for now, on being able to order a whole pizza at home by myself and handle it well. I will definitely try again...just not right now.

P.S. There have been times when I have felt like a leper on the CT board for saying that I eat a bite of chocolate every day. Sometimes, it feels like some folks are SAYING "everything in moderation" but not LIVING it. Or maybe they ARE living it and they just don't talk as openly about it.

Yesterday must have been a day for tone to completely fail to come through on the boards! I knew you agreed with me and I just wanted to say/reinforce the thought...both for you (in case you were out of touch on this concept in re: to the pizza...obviously not based on what you said about having pizza in other times/places) and mostly for me to say to myself "it's really the right thing to learn to eat the pizza in moderation". I thought your line about 'not for now' was really important. I know we can't choose all these battles at once but I also don't think we should just accept banishing things either. Ok, stopping now before I dig myself deeper.

I think most of the successful folks on CT are the ones who are living that 'all things in moderation' but for some it is still more restrictive than you and I choose. That's the beauty of that site....lots of different perspectives (even when they clash).

Peg