For me it sure is! It's what gets me out of bed at 4:45!

It can be! But I didn't order as reasonably as I should have, and I could have done better restricting my portion, too.

So a good day for you!

So I guess you won't see this until Sunday night -- I'll just keep adding to this post each morning so you'll only have one to respond to when you get home. Hope you enjoyed your trip!

So he wants to be just friends, but he wants you to take a road trip with him? This is really odd. And talk about a last-minute date! LOL! He must be having some sort of strange mixed feelings going on.

I decided to take my computer after all, so will check in tonight as normal TTYL

Cool! Hope you had an easy safe trip!

Report: weighed (down to 2.4 under goal, yay!), ate very low -- bars for breakfast and lunch, lump crab with cocktail sauce for dinner, a couple glasses of wine but NO wine-induced snackfest. Didn't leave a bite but since I was eating so low it wasn't an omission but part of my plan. Michael's home for spring break and today's my dad's birthday, so I'm making a company dinner and planning a pretty diet-unfriendly meal (grilled cheese, chili, potato soup, and chocolate bread pudding) in an attempt to please all the different palates so I'll focus on portion control. Then tomorrow we're going out to brunch with my sister and her family, so I'll likely have to focus on portion control then, too, though there may be some diet-friendly choices I can take advantage of.

Hope you're having a great time with your Longaberger friends!

(Sunday morning) Looks like maybe you didn't take your laptop after all -- hope you're having a great time! Report: weighed (2.4 under goal), ate VERY CAREFULLY and totally went for portion size. Had a bar for breakfast and lunch, then had half a grilled-cheese sandwich, a small bowl of potato-corn chowder, and really just a few bites of chocolate bread pudding for desert. Left more than a bite of just about everything. Today's another challenging day -- brunch with my dad/his girlfriend and my sis/her family, and then tonight we're supposed to go to my niece-in-law Heather's for a special Molly (my other niece-in-law) And Michael Are Home So We Eat Grandma's Spaghetti dinner. I actually may skip this, though, as Jane needs to study and can't go and I might stay home with her.

TTYS!

I did take my laptop, only to discover that my friend lives in a dead zone, so neither my phone nor my computer worked. I'll remember not to bother to take it with me next time I visit her.

YAY for the lower weight, for the low-cal day, and especially for drinking wine without following it up with a snackfest! WOO HOO!

Two very good reasons to celebrate. Your planned meal sounds delicious (it all sounds like "comfort food"), if not exactly diet-friendly. But you are really good at watching your portion sizes in situations like that.

Yes, I had a really good time, and it was a good distraction from thinking about the trip-that-could-have-been this weekend. It was exactly what I needed!

YAY YOU for eating such reasonable portion sizes (I knew you could do it)! Did you go to that spaghetti dinner, or did you stay home with Jane?

Like I said, I had a really nice weekend, and I did well with my eating until today. The drive home gave me way too much time to think about all of the issues that would have arisen had I taken that other trip. Although I had stopped on the road for dinner and wasn't hungry when I got home, I had a dessert-fest anyway. I feel disgusted with myself. I had a bunch of grading to do, I have to get up at 6AM, I have a long day tomorrow, and it's already almost 1AM. But I am going to write out a plan for what I will eat tomorrow. I haven't actually written one out in quite some time. Time to go back to al of the basics again . Good thing I have that counseling appointment coming up. My tooth is really bugging me, too, so tomorrow is going to be a long day on limited sleep. Blech.

Hope your day was better than mine!

Wait, she can't use a computer at home at all? Wow! That's, like, Amish.

Yep, I was happy.

It was chosen for ability to prep-ahead, ease of serving to a group for a sit-down meal, and the fact that since most of the prep was completed hours before serving time I'd be able to finish serving and just need to load the dishwasher to wake up to a clean kitchen, but it definitely was a comfort food fest.

Glad it was a good trip!

I ended up staying home, as Jane enjoys having company while she works. The brunch was nice -- I didn't eat too badly, though I didn't make the ideal choice -- and I was glad not to have another heavyish meal in one day.

Wait, I thought you didn't have any desserts left? You're taking steps to deal with this problem. The fact you haven't been able to deal with it yet is not a reason to feel disgusted. It's a reason to feel proud of yourself for recognizing that you need to deal with it and for putting the process in motion. Blech indeed. I hope Monday turns out better than expected!

Report: weighed (holding steady at 2.4 under goal), ate reasonably well, got up and went to class this morning, though I didn't walk because it's icy here. Contacted my diet buddy.

No, her computer works fine (via cable modem)! In fact, her husband is a retired engineer, and they probably have five or six computers in their house. But mine has a thingie that connects to the internet through Sprint (can't think of what it's called). I could have used my friend's computer, but, like I said, I'm very reluctant to do that after what happened when I used Bethy's.



As you should be!

You say that like comfort food is a bad thing!


Do you ever feel that sometimes going to a social event just isn't worth dealing with the food issues you will face there? I do.

I didn't, but I got a new BBB last week. Yeah, I suppose you're right, but right now I have limited faith in my ability to deal with it. And I know it will take time to deal with--and in the meantime I could gain a lot of weight. But I am willing to do whatever I need to do to get a grip on this once and for all.

I only got 2 hours of sleep last night, so it was not a stellar day work-wise. But I followed my eating plan exactly, drank LOTS of water, read my cards, and already wrote out a plan for tomorrow. So I am feeling a little better now than I did last night, at least in terms of eating. I am sure I will feel better still after I get a good night's sleep!

The weather is crappy here, too. YAY for holding steady at a low weight. How many weeks until your vacation?

My weight was up 3 whole pounds this morning (compared to last Friday). I wasn't surprised (ate some higher calorie meals over the weekend in addition to the dessertfest last night), but it does amaze me that I can gain so quickly. It's scary. I had to give myself a stern talking-to to get myself on the scale this morning, so YAY ME for that!

Hope you had another good day! I'm off to bed now, very early for me.

I don't blame you! I wouldn't want to either after that experience!

Why do all the comfort foods have to be high calorie?

Yeah, sometimes. I knew for instance that this was going to be an exceptionally high-cal, high-carb dinner. I'd have liked to have seen Molly, but I was just as glad to have an excuse to let John and Michael go without me.

To me, that's the important part of the equation: you're willing to deal with it. You don't have to deal with it perfectly. You just have to be willing to keep working at it. Showing up for the fight is half the battle.

Yay, you, for sticking with your plan even when you'd had a crappy night's sleep!

About 2 1/2 weeks. I'm going to press for a low day today, which should be easy-ish because I'm having a minor mouth surgery (to remove a mucocele on my inner lip) and doubt I'll feel like eating much until it heals. I'm surely not going to want anything spicy, salty, or requiring much chewing, at any rate! Probably won't want wine anywhere near the incision, either. It would be fantastic to lose a pound over this.

But you did! Yay, you! I SO know that feeling of not wanting to get on the scale when you suspect there's going to be bad news, and I SO know that it's the one thing I SHOULD do at that point! The one good thing about having a gain from a few days of higher-calorie-than-normal eating is that it gives you the opportunity to show yourself again that you can indeed recover from a gain, and that such gains are usually at least part not really gains of -fat-. I think that's a good lesson to learn several times.

Report: weighed (still 2.4 under goal), won't be exercising today and may not feel like it tomorrow though I'm planning to set my alarm tomorrow morning for class and at least getting up and getting dressed to give it the best possible shot. Ate reasonably all day even though I had a couple glasses of wine last night.

Hope you had a better night's sleep!

I'm going to treat that as the rhetorical question I think you meant it to be, rather than going into an explanation about evolutionary adaptations!!

Makes perfect sense to me! But I was curious if you would ever feel that way, since you are so much more social than I am.

Yes, I'm definitely willing, and I'll bring the same commitment and dedication to this that I did to the weight loss in the first place. I had a flash of insight today. I was thinking that I "feel fat" and therefore don't want to see my match this coming weekend (not that we have any plans to get together; we don't). The insight was that part of my motivation for overeating lately has been to INSURE that I don't feel like seeing him; if I don't see him, I don't have to deal with all the issues and fears that would then arise.

Indeed! I was very motivated.

There's a silver lining in every cloud!! OUCH, though. Oral surgery, even minor, hurts. But it sounds like you've got a good shot at getting your weight where you want it before your trip. I'm going to follow that same strategy by trying to get to 126-127 before I go to the Grand Canyon at the end of May. That would give me a few pounds of leeway for the trip.

I think I'm destined to have multiple opportunities to learn that lesson . But I definitely do agree with you.

So your surgery is tomorrow? Hope it goes well. YAY YOU for not overeating after drinking wine! You seem to be getting better at that lately.

I did. Then I spent 9 hours grading statistics homeworks and tests today (can you say TEDIUM?), on top of teaching my classes and having a personal training session. So I am exhausted again!

My weight was down a pound this morning (supporting what you said about some of the gain not being "real"). Followed my written plan exactly. Had a personal training session. Read my cards. Made it a point to eat extra slowly and mindfully.

Good luck tomorrow!

Very good insight!

I can't believe it's already close to the time for your trip! One of the nice things about having some leeway is that you'll be more relaxed and possibly able to demonstrate to your bear friends that you aren't 'obsessed' with your weight. And of course they'll be able to see that you haven't continued to lose weight, which will help.

It was yesterday -- went very quickly. He was running a few minutes ahead and finished two minutes before he was scheduled to begin.

Ugh!

Yay, you!

Report: Hardly ate anything yesterday because the stitches are a hassled. Did drink some wine -- carefully <g> -- but because of the stitches I wasn't even tempted to have a snackfest. Down a pound this morning to 3.4 under goal, yay! Didn't get up for class -- when the alarm went off, I just was feeling the stiches so much that I knew I wasn't going to want to exercise vigorously, get out of breath, possibly accidentally bite my lip where the stitches are. So I didn't even get up and put on my clothes -- just turned over and went back to sleep, which I needed. The stitches are supposed to dissolve on their own, so I'm hoping by Friday morning they're feeling less stiff. If not, I probably won't go Friday either. I'm wondering if I should get on the treadmill today at least. Hm. Maybe I'll at least put on my exercise clothes after all and give it a chance.

EDIT: Okay, I'm dressed for exercise down to my shoes, the key element -- I won't let myself take them off until I get on the treadmill.

Hope you had a great day!

(Thursday) Hope everything's okay!

Report: weighed (no change, 3.4 under goal), ate reasonably, slowly, mindfully. Stitches still hurting. I did get on the treadmill for 35 minutes yesterday, yay me!

I had a long post typed out and then when I hit submit, it said I wasn't logged in. GRRRRR. I'm only going to try this one more time.

For what that's worth. Insight isn't all it's cracked up to be; sometimes it just helps you understand why you're screwed up but still leaves you screwed up.

That's definitely the plan! Right now I feel like I'll probably have gained 30 pounds by then, so I won't have to worry about my friends' reaction.

Kinda like when you fly west across time zones and arrive earlier than you left!! But in your case, this is definitely a good thing!



Yay on the pound down--you got what you wanted! I certainly don't blame you for not wanting to go to exercise class with stitches in your mouth.

GOOD JOB!



Last night I fell asleep on the couch and never did make it to my bed. I had nightmares all night. Fortunately I woke up in time to go to class, but just barely. It didn't help that my cat threw up right as I was about to leave. It was a bad start to a bad day.

YAY YOU all the way around!

My weight was down 1.6 yesterday (no idea why). I didn't weigh this morning in my frantic rush to get to school on time. Today was my very worst eating day in years. I easily consumed several thousand extra calories. I am not going to weigh in the morning. There's no point. I know what it will say, and I know what I need to do, so the information would not help me. I am just feeling desperate, overwhelmed, and hopeless. I have my first therapy session tomorrow, and I know she will be able to help me get a better attitude. I know I can deal with this, that I HAVE to deal with it if I have any hope of maintaining my weight. And I am willing to do whatever I need to do. I feel so sick and bloated right now, and I have terrible heartburn, which reminds me of the years I spent with continual gastric reflux and esophageal ulcers. Blech.

I need to get to sleep, if I CAN sleep, feeling so stuffed. I have to get up early to get my car serviced, then go for my consultation with the oral surgeon who will extract my tooth next Friday, then see my old therapist. Tomorrow WILL be a better day. OK, hopefully this will post!

But it's still a crucial step.

Oh, dear.



Ok. But we should talk about this. So why the bad eating day? You've had many, many good ones interspersed with these occasional bad ones, and you'd actually just seen a nice drop on the scale. Why was yesterday the worst in years? Do you think it could be related to the fact you were having the therapy session the next day, maybe? Blech. Please call me when this happens. Hey, you know I bought the CD of the book -- I keep it in my car and listen to it whenever I'm out of reach of NPR. Maybe for your long driving days, you could get a copy of it and listen to it. The reader's voice is a little annoying, but I find the message motivating.

Hope it was MUCH better!

Report: weighed (3.4 under goal), ate reasonably even though I made two new recipes for dinner including "Oreo-stuffed brownie & chocolate chip cookie bars," which I didn't even eat one bite of. Or any of the leftover oreos from those I bought for the recipe, which are still sitting in the pantry. Left a bite, didn't exercise. Didn't go to class again this morning -- the inside of my lip is still feeling really tender and the stitches are starting to dissolve which means they're even more in my way. Will put on my exercise clothes when I get dressed, though, and get on the treadmill.

Once again I had a long post all typed out. Then my cat plopped down on the keyboard, and the whole thing went POOF. I had to restrain myself from throttling her. I am on my way to bed and am too tired and wrung out to reconstruct the whole thing. I did have a good eating day, though, and a good therapy session that convinced me that I can tackle the relationship thing one step at a time, just like I did the weight loss.

I am very impressed that you could make two such enticing goodies and not sample them, even if the stitches were part of what inhibited you. You rock! And I will go to Amazon and order Beck on tape. I think that's a very good idea.

Arg!

I'm glad the session was good! And that you're feeling more optimistic! Sorry you're feeling wrung out though -- the therapy session?

It was ONE enticing goodie -- you make chocolate chip cookie dough and spread it in a pan. You put down a layer of Oreos. Then you make up a brownie mix and pour it over, then bake it. You get cut it into bars that have a layer of chocolate chip cookie on the bottom, brownie on top, and cookies sandwiched between.

I still haven't eaten one. I'm planning to cut the rest of the bars and freeze them to send in Jane's lunches.

Report: weighed (no change, 3.4 under goal), ate very reasonably though I did have several deep-fried green beans at happy hour, but then I came home and had a very small dinner. Didn't end up getting on the treadmill, though. But still a good day overall.

Hope your Saturday was a good one!

Yes, I started crying almost the moment I walked in the door!! And then I had to catch her up on all of the things that have happened since I last saw her (Bethy, bear pals, breast cancer scare, dating), which drained me. But after that, it was low-key and kind of fun. She had me respond to a bunch of questions about my favorite things (color, food, style of furniture, city, etc.) to start me off on gathering data about my likes and dislikes, on the theory that I can't figure out where I want my life to go next if I don't know who I am. This surprised me a bit, but the conversation did convince me that I don't know the "new me" all that well, and the issue does bear exploring. I'm supposed to write it down every time I notice that I like or dislike something as I go through my day.

One, two, whatever......it was still a SUPER enticing goodie, and you resisted it!! I am salivating just reading your description of it!

Like I said, I am in awe of your self-control!

That all sounds eminently reasonable, and I'm sure the scale will tell you so tomorrow! How is your mouth feeling?

I weighed myself this morning--133.6. ACK. I shudder to think what I must have weighed yesterday, since my belly was much flatter this morning than it was yesterday morning. That puts me about 6-7 pounds above where I want to be, and I can definitely tell the difference in how my clothes feel. I've had two good eating days in a row now, however, and I recognize that the gain is just a form of information that tells me that it is definitely time to get back on track. I am going to make an extra effort to look nice every day this week, which I have discovered in the past often makes me want to eat better.

My cat has just snuggled up to the very edge of my laptop, with her face above the keys, so i had better submit this before she erases my post again. Hope you had a great day!

I'm amazed you got to anything besides what's happened in the last two years! I love that you're writing down things you like and dislike. I've just started using Pinterest, which is a sort of online pin board you use to "pin" items you find online or see in your real life (and photograph with your camera) into various online boards which you can share with your friends. They "repin" the things they like too. It's kind of fun. I'm not sure you can see my boards without being a "member" though it's free to sign up -- here's one: https://pinterest.com/taylorvalerie/to-make/



I think it was actually a bit too much, LOL! Even Jane said she thought it might be better without the oreos.

One thing that stuck with me from the Beck workshop was that -successful- maintainers tended to lose down to a goal, then learn to live at about five pounds above that goal. I think this was a really interesting idea, because it's so easy to fall into the trap of thinking gaining anything above goal proves you 'just can't do this' and that you've 'failed.' When of course being able to maintain at five pounds above the arbitrary 'ideal' weight you have in your mind isn't -failure.- It's accepting the reality that an ideal isn't necessarily something you can live with, and that maintaining five pounds above that ideal is still successful maintaining. Good for you!

When I've got a superlong post to do, I sometimes submit before I'm finished, then go back and edit what I've submitted to make sure that if I lose the post, all I've lost is the work I've done since I last submitted.

Report: weighed (no change, 3.4 below goal), ate very reasonably even though I made braided stromboli for lunch. I'm having a colonoscopy tomorrow, which means a light breakfast and then fasting for the rest of today and drinking a bunch of goop that everyone says is the worst part of the process. But maybe it will mean I'll drop a bit. Won't be going to class tomorrow morning because of the procedure.