Good Afternoon all..started my day off on a rough note. I was having issues sleeping since 5am. The dog woke me up to go to the bathroom and then i couldnt fall back asleep cause i was having pain in my one leg/hip from my pool workout yesterday. I decided to switch it up a bit and do one of the sets from the Masters Swimming Workout and its called "Leg Burners". Basically you put your fins on and kick with a board...but istead of the kick board being flat on the water, you stick it halfway in the water so its vertical, causing total resistence..so you have to work harder to get farther. Yah my legs burned...was good..but man..im sore today.

Im happy my scale finally finally got back down to 227.8 After that long week of gain gain gain...its finally back down.

All is quiet here..yucky day out. Going to take the pooch to the park later for some ball but other then that..all is quiet

Today was pretty bad. I can still feel myself pulliing out of the depression, but today I had problems with anger. No, not anger: rage.

It often happens to me (and to other people, too) that during the recovery phase, when I'm getting over the depression, anger appears. I don't know why, but at least I can tell myself that it's normal—nothing to worry about,

And tonight I feel good because I did not turn that anger on Bob. I was furious with my iPad, with my crippled legs, with just about everything & everyone else that I encountered today, but I was nice to Bob. We're getting along really well.

I sure hope I won't be enraged tomorrow, that my brain will move on, and I'll be over the depression.

Fiona W, I can sympathise with the negative feelings, my week has been terrible too.. I know I have over eaten and I have my weigh in tomorrow.. Work has been the source of my mood, and I am dreading going back tomorrow, plus my weigh in.. I hope we both have a better week!

Checking in...not feeling great.

Lost .2 this week. I'm surprised that I didn't gain so I'm good with that. I ate bread yesterday because something felt off in my stomach and crackers usually do the trick but I didn't have any so I ate an english muffin...I ended up eating 2 of them over the day. My pantry is pretty much empty so I've had to get creative with what I have left. I ended up sleeping for most of the day. I had breakfast around 9 and layed down shortly after not waking until around 330. I don't know if my body is trying to fight something off or what. The girl's kids at work have had bronchitis so hopefully I'm not getting that. My body is tired but not achy like the flu...I just feel like I need rest.

Going to try and clean up today. My kitchen is a mess and so is my bedroom...but then again my room is never clean...sigh.

No personals today but hope everyone is taking care of themselves. Love you all...

Good Morning

Been up since te crack of dawn. Its driving me nuts. Ive been waking up now fr the past 4 mornings super early. My body seems to have decided its time to wake up at 5 am. Ugh!! Im actually physically tempted to get up and start making some homemade cereal. Guess its nice that i have time to look at recipes since im awake early.

Yesterday i think i lost my marbles. Generally when starving and trying to get out of a grocery store, i may grab an avocado and peel it and begin eating it like an apple.Well yesterday my husband thought i lost it when i grabbed an individual peice of celery at the store and bought a small jar of cheeze whiz and proceeded to dip my celery stick in cheeze whiz as i drove us home(45minutes) He thought i wa crazy until he tried the cheeze whiz on celery and realized he loved it too. Oh the things you do when on a low carb diet and desperate for a snack(out of my go-to peperoni)

Well its V day today and my husband and i are completely broke..so no flowers or cards or chocolates. Just "i love you's". Its myvbirthday this week coming up and he cant even afford a present or dinner out either. Welcome to life when your spouse gets injured at work and cant make enough money except to cover the bills. Our food grocery budget is 100$ for the 2 of us for a week right now. We are having to be creative cause produce is expensive. Especially when you live in a rural town that only has one grocery store. No competition equals no competetive sales.

Anywho...hope your day goes smooth all..

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone.

Cindy -- I completely understand about partnering with your hubby when feasible but not trying to force him into dieting. I don't think any of us can be forced into changing our eating habits unless we want to. The cold front that's hitting parts of both countries sounds brutal -- hope you (and everyone else that's impacted) get through today and welcome the predicted warm up.

Porthardygurl -- Getting your sleep patterns messed up is both exhausting and irritating. Your swimming work out exhausted me just reading about it. I did chuckle about your snacking with the avocado and the celery -- getting through the grocery store and getting home without a bunch of stuff I shouldn't eat is always a challenge for me.

Fi -- So glad to hear that you and Bob are back to being happy with each other. Hope that depression rage goes away -- glad you recognize it for what it is and were able to direct it onto things that wouldn't be hurt (emotionally).

Sam -- Feel better. And good for you for getting weight off this week and being happy about it.

Calda -- Hope that going back to work and the weigh in both turn out to be better than expected. Work was always a source of both great satisfaction and great frustration -- never seemed to be anything in the middle.

I had planned on going up to look at houses and towns again today, but it's raining and icky out. So, I'm going to hang a painting that I got for Christmas downstairs, walk on my treadmill, and put together the metal shelving to have plant racks for starts. My seeds are due any day, and I need to get the tomatoes started so they'll be big enough by planting time. Then, of course, I need to work on the never ending photo album project. I'm making a meat loaf for supper tonight and soup for lunch.

I made a brussels sprouts salad that I saw on Cook's Country earlier in the week. I was shocked when I did the calorie count until I realized that the recipe says it will serve 8, but that at 1/2 cup each time, it's will serve more like 16. Not too bad on calories that way and it's delicious!

Guess I'd better get it in gear. Toby needs to have his training as well, and I need to get some of these projects out of the way. Hope everyone has a great day.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone. I'm sorry to see that some of you are having financial issues. I grew up in a family that was poor. I still never know what to say to anyone other than I hope that things end up getting better for you.

I've had an interesting day. We have a motorized reclining couch. A couple of years ago, my spouse bought me an iPad mini for my birthday. We declined the warranty, intending to get Apple Care instead. I forgot to get Apple Care. I let my kids play with the iPad mini. They left it on the couch. It got shoved between the motor and the couch. The couch was fine. The mini looked horrible. The glass was horribly cracked, and the case was bent. I thought for sure that it was broken beyond repair. We couldn't afford to replace it.

So, I'm cleaning out my room today. I don't know why I kept it. I decided to play with it. I was curious about what the inside looked like. I decided to hook the mini to my computer to make sure that I didn't have any photos on it, or anything important. I plugged it in to let it charge for a bit. To my amazement, it powered on. All the buttons work. The touch screen even works if you aren't scared of the glass. I backed it up, powered it off, and took it apart. I ordered a new digitizer(the glass on the front) to replace the screen. It was $10. If I can repair it, that would be cool. Nothing else seems to be broken, other than the case being dented. I can live with cosmetic issues. I'll see if it works once I get the digitizer. If it doesn't, I'm only out $10, and I saw the inside of an iPad Mini.

Oh, did 3 mile workout today. I rested yesterday. My legs were a bit sore.

Hey everyone,

Feeling mega down today. I only lost 200g last week and I had another visit from my doctor today, and she told me that my cholesterol has doubled in the last 12 months to 11.8. Feeling awful, I don't know what to do, or how to fix this. I have been put on medication for it, starting tomorrow, but other than that, I don't know what to think. Sorry to be a downer

Hi everyone.

Porthardygurl, I chuckled about the celery and cheeze whiz on the way home from the store. I usually make sure I eat something before I go so I'm not ravenous and fortunately my store is only 10 minutes away.

Fi, glad to hear that things are better between you and Bob. I hope the rage and depression lift for you soon. Hugs.

Betsy, brussels sprouts salad sounds delicious. So does meatloaf. I haven't made that for a while. Maybe later this week I will. Your mention of planting seeds got me thinking about Spring. I definitely need to plant some veggies this year.

Sam, I hope you're feeling better.

Tootsie, congrats on the three mile workout.

Caldawg, I hope the new medication works. And any weight loss is good weight loss, even a small amount. You're going in the right direction. Keep at it.

Well, I had an interesting Valentine's Day yesterday. I woke up to the apartment being 54 degrees. Normally I turn the thermostat down to 60 at night so I was surprised it was below that, but the temperature dropped below zero Saturday night so I thought maybe the furnace just couldn't keep up. Well, when I turned up the heat nothing happened. DH got up, checked fuses in the basement and whatever else men do when they "check things out". Nothing. So he called the landlord. I love that we have a landlord to call when things go wrong. I was a homeowner and I'm glad I'm not anymore. He came and "checked things out" too. He replaced one part and ran to Home Depot for another, which also was not the problem, so he called the expert. By now it's after 2 and still only 54 inside. We had planned to go out to dinner at 4 to avoid crowds, nothing fancy, but I hadn't taken a shower - we had hot water, but I would have froze when I got out - and so we're waiting for the guy. He finally showed up about 4 after finishing another job and going to the wrong house, and within 5 minutes determined it was a faulty thermostat and had installed a new one. It took another couple hours for the house to warm up but thankfully it finally did. I ended up making spaghetti for dinner, DH was happy. Pasta is his favorite and we shared a bottle of wine. We also split the little 4-piece box of candy he got for me. So it was kind of a cheat day for me, but it's ok. I have lots of good days. Today we're going out to dinner after we get the remote starter put in the car.

The temperature outside this morning is -6 but it's a balmy 70 in here. It's supposed to reach 30 today and improve throughout the week so all is good.

I hope you all have a great day.

Well hi everybody!
Mixed bag to report today! Fell off the wagon over the weekend. I don't think it was about Valentine's Day and being single or anything...I am free from the abusive marriage and that is fine by me!Luckily I didn't have much in the cupboards but I still managed to ingest many more calories that was good for me!
Then today I went swimming and did 32 lengths without problems but my knee now aches like mad! The building work has started on my house to help the mould problems and I have started on a new medication to help prevent the recurrent chest infections.....it is a beautiful day here...cold but bright sunshine...things are looking up.
Fi...I hope that the sun is coming out in your world?
Everybody else "hi there"
It is half term this week so I have my wonderful boy with me until he goes to his Dad's on Thursday!
Have a great day lovely chickens!

Cindy....brrrr! I know what you mean about the pressure of being a home owner.....sometimes I look at all the things that need doing in my house and wish it wasn't my responsibility to fix it all!! I hope you have warmth in your house now!
Take care!

Tootsie- Ylad to hear the ipad mini works. Expensive little things. Great job on the exercise!

Cald- Its okay to feel angry and upset but dont let it stop you from moving forward. My father used to have a terrible issue with cholesterol. His DR prescribed him a "low fat" diet. Well i am te researching type and read up a lot on diet plans and told him that a moderate fat healthy diet would be better for the cholesterol so he embarked on a Medeterrainian Diet and began exercise by leisurely walking every day and not inly managed to improve his weight, his cholesterol also dropped significantly and elhe got to reduce his meds. Every single dietician wants to put people on a high carb low fat diet based on the USDA economy. Unfortunately it rarely works. The typical North American Diet lacks greatly in what we need. Healthy fats are so important for the body.

Mountain-Get back on da wagon! ☺ Valentines and Easter Halloween and Christmas are like the major diet killers in the world. For me..i dont crave chocolate as much as i crave pastries and cookies ect..anything with gluten..so i avoid the bakery at all costs. I will not come close or walk through it at the store.

Cind- Brrr! I would be freezing!

Well Good Morning...sleepy morning.

Wide awake �� at 6:15 am again! Thankful it wasnt 5 am..but still.. Whats worse..im so awake these days that i cant even nap. Im not tired enough to nap anymore. Im going to hopefully go back to sleep if i can for a couple more hours before doing the daily weigh in and workout.
Headinf to the pool for laps today!

Yesterday was a good Valentines Day. My hubby suprised me by making a heart shape out of post it notes on our table and wrote somthing sweet on each. He also spent a coupke of hours making me a fake boquet of roses out of toilet paper. It was his gift to me since we dont have any $$ except for a few groceries. In return, i made him a full sugar full fat strawberry cheesecake mousse dessert. He loved it!

I survived Valentines Day quite well. My solution to any craving for chocolate is to keep a box of sugar free low carb chocolate bars in the freezer. I usually have one a day but yesterday was Valentines so i had 2. I still stayed in my carb and cals limit and also lost another .2 yesterday so i feel good about my losses again. I think it really helped to cut out those salted almonds..

Oh get this...me and dh had hotdogs and rutabega fries for dinner last night. Romantic hey? I skipped the bun and just had a dog dipped in.. CHEEZE WHIZ!!! I just introduced my hubby to that the other day and he cant believe how he missed out on his childhood lol.

I guess the only thing bugging me today is lack of TOM. Ever since i started this diet..its been waaay off. Totally out of sync. Wondering when it will show??

Good morning everyone. It's President's Day here in the USA, so as I look out the window, lots of cars in driveways that are normally long gone by this time.

Tootsie -- Love the story about your ipad mini -- hope the screen replacements works. Just getting to see the inside of the mini was cool. Great job on the 3 mile workout!

Calda -- Had to do the conversion, but that's almost half a pound lost. Yes, it would be much more exciting to have lost more, but loss is always something to celebrate. I'm not sure I did the cholesterol conversion correctly, but yow! Like Porthardygurl said, diets that use natural food fats help to lower our cholesterol. Now that I eat a lot less processed food, mine has dropped down well into the normal range for the first time in 20 years!

Cindy -- Bbbbbrrrrrr. Sounds like a good day to snuggle together to preserve the body heat. I'm glad that they were able to get it fixed during the day (even if it did take all day) as it would have been a very chilly night. Your dinner sounds wonderful.

Donna -- Yeah, that wagon probably saw a lot of falling people this weekend! I bet swimming 32 laps got rid of some of those calories. I'm so happy for you that you are getting things done at the house that will address the mold problem. I imagine once that's done coupled with the new meds that you'll hopefully have a significant improvement in your lung health. Enjoy the days off with Sam. Does he look forward to visiting his dad? What's the status on the sheep and the new lambs. I drove by a farm yesterday, and there were lots of adorable lambs out in the field with their mommas.

Porthardygurl -- Sometimes I think lack of money makes for some of the best gifts. Your hubby sounds like a sweet guy. I did chuckle over your dinner and using Cheez Whiz to dip your hot dogs in! Good memories were made yesterday.

For some reason I seem to be on a minor chore crusade right now. Over the weekend I fixed the wobbly legs on the piano bench, installed new stainless switch plates in the kitchen (that one's been on the list for 10 years), tightened the handle on the dishwasher, tighened a towel bar in my bathroom, hung a painting I received as a Christmas present, and put together a metal shelving rack to use for growing plant starts. Oh yeah, and I vacuumed and freshened the bathrooms. Now if I could just direct some of that energy towards getting these photo albums finished up!

Eating wise was a mixed bag. I only lost half a pound this week, but considering my ups and down on food intake, I'm thrilled. I've got to find something sweet and something salty that I can snack on instead of joining Donna in falling off the wagon (and then having it run over me!).

Off to the gym. It's only open half day today because of the holiday so I need to get it in gear. Hope everyone has a great day.