Good morning! It's 3 degrees here and it's going to take another mug of coffee to convince me that the gym is a fabulous idea.

The first thing I thought of this morning was: how is Anne and how is Lily? If either of you can check in, we're worried about you!

How is everyone else this morning? It's Valentine's week -- any plans? My honey is going to be out of town on business, so I'll just have to slip a card into his suitcase before he leaves.

OK, I think the coffee has kicked in, so off I go!

Morning! I'm having another mug of coffee trying to convince myself I should try to get to work. The only road around here that's open is the one between me and the hospital -drat- I'll have to see how DH feels about getting up and driving in the snow.

Morning/afternoon everyone! Today the east of France is covered in... a very sunny weather, which means "let's bike to Kehl this afternoon in between homework and homework to see if I can find whey protein powder at low price".

Lily and Anne -- I'll second Meg, and I hope you two are getting better!

I don't have any Valentine plans, unless some secret Prince Charming suddenly jumps out of the wardrobe, but somehow I have the feeling that I'd be totally able to tell him "come back in two years, I have a competitive exam to prepare first and can't tackle a relationship now!". But I guess I can be my own valentine and treat myself to homemade sushi, or mackerel with sake, or whatever nice recipe I can think of.

...And with that, the fish in my saucepan has just exploded, so I think I'll go on watching over my cooking instead of posting... Argh!

Good morning Maintainers! It's a balmy 9 degrees on the eastern side of Pennsylvania. I dashed of the elliptical dripping wet to run out for the newspaper this morning and came back in with a thin crackle of ice in my hair :fright:

Lily and Anne- how are you? I don't post much but I read daily!

No Valentines plans here either except sending cards and staying away from chocolate! I'm hanging onto maintenance by my fingernails and don't need that added problem!

Stay warm,
Mel

Hello all! After my run-by post last week I never got a chance to check back in. Thank you for the warm welcome!

Well, my first week of living maintenance went as well as it could, considering that I flew about 7,000 miles and arrived back in the States with all of the resulting temptations. I've stayed on my own little concoction of a plan (which allows for one serving of my grandmother's cooking when we visit her house) and have kept up with my running since we got back, so I am happy. We'll see whether the scale agrees with me on Thursday or not; my clothes have been telling me that my plan is successful.

I hope all of you chilly gals made it to work and the gym, and that Kery got in a nice bike ride!

My Valentine's will be lonely as Tom is still in Korea, but he'll be leaving in less than a month so that's present enough for me! Gotta take what you can!

I will do my best to make it back more frequently this week!

Kara

Hi maintainers,

Hi kara, good for you that you stayed OP

Anne - I am thinking of you & I hope your stone is passing

Lily - I hope your hand is Ok

Kery - for once holland is sharing in the great weather!

not much news here,
Have a great week,
Rabbit

Good morning!

My weight loss was short lived...I'm back up to 145 this morning, but I'm hoping that is also short lived!!

Lily~I hope your hand is better
Anne~I hope you pass that stone before lunch today. No need to be in pain!
Baffled~best of luck on quitting smoking. I've been there, done that, and it is hard. I think it actually took me a good 10 years or more before I stopped having cravings. Yuck.

Oh, and it's a balmy 49 right now and is expected to be 78 later. Now that's what desert living is all about!!

Okay, so I went to Germany and grabbed what I hope was close enough to whey protein powder. I say "I hope", because it's all written in German and I can only understand a few words. For 100g (about 3.5 oz.), it says protein=14g, carbs=68g and fat=2.5g. I have absolutely NO idea if this ratio is correct. And the word "molke" was on the box, which is "whey", if the online dictionary I used was correct. Does this sound like it could be an appropriate product to supplement for those days I can't buy enough fish/meat/etc.?

...Gee, this stuff is more complex than I thought. ^_^;

Kery, that's an awful lot of carbs in relation to the protein. I wonder if it's loaded with sugar, by chance? Do you know the German word for sugar - can you check the ingredients?

Also, it adds up to about 350 calories per serving, if those numbers are correct. That's fairly high for a protein powder serving.

I use a protein shake mix that's 35 grams of protein, 6 grams carbs, and 6 grams carbs, for 230 calories. It's artificially sweetened, though, and some people don't want that. Usually the carbs in protein powder/shake mix are from added sugar.

Hello Everyone,
My first day trying the calorie tapering method I read about in Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle.
Need to get this fat % down.
Did my elliptical this morning. Temperatrue is in the single digits here also.
Will do weights this afternoon.
Everyone have a great Monday.

Hi everyone and thanks. My hand is feeling much better and I can use it now without pain so I don't think it could possibly be broke. I'm still having problems with nightmares. I think they are due to the stress that I've been under.

I made it to the gym yesterday and did my cardio and LBWO. I guess today I'll just do my cardio and give my hand more time to heal. I had wanted to take the dogs to the park and walk my 3 miles outside today but it's way too cold.

My eating was off plan last night. Me and the girls ate dinner out after leaving the gym. Not smart cause I'm starved after exercising. Anyway I ordered a grilled chicken salad and a baked potato (which I normally get grilled veggies with my salad). The potato was huge and I loaded it with low-fat butter and low-fat sour cream. I ate every bite of it. Then I was too full for my salad and brought it home with me. Later last night I felt hungry again and devoured the salad too.

My Valentines Day will be spent taking Lacy to her Gastroenterologist in OK City. If we get home early enough , the Karaoke club we go to is having their annual anti-valentines day party. Everyone writes a poem about one of their exes. The best poem written by a girl wins $50.00 and the best poem written by a man wins a blow-up doll. LOL. I hope we get to go cause if DH doesn't start helping more with painting this house , he's gonna need that doll. LOL. I wrote my poem last night and it's great and I'm sure I can take the $50.00 prize. It's about my XH, Rob, who turned out to prefer men. I can't print it here cause I'd be kicked off 3FC's forever. LOL.

Anne, I hope your stone passes quickly and your pain resolves. I can't imagine how hard that would be with being pregnant.

Gee, Allison, you're mean! I wasn't going to say anything about how it's 66 degrees here in NoFlo.........

Anne, ow. I'm sorry you're in so much pain and I hope your stone passes soon.

And Lily, ouch, I hope your hand continues to improve and your nightmares also go away.

Kara, glad to hear that your pants-o-meter is cooperating during your move. Could you and your husband just "postpone" Valentine's and celebrate next month? My BF and I always have to "move" our anniversary and are "moving" Valentine's this year too, b/c I have a friend coming to town Thursday from Boston.

I had a run-in with some beer Friday after a stressful day at work. Oh, and the tortilla chips. And fig newtons. And the peanut butter. Drat, I was doing so well with peanut butter. The simple carb munchies have been out of control all weekend. I'm trying to drag myself back OP today. Besides being frustrating due to the out of control eating, it's also frustrating b/c I'm really trying to figure out if my BC pill is making me retain pounds of water as I suspect. But if I eat off plan one week, and then weigh more, I can't tell if it's water retention from the pill, from sodium from off-plan food, or from genuine weight gain. Maybe I'm just deluding myself into blaming the pill. sigh.

Hi everyone!

Lily - glad your hand is feeling better.

Anne - I hope the kidney stone has passed, do let us know how you're doing!

Megan - Beer can make you retain a lot of water, and tortilla chips are loaded with salt. Maybe it's just that? I know I always hit my high weight for the week Monday morning and my low weight either Friday or Saturday. (Sunday this week - I was 139.8 Sunday morning and I'm 141.4 today!)

We have V-day plans except we always postpone our celebration until the nearest weekend. Going out on weeknights just makes us exhausted! So we are going to the symphony Saturday evening and then to dinner at a nice Italian restaurant. I do have a present for DH to give him on Thursday -- beer and steel-cut oats! I was trying to keep it a secret but the oats got spilled (ha ha) when we were at the grocery last weekend and he wanted to buy some, and I told him he shouldn't because he'd be getting some in a few days!

Speaking of nightmares, I had a bizarre one last night. At one point during my dream, I was trying to escape from a bunch of sharks by climbing to the top of an island made entirely out of rotisserie chickens. I was terrified because the chickens were all slippery from all the fat and I was trying not to slide back down into the water with the sharks! Later in the dream I was at DH's office in the middle of the night waiting for him in the lobby, and I had locked myself in because I was afraid people were going to attack me, and while I was frantically calling DH on the cell phone (when I finally reached him and asked where he was, he said "Going for a walk," and that it was none of my business!), Britney Spears showed up looking really sad outside the door, along with my cousin, and started trying to get me to let her in, but I was afraid she was going to kill me.

Lily -- Glad to see that it's not broken, and is getting better.

Meg -- Silly me, I KNEW I should've checked the sugar. Yeah, uh... it's quite high. Well, poop. I'll be more careful next time, and will check for numbers such as the ones you gave in your post. The store carries several other brands (more expensive, though), I still have a chance of finding something decent. In the meantime, maybe my friends will get lots of chocolate-flavoured "protein" drinks? (Kidding, of course. I'm not going to make them my trashcan.)

Jessica Holy Moley what did you eat before that dream. I was giggling reading it,though I know when you are dreaming it it's terrifying.

Anne I hope you're feeling much better today.

Lily Glad the hand isn't broken.

Baffled Good luck on the smoking front.

As for those of you with lovely weather all I can say is

Tomorrow is my weigh in. Not sure how I'll feel. I've been on plan except for my planned Sunday splurge. I guess we'll see.