I'm going to try to get myself back on my standard eating schedule. While this whole "forget to eat, then overeat from emotional angst" thing only caused a small amount of scale creep (most of which I'm pretty sure is water), I don't like how I feel when I don't eat the right foods. My exercise has stayed fairly good, though, which I'm proud of.

B - Alternative bagel, 1/3 cup scrambled egg beaters
S - 2 c watermelon
L - Alternative Bagel, small can tuna, light cheddar cheese tuna melt
S - Greek yogurt w/ SF syrup
S - Popcorn
D - Whole wheat penne with 96% lean ground beef, roasted peppers, zucchini, onion, and eggplant, and tomato sauce, with a sprinkle of parmesan
S - NSA Ice Cream w/ light cool whip and NSA hot fudge (just a little bit, but my, it is so good).

Exercise - 60 min strength training, 55 min elliptical, and hopefully some yoga.

The rest of the week - I'm home tomorrow so it'll be on plan, then I fly to LA (yes, BACK to LA) for a work meeting and event. We'll be home on Sunday, this time with no immediate travel plans.

I am pretty excited because on Sunday the scale dropped to 114 lbs. Weeks of no movement at all, then down to 116 last week and 114 this week. : That is two lbs below my pre-Chicago weight and four lbs below my red line, which puts me squarely in my maintenance range.

I plan on keeping my calories low this week, just to make sure it sticks. Since my meals were planned before my weigh in I figure I might as well. I also have a couple of off-plan meals and keeping my calories low will make up for them. Then next week I will start working my calories back up to maintenance.

The weekend was POP. Came in right on target on Saturday and about 100 calories low yesterday. I was a cooking fiend--yesterday I cooked so much I didn't have time to eat my afternoon snack. But now I have dinner made for the entire week and lunch through Thursday.

My weight is a roller coaster right now. I have one day each week where I weigh in around 135.2 or so, and the other days are all over the place. Today I weighed in at 138. I need more exercise and I need to quit eating so much junk. Somehow my motivation has disappeared. I bet it's related to not getting enough exercise!

In any case I made an attempt at jogging last Thursday, felt pretty good afterwards but gave my knees a couple days to recover. Sunday I was feeling good and went for a short bike ride. By Sunday night my knees were screaming and I needed to use a hot pack, and today they're a little better but still not very good. :sigh: I must be the only person in the world who has more knee pain from biking than from running.

At least my upper body workouts are on track and going well. These are the ones my occupational therapist gave me for continuing to improve at home, and they sure seem to be working! This week is my last week of the 2-lb weight, then next week I'll be starting the 3-lb. Some of the lifters on here are probably laughing at me struggling to do 12 overhead presses with a 2-lb weight!

Today's plan:
B - oatmeal squares, milk
S - banana
L - two stuffed cabbage rolls
S - small peach, apple
D - probably either leftovers or pasta with some kind of veggie, not sure yet
Exercise - 20 min walk with dog, UBWO 2lb/12rep.

Jessica - where is your seat adjusted to on the bike? If it's too low, you'll strain your knees a LOT on a bike...

Ah, I need to be back to "normal" eating too. I made a super veg/salad last night with summer squash from July's Cooking Light. I posted it in the recipe section. When I make it again, I'll cut the oil even more, as it really doesn't need as much as they have.

Today looks like this.....

B - cheerios with 1% milk, fresh strawberries , toast,
S - whoops, sitting on the kitchen counter... Better zip over to the store
L - turkey sandwich on whole wheat
S - see morning snack
D - leftover scallops, summer squash salad, pasta

Barbara, congrats on the scale dropping 2 lbs!

Amanda, how are you, Sarah, and her family coping with her grandfather's passing? I certainly understand how unexpected travel can throw off your healthy habits.

Jessica, it sounds like you're making good progress with your exercises. That's great!

Ok, here's the deal. At the start of Jan. 2008 I weighed 153 and I had to buy pants big enough to fit me - nothing in the closet fit. After sorting out some hormonal issues w/ my BC pill and switching around my lifting routine, the weight finally started to come off and I got to 143-44. But the last 2 months I've lost food discipline and the scale is going nowhere. I've definitely increased my muscle mass, which is good, but my smallest pants still don't fit.

So I am recommitting, which means NO EXCUSES. I'm not going through another year, another fall/winter of holidays, being already over the red line. And my birthday is past, so I don't have cake looming ahead of me. It was really good cake though.

Here are my goals this week:
1. Get enough sleep each night. I can't even tell you how key this is to my eliminating emotional/boredom/tired eating, especially right now in the heat of summer. The heat really wipes me out.
2. Eat clean. This is key. Workouts have been good, but food is where I'm falling down.
3. Work out every day. Even Sunday (get up early to get in exercise before it gets too hot!) I believe in rest days, but believe me, I had a few last week, and if I can get through this week, I'll take some next week.
4. Finish NRLW - I have 2 (or 3?) workouts left.
5. Figure out what I'm going to do after I finish NRLW! This will mean going through a bunch of Oxygen magazines and building myself a weightlifting workout.

If anyone has an input or motivational ideas, I'm always open. Thanks for listening to me think this through. I'm writing my goals in my day planner, too.

Today's plan:
B - protein pancake, 1 T Mom's apple butter, 1 c. sk milk, coffee w/ 1 T. h&h
S - sm banana
L - TamXico whole wheat tortilla, 3 oz. tuna, 1/2 T. light mayo, carrots & cucumber
S - 6 oz. lf yogurt, 1 c. diced pineapple, 1 oz. raw almonds
gym - NRLW workout and as much cardio as I can get it around my theater meeting
post-gym/theater meeting snack - I forgot my main course, meant to bring my whole dinner! I brought a large salad w/ lt. dressing and keep some hm protein muffins in the freezer at work.
dinner - I've got some healthy things prepped in the freezer - prob. turkey meatloaf
That's just under 1500 calories. I'll allow another 150 clean cals if I'm truly hungry. Otherwise, tea and early bedtime.

Thanks for putting up with my long post today!

Megan - we're doing OK. Sarah and her grandpa were really close, and we have the house drama going on as well, so we basically just shut down completely and held on. But we're still holding on and that's about all I'd ask of us at this point, so there you have it.

Your goals look great...you can do this!

After a couple of horrendous days, I'm back. The house is cleaned out of junk food (I ate is all...had some help, but I got the lion's share ), the sinus infection is gone, so currently I have NO EXCUSES!

Barbara- you sound so organized! And you must be absolutely tiny.

Megan- Congratulations for being almost done NROLW

Jessica- No one is going to laugh at your weights...chronic pain makes everything tough.

I've spend most of this evening cooking chicken breasts and chopping vegies. Bring on the week!

Mel

See how our minds work? I read "cooking chicken breasts" and my mind immediately said "cookies?" YUM.

Today came in pretty much on plan. A little over, but not anything significant. Here's how it worked out:

B: FF plain Greek Yogurt, High Fiber Cereal, raspberries
S: Decaf coffee with FF half and half and SF Torani
L: Chicken baked with peaches, eggplant, and leeks; pickles, pickled asparagus, marinated mushrooms, 1 tortilla chip
S: Hot oat bran with cardamom, FF cream cheese, cinnamon, and SF Torani
S: Apricot, 1/2 wrap with smoked trout from a can, Fiber One Muffin with FF cream cheese
S: Still hungry so 1/2 cup Fiber One cereal
D: Tex-Mex Pork with Hominy, green salad
S: New recipe I invented--polenta sweetened with splenda and baked with pumpkin puree, cinnamon, vanilla, and nutmeg. Topped it with sweetened FF Greek yogurt and a Strawberry-Rhubarb sauce. 5 chocolate covered espresso beans.

Came in at around 1500 calories, maybe a little less. I can't quite figure out the calories in the trout.

Exercise was with my trainer. No more agility drills this week; we are lifting heavy instead. I'm not sure whether I should be happy, sad, or scared.

Amanda: Sorry you are going through such a tough time now. It sounds like you are managing the best that you can.

Mel: Thanks! I wanted to get as much of the week's cooking done as possible so that I could clean the kitchen floor on Sunday night and maybe have it actually stay clean for a few days. I'm a dropper when I cook, so the floor gets disgusting pretty fast. I don't know about tiny, but I am pretty happy with how I look these days.

Megan: In terms of eating, what really helps me is to decide on a period of time where I'm going to eat on plan regardless of what happens with the scale. For example, I might decide that I'm going to eat 1400 calories per day for the next two months. Then in two months, I evaluate my progress to see what happens. I still weigh every day, but somehow having that end date helps me to stay on plan (even though nothing really changes on the end date). It's silly but I also sometimes give the plan a name, the most recent one was "Operation Two Pounds" because that's what I was trying to lose. I don't have any suggestions on motivation to exercise--I just pay someone else to motivate me . I figure, whatever works...

WaterRat: That squash dish sounds really good; I'm definitely going to have to try it. Good to know about the oil.

paperclippy: How disappointing that your knee couldn't take the bicycling. I have an overuse injury in my right knee that has been really slow to heal, so have a idea of how frustrating it is to not be able to do everything that you want to do. Your knee problems also sound far more painful than mine.

LOL Barbara, I think I would die if I committed to 1400 cals/day for two months. I could probably commit to 1500/day on weekdays for two months, but my weekends are always screwed up and impossible to count cals for anyway.

Mel - thanks! I just feel like such a weakling so much of the time. I am actually really proud of myself for being able to get a full gallon of milk out of the fridge and pour it on my cereal all with one hand! I am a little sore today from those 12 reps with the 2lb weight last night but I'm excited to bump up to 3lbs next week.

My knees are feeling much better today. Phew! Amanda, I will check the height of my seat, thanks for the tip! I noticed it was wobbling a little bit the other day so it might have gotten loose and slipped down.

Yesterday was pretty much OP. I did not snack at work! At home I had one slice of bread and two helpings of dinner, but I avoided the wine and desserts. Goal for today is to only have one serving of dinner in addition to not snacking at work (snacking on things other than my planned snacks, I mean).

Today:
B - homemade raisin bran, milk
S - banana
L - two stuffed cabbage rolls
S - apple, yogurt with a little cereal
D - thai basil chicken, rice, broccoli shoots
Exercise - 20 min wog with the dog (hee hee)

Barbara, I think I would also die if I ate 1400 cal a day for 2 months - I would be starving! But 1600 cal I might be able to do. I have considered trying another month of "Plan NANS: No Alcohol No Sweets", which worked well this spring. I agree that if I stick to a plan with a finite goal, it helps me to make it through.

Amanda, for you and Sarah.

Yesterday was POP food-wise. I added an apple for a total of 1560 cals for the day. The gym was crowded, and the free weights section was especially full, but I got in there anyway, as well as did some medium intensity cardio.

Today's plan:
B - protein pancake, 1 T Mom's apple butter, 1 c. sk milk, coffee w/ 1 T. h&h
S - sm banana
L - TamXico whole wheat tortilla, 3 oz. tuna, 1/2 T. light mayo, carrots & celery
S - 6 oz. lf yogurt, 1 c. diced pineapple, 1 oz. raw sunflower seeds
gym - running day
post-gym snack - 1 oz. string cheese?
dinner - eating w/ bf's family who are in town on vacation. We're having fish if they can catch some today. I'll call BF to scope it out ahead of time. There will be about 15 people there so if I eat at home and not with everyone, no one will notice, too.
Goal: 1500 cals. Tea and early bedtime if necessary.


Did someone say cookies?

Pat that zucchini dish sounds yummy. I will DEFINITELY be trying it.

Megan, I agree having DEFINITE NO'S are a big help. Takes the decision right off the table.

Amanda, just keep holding on. Keep holding on.

Barbara, you AMAZE me. You have incredible discipline.

As for me, I wasn't even going to bother posting here this week. I pretty much know how my week will look. POP all week and then the weekend will come. LAME excuse. I am going away yet again this weekend and I will NOT be POP, I can tell you that right now.

Anyway..........

MONDAY - POP
TUESDAY POP

Have a fantastic day everyone.

Robin, at least you're being POP during the weeks, to balance your weekends, you know? This is all supposed to be about balance, right? (I'm telling myself this, too ). I agree, Barbara is incredibly disciplined! I can't recall one time I've heard her say "well I fell off plan..."

Yesterday was... let's say, OP, but not POP. Some friends were shipped a huge box of Maine lobsters but weren't cooking until late, but as I LOVE lobsters and only get them once a year, I couldn't turn it down. I ate a huge salad with a little feta and vinagrette to tide me over, and steamed lobster (with butter ) at 10:00 PM. Calories for the day: 1860. I WILL stay at 1500 today to balance it out.

Today's plan:
B - 1 c. Kashi Honey Sunshine cereal, 1 c. sk milk, coffee
S - 1 c. diced pinapple
L - 1 slice Arnold Healthy Grain Bread, egg salad (1 whole egg+ 2 egg whites, 1/2 T. light mayo, mustard), 1 c. celery & 1 c. carrots
S - small apple, 6 oz. lowfat yogurt, 1 oz. raw sunflower seeds
gym - 30 min. elliptical, NRLW workout, 20 min. stairmaster
post-gym snack - homemade protein muffin
dinner - Since we skipped dinner w/ the family for lobster last night, possibly eating w/ bf's family who are in town on vacation. I'll (still) call BF to scope the menu out ahead of time. Will volunteer to bring a big salad or eat one beforehand if needed. I have about 400 cals for dinner.
Goal: 1500 cals. Early bedtime.

Well, eating was good yesterday, but exercise didn't happen yet again. My knees, which had felt fine all day, decided that 4:30pm was the perfect time to start acting up, and so instead of going for a powerwalk when I got home I laid on the couch with ice packs. :sigh: Fingers crossed that I'll be up for it tonight. At least I'll get my UBWO done tonight if nothing else.

Today's plan:
B - oatmeal squares, milk
S - banana
L - leftover thai basil chicken w/rice and/or spaghetti carbonara (we have teeny portions of each of them leftover!)
S - apple, oatmeal squares
D - probably pasta with beet greens.
Exercise - 30 min wog with dog (I hope), UBWO 2lbs/12reps