It's the buildup to Easter and the jelly beans are stacked high in the stores. It's amazing that I'm fully aware that Easter candy will be at half price next Monday, even though I think I'm not into that anymore. Old habits die hard.

Took a pleasantly warm stroll to a Mexican Restaurant with DW last night. Was able to eat moderately by ordering Mexican Cactus - first I'd ever heard of that. It was tasty, mainly because it was sauteed with a bunch of mushrooms, fresh tomatoes, and other veggies.

The dog sit is going well. I am getting a little bored and restless. I can't do anything here without taking the puppy with me (so I don't get it done anyway) or I have to put him in his crate (which isn't fair to him if I'm here).

Thre real upside on the weekend was that, whenever I felt like turning to food, I took the dogs for a walk! I am maintaining my red line weight (their scale seems to agree with mine) and I'm happy with that.

I'm pretty sure I'll get adult dogs when I retire.

Easter has always been about colouring eggs and eating ham for me. That's what I'll be doing this weekend. DH will probably want some chocolate so he's welcome to get some for himself.

I think he's on the verge of a big self-discovery. He's starting to realize that, if he fuels his body with garbage, his body will now react against it quite violently. Now if we could get his brain on board!

Gotta go rescue a stuffie getting ripped apart!

Dagmar

My Easter plans are to golf in the morning. Since the kids are older, they don't do egg hunts or color eggs any longer and since we aren't particularly religious we don't celebrate or go to church. It ends up being just another day, which isn't a bad thing (IMO).

I had a nice weekend. DD came home late Friday but got up early Saturday and talked to us quite a bit before we left for golf. She and I did some shopping in the afternoon. Sunday the in-laws came over as usual (after our game of golf) and we had a nice afternoon. I fixed London broil for dinner along with a butternut squash risotto and salad. Tonight for dinner we'll have steak salad and tomorrow we'll have grilled chicken and risotto. Leftover heaven!

DH has to drive to Orange County today to lay out a job there so it'll be very quiet in the office. Quiet usually means boring. I may take a book to read!

Everyone have a great Monday!

I just saw a pretty wonderful play yesterday afternoon -- Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia," with Billy Crudup, and also Meryl Streep's younger daughter, not Mamie, but an even younger one, Grace. It reminded me just a bit of A.S. Byatt's novel "Possession," since it alternated between a pair of researchers delving through an English country house in the present day & the inhabitants of the same place in 1809.

This has given me a fever to see plays this spring. I can think of at least four others I want to see: "Good People," "House of Blue Leaves" and "The Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo" and "Vera Stark."

But instead of course I'm at the office, after a fast commute because of so many schools being off this week & so many women in this area staying home today cooking madly for their seders for Passover tonight.

I, too, will be off work next week as I'm heading Upstate to pay my mother a visit. Easter is a time of ghosts for me. The quintessential Easter used to involve buying a nice spring pastel outfit & me having dinner at my grandmother's, with a ham, kielbasa, halupki & a butter lamb on the table. Oh, and a big wedge of buttery raisin-studded paska, and poppyseed roll. There would be potted flowers on the table & on the side tables, hyacinths & tulips & daffodils, which would eventually be taken to the cemetery. Oh, and palm leaves, and pnssywillow branches from the Russian Orthodox side of the family. And my aunt would be showing off some of the eggs she had decorated, the Ukrainian kind, very intricate, which you keep in a curio cabinet for the rest of the year.

It's not the food I miss, it's the warmth & squabbling of family. Half the people who'd be seated around the table passing plates are now dead; my grandmother's house is sold; even the Depression glass jade dishes went in a yard sale. So I'm feeling kind of unmoored about Easter.

Good morning everyone.

Easter this week---wow-- even though it is late this year, I feel like it is sneaking up on me.

Dd will be home for the weekend (Friday-- Monday). Any ideas (non food related) that would be cute for Easter presents (small)? I have a 20 y/o and a 16 y/o dd. I was thinking cute socks or undergarments but what else? Starbucks or itunes cards are always appreciated.

We will go to church on Easter. Our twice a year pilgrimage to keep dh (Catholic) happy. We go with his parents when we visit them too. Since it is Pesach (Passover) this week, we should be doing something for that too but we have no plans. I think dd will cook this weekend and it will be Passover related.

This weekend was so-so. Saturday the weather was beautiful and I went to boot camp (haven't been in several weeks). Did way too much and am way too sore now. Bad sore.... It was so pretty that I talked dh into walking 4 miles each way to his fave lunchtime place. Got sunburned... Weight was good on Saturday (126).

Sunday I was sore and tired and went to work but never made it to exercise. I took a nap instead and had to drive dd and (new) boyfriend to Men's Warehouse to do Prom stuff her her Junior Prom that is coming up.

My legs have been strangely sore and achy (I know I mentioned last week). I really think it is because I stopped the bananas cold turkey. I'm trying to add potassium rich foods and they do seem somewhat better but are still bothersome.

Scale rudely went back to 130 this morning. Sigh.... hope that it is a lot of water retention from sore muscles. I ate healthy this weekend-- but my portions were too big. Back to basics AGAIN.....

Hi all! Coincidence of easter during passover means I have more willpower to resist easter candy. I love cadbury eggs, but HFCS is not kosher for passover!

Saef, your old family easter sounds lovely. I know that my family holidays were never quite the same after my grandmother passed away. We try to keep up the traditions though.

Dagmar, definitely adult dogs! We were very happy to adopt Carter as a 4 year old. The downside is that you can't desensitize him the way you would a puppy, so older dogs come with issues (like not letting you touch their feet). The upside is that he was fully house trained and not totally spastic like puppies are. Plus older dogs are harder to get adopted and are more likely to be euthanized in shelters just because they're a couple years old.

Michele, I love stuffed animals so my parents would always give me some kind of cute stuffed animal (like the little stuffed chicks or bunnies they sell at CVS).

Hi Allison and Bill!

Hello. I am sort of starting to think of myself as in "maintenance." Not to maintain my weight....but maintain my way of eating! I don't have a specific weight goal but i hope if i maintain this way of eating (but, making changes when i see the need), my weight will go down. Right now i'm at 149 and would like to go down at least a few more pounds, but if i maintain here, i'd be ok with that.

Currently i'm on 2000 calories a day and it seems to be working for me. But, it is quite a deficit because i'm pretty active and guesstimate that i burn roughly 2800 calories on an average day. So at some point i'm going to start adding cheat days/and or cycling my calories. Here is my idea, which is subject to change: base plan is 2000 a day. Plus additional 1500 calories a week, which will normally consist of 3 higher calorie days of 2500 calories a day; but, if the situation calls for it, it could be one day of 3000 calories and one day of 2500 calories, and the rest at 2000 calories a day. Averaged out, i'll be at a small deficit over the course of the week, and i believe in calorie cycling, so i think it will work.

Anyway...just kind of thinking aloud here. My immediate goal is just to make it through 30 days of 2000 calories a day. I'm on day 24!

Welcome surfergirl2! Your plan sounds good to me.

Ah, Easter... I love Easter candy, and have finally convinced my mom to stop making me a huge basket in recent years. Though I'm sure that I'll come back with a gallon ziploc bag of stuff. It is easier now because she can get out her basket fix making one for DSS, so doesn't feel obligated to make me one. I'm non-religious myself, but I do enjoy the gathering of family. It is also the only holiday that we typical have DSS on the day of and are able to get him to my grandmother's, which is nice.

Busy weekend for me - went downtown for Record Store Day on Saturday, went to the Renaissance Festival on Sunday. Busy on Friday - I did get the old ceiling fan down in DSS's room and hung the new one and got five loads of laundry done, felt good about that. My weight had come down to 131 on Friday, back up to 134 today. My biggest hindrance to maintenance is myself. I have to either break that pattern or decide to live with it.

Good day everyone!

Got lost in a big, big jar of PB last night (my client is a vegetarian and she has the extra, extra large size PB). I'd forgotten how addictive that stuff is (and why it's banned from our house). Big, big sugar hangover this morning.

Back OP today and trying to stay that way through what is going to be a crazy, crazy week. I'm now hoping to have a couple of hours off on Sunday to just sit and breathe. Everything else is now booked up and DH is trying to get out of doing the grocery shopping on Thursday. If he doesn't do it we don't have food on Friday (the holiday so everything's closed). End of story.

Is it Friday yet?

Dagmar

Passover is over. I can feel it. This morning, when I walked to the gym at 6 AM, I nearly stepped on a lime candy fruit slice that was lying on our front sidewalk. Someone dropped it, maybe after leaving a seder at grandma's. (Did I mention there are a lot of older women living alone & retired couples in my apartment complex. I'm considered a mere child among them.)

Am I the only one who hates seeing candy lying on the ground? I see it a lot in my neighborhood because the sidewalks are heavily used & there is a small NY State lottery-ticket-selling store that also sells candy about a block away from me. It really really bothers me. I actually have an animal-like impulse to pick it up & eat it. Thank goodness I am civilized & would not do this. But it's strong & it must have to do with all the things that I no longer let myself eat.

Anyway, because of my level of breeding & restraint, there's still a candy lime slice lying on the sidewalk in front of my building.

Great visual Saef of the candy-- I can just see it and your whole neighborhood in fact. My grandmother lived in Philadelphia in apartments that sound like what you are mentioning and I had a great uncle that lived in Brooklyn his whole life. I can picture it all vividly.

Question for those of you that calorie count--

Can my diet be too low in fat? I've only been tracking for less than a week but my fat intake is about 20 grams a day-- some days a little higher and some a little lower. My calories are low (about 1200 ish) but everything else is in "normal" range-- protein, carbs, fiber, etc. I think this is where it has been for a long time but I've just never tracked it before.

Michele - I just read back and saw your comment about the bananas and your legs being sore. I cut back on bananas as well, and have noticed my legs more sore the last two weeks, too. Hm. On the fat question - mine ranges from 20-40 most days. Yesterday my calorie count was 1816, fat was 40 - this was a 19%. I target 40/30/30 carbs/protein/fat, but most days my I tend to come in an 60/20/20. Some days I eat very little fat, some days I eat more.

Saef - I love the candy visual.

Dagmar - step away from the peanut butter! And make DH get up and grocery shop honey!

Michele~personally I wouldn't be too worried about a fat count of 20 grams UNLESS that comes from poor sources (which I'm sure you are not doing due to the low calories overall). If you feel you need to increase the fat grams, be sure to get it from good sources (avocados, nuts, etc. and not butter!).

HAHA peanut butter! Last week, on two occasions, I had two crackers, each with about 1 tablespoon of peanut butter. Yummy and I was amazed at how satisfied I was! I've been rethinking my snacking. I should bring the jar to work and keep a few crackers around for snacks (to keep me out of the chocolate candy!).

Michele, I average about 20% of my calories from fat like Shannon which works out to about 36g for 1550 cals. Since I only really count when I'm trying to lose, I don't have the numbers for my more typical calorie intake (about 1800) but it's the same proportions. I sometimes worry that I don't get enough fat too so I've started using more olive oil when I cook instead of cooking spray.

Peanut Butter ! I can't keep it in the house. Once a jar is opened I dive right in with a spoon, forget the crackers ! No peanut butter is allowed in this house. I have no self control when it comes to peanut butter.