I Am The One Thing In Life I Can Control! Maintainers Fall and Winter Chat

You're on Page 30 of 36
Go to
  • Still 158 over here. I'm doing well with not snacking between meals, but this week I have not done well with exercise or with keeping my portion controlled at dinner. I'm not logging food this week because we got all screwed up and I didn't have food in the house that lends itself well to logging. However, we're back more or less on track with recipes, so I should be able to log more easily going forward.
  • Quote:
    Saef, I sometimes feel like your direct report -- overwhelmed with a task. But after a bit of panic, I focus on defining a subtask that will make progress and work on that. Rinse, repeat until done.
    Amen sister.

    Doing well here - still plugging away under my stricter guidelines, and so far it's not been too difficult.
  • Thursday morning at 162.3

    She's still angry with me, my direct report. I told her about a job opening under another manager due to someone's retirement, and said maybe she'd be interested. Now she says that she is, but she also sounds indecisive. She's 90% certain. This will leave me with having to hire and train a new person.

    That's looming, and the conversation with my manager about why the direct report should be able to move, but right now I'm feeling just slightly good because a project of stopping doing something/discontinuing a product is almost over. I've worked on this for years. Today we announced the discontinuance.
  • Friday morning at 162.9.

    Waking to find my manager's manger didn't like the internally published announcement about the discontinued product, rewrote it, and resubmitted it to be reposted today. Four people went over the draft and approved it, so I'm just exasperated and shaking my head.

    I have a difficult meeting today in which my manager will be sharp & critical over my direct report wanting to move to another team with a steadier workflow. It's a fault of the direct report's character, it's a fault of my character, etc., etc.

    Also I have an email to draft for this manager to pass along, objecting to the topics to be covered in a proposed meeting, which has to be delicately worded and won't be easy to write.

    I will be writing year-end reviews over the weekend as my project work has left me no time for management duties. I'll deliver them next week.
  • 156.6 today. Did a good job yesterday of no snacking, reasonable dinner portion. Good so far today. My office is freezing as half of the heaters aren't working, the ones that do work can't keep up with the cold outside, and it's too cold outside for repair technicians to fix it. I'm dressed in layers and armed with tea and a homemade heat pack (sock full of rice that can be microwaved). The good news is that drinking all this tea helps me avoid snacking.
  • I must be doing something right because I am down 2 pounds. I've consistently walked between 3.5 and 5 miles per day and I strive to eat well. I'm putting all my food in Cronometer and am coming in around 1400-1600 calories per day. I did stop the yoga as I think walking is better for me overall. Also, I've discovered Bai. It can't be bad at 5 calories per 18 ounces, right?
  • Alison, hooray for being down 2 pounds! I agree that walking is the best use of your exercise time compared to yoga.

    Jessica, sounds like you are doing well also. I don't understand why employers think you have to work when the environment they are responsible for providing is inadequate. They should send you home!!

    JayZeeJay, here is the Pepper report . (Might be TMI for most.) He has gained 6 ounces from his lowest weight and is having at least one good BM per day. We loaded him up on prednisolone (following vet's orders) for 6 days. Now he is back to taking it every other day but 1.5 ml instead of 1. I've still been giving him the Cerenia - Monday I'll try skipping it and see what happens. Overall Pepper seems much happier and more relaxed. He is content to sleep more. Two weeks ago he would get up very often and start crying for food but not want much. Now he's eating both canned and dry food, even without heating! I'm more optimistic than I was, but won't feel he's really turned the corner until I can discontinue the Cerenia.

    I wish everyone a good weekend with not too many food temptations. I am going to a Play Day at which we work on various gourd art projects and have a potluck lunch. I'd like my weight to be 2 pounds lower but it is not.
  • Quote: I must be doing something right because I am down 2 pounds. I've consistently walked between 3.5 and 5 miles per day and I strive to eat well. I'm putting all my food in Cronometer and am coming in around 1400-1600 calories per day. I did stop the yoga as I think walking is better for me overall. Also, I've discovered Bai. It can't be bad at 5 calories per 18 ounces, right?
    Is the Bai an energy drink? I looked it up but it's unclear exactly what their "secret superfruit" - coffeefruit - is.

    Dagmar
  • No, Bai isn't an energy drink. It's more like flavored water. Claims are that it has antioxidants. All I know is it tastes good and is a nice change of pace over plain water.
  • Quote: No, Bai isn't an energy drink. It's more like flavored water. Claims are that it has antioxidants. All I know is it tastes good and is a nice change of pace over plain water.
    Did some more googling. https://greeneyedguide.com/2016/02/1...dant-infusion/

    Fairly low levels of caffeine and the "coffee superfruit" is the fruit around the coffee bean. I guess this used to be discarded and now they've found a use for it.

    Not available in Canada anyway. SIGH.

    Dagmar
  • Saturday morning at 161.1.

    Something good happened yesterday. The insurance company for the driver who hit me with her car back in Nov. 2014 finally issued a settlement check. (Yeah, I won. It's not a big amount, not life-changing, not even enough for a big purchase, but I will put a chunk toward my mortgage since the tax laws are changing.) My lawyer came by in the morning for me to sign it. A small portion goes into escrow for disputed medical bills, the law firm gets its share and then they issue a payout to me.

    I need to finally ... finally ... write some of the five year-end reviews that I need to deliver next week. But I also want some more fun than I had last week. Like going to the movies. There are so many good ones out there. (Also, I'll get a haircut today.)
  • I've started a year of Precision Nutrition coaching. (PN is the company Krista Scott Dixon went to work with.) Since leaving the gymn several years ago and my trainer/fixer moving away from personal training, I've been feeling the need for personalised attention to help move along. PN is interesting, a 'habit-based' approach. I think that this is the right approach for me and for long-term success. I recognise the PN voice and vibe (in a way that I don't recognise the Beck Diet Solution - CBT) so that's a good start.

    We'll see how it goes. It might be the change I need to get to a similar place to the one I was in before.

    Glad to hear about the settlement, saef. That seems like a long time waiting.
  • Thanks for that link, Dagmar. That was really interesting. So, since I gave up coffee weekdays and am having that instead, it isn't a bad swap. Knowing it has caffeine will keep me away from it in the afternoon. I really didn't know it was an energy drink. But I'm glad they're using the coffee fruit to save from waste.
  • Sunday evening. In the morning, I was 160.9.

    No fun happened today. But I wrote one year-end review. Four more to go. I must write up the second one by Tuesday afternoon. I've blocked time for this task. The others are due on Thursday and Friday. I can do this.

    Birchie, I'm happy for your decision regarding Precision Nutrition and intrigued. I've looked at that many times. The expense stopped me. I could be persuaded to spend for that, though.
  • saef, expense was a consideration here as well. I decided that I could afford it as I haven't got a gymn membership and by signing up early I got a discount (I understood this was a marketing ploy but I wouldn't have been able to afford it otherwise).

    At the end of the day, I'm in a different place now from 10 years or so ago when I lost weight very successfully. I need something different to help me handle both weight loss and also changes in my life as it goes along without putting on weight again.

    I like the behavioural approach. Beck is quite good but it doesn't work for me because she (Judith Beck) seems to be on another planet from me and I just don't like her voice. I seem to have a better understanding of Planet PN (Toronto-based, I gather, Dagmar) so that feels more hopeful.

    I think that the daily contact with PN will help me. So far, the automated stuff plus some contact with a coach (mine is based in the UK so that helps) is going OK. I'm not joining their FB group because I'm not on FB (tech/security issues + no time). I'm sure that I'll lose weight and get fitter but how maintenance will work out, well, I don't know. And we all know that having a maintenance strategy is key to this.