I think he will rest his sweet little head wherever you say he will....

Holy biscuits, girl! That is crazy. Sorry. Does homeowners cover it or is it not worth the deductible.

Pretty decent calorie day. Right at 1200. I had a free tall drink from Bucky's, so I got a NF, decaf, no whip, peppermint mocha. I always fear that it won't really be decaf when I get them at night and that I will not sleep.

Manick - I love my Big Fat Greek Wedding! That line is oh so appropriate. My mom, dad, his fiancee, g-parents, etc are really supportive and they do understand the basic reasons behind veganism. My close family has always been a "do what you feel" type of support system so they don't judge or try to convince me otherwise. It just taxes my ability to bite my tongue sometimes when they say well rather duh huh things like that. I just try to remember that if I explain in a non-snarky way that next time they'll remember.

Michelle - I'm so freaking sorry- what an utterly craptastic day. In my life **** seems to all fall at once also. Hang in there and don't kill anyone please. Jail food is not good for the diet.

Jo - Um yeah I agree with Anna. His head isn't that delicate. I say give him two choices - where you want to stay and the Italian equivalent of Motel 6. Are you going to have to fly over by yourself? I'm far too lazy to scroll back but I think I read he's heading over first?

Jaime - Ohhh good luck! I love love love having a house versus an apartment/condo. Of course I don't share well with others - including walls.

Vix - As you know yoga can burn some calories plus the toning - woot! It helps keep me from punching random people too.

Billie - Wondered where you'd been today. Sorry about the foot but it does sound like it's about time to get it checked out. Doesn't insurance cover it?

Anna - I love in mortal fear of two things at the coffee shop. Caf after 1:00pm and cow juice instead of soy milk.

I passed out around 8:45 on the couch last night, moved to bed around 9:30 and feel tons better today, I was beat.
Today's plan:
Work
Darcy to the vet to get butt squeezed (plus side I can eat lunch at home when I drop her back off at the house)
Work
Work Meeting
Work after work event (one drink only)
Run
Homework

oh boy the excitement


Menu:
breakfast - cereal
snack - applesauce
lunch - leftover collards and BEPs over rice
snack - vodka and maybe some veggies
dinner - tbd, maybe chickpea cutlets and some veggies

About the hotels: He got tired of looking online with me after about 2 minutes and officially gave me the Authori-TI to book whatever the heck I wanted while he went and played video games in the living room. Dilettante! I only have the Rome hotel left to do, yippee!

On a good note, dh has lost 5 pounds since Monday. He seems pretty motivated by that fact, I'm so happy for him!

Jaime -- A house would be great! I'll keep my fingers crossed for you!

Heather -- maybe you need to squeeze a little work into that schedule, huh? I mean, really.

Chelle -- Who do we need to bribe to get you a GOOD day?!?!?!

Day 8... 357 blissful days to go!
Plan: Run
Food:
Ezekiel toast, boca burger, smidge maple syrup, coffee with stevia
Black bean AND mushroom tostada with shredded squash and fixins
Orange
Chana masala, pita bread, cucs/tomatos/onions in vinegar
Frozen banana

Grazie molto for all the information, River!

No problem Jo, hope you have a great trip.

Today's plan for me:
granola, yogurt, sunflwer seeds, clementine (not seedy)
veg sandwich with avocado, cream cheese, sprouts, cukes, and v8
cottage cheese with clementines and some almonds
veg burger on w/w roll with some veggies
work, work, work then run.

So the boss is blocking sites and monitoring so I won't be on much because it's hard for me to get on at home with dialup. But I'm going to try to check in every morning.

Well it's day 7 OP for me and I'm feeling really good. I also have an interview for a part time position at a photography studio after work today so wish me luck! I'm really excited about it because photography is my passion and just getting a foot in the door at the studio would really be great for me.

Well, I miss you guys.

We miss you Jen! Good luck at your interview, I'm sending you positive vibes!

Yesterday in a nutshell:

Lice in 4 children and myself.
Food poisoning (only for me, thankfully).
10 year old with an ear infection and busted eardrum.

We are now, with the exception of my bald husband, walking around post-NIX with vaseline and a shower cap on. Meanwhile, we are cleaning our house like crazy, and the children are "enjoying" an extended winter break from school. We shaved the boys' hair, and if, in 10 days, the lice is not gone, I'm seriously considering shaving my own. Which would suck, because I have THE most awesome hair (no, really, I do...just ask Vix!)

Add in the appropriate *****ing, moaning and complaining here.

Now I feel better.

I do feel the need to point out that my husband is awesome! He bagged up the ten thousand bags of laundry that is created by 6 people and no laundry fairey. He cleaned up most of the downstairs for me (we will be gate-ing off the upstairs for a week) and our bathroom.

I'm calling the doctors office later, to figure out what they want to do about my son with ear infection. They are going to call in an RX, and if they don't, I'll gladly threaten the visitation of 5 lice-infected people into the office.

Anyway, I've seen some good and not-so-good in the updates here. Insert appropriate responses here, and know that I'm following the thread, (although still trying to figure out who everyone is).

Today seems to be a better day, but then again I said that yesterday and look what happened right.

I'm up to 206, so I'm getting on the treadmill today for sure, even though I didn't do it this morning *spanks self*

Still on plan though and was last night... I think my body clued in that I was having a bad day and was telling me to get back on track with getting the treadmill thing moving.

I brought Bob's book to read through whenever I get the chance. I still haven't answered the questions in the first chapter.

I'll try to be on today, I can't promise much since I have to talk a lot about the DBE stuff today with the owners. Apparently their fraudulent actions are catching up with them.

Why am I laughing? That could totally put me out of a job....

Good morning everyone...it's chilly out there. I'm still OP food wise and am slowly getting back on track. Still no exercise but for now it's ok. I'm taking baby steps and I will resume exercise I know for sure but just not right now. That said I had an idea for my next weeks lunch . So I'll be making that this Sunday.

I also found out I can't eat oatmeal more than 4 days in a row. So I'm glad today is day 4. Good thing I make a small batch which gives me 4 containers. I did try rolled oats since Jaime had mentioned she likes it better than steel cut and I have to agree with her. I tried it once and it did taste better. But I don't know if it was the way I made it or what it came out very thick. I like my oatmeal little runny.

Jaime, crossing fingers for you to get the house. And yay for kickball. I suck at sports but I cheer well .

Anna, I have a sensewear. What would you like to know? I restarted entering calories since monday. So I will post my reports here by end of this week if you like.

Manick, I love the movie MBFGW. It is hilarious and that line always makes me laugh. I've never read Shape or Fitness so I'll get one of each and go thru them to see what they're like. Anna mentioned the focus is different so I'll give it a try.

Jo, thank you for the sexy song . It made my night . And as far as vacations go I plan all our vacations cuz Mike has no patience to go look for deals, things to do and such. He'll look at things if I ask him and go thru it but it always ends up me planning everything from A to Z and handing him the folder.

Michelle, sorry you had a craptastic day and evening. I hope today is better for you.

Jen, it's wonderful that you've been OP. We miss you too. Good luck on the interview.


Plan:

B - Oatmeal and coffee
S - (if hungry) carrots and dip
L - Soup and homemade roll
S - Small Salad

Billie - Good job on avg weekly calories - looks like you've been spot-on. Welcome back to the wagon.

Vix - Hurray! Baked fries are a good compromise for me sometimes too. Way to go getting your calories at a good level. Exercise will come.

Michelle - Suck about the window, big time. Maybe you can convince Daniel to invest the tax return in home maintenance, repair, and branch cutting services, instead of a new car? Do you need a buttkick phone call this evening to get you on the treadmill?

Anna - WTG on calories. What is Bucky's? Sounds like a rodeo.

Heather - Did you use a recipe for your BEPs and collards?

Jo - Yay for your DH! And you put maple syrup on a boca burger? Hmmm.

Jen - WTG being OP! Let us know how your WIs go, hmm? We'll miss you around here & plurk.

Tessa - Hope your kids recover from their various ailments quickly.

Anjuli - Just add some more liquid to your oats. Once they're cooked you can do whatever you want with them. I like my oatmeal to stand up and walk around on its own, personally. Rolled oats have a more satisfying "mouth feel" imho.

Jen - Wish we could "see" you more often!

Tessa - Holy crap sandwich. Good luck.

Anj - Glad you're back to logging calories and getting in the goove.
She's a groove thing baby

Jaime - yeah I did from Fire and Spice cookbook (don't waste your money). Just sautee some ginger, garlic, chili peppers (i used jalapeno as that's all I had) and onions. Add collards and a bit of water - cook for about 15-20 minutes until most water is gone. Add BEPs and cook until warm. Serve over rice. I think that was it. I've been adding hot sauce on top as Fire and Spice is grossly misleading for those of us that like to torture our mouths a bit.

Aaaaannnnd PMS is here. I just teared up at puppy pictures.

Last night I had a good talk with one of my best college friends. She and I did WW together once in the past, but for her it's always been an "all or nothing" sort of endeavor so as soon as she has one potato chip, she gorges and stops trying. Another example is with exercise - she'll start an exercise regime of going to the gym an hour a day - from nothing. No build-up. I remember last time she killed herself in the gym every day, only ate salad, and signed up for this marathon kickboxing class where she had to kickbox for like 4 hours or something ridiculous. It was shortly after that that she quit that attempt at WW. She's been gaining again the past couple years, and is afraid she's past the 200 mark for the first time in her life. I told her about my being on WW for the past year and losing 30lbs - which, to her, is not a lot of weight for a whole year (it's what she'd prefer to lose in 2 months).

We spent an hour and a half really talking through a lot of the things I've learned on this journey. Don't have unrealistic expectations for yourself. Don't put your body on a timeline. If you don't lose one week, or even two weeks in a row, don't give up. You will get to where you are going, but you have to be patient. It's about lifestyle, not temporary, changes. Make good decisions 80% of the time and you'll feel 100% better. Etc etc. She seems to have really needed to hear a rational person talk about weight loss with her. She decided she'll re-join WW on Monday, and we'll have weekly phone calls to share our results and email recipes to each other and such. I'm a little hesitant to believe she's really going to stick it out this time, but I'm going to do my best to help her.

She's started doing things like hiding food - being ashamed of eating in front of other people - buying things for her and her boyfriend but then eating it all before he comes home - all of these really horrible, horrible habits that I can 100% relate to. I told her, as soon as you feel you need to hide what you are doing, you really need to stop, look around, and figure out why you are doing that. She's developing food issues where she had none before (she just didn't care about what she ate), and it's pushing her weight up higher and higher.

One reason she gave me for not wanting to do WW is that she has many work functions where there is free food. Her cheap college student mentality is "if it's free I should eat a lot because it's free!" I gave her the spiel about 'you are not a garbage can, you are worth more than that, you can be picky,' etc. I also tried to give her some tips on how to deflect food offers without making it obvious that she is on a diet. She said when she starts having to tell people she's on a diet, it makes her crazy because she feels it's depriving her of all these "good" things people offer - so when a person comes around with a plate of cookies, and she says no, and the person says 'oh, why not? they're super yummy' - she then feels compelled to say she's on a diet. I tried to give her alternatives 'no thanks, my stomach isn't feeling well.' 'no thanks, i just ate, maybe i'll have one later.' 'wow, those do look good, but i am allergic to dairy.' Anybody have any other strategies I can pass on to her? Any good words of wisdom about passing up free food? This part really does play a large role in where she is right now.

Whew, that was a novel. I'm concerned about my friend but hopeful that she can get her stuff together and get healthy.

Tessa -- Now I'm itchy. I blame you. That really sucks, but it sounds like you have a major plan to handle it. I can't even IMAGINE the inconvenience of all that. Major suckage. I hope you don't have to shave your head! On the other hand, that could be kinda cool.

Anjuli -- Are you still using the bodybug thingy? Do you think it was worth it?

I wore my new shoes on my run this morning and holy schmoly I felt like I had giant, cushy mattresses on my feet! It was bizarre. I actually felt like I had clown feet and might fall over. I love the shoes, but this is going to take some getting used to. I realize my old ones were basically racing flats with almost no cush, so this is an extreme change.