If I stopped exercising I'm pretty sure I would gain- I think that's why it stays off. I don't count salad in my amounts because it feels like mostly water so I can eat a ton of it and at this point and time- I think it's good to eat- but I still use the full fat dressing and lots of it. So if I start gaining that's going to be something to look at... It's funny- I had a few bites of mastacholi (sp?) the other nite and pasta doesn't sit real well with me- it seems to take up a lot of space and takes awhile to move through. I was never a big pasta eater so that's okay. Now the bread- OMG- I am a bread girl- I mean WAS a bread girl. That's still very hard for me- why else would I go italian other than for the bread- YUMMY!!! It's impressive that you only had a couple of bites of bread- I'm still struggling with all or nothing with bread especially if it's crusty like the stuff from Macaroni Grill- now that's something I could make myself sick on. We don't eat there very much anymore!!! I'm trying to keep an eye on the portion sizes- the only problem is then I wait awhile and eat again- but like you said- I'm not gaining- so it must be okay...shouldn't it? C U at weighin 2morrow... Holly/Brit

Congratulations on yur one year, meeting your surgeon's goal, and you LBL coming up! WOW! "Big" year, huh? Belle

Suz- I actually realized what I had done as soon as I did it, but it was too late to fix it! Belle

Holly - you must be doing something right because you're not gaining. There are times where I can eat over a cup too, but I am going to make a consious effort to eyeball things and if I think it could be over a cup I'll measure it. Last night dh and I went out to eat and ate at an Italian Restaurant. I ate about 1/2 my salad, couple bites of bread, all of the meat off of my pasta (chicken and shrimp) and then a few of the noodles. I bet if I measured all of that it would be over a cup. I'm not going to get into bad habits though. I feel bad because I ate pasta and the sauce I'm sure was BAD, but once in awhile isn't bad I don't think. I don't want to "diet" forever, but change my eating habits. Overall I have (I think, I hope) but it's nice sometimes to cheat. See, the problem with me before surgery is I would cheat the whole time. Dave and I were talking and before WLS I would have eaten all of my salad, all of the loaf of bread, all of my meal and a bite or 3 (lol) of his. I can not believe how much I used to eat. Oh, this is a funny story. The waitress was boxing up my leftovers and asked if we saved room for dessert and we both said we were stuffed. She said to me "well I thought you were saving room for dessert, that's why you didn't eat much!" Can you believe that? I was not at all offended. It felt good actually, me, taking home 3/4 of my food?? It felt good!!

Woo Hoo! Congrats on your checkup and being told to "stop that" on your weight loss. You look great! I went with my surgeon because of much research. I love him and his staff but he is in a town about an hour and a half away. So he has clinic hours near me about 3 times a month. I had to push my checkup back once into Feb. and now I have a message that he will be gone and they want me to move it again. Grrr. I guess I will need to make the trek to them this time. An hour and a half....I make it sound like I am driving to another state! LOL Hugs, Katy