Good morning! I think I'm back from the dead. At least I hope so. I've had the nasty cold/fever/can't breathe or sleep cold that is going around. It really knocked me out for four or five days. Did you give me yours??? I suppose one good habit I have is making out my menus each week. I create the menus and then a grocery list based on what I need. I try to limit extras that aren't on our list to healthy items such as fruit and nuts. If I don't have junky stuff in the house, I can't give in to temptation. Writing out my menus also helps me be sure I have a good variety of foods for the week so that I don't get bored with eating too much chicken, etc. Boredom equals bad eating for me! I wish I was better about exercising. It seems like I just get into my routine and something happens to mess me up. I was doing great at the gym until I got sick. Now I have to start over again. My spinning classes begin again tonight and I'm hoping to stick to that twice a week schedule. Of course, I'll just get into that routine and I'll start traveling for work! Sometimes, you just can't win! It's frustrating! Oh well. All I can do is keep trying I guess. Have a great day! Hugs, Stephanie

PS. good luck with your pouch test! can't wait to hear the results and what you thought of it. It's funny, for me sticking to plan is harder when I'm NOT home! lol hugs

Hi Barb, Great post. The goals, the plans, the rules we need to follow are important. That is what is going to keep us successful, help us to maintain, and help us get to goal. My best thoughts on this is the old "making a plan" thought that I try to live by. I don't always live it straight, but it keeps me in line pretty much. I still find weekends tough. I can't follow my plan as well during the weekend. I don't over eat, I just don't get in enough water or my protein shakes. I'm just running too much. So that is something I need to work on as a goal. To stick better to a plan through the weekend. I have been doing great since the holidays with not touching a cookie or anything of the sweets nature. I did realize yesterday too that I haven't gotten anything other than regular coffee from Starbucks which is good. For awhile there I would a few times a week buy a donut type thing, or a cookie and split it with DH. I sometimes look and feel tempted but say to myself it isn't worth it and I pass it by. I was at the grocery store tonight and had a revelation. Not that it wasn't something I hadn't known. DH even said kiddingly when I made the upcoming comment, "And you didn't know this already?" As we walked through the store ( we had stopped for some orange roughy that was on sale ) we looked for some other healthy things to buy, if anything struck us as needed. I commented to him about all the crap they sale in stores. Have you ever looked at the foods on the shelves? The end caps? Junk, all junk! All kinds of sugary treats, fattening, high fat foods. The pickings are slim. Trying to find things that are low fat, low sugar, high protein is like finding a needle in a hay stack. And people eat this stuff. It's a normal grocery store, this is what is pushed on society. No wonder we are so obese. The array of 100 calorie snacks out there now is phenomenal. I guess they are ok for the occaisonal treat, if you really want something. But they are not really that good of a choice. But they are everywhere now, convincing people this is the way to go. It's just window decoration if you think about it. Ok, off my rant. LOL Just, today it hit me how bad the grocery stores really are and the junk that is out there for us to eat. It's kind of sad. It makes it hard to make good choices. I hope your pouch test goes well. I'm sure it will be tough. But you can do it. Remember why you are doing it, remember how as you said early out we had things we knew we had to do and we didn't question it. We just did it because we knew it would get us where we wanted to go, and would make us healthier. Good luck and take care.

You're so right Barb. For me now, i try to focus on fitness goals. i find it helps me more than fixating on the scale or counting calories. it's working well for me so far. i feel it shifted my focus from fanatically focusing on every bite I ate after I hit goal, to a healthier more balanced perspective of the whole picture. my one small goal is to try and eat fish once a week and also to work on strengthening my "core" to help my back.

Barbara, You are so right about us being clear with our goals when we first started this process. Now it seems we (I) are not as focused on the goals as we should be. I immediate goal is to remain within a 5 pound range of my loweste weight. To be honest it has been a struggle the last couple of months. I seem to go up and down the same 4 pounds every week. That is too much of a swing and I need to watch things more carefully. On a side note, I had a new drivers license photo taken a few weeks ago. I was afraid they wouldn't let me on an airplane because I didn't look at all like the old photo. I must say that I'm not comfortable with the picture I see on the photo. It doesn't match at all how I see myself in my head. I guess that will come in time. Good luck on the pouch test. I hope you have some sugar free pudding or jell-o to have with your shakes today. It made a real difference for me getting through those first two days of the pouch test. Have a great day, Rick