I hope all went well and I really hope your recovery is painless. Shannon

I just got back from a mid morning bike ride... is it bad that we rode up to Starbucks and got a drip w/ 1/2 & 1/2? ? I bought the FitDay program too, Sherri! I love it!! It helps keep me accountable and gives me sooo many ways to really look at what I am eating. Honestly I hadn't really given fat grams too much thought until you brought it up. It was sooo easy to look at the month and see my weekly averages in fat grams! Awesome! Well the function is awesome, but not how many Ifat gs have eaten! The one thing that irritates me about the program is that it says that my basal is like 2000 cals. ARG! If that is true then I SHOULD be losing. But I know it's not true. That visual of always seeing my cals-in less than my cals-out give me a fasle sense of security. Do you know of a way to manually change the BMR? Good on you for the 10thou steps a day! That is fabulous! I went thru a pedometer phase and loved it! I liked seeing my daily totals. I should put mine on and see what i do these days. Sooo diff than when I started. Thanks for following up - thanks for also posting your diet... It gave me ideas and reminded me of things i used to eat more reg. cottage cheese! Yum & good for us. I'll have to read up on the pork rinds. Have a great rest of the day!! Nancy

Shoot, I know what you mean - a high protein, low carb diet is not easy to pull off w/o the fat! I went back and looked at my daily fat grams and I don't even want to tell you! 30 would seem impossible! I consume over twice that! Arg! I see that most of those fat grams come from cheese... I think I'll cut back on that. But what to put in its delicious place? I haven't really looked into low fat cheeses. Perhaps I should. Hypoglycemia would complicate things, I imagine. It is a good deterrent to not indulge in those carbs, I bet. I don't eat those things anyway. I feel like I eat all day long. I think that's messing with my mind and reminding me of my old relationship with food. I'm also just now starting to kick off training... I want to do an Olympic distance triathlon this year, a few sprint distances too, and a 1/2 marathon in Nov. My relationship with food changes as I train... I start to think of food as fuel and am less enamored with it. When I am less active... I'm only swimming 30min 2x a week, and biking 3-4, but not running at all b/c I am recovering from surgery on my leg... anyway, I think about food a lot more when I am more sedentary, I eat for reasons other than hunger (and I DO get hungry) and b/c I'm less busy I eat b/c I am bored, I guess. I fully expect that this is the year I am going to have to plug away and WORK at fixing my relationship with food. People think when they see me w/ no extra weight that I am done and that the problem is fixed. I disagree. This is where the rubber hits the road. This is where I eat less and for good reasons and the ONLY reward I see is that the scale doesn't change. It's not quite the same as when I was rewarded with a few lb dropped every day or week, you know? Anyway I eat 6x a day. I am still maintaining - but there are a few lbs (3!!) that I battle with. I feel that I'm prolly eating a few too many cals a day at my current activity level. Perhaps I should be closer to 1400? My food intake looks like this... Breakfast - 300 cals creamer in my coffee (100 cals!) Protien shake (160 cals) 1/3 C 2% milk (40 cals) Morning snack - 210 cals Turkey lunchmeat (75 cals) Salsa (25) cup of Lucky Charms (110) EEK! Lunch - 290 cals 1 C of shredded cabbage (30 cals) ½ T walnuts (120 cals) 1oz of blue cheese (100 cals) Raspberry vinigarette (40 cals) Afternoon snack - 140 cals 1oz chex mix (130 cals) SF Jello (10 cals) Dinner - 510 cals!!! Protein shake (160 cals) ¾ C 2% milk (90 cals) 2/3 C omelet casserole (260 cals!) Night - 150 cals 2 glasses of wine (150) Here's the total... Cals - 1600 on the nose... that's unusual! Protein - 120 grams Fat - 68g!! Carbs - 114g OMG that was brutal and embarrassing to write out! Good for me tho. This would have shocked the heck outta me as a new postop! I'm headed out but while I was writing this I thought of a few things. I can actually only consume ¾ C of food at a time. I think one prob is that I will not put away food that I can't consume right away. I'll graze and fini**** I think I should stop this. Thanks for listening... I will give the fat dilemma some more thought! I think you hit on something for me! :D Nancy

Hello Sep04 pals! I rarely post to this board, but I pop in every now and then to see how everyone is fairing. I was hoping I could get a little input on how many cals you all eat to maintain your weight. I seem to be struggling to maintain with 1600 cals a day. I am a moderate exerciser just now. Dec-Feb were very slow in that regard. Apr-Nov are my hardest training months. Do you count the cals of your protein shakes? I heard somewhere not to - but that seems crazy, so I count them. Any input would be soooo appreciated! Take care, Nancy RNY 09/16/04 276/138/138

Louann...congrats on the PS. You will feel so much better with the hernia repaired as well. Are you at goal? I'm at 180 and set a goal of 140 (I'm 5'6") as my final goal. The ps surgeon wants you to be within 20 lbs of your goal. Of course, these last 20 lbs want to fight tooth & nail to come off. It makes me question if 140 is a reasonable goal. It's right smack in the middle for an 'ideal' BMI....which is how I set it. Perhaps, 155 would have been more realistic (the highest end for a BMI of 25). Anyway, congrats!! Sherri