1. Hi, Gang! I'm going to post this but hopefully this is my highest calorie day. It's high for several reasons. One is that I ate 1/2 of a Panera breakfast souffle for breakfast and the other half at lunch. If anyone knows about these things, they are fairly small but high calorie. Almost 600 calories! So, they obviously cannot be a regular part of my menu!!! Dinner was a grilled chicken salad. It was good! Snacks were watermelon and a Klondike Slim a Bear that isn't low calorie or lowfat itself. I also had 1/2 banana with breakfast and the other at lunch and dropped by my favorite coffee shop for my skinny Cafe Au Lait (regular coffee with steamed skim milk). Darn, counting calories is NO FUN!!! My total ended up being 1465. Like I said, I hope this is the highest day. I'm not even going to tell Corinna how high the carbs were!!! Of course, some were the in the fruit in my salad and the watermelon. The souffle and the ice cream ran up the others. 2. Exercise: Aerobics and strength training, walking. Probably about 500 calories burned. 3. Challenges - like i said in an ealier post, I'm stressing about a situation. Success: We dropped by Wal Mart for bird seed and a few things. I was hungry and wanting just about everything I looked at - especially junky carbs. I carried on a conversation in my head and told myself I was determined to be accountable to you guys today so you guys helped me avoid a few hundred more calories. Thanks! 4. I'm still working on the water but I was very conscious to have it with me all the time and to make deals with myself like I had to fini**** (or my shaved iced) before I did something or the other! I usually do well with my fluid but I could do better. 5. Took all my vitamins - including the iron, Wanda!!! Mine is almost back to normal!!My PCP says I should take the Repliva until my next physical in December. Did I ever report that my white blood cell count was normal for the first time in about a year?! 6. Mini Goal for this week: Not to feed into the drams and to avoid feeding myself because of the drama. Sounds like you and I are very similar in this department, Corinna! In the last few years, I've made big steps in avoiding stepping into the middle of situations and getting myself wound up. Don't spend as many years falling into the same trap, Corinna! Learn the lesson early and well to avoid the wasted time! Being accountable to posting this nightly will help me get through the worst of this. Tracking the food, journaling, keeping it real will help too. 7. My big goal is to embrace a healthy lifestyle - eating well, avoiding self-induced stress, being accountable and not putting myself down as much. I want to be more accepting of others as well as myself and be at peace. Right now I am trying to deal with an all too familiar situation in an adult and mature manner to change my usual emotional and stress eating. My big goal is to view food as fuel and not abuse it, not use it to fill the emotional holes in my life and to deal with feelings and not stuff them. Big goals and an ongoing process. I'll never be perfect but I have to keep trying! I know I've been missing. I have been busy but even before this current situation, I have been fighting some feelings of depression that I hope are just hormonal and very temporary. Hormones can wreak havoc on me some months and this is either one of them or there's something else going on that I have yet to figure out! Thanks, Britt, for starting this! Tomorrow I'll be gone all day. It's another follow up appointment with my PS who is hours from me. I plan on eating Chinese but there's no MSG. I just looked on the website for nutrition info and wasn't able to find it but I'll try again or find something similar on LifeForm. CeCe

It's crazy isn't it? Can you imagine drinking 1000 calories on purpose? I read the nutritional content for a peanut butter cookie at Dunkin Donuts --590 calories for a cookie! Makes me paranoid to eat anywhere other than home! Not that I would even try to eat anything from Dunkin Donuts...

1) Calories in (you can post your actual meal plan if you want to share) 2) Calories burned or time and movement / exercise (give us the details) here is a site that can give you an estimate of the calories you burned http://primusweb.com/fitnesspartner/jumpsite/calculat.htm 3) Successes / challenges (did you pass up a temptation? - do you have a challenege coming up?) 4) Water intake - how much? 5) Vtamin supplement taken? 6) Mini goal for this week - what did you do *today* to get there? 7) What is your Big goal? - what did you do *today* to get there? 8) notes -

Wanda, My gym smoothie bar makes a couple of "gainer" drinks over 1000 calories each. I just can't fathom drinking 1000 calories at one sitting! Although, pre surgery, I bet many of us drank 1000 calories of soda, milk shakes, etc quite often. These gainer drinks have things like chocolate ice cream, protein powder, banana and p-nut butter. I think they call it a chunky monkey. They also have a hot chocolate mocha over 1000 calories. I looked at the nutrition online for their smoothies and the lowest calorie one is 220 calories. (they don't even post the nutrition in the bar) I took some of their ideas and lightened them up for home consumption. Yummy! with fewer calories too. One of my favorite pick me ups is a TAB energy drink blended with frozen strawberries and protein powder. About 150 calories and gets you moving for a good workout. (caffeine in the tab) Hugs, Val

CeCe, Oh boy...DRAMA...my other drug of choice!!! It always ends up as stress and leads to bad choices (at least for me it does). I've learned that I can't put myself in situations where drama is going to happen because with my personality (bossy and a bit of a busy body) I end up smack in the middle of things. Just can't resist knowing what's going on and then telling people how they should fix it. Came straight from my mother who also still struggles with it and she's in her 60's *sigh* And for crying out loud I'm an opera singer....of course I love drama Anyway, you are wise to really weigh things over and make the decision that will work best for you! Nice to know I'm not the only one with the water issue. I do seem to remember even before surgery getting a little nauseous if I drank too much water at a time. Of course back then 40 oz in two hours would have been nothing. Great job maintaining and we'll see you tonight Corinna Q