What's on your menu today (Thursday) RNYers?

Listen, Long Islanders think over the Tappen Zee bridge is upstate :)

Hi all

doing pretty well.

accountability, decided to eat the rest of the little pint of proyo last night, protein ice cream which resulted in side pain due to sugar alcohols. sooo. no more of that. Oh and I ate a nut kind bar before bed and that was a whopping 230 calories of nuts. It was good though and helped with the stomach issue.

QOTD: I had a few goals this month, most of which were nullified when I kept having to go to the ER and the resulting surgery last thursday afternoon. I was doing a 3- day plank challenge where you held different variations of plank for 5 min total. I was up to 3 min and was pretty proud. I was also meant to do yoga 3x times a week and was about to buy a paddleboard. I'm still planning on the paddleboard and did buy a kayak but just got put behind by this as now I have to wait to be fully recovered to use it. Maintain at 120 pounds which I'm sure I'm over due to the surgery, might take a few weeks to bounce back. I won't even look at the scale tomm when I go to the DR and will ask the people not to tell me what it says. I don't need that drama in my head.

HAve a great time in boston! I'm sure it will be a great time!

I've been wondering how you were! Glad you are doing better. I must be out of the loop - but what surgery did you have?

After my ER visits where they said i was 'really backed up' but couldn't find the cause of my intense attacks, I called my surgeon. They said they had talked to him but they didn't. I went to see him last Thursday and he said, well good news and bad news. The good news is that it isn't your bile duct like people thought. the bad news is that you have a hernia and twisted bowels and you need surgery. OH and I'm leaving town saturday for 2 weeks so I would like to do it tomm. He had already had me on liquids. he popped back in the room and said, I got you scheduled for this afternoon. It was noon then. He said walk on over to registration and we have your orders. I will stay as late as needed tonight to fix you.

So- he said the bowels were twisted to the nth degree but I was all fixed now. I just started having bowel movements Tuesday and feel a zillion times better.

The bile duct is still an issue and to add to the fun, the surgeon found a large cyst on my left ovary that I get to deal with tomm at the gyno. :( Im super bloated still so do NOT want to weigh on their scale. but at least I'm pooping!

Nice, here's to pooping!!! So glad to hear they got you taken care of in that department anyway. I hope the rest goes smoothly for you.

Good morning!

I dropped 3 lbs from yesterday. I figure it was the extra water and exercise, as beach volleyball was super muggy last night and I left there sweaty enough to grow rice where I stand. After biking to work, then the bank (which took longer than I thought, so I didn't get the gym in), then volleyball, then drumming for 2.5 hours, I was ready for bed by 01:00 for sure. It was nice to get on the scale and see a little movement like that this morning. Today I changed things up a bit for the menu. I'm out of whey protein isolate until the weekend trip to Costco.

B: 1/2 cup bran flakes with a blueberry greek yogurt. Hoping the bran does its thing. Jeez.

MS: 1/2 cup cottage cheese with 1.5 oz strawberry/blueberry mix

L: 1/2 cup shaved turkey breast and a laughing cow wedge cut up, on some romaine from the garden with a few carrot sticks, 1.5 oz cauliflower/broccoli. Sounds like a lot but looking at it? Nah.

AS: 1/2 cup FF greek yogurt, 1.5 oz strawberry/blueberry

S: 1/2 a chicken breast on romaine with dijon mustard

ES: Decaf. I've got an important meeting tonight at work which will put me home late. Trying to eliminate evening snacks anyway.

Vitamins, tons of water. Bike commute to/from work, likely after the meeting tonight I'll go for a walk around my neighbourhood.

QOTD: My goal. Good question. There are areas I want to improve of course, but I'm fairly content in life in general. It wasn't always this way, and it's taken internal work to affect the changes. Having done this WLS and finding success daily with this tool (and I feel like I'm just getting started really), has not only changed my body. It's changed my heart and mind just knowing that I'm doing something positive for me, for my family and our future.

Personally, I'd like to grow closer to my wife - not to say that our relationship is sour, but I need to communicate more and I drive her crazy by shutting down a lot. That's on me. I want to get to the point where I share so much she tells me to shut up. LOL...but I digest... I do lots of stuff with the daughters, have lots of fun and read to them, play games and so on, but I would like to set a goal of being a solid Dad for them even more than I feel I am. I've always believed the saying "Be the kind of man you want them to seek, and they will". That's a big deal, and keeps me motivated to be a good Dad and not crap the bed on parenting.

Professionally, I'd like to work my way up the ladder a bit more. I don't want the stress of being the top dog, but a few more rungs would be nice. I've done the dirty work. I've worked open-to-close shifts for months on end in a pizza restaurant at the business end of the oven. I've dug graves (by hand) 14 hours a day. I've worked the family farm. I've driven long-haul transport and fuel, slept in the truck in the worst spots you could imagine. I've met and worked with a lot of cool people but I've bled, and I've sweat for a long time. Now I'm kinda mid-way to where I want to be and working on credentials to move up.

I suppose that's it for now. Sorry for the novel, that was a lot to think about. LOL

Yay for vacations! I know you are excited Daisy :)

QOTD: I do have a goal to get back to running, as I'm still not clear for that since my surgery. Even though when I did you could barely call running, but it's the most I've ever done in my life. And I don't want to like go.... and I'm afraid if I wait too long I'll never go back to it

B: latte w/fairlife/mct oil/miralax

L: salsa chicken

D: steak

S: protein drink tbd and not sure what else

ex: gym so excited to be back, even though I am limited...

Back to the boards after our camping trip. We were actually back home on Sunday. But it has been crazy busy since then. I feel like I can finally breathe at work. Home has been crazy too, DS & DDIL bought a house. The deal wasn't even finalized before we left on vacation 7/15 and they are having settlement tomorrow and moving on Saturday. Needless to say they are a bit overwhelmed. They live 1 1/2 hours away and DH is on-call this weekend so we can't even help with the move which makes me very sad. They have friends lined up to help so they should be in good shape, but Momma Bear sure wishes we could help. We will be going to visit next weekend and helping with the post-move stuff. It's an older house so DH may be doing some minor repairs that need taken care of. He's the handyman in the family.

Accountability: Pretty good. Gained 3 pounds on vacation, but have already gotten rid of 2 of them. I'm pretty much in maintenance but want to push myself to loose 5 more pounds. I'm happy with where I am now, but want that cushion. Can't get to comfortable because that will lead me down a bad path.

QOTD: Retirement! I probably have 4 more years, but it's been a tough year as a few co-workers that I've worked with a long time have recently retired. I'm happy for them but more than a little envious. We'll be looking into DH possibly towards the end of next year when he turns 62 which will really be tough for me but he's a little older than me so he's earned it. I'll need to keep working to maintain insurance.

B: Protein Coffee

L: Left over Texas Roadhouse grilled chicken

S: 1/2 C. Greek LnF yogurt, 1T PB2, 1/2 scoop protein powder

D: 3 oz. smoked sausage

S: Maybe some almonds

Morning Everyone

Daisy, you guys have a blast!!! I know you will and I'm so excited for ya'll too!

QOTD: Goals... Hmmmm... I've worked so hard making losing weight my goal for so long now, I really can't think of anything else I'm concentrating on right now... Truth be told, my goal at the moment has probably been just keeping my head above water treading through all the stresses of my job and home life. I do probably need to aim in a different direction and find something new to go for, but I don't love working out, and I just don't know what else I can pick!

Accountability... we ended up at the mall food court for dinner - I knew dinner wouldn't be at home, but, still. Mall food? At any rate, I got a gyro with the greek salad as a side instead of fries. I did have a few of hubby's fries from his philly cheeseteak/fry meal he chose. I took two bites with the pita bread, then I opened it up and ate the insides out. It satisfied this urge I had to eat like crap yesterday though, with minimal damage I guess. My brain kept trying to convince me that yesterday would have been a good day for a bag of cheetos. Why does that crap happen? I'm wondering if eating those 3 sugar free chocolates the day before made me crave crap?

Weight this morning 138.2.... Surgery 14 months ago... below goal, and since I don't like the word Maintenance, I will just say I am treading water for now.

B: 24 ounce decaf with 1/4C of Fairlife and SF syrup

B2: 1/2 breakfast burrito with bacon/sausage/cheese/egg 2 bites of wrap (they don't use tortillas), then I ate the insides only

L: 3.5 ounces of chicken crack OR... quite possibly the other half of the breakfast burrito

D: Open. Won't be home, but protein forward!

Back from Colorado and up 3 lbs. UGH. I only had one "bad" day while there (2100 kcal), and plus it would be impossible to gain 3 lbs of flab in four days (that would have required eating 10K extra calories), so I have to think it's mostly sodium. And we did *a lot* of restaurant eating while there. I feel bloated and water-logged and awful. I hate this!! Hopefully this will be gone gone gone by this weekend (when I'm heading for Chicago - luckily just for an overnight. I love Chicago, but it's the restaurant eating again..).

QOTD: my goal right now is to retire. Or at minimum, to go down to half-time - either at my current job or some other one. I used to be able to work full-time and do all my extra-curricular stuff on top of that, but the older I get, the more working full-time wears me out. I just want to come home and veg for the rest of the night after work, and I'm not sure I like that. I was originally slated to retire this summer, but since my husband lost his job last year and is currently piecing together two part-time jobs, neither of which have benefits, that can't happen. We don't care about the money - it's the health insurance. Yes, I am working for the health insurance at this point.

so anyway, back on track. 2 years 1 month out:

B: Greek yogurt, a few fresh raspberries & blueberries

S: coffee with half & half, protein shake

L: shredded Buffalo chicken

D: either a turkey burger or turkey meatballs, salad

another Greek yogurt or SF protein pudding pop if I can afford the calories

exercise: yes - need to do it. Maybe weights & recumbent stepper