Friday March 17 - Happy St Patrick's Day!

I gained 2 pounds eating what I wanted to for my birthday. I hope some of that will recede over the next few days... I had veal parm, bread, some chocolate cake and a couple of glasses of wine. I did enjoy it!

I have to go into the office today, which I almost never do on a Friday because the head of our new business unit is meeting with my group. Hopefully I can get out promptly at 3, as the traffic on Friday afternoons is always abominable.

I hope you all have a great and green Friday!

Weight today: 134.8

Macronutrients: Cals - 1,535, Carbs - 153, Fat - 61, Protein - 94, Sugar - 78, Fiber - 24

Veggies/fruits yesterday: 4 (goal is 7)

Exercise yesterday: Yoga class

Plans for today: Aquarobics, housework, laundry, reading, crosswords with hubby

* * *

Success! Last night I slept 9.5 hours. I feel like a 30-year-old this morning. Good sleep might be the actual fountain of youth.

Liz, your birthday dinner sounds wonderful. I'd have made the same choices -- and I do several times a year.

Devon, your post yesterday about exercise and maintenance is brilliant! Just brilliant! I completely, totally agree with you.

Thank you to everyone who posts your questions, answers, struggles, successes and sillies here. You're a pleasure to wake up to.

Finally, TGIF and Happy St. Patrick's Day. I might even remember to wear green today. :)

Liz- oh my I'm salivating over here. That does sound delicious. Well worth a small and short-lived gain. Maybe I oughtta celebrate half birthdays :)

Wt 218 Calories 462

i have had a bug or something the past 24-48 hours. Not much in.

Liz, the 2 lbs will leave pretty quick. Glad you had a nice time.

More later, David

462 calories?! Boy, that's a helluva bug you've got!

It was a bad one! Glad I'm almost done with it.

Devon-Thank you so much for your post. So much to ponder, you are correct. Sometimes I wonder if being fat made me fat. Example: If a good kid spends too much time in detention, does he begin to emulate the undesirable behavior more? I feel like my years of being fat, "good" and "bad" foods, needing to go on a diet, feeling ashamed for eating something, and then throwing everything out the window, ordering the chinese food, and vowing to start again Monday, only made things worse. In essence, I think dieting made me fat!

Now I totally agree with you that it's reckless to be militant about your eating to lose weight quickly, and then return. This is why I don't do pouch tests, or low carb. I know it's so popular on here to do low carb. My Dr. never recommended that--he said "that's great if you can eliminate sugar, flour, white rice, potatoes, etc....but then quite honestly why are you here (for surgery)?" Instead of thinking of my diet as low carb, I have finally embraced "protein forward." Nothing is off limits. And I try not to allow myself the excuse of "it derailed me." I'm not above it all the time, but for example yesterday. Someone brought in St. Patrick's day cookies from the fancy bakery. I sweated it. Finally I decided I would have one--It was 266 calories and maybe not even worth it--but I would have felt too deprived without it. I told myself that I would only have one (and that was really hard because by this point I could tell I would be over my calories for the day--why not declare it cheat day already) and that if I really really wanted another, there would be the potential for other cookies on other days. And I think that's what thin people do. If they want a cookie, they eat it. They probably will not have dessert later. But they don't launch into thinking how they can pack the rest of the day with calories just because they had one freakin cookie. It's so silly the way I think! It's like saying I have a paper cut and therefore need to cut off my entire arm.

So I'm with you on the big picture way you eat to lose weight needs to be somewhat manageable long term. But something had to change to help me lose weight. The big difference this time is exercise. I know typically people will compensate for burned calories by adding calories but I"m trying to be very careful about that. I know I'm eating less--and at least a couple hundred calories less--than I need to maintain. My hope is that the exercise will do two things: a) increase my caloric deficit to where I am dropping weight, and b) increase my lean body mass and overtime increase my metabolism. I do not think this level of exercise is sustainable long term. But I do hope I choose to take something away--maybe 3 days a week longterm, etc. But my hope is if I never increase my calories due to exercise, then it will primarily be a tool for weightloss and not soooo dependent on it for maintenance like some college gymnasts I know who ballooned after college because they were so used to eating for their activity level. Not sure if that made sense. And there's a chance I will be sorely mistaken. HOpe not.

Weight: 162 Calories yesterday: far too many

How do I put this? I don't want to call yesterday a bad day. No normal thin person would think of it that way! But I did not meet my goals. No exercise and I stopped counting calories at 1050.

This next part may sound like excuses but I'm trying to think of how I did, why I did, if and how I could do better next time. First there was that St. Patrick's day cookie. As I mentioned above, I tormented myself about it, trying to resist, and finally decided that was stupid and that I could have just one. It was hard to resist another, though! But I'm glad I did because I ended up feeling sugar-sick and sluggish (but I also think I was worn out from Weds workout). DSD came to visit yesterday and I was 80% already feeling like I didn't feel up to the gym when she called and asked DH and me to come see the prom dress she thought was "the one." So, definitely no gym. And to celebrate we took her and a friend out to eat burgers. I had half the cheeseburger, and maybe half the fries. I have no idea on the calories...600?

So after just writing that out, I don't think that's particularly bad. C'est la vie. I didn't do anything crazy or shameful yesterday. It wasn't aligned with my weightloss goals yesterday, but it wasn't a huge bad setback, either.

Now the struggle is making it through the rest of the weekend. When DSD comes we tend to treat it like a holiday. It will be a challenge not to do that. Plus we are headed downtown for a St. Patty's day party at the pub tonight. Socializing continues to be my biggest struggle. I will try to drink a Guinness slowly. At least beer I cannot chug. But does anyone else ever feel guilty when they try to eat less around friends? Some are worse than others, but I've had some friends essentially say I make them feel bad about their choices or make them feel fat so I need to eat more. Needs not to be a people pleaser so much

Back to the gym tomorrow with trainer!

You sound a bit like you suffer from All or Nothing Thinking. I know I did. Here's a description:

All-or-nothing thinking refers to thinking in extremes. You are either a success or a failure. Your performance was totally good or totally bad. If you are not perfect, then you are a failure. This binary way of thinking does not account for shades of gray, and can be responsible for a great deal of negative evaluations of yourself and others.

There's a short 5 or 6 paragraph article here: All or Nothing Thinking

If you can be aware of what is going on, you won't fall victim to your thinking.

BTW, you are completely on target when you say being fat made you fat. There is a large body of research that supports exactly what you are thinking. There is even physiological evidence to support it!

Good morning everyone and happy St Paddy's Day! Green beer all around! (No not really - actually never heard of that strange thing until I moved west). I'm at 116 from a combo of dehydration, constipation but mostly from several days of excessive eating. Worse day was after drinking wine, of course, which is a major trigger.

Sitting here drinking coffee (with butter today - yum), reading the news and feeling a bit frightened by what seems to be the US - North Korea escalation. Too scary to dwell on for sure :(

So with that said, I think I'll wear something extra pretty today! Lol. Late work shift but the cold weather has finally broken so going outside feels much easier! I hear some peeps talking about taking their motorcycles out tomorrow but it's too early for me!

Regarding traditional dieting, I consider protein forward and calorie limiting to be the right translation of that. Same for maintenance, but with more calories, which for me translates into a lot more carbs. Personally, I don't think I will ever be able to act like a normie (let alone think like one) so I've had to make peace with that.

Now after my rather downer post, have a pretty day!