Thank you all for the well wishes ... I am feeling a bit better.

I am up 2lb today -- super frustrating considering I didn't eat much the last two days. I am sure it is just inflammation and will be gone in a day or two. Still .. it's annoying!

Hope it comes back down, soon, funky. I also didn't eat too much the last couple of days and was off on my targets. We traveled to Charleston for a concert and there was no real food at the venue other than hot dogs, large soft pretzels, chips, candy, and popcorn. We do not eat meat products at venues like that because DH got food poisoning once, so popcorn for "dinner" it was. Even pizza would have been better. Then we shared a quesadilla when we got back to the hotel. Ugh. I did make up for it with a cooked to order omelette and then some fresh fruit in the morning. Gotta start anew the next day.

We are making corned beef and cabbage today.

I can at least see some progress and that keeps me going. My muffin top looks much better. I even took some photos, but I'm too shy to post them. I did Zumba with my sister today and did my weights when I got home yesterday afternoon. I have the blood work this week.

I saw this post the other day - that we are 60-70% water, so of course our weight would fluctuate every day based on water, retention, inflammation, etc. It is so easy to get caught up in pounds when we are trying to get healthy. I am so guilty of that and it's a mindset I can't seem to get away from.

I'm just trying to be consistent with eating the healthiest foods I can, moving every day, and getting stronger. If my goal truly is to be as healthy, mobile and strong as I can as I age, these are the things I need to do every day to get there. The weight may or may not take care of itself, but for right now I am healthy, my bloodwork is "pretty great" according to my nutritionist, and my mood and energy is good when I do and eat the right things.

I posted a bell pepper nacho recipe the other day and made a variation of it today. I was so pleased with it! I cut up 3 peppers in pretty big slices and roasted those while I was browning the meat. I used a pound of grass fed ground beef, the Siete brand spicy taco mix ( highly recommend), a box of black beans and a can of tomatoes. When it was all done, I put the taco meat on top of the peppers, added some cheese and baked it for about 15 minutes. Topped with avocado and it had lots of protein and fiber with 5 plant products if I count the two colors of peppers I used. And so easy and quick! It's definitely going in to the rotation. I also made the seedy oatmeal cookies again today. Those probably won't be in the rotation:) because they are too good and with the oats and the dates, probably not great for my personal blood sugar levels. But they have some seeds in them I don't regularly eat, and oats which I had given up, so they are a nice variation for me.

I'm glad you took pictures @gsciencechick! That's a great reward and such great motivation to keep moving forward. Way to go on the exercise as well. Best of luck on the bloodwork! I hope you see the progress you are working so hard to get.

Hi all,

Funky understand your disappointment. Very annoying when your body does not cooperate.

Friday, my weigh in day I was up 1.5 pounds, reweighed Saturday and I was 2 pounds less than Friday. Same scale, same time of day, same lack of clothing and both days I weighed after 1 cup of coffee but before any food. Sometimes it is a mystery.

My calorie counting and my increase in protein are going well. Excercise, still need to improve on but better than it was a few weeks ago. Lots of vegetable soup which I love. Need to increase my water intake.

Want to try the Bell Pepper Nachos, they sound delicious.

Sorry I have been absent from these threads for a few weeks. I spent several weeks working my butt off for my company, working for 12 hours most week days and working many hours on the weekends to get a project done. Part of this was in order to make it possible for my husband and I to finally take a vacation while he had a break from training at his new jobs. We haven't had a vacation in 2+ years and we both just needed some time away to relax. My boss had set a really difficult goal for me and my team and the only way I could achieve that and take some time off was to work insane hours. It was awful.

Anyhow, excuses about my absence aside. My health is in an interesting place. I am still up the few pounds that crept on over winter and unsurprisingly I haven't shed them by working insane hours at the office or by running away for a week long vacation in Mexico. This trip was a trial run to see whether I could manage travel (in this case an all-inclusive resort - yikes) with my gluten intolerance and vegetarianism. It was a challenge to say the least, but I made it work. I definitely ended up with some gluten cross contamination, but it was interesting to mentally process what symptoms were from gluten and to recognize possible contaminated foods and stop eating them. Regardless, my digestive system is in such a shockingly better state than every other time I've been to Mexico, even with gluten contamination. And so I was able to realize the subtle contamination and try to adjust my eating accordingly. When I returned I was feeling somewhat sick and had some other non-digestive symptoms. Difficult to isolate which one were gluten related and which ones were possibly picking up a virus. I test negative for C*VID so it's hard to know what was wrong. Yesterday I did a 36hr fast and I feel dramatically better today. I found it very interesting.

On the exercise front I am trying to get back into the swing of things. I have not yet been consistent and am struggling with returning to a chaotic super busy (long hours) week at work. It's definitely impacting my ability to exercise. Additionally the hours at my pool were suddenly reduced so I haven't been able to swim at all. I will later this week I hope. I do feel some resentment for my company and my coworkers that somehow I keep bearing the brunt of having to work extra hours to make sure things are functioning, while so many of them just skip out and dump the extra responsibility on me without so much as a thank you.

FInally made it to the grocery store last night and picked up ingredients for lentil cauliflower tacos and Thai spiced brothy rice/tofu/veggie bowls. Looking forward to finding time again to cook interesting things and get back into my exercise routine.

Pricklypearcactus I hope that Mexico was good to you despite the food fight. I think you need a raise and an assistant!I

Great to see you check in pricklypear! I’m glad you got to go Mexico and away from work. Though I am with you in that if I went away now it would be pretty challenging because we have one month of classes left.

No blood work results yet. Unfortunately, this process for the lower cost takes 3-5 business days. With my primary care, I have it the next morning. Oh well. But otherwise doing OK and I re-upped for another 8 Pilates sesssions package.

We had corned beef and cabbage over the weekend and it made me retain water and my BP was a little higher. It was uncured but still really salty. It was good but glad we only have it once a year.

Glad to see you are getting results, GS .. WTG!

Prickly, so nice to see an update from you-- and especially glad you were able to take a vac. Your meals for this week sound so good. I have had but not made cauliflower tacos ... and the spicy broth thai dish sounds so good! I haven't eaten today and have a series of interviews to conduct this afternoon so they have me drooling! LOL

@gsciencechick - that's a wonderful improvement in your A1C - I'm just curious - have they said what their goal is for you? I started out at 5.4, but haven't gotten below 5.2. I'm pretty happy with that number though I think the goal is 5.0 for the group I get my CGM from.

@pricklypearcactus - lentil cauliflower tacos sound amazing! Adding lentils to my weekly diet has been on my list for awhile now. I like them, I just never cook with them besides one soup I occasionally make. Do you have a recipe you use?

The range for prediabetes is 5.7 - 6.4, so getting under that is important. IDK if "the lower the better" but it does tend to rise with age. I've emailed the results to the weight management doctor, and it might take a few days before he responds. He may or may not have a target for me. But as along as I stay out of prediabetes, that would probably be the goal given I have two siblings with T2D.

Edit: I talked with a friend last night, and hers was 6.1, so she really needs to get that down. She just got laid off from her tech industry job, so she will have some downtime to take better care of herself and work on it.

Yes, @gsciencechick 5.5 is a very healthy number. Congratulations on all your hard work paying off!

I really did not expect that large of a drop with not even 10% weight loss, so I am super thrilled and encouraged to keep going.

@legomom23 This is the recipe I use for the lentil cauliflower tacos. Sometimes I'll throw in some baby greens with the cilantro on top.

https://cookieandkate.com/roasted-cauliflower-and-lentil-tacos/

This is another lentil recipe I really like. It's very easy and fast and quite yummy.

https://iheartvegetables.com/simple-spiced-lentils/

I have a few red lentil curries that I really like as well.

https://www.101cookbooks.com/coconut-red-lentil-soup-recipe/

https://rainbowplantlife.com/vegan-red-lentil-curry/

Just chiming in to congratulate GS! That's wonderful. Good work, everyone, on your progress.

Thanks for the recipes, PP. I often overlook lentils, even thought I really like them.