This last week wasn't my best -- I don't feel like i had any flat out failures but a stream of indulgences all week. I was feeling sorry for myself that I had a work project that overtook celebrating my birthday so I ordered half a lemon coffee cake (wegmans) and then via delivery or a Friday birthday dinner, I definitely ate way more than normal. Nothing was especially bad (veggies in ginger curry sauce, veggie pad thai, hawaiian fajitas w/pineapple and chicken) but I ate a lot more of all than usual. Today just feel bloated and generally carpy.

So this week I am going to focus on cleaner eating and smaller portions. It is easiest for me to stay on track with simple meals -- so I am preparing my grocery order for ingredients for a pot of soup, roasted veggies bowls and salads.

Now that I have hit both of my deadlines, work will be much more manageable. I am going to schedule time each afternoon to get out and walk and/or jump rope. It's not like going to the gym-- but it is active and more than I did the last 2 weeks.

The theme is better work-life-health balance-- in fact, that will be my theme for my 60th year!

What are you planning for the coming week? Whatever it is, I hope it is a great one! 😎

Somehow I missed your Birthday….. I hope it fabulous in every way!

Thank you so much, Njmomma!

I also celebrated your birthday — I had the ice cream that was supposed to go

with your cake. 🐷

I generally had a grumpy week but I am over it now and enjoyed a weight lifting workout this morning and feel newly (again) inspired to keep that up. I have a busy week ahead which means less time staring into the fridge! Busy helping DS make an offer on a house 20 min from us, YAY. And I am taking a weaving class that is 3 mornings a week for two weeks…keeping my hands busy and hopefully enjoying it. I haven't really tried weaving before but have wanted to for a long time.

I made a really easy meal last week that was healthy and filling: a wild/brown rice combo , to which I added two types of beans and a bag of frozen veggies. DH added salsa to his; I liked it with just salt and pepper. We had plenty left for a couple of lunches.

Sue, thank you so much taking one for the team and having the ice cream for me! Also love that you are taking a weaving class. There is one near me that looks really good-- I need to follow up on it one of these days. And congrats on your DS moving closer to you!

I have a similar meal planned for tomorrow-- i have frozen garlic sauteed cabbage from TJ's to which I'll add sauteed cauliflower, onions and spices (ras el hanout, i think) and put over a brown/wild rice mix. It sounds delicious to me.

I’ve been to this thread exactly once, haven’t been back because I had done zip. Until last week. I have completely given up my nightly wine, and have walked two miles every day, and we have virtually no sweets in the house. Well, partly because I bought a box of the small chocolate chip cookies from WF two weeks ago and between DH and me, it took a week and a half for them to disappear.

Two breaks in all this: missed the walk one day because I had appointments in the morning and it rained in the afternoon, however, we did use that time to drop off donations around town, so that was healthy for home and mind! And went out to dinner for (my) birthday, I did have a glass of wine and we shared gelato for dessert.

Feels good!

And Happy Birthday to you, Bpath! Mine was Tuesday.

Sounds like you are off to a great start -- more than I can say right now but I am eager so that's something. Feeling good is a great way to stay motivated and on track! You got this!

LOL, SueB, that is awesome! It's so rainy and chilly here I'm having herbal tea for the team, so how's that LOL. Yesterday was warm, though.

I have so much grading, final exams, and other things to do this week that I have to prioritize my wellbeing as well. I have Pilates private session tomorrow, but I need to check in with her, since there was a bad hail storm with golfball sized hail, and she has property damage (roof, windows) at her house and one of their cars is totaled (not sure if hers or her SO). It will be investigated if it was a tornado or microburst. Glad I was not on campus then! I had my first Subaru damaged by hail that large when it was pretty new and it was in the shop two weeks. Luckily, the Mustang had the good cover on it, so it didn't really get any damage. I also thought my skylight in my townhouse was going to break.

On the treadmill right now. Doing grading. Still no word on the Zepbound and on chat rooms not really seeing much availability regionally. If not by Wednesday, I will consider compounding. I really don't know what else to do. If I miss more than two weeks I have to start over. CVS has no idea when it's coming in. Eli Lilly said availability was supposed to be better May 1 (which is next week), but now they're saying after Q2.

I finished my first week of tracking and didn't mind it at all. The apps make it easy and I didn't feel obsessive about it. I had a healthy and simple food week. I'm only weighing myself once a week. My goal here is to make sure I'm not creeping up by being mindful about eating and happily, I met that goal.

My main goal with this has been to use food for nutrition, not entertainment. After my horses died, my hair started falling out and I developed bronchitis. I had been basically living on candy and cheese for quite awhile, I think my immune systemm was just reflecting my emotional state. I'm rarely sick but the bronchitis seems to have settled in a bit. Last month, I saw my Dr who ruled out lung cancer and I'm seeing him again tomorrow and I hope to get some management tips. I don't want to do rounds of testing and analysis about it.

I walked pretty regularly although the breathing flared up pretty badly on a couple days. I think I need to add more of an exercise component. I don't enjoy walking, unfortunately, it's just easy around here. I'm thinking weight training or pilates to start. One would be at the Y and one at a studio - both in the nearest big small town about 45 minutes away.

Thanks for the encouragement. You really did get me started down a better path.

I'm sorry that I've been largely absent from these posts for a while. I'm still doing 5:2 intermittent fasting and (mostly) daily exercise. After about a year of working really hard to lose weight I'd about hit my goal weight and was thrilled. I tried not to let myself become complacent and continued exercising and trying to moderate food intake and continue to use intermittent fasting as a tool.

I have kept most of the weight off but not all of it. I will say it's been frustrating feeling like I'm still exercising and fasting at the levels I was when I was seeing 1-2lb weight decreases every week and yet still plateaued and ultimately started to see weight creep back up a bit. I've continued to battle that for the last few months. Feels like the story of my life that I have success, try to maintain, and then have to fight like h*** to keep it from coming back. And if I become even the least bit relaxed about it, the weight creeps up.

Saw this interesting article today and it was enlightening on why this might be.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/22/health/weight-loss-plateau-study-wellness/index.html

The body regulates weight by trying to maintain an equilibrium between the calories we eat and the calories we burn. When we expend or cut calories, and start burning our stored energy, appetite kicks in to tell us to eat more. Hall’s studies have shown that the more weight a person loses, the stronger appetite becomes until it counteracts, and sometimes completely undoes, all the hard work they’ve done to lose in the first place.

I thought it might be interesting to others who find themselves continuing to work hard and feel like their appetite is always fighting them.

I wish I didn’t always want to soothe jangled nerves with food! Yesterday we did a pre-offer inspection at the house we’re hoping will be our son’s. The market is so crazy here, no one is doing contingencies but you can do an inspection before making an offer. Add in the fact that DS is far away so we are touring on facetime. And the house is in a very coveted location…there were 7 pre inspections scheduled and they expect at least that many offers to be submitted today. DS, his wife, DH and I are all nervous! So anyway, after a weaving class (first one, so much to learn I was feeling dumb and stressed) then directly to the inspection, I had to go to the grocery store. It took all I had not to buy ice cream and cookies and cake…lol the cravings were strong. My concession was a fresh loaf of sourdough bread and some turkey and cheese to make a yummy sandwich when I got home. We rarely have bread any more so it was a treat without being a ”bad” treat.

Oh and I had a beer last night. Today is offer day, I might need a beer by noon.

Good luck, SueB20! Hope it works out.

Pricklypearcactus, I am very familiar with Kevin Hall's work with the NIH on obesity. I've seen several talks and webinars from him. He also studied the Biggest Loser contestants. Right, once you develop the obesity pathophysiology the body just really fights reversing it. That's why the medications work so well in general, but even then, people might hit a plateau on weight loss. Also, with lifestyle treatments even in these intense interventions, many people stop at about 10% of body weight, and most of the weight is lost in the first 6 months. This is study after study. Some people are able to blow past that, but that is way less common.

Still grading, early in the morning. I think I can finish up one class today. Yay! Much more to go!

That's interesting about Hall's findings, and it makes perfect sense from an evolutionary standpoint. It would be helpful if there were more focus on healthy habits in children to offset the pathophysiology early on. Discussion for another day.

Yesterday, I implemented one of my strategies for exercise. I usually plan ahead and schedule exercise into my week, inspired by Gscience, who always seems to schedule her exercise, and it works well for me. Monday is usually a big workout day at the gym. But I didn't sleep well the night before, and was just dragging yesterday. By late afternoon, I was feeling guilty that I had skipped the gym, so I decided to do a few all-over exercises for 10 minutes. Just 10 minutes, I told myself. Well, I ended up doing 20 minutes, and then my son came over, and we walked to a restaurant for dinner. So, between a quick 20 minutes of exercise, and walking to/from dinner, I got in some good movement.

It was a reminder that none of this has to be all-or-nothing. Even just doing something helps. Keep going, beautiful people!

Barncatz, I hope you're feeling better soon. Bronchitis can be so stubborn.

Bpath & Funky...Happy Birthday!

Sueb....May luck be with you!

Feathers, your comment about healthy habits in children to offset the pathophysiology early on is interesting to me. It makes sense. For me personally, I was always a fit (sometimes skinny) active child who was taught to eat when hungry and eat what was needed to feel full. Certainly we focused on eating healthy foods and talked about that, and honestly that continued for the most part with the exception of some bad choices in my 20s. I was never obese, but definitely overweight during periods of adulthood, and it feels like a constant battle to fight my body wanting to return to being overweight, even when exercising regularly and trying to eat healthy foods. I wish I had a good explanation why it feels like a constant battle for me and some of my other friends tell me they just lose their appetite as soon as they start to put on any weight.

The scale has crept up a few pounds after vacation. I am consciously trying to get back to my low carb way of eating even though I did have chips with mexican last night. 😒 I had labs this week and most all were good but my A1c was up.

MD was still very happy and said I am my toughest critic. I told her I blamed it on my DD and her twins! She has chocolates in every cabinet in her house and probably eats 3 pieces a week. It calls out for me because I don't have any in my house. I need to get better about not letting it tempt me.

With the nicer weather it will be easier to get walks in after dinner.

Kids did not get the first house (there were 12 offers!) but they got another one! Phew. I am so thrilled; they’ll be about 20 min from us. The house needs some updating, mostly cosmetics, which of course I’ll be happy to help with!

Thank goodness it’s spring. I went for a nice 3 mile walk today admiring all the tulips and daffodils around town! DH and I have been pretty good about going for walks after dinner…not quite every night but I think we made it 3x last week. We are trying to commit to 1/2 hour after dinner most nights, regardless of whatever exercise we’ve done earlier in the day.

What great news, Sue! Congrats to your DS and DDIL! And how wonderful for you ❤️