:flowerforyou: Hi Guys and Dolls.....I'm back!!!

It's been a long haul (literally), 8 countries in 12 days all work related. As a result, I completely came off track and lost site, routine, proteins oh and finally lost count of how many bread rolls I actually ate over the period. :bigsmile:

Rather than me giving you my life story, below summarises my experience and points to note which I hope you will find helpful in some way:

1. Try not to stray from logging via MFP (no excuses ....works offline too if you have no Internet, always sync when you can). The day I stopped login was the day I strayed off my (cruise phase) diet....and I mean strayed completely!

2. Trains, planes & automobiles (and all the hotels in between) - I started off well by carrying with me a range of Scooby snacks inside my various sizes of Tupperware (looked suspicious at customs but I didn't care)...oatbran, protein shakes, truvia , vanilla powder...you name it, I had it....the Dr would be proud.

3. Breakfast buffets - couldn't resist the offering of freshly cut melons, pineapples and fresh berries so I stuck to these with hams and figured better than bread or other refined carbs. Little did I know that the 'carb clan' disguised as freshly baked artisan rolls and warm croissants had their eye on me.

4. Who would have ever thought it, MFP is actually very much worldwide. I found it very amusing when I purchased a yogurt where I couldn't even read the label (for the bi- lingually challenged) but managed to log all in Greek....fabulous!!

5. I couldn't challenge my love for eating out.....so my PP/PV pattern went out of the window after my first few days away. Did I feel guilty....not at all.

6. After all of the above, I returned a few days ago to discover that I hadn't put on a single pound and I mean zero! Yes it's official, I am the same weight as I was 2.5 weeks ago and I am even on my TOM!

So the moral of MY story is that I need MFP and all my wonderful friends to keep me on track....accountability is a wonderful thing. I need to be able to recognise my threshold, if i pass the zone......the little devil comes out in me :devil: also, I never beat myself up for going off my diet lifestyle as sometimes 'life' just skews somewhat and you need to be able to adjust. It's not the coming off that counts.......it's truly about getting back on :flowerforyou:

p.s. a quick hello to all the Dukaners to may have recently joined onto this thread, please feel free to add or ask any questions xx

Hey Dukaers,

I started this thread some time back (May last year) and the support we gave each other was beyond tremendous! I reached my -8kg goal successfully but unfortunately fell off due to work commitments ( full blog of my story to follow or those who may be interested). My brother on the other hand also did the diet and kept it off by following the 4 stage plan in its entirety. He is a professional athlete I hasten to add but needed to rapidly reduce his weight for weight category purposes. He now eats carbs and all the 'stoge' you can think of yet continues to train and never misses his PP Thursday once a week ( or whichever day his training programme allows).

Looking for new/ active Dukaners especially if you are based in the UK or Europe ( not favouritism I promise....it's just that's where I live and helpful for tips on available food brands etc )

Happy to be back, lets get this party started!

Wow ! That's a brilliant attack result.......sorry to ear about your stress, hope things are better now. I have 2 more days of my 'relaxed' attack (protein shakes and raw nuts are my conscious cheat ). Lets see if I still loose?

How is everybody's cruise going ?