Happy Saturday Folks! More later.

Stacy, your kitty looks right at home at the office. Fascinated by the idea of a therapy cat. Based on your desk picture, I'm guessing your cat is fairly calm and loves being right by and petted. My two are of the "I love to cuddle when I want, on my terms, for 60secs then I'm off" variety. So great that you do this!

Heron, I keep meaning to try a cauliflower crust pizza. Must do it.

Let's see more from AJ
Wants my macros much more balanced at meals. I need to strive for a one to one ratio of fat to protein (grams not carbs) at every meal. Have to rethink my overly fat heavy morning of coffee, coconut oil and heavy cream. And add protein ( from food not a powder). In the last week I've gone from 3 cups each with half tablespoon of coconut oil and 2 tablespoons HWC to 2 with half tablespoon coconut oil and half tablespoon HWC. Now to figure out the protein thing balanced with fat. Looks like I will get closer to a three meal a day girl than I've been.

Speaking of coconut oil. She suggests on carb nites in early spikes to be as low fat as possible, but where you would use butter swap to coconut oil (even at dinner) ....less likely to be stored as fat in that carb spike. Save the true fatty treat for the spike just before bed.

Her consultation take in form covered all bases not just food. Stress (top stressor and how you manage), sleep, goals, dieting history (how much, how long, barriers to success), family support, fitness routines, exercise schedules. Very comprehensive as were her suggestions. As I mentioned before she talked about the only way to succeed was to do all if it. Not just the food.

Happy Saturday All! Seems I broke the log in streak yesterday. Crazy day and I have not been able to get on here. Making this a quick post since I have to do a bunch of running around today. Will try and catch up later with all of your posts. Survived the two Christmas parties yesterday relatively unscathed, but the boyfriend drove my car to the pet store and was hit in the parking lot. Thank goodness he and the other driver were not hurt, but you should see my poor car. My 2010 baby was still like new and now...not so much. Spent the night on the phone with insurance crap. Ugh!

Have a wonderful day all!!!

Hey all. I am 31 as of today. Hope to treat myself to a steak at some point.

Kris glad no one was hurt!

6 mile RX today

8:05
8:42
9:03 uphill
8:32 downhill
8:38
8:07

Goal was under 50:00. Came in at 51:12 8:32/mile. I have some work to do!

Mile 2-3-4-5 all had a lot of incline/decline in it. I really like to run uphill, but I really don't enjoy downhill. I know that sounds wrong but the adrenaline I get from running up a hill and beating it outweighs the exhaustion. Downhill is tougher because I have to try to slow down or else I'll get too tired.

This week I did 17.01 miles total. My average pace was 8:23. I really want to get that to 8:00. Luckily this is only week 3 out of 12 for this program. Next cycle of 12 weeks I'll do speed. I'll finish this cycle up in February, start cycle 2 on March 2. That will last me until May. Cycle 3 will start in June where I will work on strategy for my race in October. Hopefully I'll have the opportunity to work on strength between now and then as well. I miss lifting weights .

One time when my friend and I hiked La Luz trail in the Sandia Mountains (Albuquerque) we were about 3.5 miles in and we saw the trail kind of fork and we didn't know which way to go so we turned right and found a pretty steep hill...my friend just looked at me and said, "Let's take this hill" which meant SPRINT up it. We sprinted to the top of that incline as fast as we could, started walking on what we thought was a trail then stopped because the trail seemingly disappeared. We saw two girls hanging out sunning on the side of these rocks just laughing at us so we asked them where the trail was and they pointed back down the hill and said that this was just a lookout point. We weren't embarrassed. That hill looked like it needed some action.

Bowling practice today! Have a good one everyone!

Rock on Carol! Don't let the fact that you had something you shouldn't have get you down. Yep, we're both admitting we did it but not stepping into old habits.

Great dinner tonight with some more 'fake' meat. Hehehe.... Sauteed some 'chicken' strips and mushrooms with some teriyaki sauce. I couldn't even tell it wasn't real chicken. Added a few carrots too.

I'm still drinking my water. I've been adding a couple drops of peppermint oil to a glass or two as a little bit of a pick me up. Two weeks now with no soda. Woohoo!!!!!

If you're looking at my food diary, don't take it as the gospel. I put in most of what I'm eating but for things like salads, I tend to just put an estimate on calories. I know the calories calculated are only approximations, but they're close. I just post it to show what I'm eating, for the most part. Plus it does help me stay accountable as I have to log what goes into my mouth (remnant of my Weight Watchers days).

I hope everybody had a great Saturday. Heron, hope you had a great time at the Christmas party.

I cheated a little.... Schlotzky's pizzas are so good.

Checking in before I forget. GO BEARS (it's a rest day).

Checking in.

Kim - interesting consult. What Jeff has told me is that it's fine to have a pure fat meal with no protein (i.e. coffee with cream/oil/butter), but if you do have protein in a "meal" then it's important to have fat equal to or more than the protein. Also, I wonder why AJ thinks you might store the fat you take in during Carb Night. The way I've heard Kiefer explain it is that as long as you've truly been ultra low carb for the 6 days of the week, then all the mechanisms in your body that would normally store the glucose and fat are suppressed and essentially turned off so your body can't store the glucose and fat during this short period of insulin spike. The insulin spike resets your body so that your "good" hormones don't remain suppressed for too long. But that is also why it's important to be ultra low carb after carb night to re-suppress the fat storing mechanisms. All this is why Kiefer says there's no need to eat "clean" carbs during carb night because it just shouldn't matter. So you have me wondering if this is one of the "differences" between Men and Women that Kiefer has recently eluded to when it comes to CNS?

Yesterday's carb night was OK, had a few nice treats but overall it was a mild carb night which is what it should be. This morning only gained 2 lbs in water weight which is pretty good following a carb night. I have found that on carb night I find savory carbs more satisfying than sweet carbs. Enjoy bread and pasta far more than say pastry or candy. Still enjoy ice cream and sugar can sweetened soda however

We'll see how I do tonight, have another Xmas dinner party to go to. Will try to avoid the carbs. Wish me luck!

Quick check in. Sorry I have been absent. Was doing stuff for work today and had to even drive into the office for a bit. (((hugs))) to all and starting tomorrow I am off for two weeks. Plenty of time to catch up! To any holiday travelers heading out early...Merry Christmas:)