Ready for a Change

Be careful of the salad for lunch thing. Salad dressing is usually a calorie bomb, and most places use way too much.

Eggs can be hit or miss too depending how much oil they use. You should be able to fit a piece of toast into your budget if you want it. Stick to smaller portions might be good. Ask if places have a child's portion. Sometimes that works. Or see if you can share a dish or take leftovers to eat later.

Enjoy the vacation! Do the best you can to eat sensibly and estimate the serving sizes. This is where your powers of estimation get tested and why I sometimes estimate things before I weigh them at home. It keeps my eyeball calibrated for when I don't have a scale.

I’m on a flight home from a couple weeks trip as I type this. Cant say I stuck to any kind of plan. I ate it alllllllll.

But, we did discover that many European (if that’s where you’re headed) grocery chains have a quick meal area with very good salads.

The Albert Heijn Italian salad is phenomenal, and even with dressing seeds and croutons, came to about 350 or less for the whole container.

I would happily eat that several times a week if it were available locally.

(Typing this as I stare at the last half of a Milka bar in my lap. 😳 back to plan tomorrow!!!!)

And in all seriousness, I am an utter freak, but I love to weigh myself as soon as I get home and watch the “weight” melt over the course of the next week. I know it’s water weight, but still, it’s fun!

ddsb1111 wrote: »

And in all seriousness, I am an utter freak, but I love to weigh myself as soon as I get home and watch the “weight” melt over the course of the next week. I know it’s water weight, but still, it’s fun!

I thought I was the only one that thought this was fun! 😆

Heck yeah, because it’s the only time during weight loss you’ll lose two or three pounds a day, multiple days in a row. Makes me feel like an Olympic champ, and gets me in the mindset to continue losing whatever else I may have picked up on the trip.

I’m the weirdo that loves weighing after a trip. Sure, the jump can be shocking, but it’s fun to watch the large water weight drop in just a few days, and then be fairly close again to where I was. I don’t often get whooshes so this is it for me. Now I can pretty much anticipate how much I’ll gain, how much is water, and how long it will take to get back to normal. All this because I weighed right away. Took me years so no sweat if you’re not there yet, just food for thought.

Everything the two above me said. Fascinating, data and expectations for next time, fun to watch pounds drop crazy rapid for a change.

“I am my own science project.”

Overheadfan wrote: »

Well, I'm back into the routine of real life , as opposed to " holiday life" and I still haven't lost or put on any weight. I'm in stasis. It occurred to me that I feel relaxed and comfortable with my progress. Initially I was annoyed because my weight has hovered around the same mark for nearly 7 weeks. ( 4 week holiday in there) . I occasionally got impatient but now I'm letting that feeling go. I'm back logging my food, exercising each day and working the program.
I've been so surprised by this whole process. From Day One I have been waiting for feelings of resentment towards diet, over focusing on food, my body , etc to kick in and it just hasn't happened. Life has presented a few challenges along the way but I didn't falter. I think that my sense of control and autonomy with my diet regimen has had a positive influence on other issues.
Feeling healthy and empowered has enabled me to cope with other stressors , and it's a positive self perpetuating cycle. I want to succeed with my health goals because it's not just about weight, it's about functioning at an optimum level for physical and emotional wellbeing.

Maybe tomorrow I'll wake up and feel differently but I'm determined to roll with it, whatever I feel .

The bolded, so very true . . . for me, at least.

I think we have some choices about our mindset, within a certain personal range. That - the bolded - is a really, really good one IMO.

Good show!

I'd add: I think some of the self-management and planning/organizing skills, once learned in this realm, turn out to apply to other big goals that require patient, persistent, small actions over quite a period of time: Formal education, learning complex new skills (hobby or job), financial goals, home improvements, better fitness, etc.

That worked for me. TJMaxx had a clearance dress I absolutely loved but it was an 8 while I was still an 18, but had already gotten in my groove and lost several sizes. It was only $12.99 so I bought the thing.

I hung it sideways in the closet, so it draped over everything. I had to love it to the side to get to my real clothes. Every morning I talked to it, stroked it, pictured myself in it. “What fun we’ll have!, I told it.

It sounds ridiculous, but it was very effective, very helpful to have a visible, tactile goal.

It sure beat my mom’s “weight loss method” of yelling and crying “you big fat ugly *kitten*” at herself in the mirror and hitting herself in the head while she did. Powerful stuff for a little kid to witness, repeatedly.

You believe what you tell yourself. Took me almost six decades to learn that. One of my yoga instructors ends every class with the usual yoga sign off, but always adds, “Be kind to yourself. If you can’t, who can be?”


You are doing so well, and have developed such a great mindset. You’ll conquer it (another new mindset for me!) and are clearly developing maintenance habits.

Don’t let a pound or two up ruin your trajectory. Can’t tell you how many times that’s happened to me during loss, and def still does in maintenance.

I’m coming off a three month gain-plateau following a bike accident. If you’d told me a bad fall and bruise would do that for such an extended period I’d have pshawed you. Still learning. There’s always something interrupting what we think should happen during the journey.

Overheadfan wrote: »

I've been enjoying this process in so many ways. Sometimes frustrating, sometimes panicked, sometimes annoying , sometimes just loving the new skills I've started to develop to push away the negatives and begin to have more confidence and positivity to just keep stepping forward.

I thought I was the only one. I also enjoyed the process. I thought I was weird to think that, but it was sorta like reading an interesting new book, only the book was me.

A favorite author said something to the effect that nothing is so interesting to ourselves as ourselves!