Hey everyone,

So I locked myself out of my old account Bookphilosopher at the end of January. I can't remember the email so I haven't been able to get back in. I decided to make a new account instead.

So where have I been since January?

The best news: I am now married as my boyfriend (now husband) and I eloped during the semester.

The good news: I have maintained my weight loss during the semester. I no longer see the chiropractor and I only go to PT once a month. My health problems have really faded. I have been exercising (walking) everyday. I still have a lot of food allergies but I no longer have hip or leg or butt pain like when I was first posting. I haven't been needing to go to the doctor much since the semester started. Its been really nice health wise.

The bad news: There was an electrical fire in my husband and I's house in the beginning of February. It took a while to get help from the insurance and find a contractor. They started working on the house at the beginning of April so I have been a bit displaced on and off while the work has been happening. The fire caused a lot of damage. They had to rebuild part of the roof, take down a wall, and they will have to redo the kitchen. They will have to paint three of the rooms of the house (house is small with only four rooms total). Its been really stressful. I was staying at a hotel for a while but am now staying with my parents which is quite stressful for me.

I ended up dropping all but one class after the fire happened to manage some of the house stuff. I also was in shock as we were in the house when the fire occurred. I am no longer feeling mentally upset about the fire. Instead I am ready to move on once the house is fixed and be back to my normal life. I don't know when the construction will be done.

My original goals were

Jan thru May 2025 goals:

1. No unneeded shopping until June - this didn't happen at all. I had to buy a LOT of stuff due to the fire although most of it was needed. I did manage to stay within our income though and not go into debt.

2. Plan my eating in the mfp app everyday to stay within my calorie goal in order to maintain my 51 lb loss from last year - I locked myself out of my account in the end of Jan so I did not plan my eating. However I have maintained my weight loss! I gained weight in Feb right after the fire but lost it again since. The reason I gained weight was stress eating so once I realized after that month, I just forced myself to stop stressed eating pastries and eventually it went back down

I hope you all are doing well.

Also to answer your question @totameafox I am triple majoring in philosophy, history and political science. I am behind on graduating now that I dropped classes last semester. Did you ever get into your walking pad? I miss mine!

@mucky1217 thank you for thinking of me! I hope you are well.

Welcome back!! Congratulations on your marriage!! That is wonderful. And congrats on keeping your weight off.

A fire like that must have been terrifying. I am glad to hear you are doing ok and getting through everything slowly. Take care of yourself as first priority is the right move.

Thank you for the well wishes @yakkystuff @megd44 @MinnieIndigo

I weighed in today after a rough (almost) ending to May. Gained 3lbs since my last weigh in which I don't love but I'm also kinda whatever about it with everything going on. Not the end of the world and it's because I've been stress eating again. I really need to keep working on distracting myself from stress eating. I have been walking every day on the beach. But I think I need some other things to do. It's very odd being at my parent's house.

At my house I usually work on classes, hang out with friends or husband, read, journal, and do a lot of housekeeping/chores. Here, I don't have class, none of my friends are close by, and my husband has been staying in the one undamaged room in the house so he's not nearby either, and I'm finding it hard to concentrate on reading or journaling. I wish I knew how much longer I would be here for. I am finding it hard to get into a routine without a timeline.

Good news though! I am dogsitting my brothers dog from Friday through June 8th so that should be fun, distracting, and good exercise!

(Decided to edit this since it was just one run on paragraph)

Dogsitting my brother's dog went well.

I was staying at my parent's house but they live in a tourist-y destination and now that it's summer they have people staying with them so my husband and I have been staying at a hotel. Since we have to keep the nightly rate below a certain amount because the insurance is paying. Due to that and living in a tourist-y destination in the summer, we keep having to switch hotels to get a cheaper rate on the weekends and since some hotels are booked out some days. Today we switched to our 4th hotel this month.

On top of that, we had an issue with the contractor. He did some not great things, walked off the job, stole our gutters and ran over our sewer line. That's the bad news. The good news is my parent's very highly regarded contractor said she will come look at our house on Monday and give us a quote. She came when the damage first occurred months ago but at the time was booked til Sept. Since my parents explained all the ways the original contractor we hired messed up our house, she said she is finishing a job and would take our job if we wanted as a favor to my parents since she's done a lot of work for them.

I haven't weighed myself since the 1st and I'm 90% certain I've gained weight from eating out and living in a hotel. Once I move back into my house, I will weigh myself and get back on track. I have been exercising at the hotel almost every day but it's been hard to eat well without a kitchen. Also I am sick of eating out.

Thanks for the update. That is tough but it sounds like you are hanging in there and doing ok despite all your challenges. Sometimes that is all we can do is just get throughout that one moment, even if it us a long moment. Getting back to it when you get back home is a great plan. Do what you can now as you can. Glad you and hubby are together.

My parents contractor came today and looked at the house. Two other contractors came also. Not sure how expensive the quotes will end up being.

I am really struggling with trying to mentally want to get back on track. I'm no longer stress eating but we're still eating basically every meal out. It's hard to come up with some sort of plan with all of this hotel hopping.

With the original contractor, it seemed like we would be back in the house by this week (I mean obviously he was lying at the time but we didn't know he was planning on pocketing the money and walking off the job and causing property damagem), but now that there's a bunch of things we have to do before moving in, I'm hoping that it'll by the end of next week.

When I lost my original 50lbs I took photos of all my food on an app called foodview. Then when I was maintaining I switched to writing everything down. I'm pretty sure I've gained weight, not sure how much. But when I get back home, I would like to lose any weight I've gained. I think I will do it by writing down everything I eat and the calorie count like when I was maintaining, weighing myself on the week days (not weekends) and exercising five to six days a week.

On the plus side, I have been exercising every day. I used to barely exercise but I've been exercising almost every day since the beginning of April. It's easy because with everything going on, I'm much more active, and then all the hotels have a gym. I also bought a smart watch which counts steps so that's cool.