Hi, Vicki, your plan to listen to your body sounds very positive. Sometimes I just wait out my hungry feeling, knowing I don't actually need more food. This gives my body a chance to use and process all the food I ate earlier. It's hard but effective. I never go too long, just an extra hour or two past that initial hunger.

Hi, Teri, first, so sorry about your laundry! I hope you got everything clean! And I'm glad today you might be able to start walking your dog outside again :) The clove experiment sounds promising too. I also like to do little experiments like that to better understand how things affect me. For example, years ago, I used to drink Nuun electrolyte tabs in water. I also noticed my face getting puffy after a while. It took me a while to put two and two together, but I realized those tabs were really too much electrolytes for me. I was also drinking them way too much and too often. I cut those out, face puffiness fixed. 

Well, I have gone off the rails! So much Valentine's candy!

I must stop! And I downloaded a game app and I am wasting WAY TOO MUCH TIME on it. The weather was crazy cold again so I'm not making it to the gym and then at work Friday I was exposed to Covid so I have to mask for ten days and I do not want to go to the gym with a mask.

Teri, I do not like self checkouts but my kids do. They think I'm silly to wait in a line for a real cashier and bagger.

Vicki, I think the no scale may be good for you. I know that if I think I'm obsessing on it, I stop weighing for a while, but in general I don't stress about fluctuating but I do like to see an upward trend before it goes too far! I guess I really could just pay more attention to how my clothes fit. I definitely do better if the weight is just an observation but the goals are about habits. Like the breathing I was going to do every day this month and still haven't done!

Teri, I hate those ocular migraines! I can't read with one! But I use the Hyland Migraine Relief if I feel one coming on... dissolve two pills on my tongue and close my eyes for 10 minutes and that usually does the trick. Also I put a towel in the dryer and then wrap it around my feet. In theory this pulls the circulation back into your feet from your head but I just know it helps.

Vicki: I totally agree with what you said here:  the longer I don't eat carbs in the day, the less grazing I do. If I have just protein for my 1st meal of the day, then I don't get hungry again for longer periods. Me too.

Also I've read before that sometimes we think we are hungry when it is really thirst. So if I feel hungry and I ate recently I drink some sparkling water first and then wait too see whether I am still hungry.

The scale is up to 218.8 today but I know it is all the candy and I can handle a little rise as long as I don't go back over 220! I know it will go back down after it warms up and I can walk more again. I know you can't outexercise a bad diet, but I also want to tone up, not just lose weight, and I don't want to go backwards after working so hard to rehabilitate my knee.

I have to vent!  I just got off the phone with the Social Security Help Desk and let me tell you he was NO help at all!   In August, when I turned 70, I switched from my late wife's SS benefit to my own benefit.  My problem is that I got two 1099 forms in the mail......one for Jan 2023-July 2023 (when I received my late wife's SS) and one for my own benefit (from August to Dec).  Mr. SS Help Desk can't tell me how to report two 1099s on my tax return! He told me to ask my tax preparer, which would be me! I only file the 1040 SR which is very simple. I'm going to approach SS another way even if I have to sit on the phone for an hour, which is likely. 

Teri, call H&R Block and ask them. Be a lot easier for them to tell you. They'll tell you and not expect to do it for you.

Margaret, I don't even buy candy anymore. I find 1-2 peices and it over powers me to the point it actually tastes nasty to me. I've thrown out candy so many times for that very reason. That actually goes for most sweets. And salty snacks I don't bother to buy anymore since I retain fluid so easily. My snack these days is litely buttered popcorn in the single serve packs. More than that and the imitation butter taste gets to me. I do also get the lemon cream cookies that look like oreos. I enjoy those with my coffee in the evenings, but I only eat a couple at a time.

You mentioned downloading a game on your phone. I play Bingo Blitz, and have played it for years, both on the computer and on the phone. It gives me something to do when I'm waiting somewhere when I'm away from my computer.

Heather, I'm doing well with the no weighing right now. It makes my mornings more enjoyable. I do still watch what I'm eating because I certainly don't want to gain more, but I feel such a relief to be done with the scale watching. I'm kind of an all or nothing type person, and stepping on the scale each morning could really put a downer on the whole day, depending on the number it showed, especially when I was doing everything right and the number would keep going up. So I'm much better not even knowing what it is anymore. I'll keep eating the best I can and taking my vitamins, and get in what exercise I can, and the rest will just have to take care of itself.

Vicki, its only free with H& R if you're filing your taxes online with them. I don't.  I think having two 1099s might be like having 2 of anything.  the online tax form will probably ask me if I want to add another 1099. It'll probably be easier than I'm fearing.

I have removed the Werthers hard candies to the freezer. I have to get this addiction under control. I'm so afraid eating Werthers daily will affect my A1c.  I'm keeping my weight at 196 which acceptable but not progressing.  My nephrologist appointment is in March.

I stopped putting whole cloves in my coffee pot 2 days ago. I didn't have an aura for 2 days but today I did have a partial aura. It happened while I was driving but it didn't block my whole field of vision so I kept on.  I'm also not wiped out.  I'll avoid cloves for awhile and then try them again to see if there's any effect.

Teri, I have colleagues who are CPAs and tax preparers. Would you like me to run your situation by them just to get another point of view for you to consider?

Vicki, your update is so encouraging. Your peace of mind sounds very, well....peaceful :) Stress can really hurt a body, so having less scale-related stress in your life might actually result in positive changes. Keep us posted! I'm only weighing myself on Fridays for the fitness challenge. I find I don't think about it on the other days. Like Margaret said in the post above, a good gauge of things is how clothes fit. 

I feel good about my eating choices lately. Margaret posted an overnight oats recipe in the cookbook thread the other day, and I made it for this morning. It was tasty. I did snack on Dot's Cheetos Sunday night. I love Dot's. They are my weakness, hahaha, so I need to monitor them.

Today at PT the therapist said, "let's go out to the stairs and have you go up and down stairs," .... and I DID! 
like normal people! 
i didn't think I could, but I did!

Actually, I knew I could walk up the stairs. I didn't think I could go down the stairs alternating legs on each step instead of lowering with the good leg only and then joining to have both feet on each step.

it's not just since knee surgery that I had to use the two feet on each step technique. It's been almost 20 years since I walked down stairs "normally." But the doctors just kept saying I was too young for knee replacement and as long as I used elevators or the two feet each step technique, my knee rarely hurt... till this year when it started hurting all the time and finally replacement was approved.

WTG Margaret!!!!  So happy for you.

Teri, I've never heard of putting cloves in coffee. Hopefully that by stopping that, the migraines stop.

Heather, I just felt it was time. And my morning outlook does seem to be better. More peaceful.

Vicki, I make french press coffee. I've been putting cinnamon sticks in the brew for a year. I like the taste. I got the bright idea of tossing a whole clove in the coffee grounds too, before adding the hot water. Cloves are pretty strong. I don't know yet if this the cause of the auras but time will tell.

I'm so happy for you, Margaret!! 

A win here, and a win there, and before you know it, you've really got momentum! And that sounds like a pretty big win to me!

So I was so excited about being able to walk down stairs normally that I "celebrated " by eating foods I do not usually eat. Of course I was totally thoughtless about it and ate combinations of foods that give me heartburn! So I had heartburn all that night, and then I went over the 220 boundary on the scale! Ok, just 220.2.

yesterday I barely ate anything as I still felt stuffed and just now the scale was back down, 217.4, but that was just a stupid episode! Also I was so tired from not sleeping with the heartburn the night before that I fell asleep early last night and didn't get my exercises in.

Hey Ladies, Well, I decided to go back to weighing. I know, I know, I sound so wishy-washy, but it's just how I seem to be. I'll get all upset with the scale and say it has to go but then after awhile I'll end up going and buying a new scale. Thankfully this time I was smart and just put the scale up in the closet. So all I had to do was put new batteries in it and it's ready to go when I want to torture myself. So I weighed this morning and I was 251.2. At least in the 10 days I didn't weigh I didn't go overboard with my eating. I still believe all I said in past posts and will work towards listening more to my body and only eating when hungry but I'm going to keep the scale around.

Vicki, you are entitled to change your mind about the scales! Whatever helps! 

Margaret, I finally stopped "celebrating" with food because I have such a hard time  recovering from celebrating.  I'm only now getting back to pre-Thanksgiving weight!  

195.5 this morning. 

Thanks Teri. You wouldn't believe how many scales I've gotten rid of over the years. This scale was actually gotten for Bob and me from one of the sweet ladies in the Raok forum. The doctor was pushing for Bob to lose weight and he had to have a scale that went up to 400 lbs (Bob was 379 lbs. when he passed). But he never stepped on the scale even once. The last weigh in was in the hospital a month before he died. I think he was probably about 10-15 lbs. smaller when he actually passed because the last 2 weeks he barely ate anything. Anyway, that's why I have that scale. And it is a good one.

I weighed this morning and I'm 250.3.

Very happy this morning at reaching 194 again. The last time I was at 194 was Nov 1. I'm looking back at the past week, I see I didn't have cookies, bread, pasta, a lot of cheese. I find myself very tempted to reward myself with one of those food items but no, I'm not going to. I want very much to progress below 194! I've got those pesky doctor visits coming up in March. I don't know how successful I'll be.  I have not had any more auras for 2-3 days.  I stopped putting cloves in my coffee, nor have I had teas containing cloves.  If I go another few days without auras I'll try a spicy tea and see how it affects me, if at all.  

Vicki, I think maybe a short break from the scale was all you needed. My knee feels a little stiff, probably because I did not bike every day because of exposure to Covid, but Monday I can stop masking.

You're doing great Teri. Keep it up.

Margaret, probably once you get back into your exercise routine your knee will loosen back up. Glad you're over the covid.

My weight is up a little this morning thanks to a number of saltine crackers I ate last night. I was craving salt. Weight 251.2

Hi everyone. I've been a personal trainer and member of PBS for nearly 15 years now. If you need individualized help just PM me. Happy to help anyone (for free)!

Thank you Scott. Much appreciate it. And welcome to the forum.

I'm at my lowest weight for the year this morning at 247.9 lbs. Hoping to keep it heading down here on out.

Well, I'm ending out the month of January at 249.2, which is 0.1 lb. different from day 1. But it's a loss, no matter how small. I'm going to really work in Feb. to make more progress. I'd like to be down at least 5 lbs. by the end of Feb. I'll see if I can manage it.

Welcome, Scott!

Thanks all. Congratulations on losing weight. Keep going! It's a long process, but trust it, and it will work for you.

Thanks Scott. Follow us over into the February forum. This months chat room is closed.