Everyday Systems

Hey everybody! Happy new year! I'm ready to get back started. Had surgery on January 11th so I wanted to recover before I dove back in.

In the last couple of holiday months, all fasting, omad, 2mad, low carb, No S, has been out the window. I also temporarily stopped using my fitbit in December to focus on Christmas stuff. And after 3 years of faithfully doing 30 min. of cardio a day, I quit that too.

Now about 5 lbs heavier (and a good 15 to lose), I'm ready to get this new year going in a downward direction on the scale. And of course that means I need the support of my NoS friends.

I'd like to jump right in going back to 2 meals a day and skipping breakfast. That worked well after I got used to no eating breakfast (after a lifetime of believing I HAD to have " the most important meal of the day"). It ended up being very easy.

The only issue is I've gotten in a habit of having a piece of my hubby's homemade banana bread with my coffee every morning. (he keeps making it because the kids keep NOT eating the bananas and it's Sooooo good).

Great to see everyone is still here and hi to everyone I haven't met!

Hi there and welcome to your 2019 journey! Hope it's great! Also hope your recovery is going well - I remember you mentioning this "gift" to yourself and I was excited for you.

We peel and freeze the last of the bananas and I put them in the kids' morning smoothies. Just did that today actually!

Hey and thank you for the welcome back🤗. Great idea with the bananas. So yes this is a new surgery gift... A facelift!!! I got the staples out today, which was as hideous as it sounds. But all looks really really good. Eleven days post today and first time I'm looking back to normal. I'm still just amazed I did it. I don't even get fillers or anything.. Just went straight for the big guns!
The important thing is, today was a SUCCESS for day one. 2 meals, easy because I was at Dr and didn't have to make kids dinner.

Wow re: surgery! I think I’m too much of a chicken. I’ve gotten off track a bit too and am also up about 5 lbs (or more). I like your new plan. Mixing the best of both worlds.

Wishing you a happy 2019!!

Wow Linda, I loved seeing you having lunch with Kayla...that must've been SO awesome!!! Happy 2019 back at you


So yesterday was not the cleanest green, but good enough for day 2 (therefore the green caterpillar lol). Today will be great if I can be done for the day at 3pm.

I've had 2 separate calls from school to come get 2 of the boys throwing up, so I imagine we have a stomach bug that's going to run through the family, boo

Facelift-wise, I finally got to wash my hair and giant clumps fell out all over the place. I LITERALLY have barely any hair left on the sides and nothing to cover the incisions and staple scars everywhere. So now I am actually looking at hair toppers and wearing a hat.
I can't believe it's come to this. Wig wearing, omg. Verdict still out on if it was worth it. I can say I didn't realize how often I was playing with my double-chin-turkey-neck thing and I LOVE it being gone. And it's very exciting to have cheekbones again.
Anyway I've told dh since I was in my 20s that I'd be having a facelift in my forties and he's always been adamant that there's no way that would be happening.

So at Christmas, he just asked me out of the blue if I wanted to do it before this doctor retired next year. Of course I jumped on it because an offer of this magnitude has NEVER happened.
But I want to be brutally honest with my NoS friends, which somehow always gets me back on the path of good habits and a better sense of well- being. I found as Thanksgiving was approaching and the first anniversary of my little sister's death loomed, I felt more devastated by my daughter's loss than ever. I think because I was so afraid of my first Christmas without her last year, and then my sister dying unexpectedly right at Christmas...well I'm not sure but I was really really down. As in, enough so that my parents had to come over while my dh was on a trip. And my parents have been through so much too...I'm always put together, so for them to see me coming unraveled pretty much freaked the whole family out. Depths far too embarrassing to actually say, but I think my husband gave me the facelift option as a reason to live. Doesn't that sound awful? No one has said that, but it's what I secretly think.
I'm definitely out of that deep funk now, it feels more lightly blue and better each day into the new year .

Today is a caterpillar too...3 meals instead of 2, but none of them heavy. My dh and I get salads everyday for lunch. I wasn't in the mood and just had pita with hummus. Now just had very light early dinner at 3:30 and done for day.

Allison - I love your honesty. I feel like I've seen you make progress in being able to share your pain and let it all hang out. You are beautiful inside and out, but I'm sure you're glad to have turkey neck gone.

Yes the turkey neck is just crazy awesome to have gone! And it's very liberating to get on once in a while and be super honest.

Yesterday was very RED. Banana zucchini nut bread....a piece in the morning that led to an all day affair. I think I ate over half the Bundt cake size
Today is Saturday and treating like a normal day. Had light breakfast, a piece of pizza at lunch. Then dh and I going out for drinks after church tonight. Though the lack of hair poses a problem. I haven't drank since 2 weeks before surgery, which puts before Christmas. My goal is a HAPPY buzz

Welcome back, and all the best Allison.

Today I pulled the fitbit out and begrudgingly made the 10000 step trek. I can't believe I did that so effortlessly most of last year. I finally just got on the treadmill for an hour tonight to get 8000k steps in...that's how little I moved today, eek!
BUT I did it. The first workout of year, yayyyy!
ðŸŽBig fat red, wth kind of day. Kids had no school and just felt like the weekend. Got on scale and it was the highest in a year... So like any normal person, I just ate more 🤣

I wore a fitbit today! A coworker asked me to. I hate that thing! Well, I guess I just don't like anything on my wrists (or fingers for that matter, I don't even wear a wedding ring). But kudos to you for doing 10,000 steps!

I use a Fitbit in an ankle strap mainly because it counts my steps better. I noticed that if I am pushing a cart in the grocery store I got almost no steps. Silly, as I know I am still getting the same amount but I want full credit

Omg I know! I did a big hour long Costso shop just for steps and when I got in the car I only had 200 steps . I had no idea about wearing it on my ankle!
Day 3 back to Fitbitting and working out. Sadly though I had a big sweet-fest tonight, so red right at the end.

Omg how annoying! Great idea though on how to get steps in. I love Costco. It makes me happy!! ðŸ˜

Costco will make me happy as soon as dh says yes to a super cute chic table for the entryway there! He's not too happy doing tax returns right now as T took away his refund....lol!!! ( he prematurely paid for facelift...uhoh)!

I walked a couple of miles outside today even though it was colder than I would normally go. So the big news is I went out tonight in my new topper (hairpiece). Let me tell you, I felt ALL THAT. I can't believe I'm just now discovering this at almost 50. I have always had super fine baby hair so I felt like I was in costume and LOVED IT! I don't think I will ever take off!! (For reference, Jon Renau Easipart 12" in Laguna blonde). Maybe this is the midlifte crisis transition after facelift...I get it now!!

My sister-in-law had double mastectomy this morning (and is proud of her baldness) so I do feel rather shallow of my newfound hairiness.
My weight, though, is off the chart. I was hoping the date, February 1st, would jar me into eating and stepping fanatically, but alas, I felt incredibly drawn to being lazy.
I only went through the motions of eating No S. My breakfast/lunch (since dh was having business lunch) consisted of half a box of FAMILY sized Kix. And yes the reasoning was the jingle....Kid tested, mother-approved...even though reading the ingredients was hideous nastiness.

I'm visiting my daughter and grandkids in Germany at the beginning of May, annual exam is April, so I really must get focused. At least being back here holds me more accountable!

Hopefully the taxes won't turn out as bad as he fears, especially since you've got all those kids! We ended up with a refund of $2400 this year, and last year we paid $5000!!!!! So a $7000 savings in total. The child tax credit is what made the primary difference for us.

February

Monday 4th- no breakfast. That's my first goal to accomplish all this week. Had cake for dinner so I'll start working on knocking out sweets next week. For now though, I want to relearn not eating breakfast.

What kind of cake?

Hope you got your table and glad you’re enjoying your new hair. I say whatever makes you feel good & its not shallow. Im nervous to do our taxes this year. Not sure what to expect with all the changes.

Are you trying to get back into fasting? Im a bit off track too and when i do fast its not “clean” but tomorrow I’m recommitting as I think my reflux was better when i was fasting more. Also, the weight has been creeping up a bit.

So the cake, if you have ever had this, is called All American Chocolate Cake from Costco. Wow...It is the most decadent dessert I've ever had!!

But no, I haven't been fasting. I want to start back. I need to get my head back in the game to stop the weight gain. My motivation is just missing! And I saw such a bad number on the scale that I just haven't gotten back on. I'm doing decently well without eating breakfast, but still having trouble not eating kids' dinner leftovers. Today was ok as a whole but I still got into that cake again. Thankfully it's about gone.

Oh this is interesting... I went over to my parents house to say hi to my dad on his birthday. My brother was there too. No one knows I had a facelift, plus I was wearing my hair topper. My dad kept saying how great I look with bangs (this is hysterical because I have NEVER NOT had bangs). My mom really kept staring at me and saying how youthful I looked. But I could see her inspecting me trying to figure out what was different. This was pretty much the reaction I was hoping for!

My huge goal is to NoS perfectly tomorrow.

Yay!!! A picture perfect No S omad low carb kind of day!

Picture perfect!

The week was decently successful but I shouldn't have weighed myself this morning ... Not good. I also did 30 minutes of cardio 5 days this week. On a week of having dropped my Prozac from 40 mg to 20 and feeling pretty crabby!