There is a downside to the whole NurtriSystem plan. The food is good, its filling, it works, but... When you buy your food, you get 28 days' worth. If you choose autoshipping, they'll send you the same thing everytime unless you tell them to change things. All god.

But you buy 28 days' worth, and they autoship every 30-31 days. So at the end of Day 28, if you've stuck to it and not eaten other foods as your main entrees, you're out of food.

It does not add up. Nope.

So...I'm at the end of Day 28. I do have some food left over because there were a couple meals when I ate out (made good choices, I think) and there are a couple of things I won't touch because they're (to me) nasty. I'm left to wait until my next shipment gets here (supposedly it goes out tomorrow, I'll believe that when I see it) and to contemplate whether or not I should have saved all the boxes the food came in.

'Cause if nothing else, I coulda blended the boxes together for a nice high-fiber carboard shake...

OK, if it's not water weight, I'm going to shoot myself. Over the last couple days my weight has inched back up the 3.5 pounds that I lost last week, in spite of sticking to the diet like Superglue... I've struggled to take in 1200 calories a day--the last couple days I've been under 900. Not good, I know, but I doubt just a couple days is enough for a body to suddenly scream Oh No we have to hold onto everything!

Intellectually I know it's water for the sole reason that my DI medication hasn't worn off for the last 4 nights, and when it doesn't, I don't pee off everything I've had to drink. But knowing that doesn't make me feel any better.

If I do get a couple nights of breakthrough on the meds, I think I'll be even for the week. No loss. Dammit.

:::jumps up & down:::

Down 3.5 pounds for the week!

A small personal victory for myself yesterday: I was out running errands and managed to get stuck behind an accident...so I turn around and decided to cut through the air force base to take the back roads home (it took 30 minutes to mve 4 car lengths...I figured the long way home was faster...) By then it was almost 4 p.m. and I still hadn't had lunch and was very hungry and thristy.

The base has a conveniently located Burger King. I decided to go through the drive through and get a Diet Coke...and I resisted the call of the Whopper Jr. Granted, I should have stopped and eaten something because I was right at the edge of eat-or-get-sick, but I waited.

And yes, I'm proud of me. In the past I would have used low blood sugar as a reason to stop and eat a burger.

Now, if it had been Wendy's...oh yeah, I would have stopped and gotten a small chili and a side salad...

Small victories...I have this pair of jeans--my favorite pair--that have been just a wee bit too snug in the waist to be terribly comfortable, so I haven't worn them in about a year (hell, they were tight in the waist then, too...)

On a lark today I decided to try them on--they fit. I can sit and not feel like I'm being cut in half. Now, they're not hanging off me, but they're comfortable.

I need to wear the crap out of these, just in case they don't fit again in a few weeks...

In other news...last night we decided we'd been doing well enough that we could eat out. We chose Red Lobster and each got the Tilapia with broccoli on the side, and limited ourselves to just one of the cheesy bisquits. Less than 500 calories for the whole meal. Even with that, at the end of the day I just barely hit 1200 calories. Oddly enough, oveeating hasn't been an issue with this--undereating has. I usually end the day at 1000 calories, 200 short.

And no, I'm not happy about that. I *know* I need those other 200 calories...who'da thunk it'd be hard to get them in...?

The immature part of me thinks this is funny...someone on the NS support boards has a name for that which makes us socially unaceptable.

NutriToot.

=snort=

Yes, part of me is 5 years old.

Two weeks down, and 5 pounds gone. Yay.

The downside: consuming so much in the way of vegetables, salads, and all the soy that's in NS food, I am a bit...um...socially unacceptable. I keep hoping that will ease up bit so far I am not someone you want to be trapped in an elevator with.

And I was thinking about my weight goals earlier: while overall I want to drop 70 pounds, I'm hoping I can shed 30 of it by Christmas.

Doable, right...? At the very least I'd like to be down a couple sizes, necessitating the purchase of new clothing.

Yep, there's a method to my madness.

New stuff.

We were out most of the afternoon, so we wound up stopping at Denny's for an early dinner. I went in thinking What the hell, one meal won't throw everything out of kilter, but I wound up ordering something actually healthy. Grilled Tilapia with some green beans and just a little bit of rice. Not too shabby, and it still fit in as a low glycemic meal.

The Other Half's food is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, so he's having one last evening of decadence with peach cobbler. I think his big worry is that the portions will kill him and he'll starve for the first 2 weeks as he adjusts to it. I adjusted pretty quick; a small piece of fish and some green beans stuffed me tonight. It doesn't take much now, and I hate feeling overly full, so for me it's all good. He'll get used to it, or learn to love lots of veggies...

I think I weighed last Thursday morning, but this week I'm pushing it back to Friday (the official weight date, that is; I still weight just about every morning.) Looking back, I started on a Friday so I weighed in a day early last week.

This would all be so much easier if there were just a pill to take. Melt the fat away and look 10 years younger. Yeah, I'd buy that!

I finally found a NS meal that I cannot stand. BBQ beef over rice. It was so bad I wound up tossing it out. I think the horridness came from the BBQ sauce--it tasted like going to the dentist. I don't know any other way to describe it. Just...nasty.

I got on the scale this morning and was down another 2 pounds, but I know better than to count on that for the week.

While I am going to get tired of salads (I can replace that with salad veggies, and I foresee a trip to the grocery store today to get some cucumbers) I'm not getting hungry very often. Pretty much only before it's time to eat again.

The Other Half's food hasn't even shipped yet, so there's no telling when he'll be able to start. I've read lots of people commenting on a sudden slowdown in food shipments...could be related to the fact that NS is diverting a lot of their stock south as donations to feed displaced hurricane victims. So he can wait a few days...I offered to let him start with part of my food, but he's afraid I'll get caught with no food if his doesn't ship soon enough.

I doubt I would starve or begin a feeding frenzy; I do know how to eat low glycemic on my own, but he's not willing to let me lose my momentum, so I appreciate that.

Now, I just wish my digestive system would get used to the increase in bulk...I am socially unacceptable, and sometimes afraid to sneeze...

My other half (hey, I am not saying "better!"> has decided to join me on the Nutrisystem food plan. This should make things esier. Well, for us. Maybe not so much for our son. :)

And I did my "official" one week weigh in, and I did lose weight for the week: 2 pounds. Not the nice 3.5 I was hoping to hold onto, but I'll take it. I suppose it's too much to hope for to have 2 pounds gone every single week...or maybe not.

Gee...I might have to start =gasp= exercising...

Total frustration: losing a few pounds early on, and having them all back just a couple of days later.

How in the hell...?

Just a few days in and I'm down 3.5 pounds. WooHoo! I won't jump off a cliff if I'm up a pound tomorrow (because of medical stuff, I'm supposed to weigh every day...) but 'll take every victory I can get.

One of the things I was worried about was that I'd be hungry all the time...luckily I'm not. The portions are satisfying, and by eating 5 times a day, by the time I do get hungry, it's time to eat again.

I'm waiting for that first really gross thing that I can't gag down...Surely somewhere in te food I ordered is the one thing that will make me want to hurl.

OK, the food boxes are small, but... holy canole, I just had dinner and I am stuffed. They do want you to supplement with fruits and veggies and dairy.

Breakfast is one of their entrees, a dairy or protein, and a fruit. I could not manage the fruit this morning; I'm not a morning eater and I'm gonna have to work up to that. The shredded wheat cereal was very good, and I had a lite yogurt with it. Oh, and you're supposed to put 4 ounces of skim milk on the cereal, but being lactose intolerant, I didn't...

Lunch is an entree with a dairy or protein,and a salad. Um, we were out and I did not think to bring food with me, so I had a small McD's burger, and 5 french fries. Bad on me for day one, eh?

Snack is a dairy or protein, and a fruit. I did not have snack this afternoon... never thought about it.

Dinner is an entree, salad or fruit, 2 vegetables, and a fat. I had the pot roast entree, and it had more meat than I normally would eat, with a few odd carrots and potatoes in gravy. And it was damned tasty. I made a salad and some green beans, thinking I had enough green beans to count as 2 veggies, but I just looked, and I did not. I had no clue what to have as a fat. Lick the margrine 2 or 3 times? I know I need fat, if I can't find other ways I may have to get some flaxseed oil.

So...I am behind on food. I missed a fruit this morning, one at snack, and a dairy or protein at snack. I shorted myself a veggie at dinner. I still have "dessert" to look forward to later, one of their little pre-packaged snack thingies.

Now I'm not sure if I sure try to have a fruit with it to make up for not having that earlier, or skip it today.

I'm not sure what the total calories are in the womens' program... the entrees seem to be about 220-250 calories each. I'm guessing it's about 1200-1400 depending on the chosen dairy/protein/salad stuff. And somewhere on the website I read that there are a bunch of "free" veggies, stuff you can pretty much eat as much of as you like.

:::looks:::

Yep, pretty much unlimited salad-type veggies, and lots of them are my favorites (like cucumber, celery, spinach, alphalpha sprouts...)

Hopefully the rest of the food will be as tasty. If it is, I'm gonna be in fat kat heaven.

Well now...that was fast. My food order shipped yesterday and it arrived today. So I start tomorrow. I'll weigh in first thing in the morning (well, after I pee...every ounce out helps) and take measurements (no, I'm not sharing!) and the Change Of Eating Style will begin.

There will even be some Before pictures, and if I drop the 70 or so pounds I'm hoping to, I'll share them. But only then. When I have a Hot (but possibly age-related sagging and wrinkling) body to show off.

Those food boxes are awfully small, though...!