Good afternoon Menu Gang! I feel like we're in the home stretch. I have to wor****il noon on Thursday then done till the new year. Tomorrow we are having an office pot luck so no work will be done.

Was to the gym this morning - did my weight routine and felt pretty good about it!

I ate a crazy amount of crackers with Balderson cheese spread, and a few chip nuts yesterday. The scale rewarded me with a 3.7 lb loss. Not sure if its because my calories were higher or what exactly is going on with my bod. I will see what happens tomorrow morning. I will stay away from the extras around the office today, because I have a pretty good menu planned and want to make sure I can tell if its working for me. I am my lowest weight I can remember in years...167.2 lbs

Post Op 20+ months

B1 - small banana, 1 tbsp. peanut butter

B2 - rotisserie chicken

S - greek yogurt

L - cobb salad

S - pepperette and cucumbers

D - shepperds pie

Total Cal 1320, Protein122, Carbs 58

Have a great day!

Gina...(sorry this is soooo long....LOL.) I rewrote that post over and over again and I really messed up. I left out the most important part. I must have erased it..... After 17 years My 2 DDs have decided to open their own gym and all of the Coaches that worked with her at our Nieces gym are going with her. My Niece has been terrible the last 6 or 7 years. She's mean to the parents and of course they complain to my DD's who have no say whatsoever at the gym. My niece makes ALL of the decisions even when my DD's don't agree with her. My DD gets paid by the girl so every child she kicks off a team is a pay cut for her (and it hurts the team). Recently in a parent meeting she threatened a complaining parent by bragging about how many girls she kicked off last year (usually because she doesn't like the Mom and it has nothing to do with the child). My DD wasn't going to announce that she was leaving until the teams were ready to compete but we had an Owner/Coaches meeting at a restaurant near the new gym and a Mom from another gym was our waitress and we were not aware of that. She told everyone at a shower what we discussed. It blew up and our DD's and all of the Coaches were fired. She has gotten so much support from the cheer families and a lot of them have committed to going with her. She is having good days and bad days. She's trying to open part of her gym early and just have tumbling classes. The worst part is the kids calling her after practice upset. Some of them are being called babies for crying at practice. My Niece has temporary Coaches (from other local gyms) at practices and they are making changes and my DD isn't handling that very well. They are going to be opening under a big name gym and the reveal has been set for late March. She thinks that's an eternity away. Good part is that after the holidays we can start getting the gym ready. She has been ordering mats and spring floors, we got TV's on Good Friday, and bought some office furniture from a couple local facebook posters etc. We are so excited about this new journey!

WARNING TO SELF AND TO ANYONE WHO WILL LISTEN!!! AVOID 'BAD' CARBS AT ALL COSTS!!! THEY ARE ADDICTING!! THEY WILL SLOW DOWN YOUR WEIGHT LOSS DURING THE LOSING STAGE (and you won't even notice)!! THEY WILL MAKE THE SCALE GO UP AFTER THE HONEYMOON PERIOD IS OVER.

Success in Maintenance starts with GOOD CHOICES during the Honeymoon Period.

I feel I need to repeat this: I am a FIRM believer in Good Whey Protein Drinks!!!!! It is sooooo much harder to do Maintenance without them!

In an exciting way....Life has been busy and emotionally draining the last couple of weeks and I haven't even thought of weighing myself or posting. I even skipped a couple of Protein drinks which is super rare for me. I have not meant to leave you all. It saddens me that we were just starting to get a few new posters and I've let you all down.

For those *****ad my posts on here and facebook you know how involved my family is with All-Star Cheer. My daughter has Coached at my Nieces gym for 17 years. 17 must be the lucky number because she also Coached 17 teams this season. Things are stressful in our family right now and I'm trying really hard not to stress eat!

Her Getting fired even when we knew it was coming has been very hard for her family and the Cheer Families. Everyone's emotions were flying high. My DD has been getting Phone Calls and Texts all hours of the day and night. She WAS a wreck the first week but things are finally calming down. Of course there are members of my husbands family that are furious with us but my husband finally agreed that our daughter shouldn't have to stay there and let her dream fade away because it was family. We are super excited for this new adventure but since the time frame has moved up we have been extremely busy ordering equipment, computers, furniture etc. for the building she rented.

Breakfast: Orange and a couple handfuls of Honey Nut Cheerios

Protein: Matrix Mint Cookie 35g

Lunch: Probably a chicken wrap (shopping needs to get done)

Snack: Nuts and Cheese

Protein: Matrix Mint Cookie 35g

Snack:

Dinner: Steak and ?

Snack: Lightly Salted Popcorn

Honestly, I eat upwards of 2,500 calories some days to maintain and I almost never go over 100g of carbs. Most days I'm between 60-80g of total carbs. My goal is to leave out grains and potatoes completely. So the carbs come from dairy, nuts, the occasional protein bar, and ancillary veggies. My normal day-to-day follows something like this:

B: Whole Fat Plain Greek Yogurt mixed with SF Pudding mix and Nuts OR Eggs w/ Breakfast Meat and Cheese

L: Leftover protein from dinner OR Deli Meat and Cheese/Avocado/Veggie (pick one)

D: Protein + Veggie

Snacks: Jerky, meat sticks, cheese, nuts, protein bars, yogurt, nut butter, flax crackers

Yup, I agree on the 200 to 250 grams per day for carbs but it's hard to do. Even greek yogurt has a bunch of carbs. I'm also hungry much of the day maybe because much of the food doesn't stay in me.