Good morning! I'm back from Cincinnati. Didn't weigh yesterday b/c I wasn't home in the morning, but when I stepped on the scale today, drumroll please....it said 149.5!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am majorly doing the happy dance right now. There just isn't any greater feeling than seeing a new lower middle number on the scale.

So......as my last 2 week's attempts to maintain my weight at the original intention of 153 have not exactly worked, I am upping my calories again today another 150 calories to 1450 calories per day. That's where I am hoping to eat for maintennance when I get to my goal b/c it is ~10x my goal weight. When I get to goal (I'm very proud that I said "when" and not "if", b/c I WILL make it this time), I will keep my calories at 1450 but see just how high I can take my carbs, good carbs only of course.

Renee-Being a "bad" patient just makes the nurses have to work a little; it gives them a challenge. We wouldn't want their lives to be boring, now would we? I'm glad to hear that you are in such good spirits, and I always enjoy your humor.

Grady-I think you asked a couple days ago what I ate to get my carbs to 30g on protein days. I eat cottage cheese and yogurt for probably 5-6 of my servings of protein on protein days. Actually I eat both cottage cheese and yogurt every single day, some times several times per day of each. I've been buying 4 of the big containers of cottage cheese per week. I laugh now when I think about how all the people on that old Atkins board would cringe by how much dairy I'm eating. I actually think that all the dairy is helping with my loss.

Congrats on the bowflex. It's going to be so fun figuring it out when you get it. I've often thought that I would like something like that, but it would look a bit gaudy in my current apt situation

Oh, and you said you wanted some details on that guy from school. Yes, he is a teacher there, the band teacher, which sort of sounds weird to say for some reason. Yes, he is new to the school this year. He is 29, the youngest of 8 children, about 5'11"-ish?, blond hair, blue eyes (actually we kinda look similar I suppose). He went to OSU for a year, so we have that in common. He did his student teaching at the high school I graduated from, although I wasn't there when he was. We were both raised Catholic. He lives down the road from me. We have the exact same taste in music and recreation (concerts, rollerblading). He is not a big drinker or into the party scene; neither am I. We have very similar outlooks on life and a strong sense of family. We both have a kind of "off", dry sense of humor. We both seem to be kind of private in our social life, and somewhat loners. I love spending time with him but I also really need time to myself and in no way have I felt smothered. The biggest thing is that we just seem to be at similar places in our lives and it's been about equally as long for each of us since our last serious relationship. So who knows? It's hard not to be excited by everything I just wrote, but I certainly don't want to rush things. I'm just kinda letting things happen and enjoying the ride right now.

Well, I gotta go do some laundry and cleaning now. Hope you all have a great day!