Hiya Tom Sara Kim Blancita & David:
sorry in advance for the million spelling mistakes and typos to follow...I'm too lazy to spell check or edit...shame on me! LOL
Tom: Here's where I have to admit that, despite the best intentions of mice and men I haven't been able to catch up on your diary...but I have no doubts that you are still lifting and biking and making good choices along your journey to being one of the fittest, hottest gentlemen of WLF - in
any age catagory!.....yep, I still remember the six pack ab pic of a month ago!
Sara I responded to your PM...I'm guessing you got it & it was coherent - I vaugely recall writing it either super late at night or early a.m when only a few brain cells were funcitoning

...about the avi...a friend of mine had a no so great experience with some pics very innocent pics she had posted and it made me decide to pull any pics I had floating around myself, including my avi.
Kim congrats on your scale having moved at last - hmmm could it have been the combination more food & rest??????? I made all the items on my to-do list yesterday except getting an eye apppointment...apparently, unlike hairdressers, eye docs are not sucessptible to bribery. And I have one more thing to plant before my happy garden is pic worthy, maybe after the week-end. Oh, and I have this one plant that maybe you can tell me what it's called when you see the pic...cause I bought a couple on a whim, totally love them and am clueless now what the heck it's called...but it has no leaves, curly low to the ground stems and the blooms are tiny flowers that look like mini-roses in funky colors...different shades of the same primary (i.e. pink and red and orange) on the same plant.
David : yea, you hit it, when the joy of doing one thing is removed, the joy of doing something else can and does replace it...I think there's a fear that those of us who take enormous pleasure in our foods share, adding to the difficulty of losing and/or maintaining, sorta like: if I let go of the pleasure of induging in this (ice cream, cake, whatever), will there be anything equally wonderful to fill in the gap?" And, although you may be far from your weight goal, I think you are damned close to your real goal, the important one that's going to influence the quality of the rest of your life..... gaining control over your food rather than allowing it to control you! Yay you!...The final scale number will just be a reflection of your success - not the success itself.
Blancita: yep, you used the right word - "glutton" is a very apt description for me, even throughout my weight loss process and the majority of my maint.....

to answer your "what changed" question...well here's a long answer, but it's a quick type so ignore all the spelling mistakes that are going to follow:
It wasn't on purpose...or believe me I would have done it years and years ago if I'd known how! My best guess? ...when I moved away from calorie counting I had to figure out a way to still keep my cals in line and ended up with selected foods from each food group that if I just mixed/matched (i.e. so many servings fruit, so many servings dairy) appropriately I got in my nutrients and over the course of a week the cals kept themselves sorted out. After a while I just sorta noticed that I was eating the same things nearly every day - by choice rather than design... I'm thinking now that's just the way my body kinda operates naturally...the more variety of choices available the more I seem to want....the fewer overall choices and I just fall into a groove of being satisified, even prefering, reaching for the familiar without thought.
I know what you mean about thinking about food all the time, because I can relate...I think from the time I came off the baby formula my mind has been 70% filled with thoughts of "what am I going to eat, where am I going to eat, how is it going to taste, what am I going to try and not eat, what will I eat or not eat later if I slip/give in to this particular craving, how much did I eat/not eat today......" but after months of just eating the same stuff 95% of the time - there's not much to think about 'cause it's no longer real interesting.
Objectively it sounds awful doesn't it? I mean food, the anticipation, purchase, preparation and eating of it is such a source of physcial/emotional pleasure!....and how terrible when that pleasure is taken away - by choice or acccident. All I can say is, for me it's a kind of relief.....too many years of excess pleasure I guess. I mean post work-out, I think, "protein + carb, no fat" & slam down some non-fat cc, a piece of fruit and move on. Breakfast I think "fiber + protein" and down goes the oatmeal, nuts and egg whites. and on through the day...like I get hungry, my mind goes "what do I need" instead of "what do I want" and it's just really easy to answer the first, whereas the second always got me into trouble.
Hell, I might wake up in the morning craving Ben & Jerry's on top of a meat lovers double cheese pizza and a side order of fries....washed down with a milkshake. I'll never say never. But, for the moment the "I want, I crave, I desire, I won't be satisfied until I have" voice in my head has taken a vacation so I'm rolling with it.
Not that I don't have non-food related cravings....at the moment I'm drooling and dreaming over this pair of crazy Jimmy Choos, designed entirely with little bitty crissed crossed straps from toe to ankle - but a price tag equivl. to nearly two weeks salary!