Blancita: it's funny how we can do something and think "it's just me" when in reality it's a common trait. I actually thought I had "trained" myself to eat slowly - didn't realize I was still speed eating until I happened to notice how much food was left on my plate compared to everyone elses...kinda eye opening...the funny thing is - if this is how much slower I eat after more than a year and a half of practice, can ya imagine how fast I must have been eating when I wasn't paying attention to it at all
????
Lukewarm: I actually thought about you during my work-out this a.m.
Cause, even though I don't think I ever responded, I've been wondering about what you said a couple of days ago about how much exercise (cardio wise) you thought you might have to do to maintain your loss. So, it got me thinking -- which is always a little dangerous
I have no basis for saying this other than observation and personal experience - but I
think the reason I maintain a constant weight on a limited amount of cardio is twofold: first, because I simply eat what I'm going to (or not going to) eat based soley on a weekly caloric range which has nothing to do with calories I estimate I've burned through exercise/activity on a daily basis. My exercise is always constant in the sense that I'm gonna do weights 3 days and run 1 or 2 days period. So I kinda ignore that aspect and focus on keeping the calories within the range that I've found that I neither gain nor lose. I guess if my exercise or calories varied wildly from day to day, or even week to week it would be harder.
And two, I
think it has something to do with calorie burning and cardio. I'm thinking, if I didn't do weights, but just ran 5 miles every day, five days a week, 2 things would happen: 1) eventually I'd burn fewer and fewer calories through the running and would have to either run harder/longer or start to eat less 2) if I missed more than a couple days, but ate at the same rate, it would catch up with me real quick because my maint. range would be heavily dependent on burning a certain number of calories every day through cardio. Since mostly what I do is lift, which does not burn nearly as many calories as running, even when I take a brief break and continue eating the same amount, it only creates a slight caloric surplus, rather than the large one that would be created if I was running every day, stopped for week but continued to eat the same amount. I don't know if that really answers your question...or even makes any sense but that's why I
think I get away with maintaining on what is a relatively small amount of cardo.
Tuesday food - selected in bold:
Sort of a mixed day -- some really good choices made: I turned down beer and wine in favor of water; picked flounder over cheese stuffed pasta shells at lunch and did skim milk in coffee vs. my normal daily cappucino. On the other hand I greedily devoured sausage with breakfast, had not one but two delicious little (in size, not calories) muffins, selected beef instead of chicken at lunch and...to add final insult to injury, ate a bowl of popcorn for dinner
fruits: 4-5 daily servings chosen from
apples, apricots,
bananas,
blueberries,
canteloupe, cherries, figs, grapefruit, grapes, lemons,limes, papaya, pineapple, prunes, raisins, strawberries, tangerines, watermelon
***swapped blackberries for blueberries
veggies: 5-6 daily servings chosen from
artichokes, avocado, beets, broccoli,
cabbage, carrots, califlower, chili pepper, daikon, garlic, ginger, mushrooms,
onions, spinach,
sweet potatoes, squash,
tomatoes
***plus romaine lettuce
grain/nuts/seeds/legumes: 4-6 daily servings chosen from
almonds, black beans, black eye peas, buckwheat, bulgar, lentils,
flax, oats, pumpkin seeds, rice, walnuts, wheat bran, wheat germ,
whole wheat
***whole wheat in form of w/w bun
***two muffins that probably don't count as grain: one banana, one blueberry
***popcorn
dairy 3 daily servings chosen from:
yogurt, whole, skim/2% milk, cheese (any type)
***cheese type:
cotage cheese & cheddar cheese
meat: 3 daily servings chosen from
chicken, turkey,
fish
****fish type flounder
***eggs
***pork sausage
***ground beef
other: 1 daily serving each
olive oil
green tea
optional:
accounted for w/ meat & muffins
YOU LOOK SO HOT! You and your friend are beautiful! 
---probably not required for most people, but in my case, being dead honest, it really was...I can only tell you that I'm just starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel...and I've walked a damn long, damn hard road just to see that distant light...which in the end turns out to have very little to do with the "final" number on the scale...and I don't know if this answers your question or makes sense to you...but it just feels like an inner truth to me...so I hope you can take something from it.