I made it through the holidays without gaining any weight.  In fact, I am 5 pounds lighter than when I re-started my efforts on November 17th.  It's slow progress, partly because of the way I am doing it, by not introducing any radical changes and instead, working subtle changes in here and there and partly because of the extras I did allow myself around the holidays. 

I can feel the 5 pound loss, even though it's not particularly noticeable just by looking.  I am very optimistic for actually doing it this time.  I have plenty of exercise resources between the recumbent bike, the gazelle, the treadmill (which I almost never use, mostly because it is loud and cumbersome), the exercise ball and the resistance tubes.  I ordered a yoga DVD that I have on VHS and really like, "Yoga Conditioning for Weight Loss."   Good ol' Amazon Marketplace.  I drink more water and I exercise several times a week.  

This weekend (on Saturday), I started taking two supplements.  One is the Equate (Walmart's brand) version of One-A-Day Weight Smart and the other is Estrin D, which is a weight loss supplement for pre-menopausal and menopausal women.  I only take half the recommended dosage since it has a lot of caffeine in it.  It works like gastric bypass in a bottle.  If I eat more food than about the size and a half of my fist, I get really queasy.  If I eat any really greasy foods (like the potato skins I ate on Sunday), I get quite nauseated.  It might sound odd to take a pill that makes you feel fine until you eat the wrong foods, then makes you feel really ill, but it is quite effective for me.  It is amazing how dispassionate it has made me about food.  Since I get sick if I eat when I am actually not hungry, it has seriously cut out the emotional eating and made me much more objective about food.  I don't know if it will work in the long term, but on the reduced dosage, I feel much better and in control than I have since I most recently started this process again.  I actually feel as though I can and will do it this time.  It is sort of like a nicotine patch for overeating or eating very poorly.  It is definitely a profound deterrent.  No sleep problems with it (as I usually have with caffeine based supplements) if I take my last one before 4pm or so.  It seems to boost my energy and metabolism without making me feel shaky or overly revved.  Since it doesn't do the bad things and pretty much forces me into eating a reasonable amount of food that is good for me, I will likely stick with it for a while.

Mostly, I am just checking in to let you know I survived the holiday season with no real damage, actually made some progress, albeit slow, and I'm doing OK.  :)