Good Morning ladies, thanks for the welcome!
I had a great day yesterday with NO wine, woohoo. MisAma, you are funny, and I guess I'll come back here when I need an "AA" session. You too when you are reaching for the sssplenda! No excercise and I don't see any this morning since I am sitting here on the computer and then have to shower and leave in about 30 minutes, so hopefully later...

Can anyone remind me how to use the QUOTE feature? I used to know how to do it, but can't seem to figure it out. Thanks and look forward to talking later,
Lisa

Hi Lisa!

Thanks for responding to the AA comment!!! I couldn't make up my mind whether to be offended or not... But I'll follow your cue and try to see the funny side...

If you want to quote an entire post, you just hit quote reply and then you'll see the entire post in your reply window. What I do if I want to just reply to someone's comments in bits is I copy the post, open a reply window, paste the entire post into the reply window and then, as I go along, I mark a selected bit and then click on the icon on the far-right hand-side above (the one that looks like a speech bubble with print in it). That then wraps a quote sign round that bit of text.

I don't know if you can do it in a fancier way if you are a registered member as there is obviously an even fancier way to quote someone, but I don't know how to do that.

But the method I have described above works fine for me!

Hope that helps!!!

Oh, and btw, great news on the wine-free evening!!! Each booze-free evening is a TRIUMPH!!! One less day with poison in your system. I would concentrate on noticing how much better you feel today.

I know in my case that alcohol in my system tends to make me grumpy and irritable the next day with my kids, which just kicks the whole thing into one of those vicious circle things: the kids get on my nerves (mine are 9 and 12, both girls); I feel frustrated; I start yelling at them over nothing; they play up even more; by the end of the day, I feel like a beer to wind down...

Oh, and you should also scroll back a page or two in my journal and find an article written by a female journalist from the UK, called "Is my wind-down wine turning me into an alcoholic?" It should resonate with you, too, as she too has kids and probably faces similar situations as we do.

Take care, and make sure you pat yourself on the back today!!!

amanda

Ummm I am truly sorry if my comment sounded offensive to you, it was not intended in that fashion at all, my humour is a tad strange and I thought we were all in the exact same boat here. You do have my apologies if that came off insultingly.... I presume I felt overly familiar with you ladies overly fast. It won't happen again.....

No worries. I was just being over-sensitive... You know how it is: some days you have a sense of humour and can take any comment, and then, on other days, you can have a complete sense-of-humour failure and not see a single joke at all. My kids have to tell me sometimes, "Erm, mum, that was a joke, right??? Know what that is: joke?"

I'd hate for you to feel that you had to be ultra-careful with me. I'm generally fairly robust, on the whole. Being English helps, they are such sarcastic b******s. (Choose swear word of your choice to fit in there!!!)

amanda

Morning everyone! Had a fab day yesterday, really clean food, weight trained, long, hot soak with a good book capped off the night.
Denise

Actually, the main problem that I seem to have with gum is that it stresses my jaw and I actually think I get headaches from chewing gum. Anyone else had THAT experience? It could be from the artificial sweetener in it, too. I use splenda but don't really use aspartame anymore--I had been off of it a while and ended up drinking 2-20 oz bottles of diet coke in one afternoon, and the next day I had a tremendous migraine. I blamed the aspartame, although I don't know if that was fair of me or not.
Well, for me, the gum will stay, as it works as a crutch--and I can use all the help I can get! As for zioh...I don't know if this is "legal" for me to post or not, but I almost wish i had never found the site. Now I am brainwashed completely....although I have upped my carbs considerably since determining once and for all that zc was NOT for me at this time, and I feel much better.

Glad to hear everyone is doing well and sticking to their plans. I started an exercise class and it is amazing how out of shape I am! I'm not certain I will stick with this class, as it is rather pricey--but I hope to learn the exercises and I can do them on my own. I can be quite good about that--I use the elliptical every morning, but need to add in other things, as it is not providing overall fitness at all. I can barely do 1 situp. I was quite sore after Tuesday's class and I'm sure I'll feel the same way tomorrow (just got home from class).

Hi Maria,

You wrote this in your most recent post:


I do believe I have. I try not to chew gum for very long at a stretch - just for about five or ten minutes to get rid of, say, coffee taste in my mouth when I'm not able to brush my teeth. I would try to limit the amount of time you chew the gum, because it activates your stomach acid juices: the chewing signals to your stomach that food is coming in and, when it doesn't, you just have a load of acid swishing around with nowhere to go. In the long run, that's not so good.

However, for you, as a short-term crutch, I would carry on with the gum.


I do believe that aspartame has a pretty bad reputation these days for causing all sorts of problems. I never liked the taste of artificial sweeteners so I have always stuck to small quantities of raw cane brown sugar.


Your secret is safe with us - I think. I'm not telling anyway .



Good on you!!! I am sure that you'll get all that anti-carb stuff out of your head in good time. My feeling is that - from the bits and pieces I've picked up about the travels of Weston A. Price - humans are perfectly capable of surviving on all sorts of diets, just not the modern western diet!!!


The motivation certainly helps! I am doing OK with my no-wheat plan but had a couple of wobbles on the beer front. But I have made a step forward in identifying the "classic triggers", so I'm pleased about that. Now that I am more aware of what situations sort of "flip the switch" that makes me feel it is "time to have a beer", I am hoping to be able to better resist falling into the standard traps.


Good on you!!! I would stick with it till you feel confident about the exercises. Although, if you forgot, there are loads of things on the internet, also with videos, which would give you a reminder.


See??? There are plenty of things you can be disciplined about!!! Now it's just a question of you transferring your natural self-discipline to your eating - but if the discipline is already there, then it should be a doddle with practice!!!


If I remember rightly, you are about my age??? 44??? At our stage in life, according to Dr Schwarzbein, strength training, to maintain and build your strength is much more important than cardio.


I thought sit-ups had gone out of fashion??? We do lots of variations on abdominal crunches at our class, which might be easier. Cycling is good for the lower abs, right inside, which I can personally testify to, because they are the one exercise I do fine on and have quite good stamina. But my balance sucks!!! I will have to start doing balance exercises regularly as well now!

But it's great to hear you sounding more upbeat!

amanda

Just a quick hello, looks like everyone is staying on whatever plan they are following, way to go!
MisAma, no offence taken by me, and we are all in the same boat! , albeit freebasing splenda or drinking wine, teehee.
I am happy to report another day down and no wine is in my forecast.

I was completely on my low carb plan (Atkins) with no cheating, even when I stopped to buy my boys an ice cream and didn't have even a lick.

Reading a bit of the gluten free and celiac issues has been very interesting. Fairly new to me, so it was all informative.

Have a great evening, and catch you up later,
Lisa

Morning all!

Amanda - I love Brits, they are my favourite people, I'm a complete fan ironically enough because they seem to be okay with my dry, sarcastic, twisted sense of humour but I do have to recall that it carries differently in a forum and much more so with people I just met! - I won't be too careful around you, no worries, I am rubbish at being diplomatic Thanks for saying so though, wouldn't want to alienate anyone in this lovely thread and not you in particular!

Lisa - Thanks for understanding and congratulations on the strong will of not-a-lick!

Me well I haven't really lost any (well 100 g but that's just silly) but I view it as a victory as A. TOTM is knocking and I was thinking my bossom alone will shed a pound or two when I stop being the artificial Pam Andersson this month's hormones turned me into! and B. I had a glass of wine and a shot of tequilla last night. Here's the thing though, I planned them, calculated them into the days' carbs and calories allowance, had the perfect amount of food with them and they didn't start a binge or add up on the scale so I thought that was good.

Uh oh and I did NOT freebase artificial sweetner yesterday! Let's see if I can go for day two of not doing it

Hope everyone else has a good, on plan day!

I survived a busy day at work and stayed on eating plan, and came home to some ice cold water to drink .
So I'm still 'Back on track" as the thread says...and plan on staying here.

MisAma, you are too funny. Are you Swedish, or a transplant there, like Amanda is a Brit in Germany? I am "a Canadian in America" if that counts. Well really, I am an American/Canadian since I became a citizen 5 years ago. I can enjoy the best of both sides of the border.

Hope everyone is "back on track and staying there"

Lisa

Amanda--thank you for your very thorough reply to all of my issues. You are really thoughtful and you have wonderful ideas and obviously are one smart woman! I appreciate your wisdom.

I'm on track but not doing as well as I would like...in other words, I'm only human, not perfect. Oh well. Today my horoscope (I don't believe in these things, but I read mine every day in the paper) said this:

Minor adjustments are all that's necessary to get you back on track.

For me, the getting back on track is getting to the 3 meals and one snack...I've been reverting to grazing and I don't feel good when I do that. I WANT 3 defined meals, 1 snack.

The other thing I have been doing (which has contributed to the grazing) is making all sorts of food..."legal" food for me, but I end up tasting the product...thus, the grazing. I must admit these are sweet treats--since I'm trying to eliminate some of the treats that I have previously had (ice cream is the main one...when I have it in the house, I end up bingeing on it) I have been making some substitutes. I haven't binged on them, but that is probably because they aren't very good! So, I have a freezer stuffed with low carb treats...that aren't very good. I actually want to get AWAY from sweets, so it isn't good for me to be making treats--low carb or not. The other thing is that I have been trying to find a bread substitute...so I've made several "fake" breads that have not come out well at all! This morning I made a 1-min flax muffing and I think that was better than all of my other attempts!

Well, I'm rambling...but I am being honest about things. I am spending TOO MUCH TIME in the kitchen and I'm not attending to other things!

Time to get organized and get out of the kitchen.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Hey ladies.

Well, I did it: I broke my gluten-free streak, and I washed it down with the aforementioned beer in the fridge. <-- There, I'm over it. I'm not going to navel-gaze about it, and I'm just going to move on. The kitchen is set up to get right back on track. I don't even have to go for groceries. I hope I can just jump back into it with little to no cravings or anxiety/depression symptoms. So far, I feel fine, except my guts are grumbling.

It's sunny and warm today, so I'll take the dog for a long walk, and rake the leaves. I hope everyone has a good day.

Just checking in as its been awhile since i did. Still sticking with the plan. I did, however, have popcorn at our movie last night, along with about 5 sf peanut butter kisses.

When i joined the group i was prob. a few weeks into quitting, i was having a very hard time controlling my eating and smoking was all i thought about. Well, i finally seem to be returning back to normal on my eating, finally. I had gained a total of 7 lbs! I finally decided to step back on the scale and see how i was doing, see if i could undue any of the damage, or how much i'd have to fix.

Ok, i stepped on the scale this morning to see if my eating correctly has helped. I went from the 164 i was at, after i quit smoking (gain of 7 lbs!), and am now 155.

Originally, when i hit my last goal of 180, i thought 155 was not obtainable, and sounded "thin" now, i'm still not happy. I picked this as a goal weight. I worry its all me, but then when i look at myself naked, think maybe not. lol.

Anyway, i have picked another goal weight-145. I think ten more lbs will do it for me. I am going to try to do this. I know that no matter how i feel if i hit this goal, i cant go below this number-i wouldn't look right at all. I'm going to try it and i have to thank all you guys for sticking with me, to doitforme for the thread, to amanadawood for hers, and honey, meg, deb, lisa, everyone. I could have easily gone in the other direction and its all the support i am getting that is helping this. I still do not feel right about myself, i need to fix that, i want to fix that.

I always thought i hated myself because of the weight. I am hoping to start walking when get the ok by the dr. I am still in pain everyday and not healing as well as they want me too. So, I think an added goal of mine will eventually be add exercise, walking. While im not there yet, i have kept up with the parking far away and walking, using the stairs, and when i'm in the grocery store i walk up and down all the aisle to get where i am going. It seems to help.

Quote:
Actually, the main problem that I seem to have with gum is that it stresses my jaw and I actually think I get headaches from chewing gum. Anyone else had THAT experience?

I have to say that i have had headaches from chewing gum. After i quit smoking i chewed gum all day everyday. I still chew almost a pack a day at work alone! It got to where i suffered from headaches, and my jaw ached. It seemed, also, like i chewed the gum Very Very hard and fast, trying to keep the cravings under control.

Hi Kristine!

That's the spirit!!! I have maintained my gluten-free WOL, but not done so well on the beer-free front - so we're doing the same, just the other way round!!!

I feel the same, really: I am only human and the only thing to do is not to waste time and energy giving yourself huge amounts of grief, but to just get back on track straight away!!!

This is partly what I hoped this thread would help us all with: to keep focused on our ultimate goals without letting a little stumble along the way completely unhinge us.

amanda