Hi, I'd like to say hello!

[cathie]

hi,

my name is cathie and I have been reading through the messages in this forum and find all your tips and advice absolutely inspiring.

This is my 1st post and I really don't know what to tell you.

I live in Melbourne, Australia and have been a vegetarian for a number of years so I'm finding it a bit difficult to get inspired with lunches and dinners. I'm soooo bored with tuna salads..thats all I can stomach..can't do meat.

Anyway, I have been trying to stick with induction but never manage to get to the 2 weeks...I get bored, so all the info in the vegetarian forum has been quite helpful.

I have to lose about 8kgs and it's feeling soo impossible at the moment. Anyone out there who can lend some encouragement, it would be greatly appreciated.

That's enough from me I guess,
hope to hear from someone...cathie

[NadiaA]

Hi Cathi

It's very nice to read a message from a fellow Aussie. I live in Sydney and have just started a low carb diet my naturpath put me on. It seems a bit stricter than Dr. Atkins in that I'm not allowed any bacon or alcohol or artificial sweetners. I think I need to talk to him about the alcohol thing. I was reading that straight spirits are 0 carbs sounds good to me. I have stacked on about 4 kilos a year since I left school seven years ago and needed to do something desperatly. I'm tall so I hide excess fat really well until it's way too late. I'm pretty dedicated to loosing weight and feeling healthy again so I hope this works. I only started on Monday and haven't weighed in yet but I'll let you know. How long have you been going for? I don't know how you do being a vego. I'd live on Whey protein shakes.

I'm not sure if I'm eating too much cheese and cream. I probably have a big serve of cheese a day in salad or something and a small bit of cream on some strawberries. I wonder if this is ok. Soon find out I spose.

any way do write back, I'd be keen to here more.

Bye Nadia

[cathie]

Hey Nadia,

it's great to hear from you, it just makes it a little easier to be able to chat with someone who knows what you're going through.

what's the ketogenic diet like, is it only the alcohol that bothers you? I'm not a drinker so I don't miss alcohol.

do you have to go for weigh ins? do you go to the gym or anything?

I go to the gym nearly everyday...lately though I haven't been feeling too keen about long workouts though...lost a bit of motivation so that's why I thought I'd get some motivation from someone who is in the same boat.

Have been on and off atkins for about the last month or so..can't stick with the first 2 weeks, food gets a bit boring..but I have to do it. I always tell myself that i'll stick to it yet I don't know what happens and I just can't get past those 2 weeks.

I put on about 8kgs whilst being overseas for a year and it's just so depressing not being able to shift it. I'm unemployed at the moment so that doesn't help with the comfort eating I guess.

I hope I haven't bored you, please tell me about you.

Hope you're going well, we can do it!

send me a sample of yr eating plan if u can.

have a good day,
cathie

[NadiaA]

Hi Cathie

It's great to hear from you. I only just started this last Monday, so I will have been on it for a week tomorrow. I am on a low-carb diet that my naturpath put me on and the rules seem to be quiet lax compared to a lot of the specific diets I have read about. I think I am going to buy an Atkins book and see if I can more direction. My diet is called the Keto System of sustainable fat loss. The basic rules are:

NO
* pasta, rice, potatoes, pastries, bread, biscuits, cakes
* coffee, alcohol
* juice concentrates, soft drinks
* artificial sweeteners
* honey, molasses, sugar

PERMITTED
* butter, cream, low fat cheese
* Virgin cold pressed Olive and Grape seed oil
* low GI Salad veggies
* Soft boiled/ poached eggs or omelets.

Daily Guidlines
* NO MORE than 20g of Carbohydrates a day
* 3 palms ( the size of your palm) of Protein per day (approx)
*2 protein snacks per day
* NO FRUIT apart form strawberries, blueberries
* 3 cups of vegies
* 2.5 litres of water a day

So it is quite relaxed really. I have had trouble knowing how much of everything I am allowed to have. I feel like I have been eating too much cheese and cream with my strawberries.

An average eating day for me would be.

Breakfast: 3 eggs and some low carb veggies like mushroom and capsicum. or instead of the vegies I would have half a punnet of strawberries and some cream.

Mid morning: a protein shake. Depending on how much protein I am having for lunch or breakfast I will make my protein intake here between 10-30g

Lunch: a huge salad with lots of different leaves with either chicken, egg, tuna with some cheese and a sprinkle of nuts. I usually have a small amount of dressing made with avacado oil and some balsamic vinegar.

Mid afternoon: either some nuts 10g of protein or another shake or tuma

Dinner: Chicken, beef, veal, or fish with some veggies

and if I'm really craving something sweet I have some more strawberries and a little bit of diet chocolate sauce that is very low in carbs and some cream.

I feel as though I am grossley over eating. Because I have only been doing it for a week I don't know if I am doing it correctly. It cost me a fortune every time I see my naturpath so I don't want to go back in until I really need to.

He took body composition test of me. He hooked me up to electrode thingies and printed out a report on my body. Aparently I am 40% fat, scarey hey.

I Wee on these Kero strips every morning and night. He told me to stay in the trace to moderate range so the highest I should go is dark pink but I have read else where that you don't actualy burn that much fat until you are in the purple section.

It is hard for me to tell because my scales weigh a bit heavier than his and also it's my periods week so I'm always heaver, so I'm sure if I have actually lost any weight yet.

Can you send me what a normal day for you would be like? I would love any help. Do you think my program sounds ok?

I have been a bit lazy with gym thing, I went for an hour walk yesterday which was really nice and I will try to motivate my self to go to the gym this week and do a bit of cycling.

I am a high school teacher so I run around all day at work and never really sit down so I suppose I am a little bit active.

I would love any ideas or advice you have. sorry this is so long I hope you have managed to read it all.

Hope to speak to you soon

Nadia :roll:

[Qball]

cathie,
Hang in there! It was tough for me to change the way I eat as well. My wife is such a wonderful cook. She's originally from The Philippines and everything she would fix had rice or rice noodles in it. She's modified how she cooks now and Philippino cuisine less the rice/rice noodles fits quite well into the low carb style. I wish I could suggest food choices for you, but my wife generally does all the cooking. I do fire up the grill on weekends, but I mostly cook beef steak or bratwurst so if you can't do meat I don't know if I can help you, sorry. The one thing I really like about Low carb is that I don't really think that much about food. Sometimes I have to make myself eat. I'm seldom ever hungry. This is in stark contrast to how it used to be.

BTW way back when I was a paratrooper in the US Army I got the great pleasure of training with some of your countrymen. They were some of the most professional soldiers I've ever seen and they sure knew how to have a good time! I was a sergeant then and was giving a lesson on our mortar. One Aussie remarked "You speak with bit of a Southern Accent". I quickly replied, "not quite as Southern as yours" and they all got a laugh out of that!

Anyway, good luck!

[cathie]

hey Nadia

thanks for your reply.

sounds like a good plan, I don't do the ketostix thing though..personally I don't see the need really to obsess over that aswell.
if you're interested in atkins check out his website at http://atkinscenter.com/index.html, the book is useful though.

the rules seem pretty much the same, just no fruit the first 2 weeks. with servings, I guess you have to figure out how many strawberries for example are within your 20gram carbs per day.

with cheese, atkins rule is 3-4oz per day...I think it's about 100-125grams.

What do u teach? What years? I wanted to do teacher training last year in the U.K but visa thing didn't work out. I'd love to teach art to children someday.

keep up the walking..nothing beats those feel good endorphins pumping through your body and mind.

enjoy your sunday...it's pretty chilli here in melbourne, sun's out though...contemplating whether to go out in the sun for a bit.

:) cathie

[cathie]

hi Qball,

I bet you would have had a laugh with the aussies...they're not a quiet bunch are they!

sounds like you've made great changes with your families woe..I want to get to that stage hopefully sometime soon, feeling more energized and hopefully not thinking about what to eat all the time.

My boyfriend does the cooking for us, he's just got that special talent I don't have. He's a bit upset now coz I don't ask him to cook for me, but I have to do this for me. He doesn't really mind, I think he just wants me to figure out what I need to do though.

Went to he gym at 8am this morning despite it being cold outside..if only I could be more self disciplined with my eating!! :confused:

Thanks for replying, what's the weather like in Knoxville? BBQ season yet?

have a good day,
cathie

[Qball]

cathie,
I really hope it all works out for you and I also hope your boyfriend is understanding.

Anyway, Knoxville is getting warm now. It was about 83deg F/27deg C. today. I actually love the climate here. Originally I'm from Panama City, Florida. The climate there is much like southern Australia (from what I've been told). North Florida has mild winters with hot and humid summers. Here in Tennessee we have four seasons, but the winters are not too bad. We may have six or eight days of snow and the temperature gets to maybe 0deg F/-18deg C in the extreme. The great part about living here in East TN is that the daytime temp (in summer) may get to 95deg F/35deg C, but it will cool off to 65deg F/18deg C at night! Yes, it's getting to be BBQ time and I've been doing my share. I only needed to change the sauce a little.

Good luck, Qball.

[NadiaA]

Hi

You good girl, I was reading how you went to the gym at eight this morning when I was all tucked up in bed. It's been raining and quite cool in Sydney today so I have stayed in side and tried to learn more about this low carb stuff and try and get some marking done as well. I might go to the pub in a minute 28 days is playing for free.

I teach highschool kids. It's only my first year out of uni so I'm really that far away from some of the older kids. I teach year 7-10 and teach English, Drama, Geography, History. There are half yearly exams these next two weeks so I will be very busy. I'm just trying to keep my head above water at times there is so much to learn. I wanted to teach art as well but the uni I went to dropped the subject after I'd been doing it for a year. I was furious. Art was my favourite at school. The only down side is that you spend half of your time cleaning up after ratty kids.

See you latter

Nadia :angel:

[cathie]

hey nadia,

hope you had a good day today, how was the pub gig?

I've been feeling a bit flat the last 2days...I know it'll pass.

off the subject....do u like arthouse movies at all, if you do, a good one is 'real women have curves'. it's not mainstream so in melbourne you can only find it in smaller theatres.

hope your LCing has been going great and will chat to u soon.
cathie

sorry, this has got to be the worst message...I think I need some sunrays to cheer me up.

seeya :wave: