***Bay Area Babes-Getting Beach Ready***

[hummingbird11]

Kris, how tall are you? How much weight do you want to lose? You look fantastic in your photo.

I think adding 2-3 Tbsp of EVCO per day is a great idea.

I don't know anything about selenium but I take 1000mg of L-Carnitine in the AM and another 500mg in the PM. There's a whole list of "weight loss" supplements that Dr Atkins reccomends. Let me know if you want the whole list.

What's wrong w/ Cauliflower?

Soy is tricky. I LOVE soy milk and tofu, too - but I stopped all soy intake when I started Atkins in March. I guess there's a lot of brew-ha-ha over the pros/cos of soy that I really don't understand...

[Kris T.]

Let's see..I'm 5'3"..I'd like to be 110 or so..I keep flip/flopping between 115 and 118.

No clue on the cauli. She couldn't remember why..I haven't been eating it because it's pretty heavy and bulky in my bike basket!! I've read things about not eating it raw, but I always steam mine and mash it.

Yeah, I keep reading the soy info too. I just might cut down (or stop) and see what happens. This cruise we're going on will be a good test since I'll be at the mercy of not cooking for a week!! No soy, no flax, no almond milk. Yipes! I might need to take some c.o. In fact, yes, I'll definately take enough for a bit in my coffee each day.

[hummingbird11]

when and to where is your cruise??

I steamed/mashed celery root and it was awesome!

is everyone staying cool this w/e? man oh man I love the warm summer nights & phenomenal sunsets lately. reminds me of Tejas! we've been chilling & grilling on the deck till midnight...

WHERE IS EVERYBODY ?????

guess it's just you & me, Kris!

[Kris T.]

Guess I need to try some celery root. I know I've seen it somewhere...it sounds good!

We leave for Alaska June 25th and will be there for a week. My mom and dad, as well as my brother and his wife will be all meeting us there. So it will be the 8 of us. Once I get past the flight, I'll be fine. I'm not that good of a flier!

I like your new avatar..I just got a new 'do, so I should update mine now too.

Ok..off to start my day. Today is Chinatown with the kiddos.. Aimee wants a kimono and a coolee. She honestly wants to be Chinese. Kris

p.s. HB it was nice to read more about you on the other thread. You sound very interesting! I think it's always amazing (and inspiring) when people take potentially negative experiences in their lives and grow and change for the better because of them. That's the way it should be.

[hummingbird11]

Oh wow - your trip is coming up SOON! How fun! How long will you be gone?

Awww, thanks! And ditto! I'm intrigued by what you said and hope you will explicate re: your "life-changing experience" (whenever you have time); either here or over dinner on July 20th!

I like what you said: I'm no longer the same person. I'm better.

And I feel the same way. Most days anyway! Cancer was a "gift".

One of my favorite quotes:
The Game does not build character; The Game reveals character.

that's too funny re: your daughter. why the facination w/ being chinese?

btw, what is WAHM? and SAHM?

[hummingbird11]

http://www.lowcarbfriends.com/bbs/ma...w-carbers.html

[Kris T.]

Oh wow - your trip is coming up SOON! How fun! How long will you be gone?

Just a week!

that's too funny re: your daughter. why the facination w/ being chinese?
Dublin has a huuuge Asian population, so all of her friends are. She is just fascinated. I'll have to post the pic of her in her new stuff from our Chinatown soiree!

btw, what is WAHM? and SAHM? = Work at home mom and Stay at home mom.



Oh, I RSVP'd.

[Kris T.]

IMG_0084.jpg

How to flip?

[hummingbird11]

1 - CONGRATS on meeting (& beating) your 145 lb goal

2 - what is your Dream??

3 - OMG I can TOTALLY relate to this!!
Another area in which I am failing miserably (much to my own embarrassment) is housekeeping.

HEY, who cares if the house is clean or not? As long as you & yours are HAPPY.

OH and even my Ms Perfect Vegan 100% All Natural sister feeds her kids chicken nuggets (Quorn brand) & PBJ's (Arrowhead Mills Organic Valencia PB & sugar free jam on Ezekiel bread or similar). IT CAN BE DONE!

[hummingbird11]

OMG the photo of your daughter as a little chinese girl is ADORABLE!!
I double-clicked to make it BIGGER; even sideways it's GORGEOUS!!
WHAT A LITTLE HAM! AND SUCH A BEAUTIFUL FACE!
I was just able to save & flip.
But HOW do you place photos in the body of the msg?
I can only get them to post as thumbnails??

[hummingbird11]

166 lbs today (no progress; but no damage either!)

this week's mini goals are:
1) 1 gallon water per day
2) take daily supplements
3) exercise 5 days out of 7

B: 1 cup coffee + 1/2 & 1/2 + Torani SF french vanilla syrup

B: hamburger pie quiche (veggie ground beef; spinach; cheddar; roasted chiles)

S: mini blueberry turnover (hubby made them this w/e - that was the LAST one - YUM!)

L: BLT Salad (spinach; tomato; bacon; hardboiled egg & blue cheese) + 4 Ak-Mak crackers
Ak-Mak 100% Whole Wheat Stone Ground Sesame Cracker

S: natural-style beef jerky

D: Salad (spinach/tomato/feta) + 2 Ak-Mak crackers + apricots/raspberries/cream
EVERYTHING was from our garden (except the dairy cause hubby won’t let me get a goat OR any chickens…..yet) !!!!!!!!!!

S: 2 squares low carb chocolate

I'm gonna start tracking my daily macros again on July 1st. No time right now.
End of the fiscal year at work is June 30th and it is CRAZY!

[hummingbird11]

Mid-Year Resolution, June 23-29 2008

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Is Your Low-Carb Honeymoon Over?

Starting is tough enough.

Starting over is harder still. Continuing? Sometimes harder than both starting or rededicating.

The honeymoon from the excitement of discovering something new is over. The initial excitement of the first few pounds that came off seems like a distant memory. The first time you stepped on the scale and ogled your first amazing and steady stream of losses will never again be quite the same.

Now you’re back to where you started, or you’re partially there, or you're moving forward but you might not feel progress is as quick as you'd like. You feel like you can’t do it because you’ve never been able to stick with anything before. I mean, what makes this any different, right? This is just like every other time you either sabotaged yourself or messed something up because you knew you couldn’t make it anyway. Starting over isn’t as romantic. The magic of rediscovery seems to be wasted.

You feel like you’ve been through this all before. You glare at the eggs. You don’t even find any humor in taking out the Muenster and ‘cutting the cheese’ when your significant other asks you what you’re doing. The light is gone. You’ve given up.

That’s ok. For now. But keep reading.

See, life is a series of choices we make. Some of them are wonderful: having children, not having children, starting that business, writing that book, taking up gardening. Some of them are not the best decisions we ever made: going for a chest wax, trying the Epilady on our armpits, getting a pet indoor rabbit when you prefer your appliance cords largely unchewed, thinking roasting marshmallows on lit sparklers is really funny when you were inebriated in college.

No, you can’t have the total beauty of the first time over again, but what if? What if, instead, you looked at something as being new the second time around?

I had a car once, a long time ago. It was my first car, and I bought it from my parents. It was a 1979 Toyota Corolla, and it was the smallest little car, but by golly was she reliable. Not only was she a good car, but she could easily seat 6 people (convenient if you need to get your friends to the high school dance, so long as everyone was comfortable in their sexuality enough to sit on top of each other), and she was a stick shift, so the amount of control I had driving up and down the hills of Seattle looking for punk rock night clubs was pretty wonderful.

It wasn’t a new car, but it was new to me. I owned it, and good, or bad, and even when I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to pour oil down the dipstick (well, I knew it came out there, so why not?), I knew that car was my responsibility. And to me, she was a wonderful creature.

Looking at your lifestyle the same way makes for a different attitude.

You own it. It’s yours. It’s wonderful and unique. Sometimes you pour the oil down the dipstick, but you eventually figured it out when your best friend came over, and between fits of laughter, he let you know how things really worked. Such is the way with life. You wear your seatbelt, buy your insurance, pass the driver’s tests, and occasionally you’re going to get a ticket. Sometimes you might think you can jump the sidewalk, and you find your car being realigned the next day. Getting the occasional tow home because you tried to take a shortcut over moguls in the Safeway parking lot makes for good stories later on, even when the situation is exasperating at the time, and the tow truck driver is snorting laughter as he hooks up your rig and takes your credit card number.

Laugh. Call the tow truck. Get home safely.

The same applies to your way of eating.

Learn what works for you and what has caused you problems in the past and keep going. It is worth it!

Most of your life will be spent in maintenance, so there is a little bit of magic in beginning anew. Not again, but anew. Look to your strengths and reaffirm your weaknesses. When you falter, don't give up. As the meachanic and his vehicle, you can inspect your plan. Use experience and don't repeat mistakes again if you can help it. Once I figured out I really could add too much oil to the engine of a vehicle (and did), I learned something new. Did it mean I shouldn't ever own a vehicle? Heckola no. It meant that, like all of life, learning is quintessential.

If you take care of you car it takes care of you. Whether yours has 150,000 miles, or 900,000 miles, whether you’ve overhauled the engine, or it’s holding on everytime you push start it, it’s yours. Take care of it. Own it. Keep it running.

It’s a great little chassie you’ve got there.

Enjoy the ride.
__________________
__________________

The Lighter Side of Low Carb <--my blog. Where I'm bloggy.
National Low-Carb Examiner My national low-carb column. Where I'm columny.

Mid-Year Resolution Challenge member: 86 to lose/ 17 lost/ 69 pounds to go We Are Carbarella!

[Kris T.]

Great post! I agree, staying with it can be hard. I feel like I'm in the minority most of the time.

Ok-I need to pack. I'll be gone 6/25-7/2. Hope I can stay with this WOE on the cruise! I have my stevia, almonds, and coconut oil packed. The stevia, by the way, is "Nu Naturals". Whole foods had a lot of different packages open for testing..THANK YOU FOR THAT!!! I tried 4 different ones, and this brand is great. I'm what you call a 'supertaster' and even I couldn't detect an aftertaste. So I'm weaning myself off splenda now.

Have a great week, everyone! Kris

[hummingbird11]

I woke-up 1 lb lighter ~ back down to my profile weight of 165 lbs!

Bon Voyage Kris! Have a wonderful time on your cruise!

Also, remember that brief "diet breaks" can be good for your metabolism. Btinc (my online trainer) advised me to shake it up while I was on vacation: alternate eating low/high calories on different days and eating at different times of day (which shouldn't be hard on a cruise!) and alternate days of high fat/low carb and low fat/high carb. I think that's what helped me to basically eat/drink whatever/whenever I wanted ~ yet not gain any "real" weight over the 10 days I was away. It was ALL lymph fluid - all 6 lbs!

I love NuNaturals "NoCarbs" blend of Stevia.
NuNaturals Stevia is the ONLY brand I've ever tasted that is NOT bitter!

Ciao for Now - Have Fun!

WHERE IS EVERYONE ELSE ????????????

Kris, please PM me when you get back (in case this thread is dead)!

XO,
HB

[Kris T.]

It was ALL lymph fluid - all 6 lbs!

Sooo..can I use this as a reason to get daily massages? Works for me!

Kris, please PM me when you get back (in case this thread is dead)!

Will do!

[Snowangel81598]

Originally Posted by hummingbird11

1 - CONGRATS on meeting (& beating) your 145 lb goal

2 - what is your Dream??

3 - OMG I can TOTALLY relate to this!!
Another area in which I am failing miserably (much to my own embarrassment) is housekeeping.

HEY, who cares if the house is clean or not? As long as you & yours are HAPPY.

OH and even my Ms Perfect Vegan 100% All Natural sister feeds her kids chicken nuggets (Quorn brand) & PBJ's (Arrowhead Mills Organic Valencia PB & sugar free jam on Ezekiel bread or similar). IT CAN BE DONE!

Thanks for reading my blog.

1 - Thanks! I'm working toward 140 now. I have about 3.5 lbs or so to go.

2 - In my heart I am a singer/songwriter. My dream is to do it full time. I'm finally actually making it a priority in my life and going after it like I want it rather than dismissing it as a pipe dream and just "getting through" each day.

3 - I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one. I don't let it bother me that much until I have people coming over (which I do this weekend, so I have to spend some serious time cleaning over the next few days).

I'm working on getting my family switched to healthier versions of the convenience foods they love. Maybe some day I'll get us to the all organic, grass-fed, free range home cooked food I know we should all be eating.

Thanks for the encouragement!

[pri17cess72]

Hey Angel,

I am waiting on updates on your blog. How are you?

Sending you a myspace message.

Hope you are well. Miss you!

[hummingbird11]

1 - WOW! CONGRATS! THAT IS AWESOME!

2 - GOOD FOR YOU!! DO WHAT YOU LOVE, THE MONEY WILL FOLLOW!!

3 - SOMETIMES HUBBY INVITES PEOPLE OVER JUST TO GET ME TO CLEAN THE HOUSE - HAHAHA!
YOU ARE *NOT* THE ONLY ONE!

4 - OH YES, SOMEDAY WE WILL *ALL* EAT PERFECT! WINK WINK!

ANYTIME MY FRIEND, ANYTIME!

GO FOR IT, FOLLOW YOUR DREAM!! THE ONLY FAILURE IS NOT TO TRY!!

XO,
HB

[pri17cess72]

Question and Activity for all of you ladies...

Does everyone have a tape measure?

If so, can you post measurements for your upper arm. Let's say 3inches from the armpit? My big problem spot is my upper arms and I just want to calibrate with the rest of you ladies.

I am an apple. What is your body type?


Hugs,
Liz

[hummingbird11]

I'M SO TOTALLY AN APPLE!

[pri17cess72]

Originally Posted by hummingbird11

I'M SO TOTALLY AN APPLE!

Do you find you have big upper arms? I am very comfortable with my lowe body, it is my upper body that drives me insane.

HB, would you mind measuring your upper arm for me? I know it is a crazy request but I want to see if my image is way out of line.

Hugs,
Liz

[pri17cess72]

Kris I hope you are having an awesome vacation!

HB, what is that avatar you've got?

I just went grocery shopping and I committed to being back on track starting tomorrow. I am getting ready to make tuna muffins from Linda Sue's site. Has anyone tried them before?

I also bought some TJ Goddess dressing that I read was yummy. I will let you all know what I think of it.

I will try my best to be at the dinner on July 20. Thank you for arranging it HB. I am excited to get to know you and it might be easier to communicate in person my WOE and personal struggles. I am not the best at expressing it on text.

Does anyone know what happened to Mamabird?

Hope you all are enjoying your Thur evening.