Posts by connie412

 When I had mine set to light, I added "light cleaning" for anything like that.

I never presoak beans. My grandmother always does. In all honesty, I find no difference. Not in the texture, and not in the gas problems, either!!

Chicken

Turkey

Beans

Thank you for your answer.

You sure are right on me NOT being a body builder! I wish!! No, I don't want to work out the same muscle groups day after day. My problem is, being in child care and having 2 shifts of kids, I sometimes only have only 1 hour in between the 2 groups of kids, and some days, not even that much time. I have -1 hour to fix dinner for my family and get a little work out in, and that leaves for a pretty pathetic "workout" some days. I try to scrunch upper and lower body work into that small amount of time, and I am not yet of a size, or in good enough shape to take on some of the HIIT training that folks are talking about.  If I can work one area one day, and another on the next day, I can certainly get in some better workouts.... if there is no reason to avoid doing that.

Sounds like you've got what we all came for --- a winning story. Congratulations!!

I was a smoker for over 25 years, and I quit on April 9th of this year.

Yes, you can gain weight, but there are ways around gaining a lot of weight. When I stopped, I took up eating pastel mints - AWFUL idea!! Go for carrots, or celery or even veggies mixed with pretzels, or something like that - not just junk food, like a lot of us have done. Another way, is to slowly reduce the amount that you are smoking. I cut down by half in a couple weeks, then stopped cold turkey.

On quitting: ask your Dr if there is a program around your area (State run) that is giving out free Patches to help you quit. I think it is available in every state.

Also - on quitting - first you have to really want to be done with cigarettes for it to work. Nobody manages to quit until they are ready to. When you are ready, you'll probably need to trick your senses, too. I used to do certain things when I smoked - like go outside (I never smoked in my house) for any reason, or feed the fish in my pond, or just have a seat in my favorite spot on the deck. I did not want to have to stop doing these things when I stopped smoking, so I changed the things I did while I smoked, and would intentionally watch the fish, or hang out on the deck without a smoke, during the last couple of weeks that I was smoking. When I put the smokes down, I did not feel like I needed one to watch the fish in my pond, and I really think that made it a lot easier on me.

Anything along those lines that you can do to help yourself defeat the routine, will help you to stop smoking.

And yes, it DOES save the money - especially for me, because I was smoking 6 cartons every month.

I will go with bulky.

I will also go so far as to say that the statement "...because there aren't any women who lift that want to bulk up" is probably not entirely accurate. I will agree, though, that not all women who lift, are looking to bulk up.

I was diagnosed with arthritis at age 14, and when I was 20, the Dr told me I would be in a wheelchair by the time I was 30. I gave up a lot of activities out of fear that he was right, and became a 284 pound 42 year old, who can still walk, just with a bit of pain sometimes. I'm pretty sure the Dr's were not 100% accurate.

Three weeks ago, I started using a Nordic Track cross country ski machine, because they are supposed to be pretty much free of "impact" problems that running can cause.

After 3 weeks, I have no increased knee pain, can use the machine for 30 minutes at a time, and have even come to do a bit of "jogging" on it during my workouts, and still without pain.

If you are already in pain, this may not be a good route for you, but I thought I would mention it for your request

By the way - my first week on the machine was spent walking. First day was 15 minutes of trying to figure out the balance thing.