Posts by jannid

hi learningrunner,

I have not read God of Small Things, but have read of it and it sounds fascinating. I usually enjoy the immersion in another culture - like with The Good Earth and may look for it this weekend.

Do you find the cultural references difficult or is it the language or style used?

I'd love to recommend an author or a book, but first tell me do you prefer - ancient, 1800's etc, modern, or recent?

I'll look through the stacks in my house and see if something jumps out and says you must read it. LOL!

ps - welcome to CC!

changing the date is also useful to see what you had over the course of a week or whatever. The analysis on that is cool.

You will lose weight on any diet that restricts food. You will also gain it all back when you go back to eating "normally" because "diets" are temporary and you have not made foundational changes to how you normally eat.

A healthy way to eat is to consume a wide variety of delicious foods you love that run the gamut of "grades" and nutritional content.

I think moderation is certainly key here as is not eating in a mindless way - noshing from a box of crackers/chips in front of a tv and not realizing how much you are eating until it is too late.

Also the idea that you are "dieting" should be deep sixed in favor of eating in a way that encourages health and happiness.

If the way you eat is healthy and you can look at it and think - yeah, I can do that forever and be happy, then it is sustainable and you will not regain the weight. This reinforces a good sense of self which also works to prevent the return of the weight via stress eating.

Greek yogurt is strained so it is thicker and creamier. For me it is far more satisfying than regular yogurt or yogurt drinks and, yes you can get it all over. There are a bunch of different brands. I like Oikos - it's 0% fat and very good. When I am at my ideal weight, one way I'll add back calories will be to eat Greek Gods Yogurt (pomegranate yum!).

I love adding 1/4 C cheerios to my Greek yogurt!

I like to put a whole lot of lightly sauteed spinach in the couscous and squish in juice from a lemon and then add some feta cheese. I've had it as a meal with hot mixed veges on top. Yum!

Sometimes I've just made an individual serving of the dish minus the extra veges and that's lunch...all by itself!

motivating self talk does help. When you are over weight it's easy to get in the habit of dissing yourself. So stop dissing and start building yourself up!

As I am losing weight I think this sort of thing to myself and write about it in my journal - Wow, my stomach is smaller today! Cool, I indent at the waist! My pants fit loser today! Feel the muscle on this tricept! My posture is so much better! You know, I never thought I'd love this sort of meal, but I do!

Think about the good things that have happened to your body and point them out to yourself whenever you get a chance.

It helped me to just accept that stress is always there. I cannot change that. But I can change how or if I react to stress. I am in control of me even if I cannot control other issues. I find that an empowering thought.

So much stress comes from things that have not happened yet but we fear that they will. Don't remember the exact quote so I modified it to think in my head whenever things get tough - "95% of the things that people worry about never happen". That means that you are worrying pointlessly and creating internal stress which leads to ill health over things that will not happen. For the other five percent, you might as well save up your worries and focus them on the real stress.

I would think that phrase every time I worried over my husbands 15 month unemployment, my mother's brain tumor, expensive college tuition, a horrid work environment, etc. I also practiced bringing my breath to a deeper, slower, quieter, and more regular pattern when stress tried to make me crack. Eventually I began to feel calm with just with the phrase or the breath. Give it a try, it might work for you too.

There's a lot of great ideas here. Different things work for different people. You will find one that is right for you.

on a steak salad. Perfect.

The additives in eggbeaters make me avoid any except the All White version - as the ingredient listed is just Egg Whites. I use All Whites as an extender to a regular egg mainly as a calorie reducer and because I feel bad putting all that yolk down the drain if I used just the whites of whole eggs - but will not use the yolk if I keep it.

The point of the article and all the referencing material was that massive research over the past 25 years has rather de-bunked the eggs raise your cholesterol idea. The cholesterol is acts differently in our bodies than the cholesterol in things other saturated fats and that the cholesterol in eggs has compounds that are beneficial for the "good" cholesterol numbers. You would not believe the amount and variety of hard to get vitamins that are in a yolk!

That said, four a day every day cooked in the same way is quite a bit (the article said two a day was recommended) and I would think quite boring. No good food should be boring. So I agree that you should find a few other things to add to the morning and ways to vary your egg cookery.

There's lots of ideas here at CC's recipe db. I frequently enjoy sauteing some onion, sweet red pepper, and spinach (a lot!) in habanero olive oil, then I add turmeric and 1 egg with 2 servings of all whites. Sometimes I spice it up with salsa and put it in a whole wheat tortilla, sometimes I eat it on the side of a whole wheat English muffin with a thin spread of peanut butter. Sometimes I use different herbs and veges. Eggs are too good a food to be just fried or hard boiled, let them show you what they can do!