I didn't munch at all yesterday, and am feeling the good 'it' food-wise (you know the one I'm talking about). Knees still feel a little off so my workouts are sort of up in the air. I don't want to use them as an excuse if there's nothing wrong, but OTOH it's always been a sensitive area physically and I don't want to further push it if they've been overused lately. I guess I can do lots of core and upper body, right? Elliptical didn't seem to bother them yesterday. It's so hard for me to not work out, especially when I'm trying to lose! I'm also a bit scared of the weekend, since I always end up munching mindlessly on the weekends, even if I'm feeling "it" Fridays. I need some
Meg, it's ok, hop right back on the horse (the elliptical?) and back OP. We all slip sometimes. Oof, a computer disaster. Reminds me I need to back up my hard drive to the server soon!
Amanda, I'm sorry your shoulder is still hurting and the doc can't seem to do much about it. Hang in there.
Michele, enjoy your trip to see DD!
Great job Dagmar! Keep up the good work.
I'm off to put the finishing touches on a presentation I'm giving to a class Monday. Have a great day all!
That is so funny about the great dane and the chihuahua. Our dog park isn't segregated by size but it does have a fenced-in agility area, so if a dog is misbehaving or is nervous the owner will usually lock them in (I have done it before with Carter). We have a couple pugs who come to the park who are completely fearless and always try to play with the big dogs! Carter just gets annoyed when little dogs try to play with him.
Speaking of which, Carter must be a really quick learner who really hates getting sprayed with water, because he didn't wake me up last night! Good dog! I woke up anyway since I had to go to the bathroom, but it's much easier to get back to sleep when you don't have a dog whining into your ear and licking your arm.
Dagmar, great job on not snacking in front of the TV!! I sort of know what you mean about DH -- my DH suffers from depression and when he gets into a funk it's always the exact same things he's upset about: trapped in a dead-end career, will never be as rich as his parents, doesn't have enough money, life is going nowhere, everything is pointless, thinks he's a failure, etc etc. At least at this point he recognizes that when he's feeling that way it's the depression talking, and he knows that his worries are totally irrational.
Megan - yay no munching!!! Can you go swimming? It might be easier on your knees.
Michele - Funny about your Doberman, I wonder if being antisocial at the park is a Doberman trait? Carter loves to play with other dogs at our house or at their houses, but he almost never plays at the dog park. Weird.
Meg, that sucks about the computer! I hope they get it sorted out for you. A paper schedule can't crash and disappear, but it can disappear if you spill something on it!
Sheila~no excuse. I stayed until 4 PM like usual. But today being Friday, I get to leave at 3 PM! And best of all, my DD is coming home for the weekend. Her school has been on furlough Tues, Wed and Thurs, and she would have been home earlier, but she has one class today. I wonder why they wouldn't move the furlough to Wed, Thurs, Fri so the kids would have a 5 day weekend? State budget cuts = brain confusion!
Don't know what's going on with the car now. DH's court date on Monday will be postponed again, so this could happen sooner rather than later! I doubt he'll have to go to court for at least 4-6 weeks now, unless his lawyer can work wonders and get the case thrown out, which I doubt will happen. It's such a mess, but DH isn't going to let it bother him--I just get stressed at the whole thing. Ugh.
Meg~oh, computer woes! I get completely unglued when we have computer issues either at home or work. So far, nothing has been permanent. We backup every night at work, so if we were to lose something, we could reconstruct from the backup tape. But it would be a hassle. I hope they get everything fixed for you.
Oh, Meg! I can just see your jawas when the candy rolled by. One picks it up, puzzled, looks it over, says WTF? in its little Jawa voice. The others crowd around it. What is it?, they wonder. One Jawa says, Let's take it to the old, hermit Jawa. Maybe he's seen one before.
They find the old hermit Jawa, who has a long, white, wispy beard. He pokes the candy with a stick thoughtfully and narrows his eyes, deepset in his wrinkled face. Finally, he says, "I've heard tales of foods like this....from my great-grandfather, when he was a young Jawa....That was many many years ago....He said they were plentiful, like rain.....My own grandfather and father never believed his tales....They could not have imagined a subtance such as this...they had never seen one themselves. Don't fret, my children. Push it on along....It is a once in a multi-generation occurance and we shall only be concerned if it happens again and again. I doubt I shall see the likes of it again in my lifetime."
Candy & Meg= a rare occurance indeed. Good luck with the scheduling snafus. I often think how lost I would be without the computers in my life.
I may have had a breakthrough on my stomach & headache problems of the last couple of months. Splenda. I learned last summer that Splenda doesn't like me. When I first started counting my calories I was still using six-eight packets of sweetener in coffee & tea, and my sweetener of choice was Splenda. I cooked with it, bought yogurt with it, drank diet drinks with it, anything I could find. I started having headaches, started throwing up every day multiple times, my heartburn came back, I was fatigued, starving all the time. After a few months of this I connected that the nausea hit right after the tea, so I started looking for tea allergies. Googled 'sick after tea with splenda' one day and hit the jackpot. All of my random symptoms had been reported by other people and stopped when they stopped the splenda. I even found it in my protein powder (one of the flavors doesn't have it, all the others do.) I went Splenda free and all was well. Well, in the last two months the headaches have come back, the heartburn has come back, the stomach issues have come back. I've been having the occasional sugar free latte with splenda flavored syrups, because I can have a little here and there without problem. It is when I have a lot that it builds up to what my old doctor called a 'cumulative effect'. I didn't think I was building a cumulative effect.
Yesterday I read something Wendalyn said about artificial sweetener in Arnold's Sandwich Thins so I went home and looked. Sucralose. I tore my kitchen up and found it in at least a dozen products I've been using regularly. All of which I had put on my 'safe' list for one reason or another. In some cases, they have been reformulated in the last year to include Splenda, in others one flavor of item doesn't have it but another does. I found it in wheat bread (not our normal brand, it was sold out), bagels, english muffins, instant oatmeal packets, coffee creamers (only a few flavors here and there in one of the brands), granola bars, South Beach Diet fiber bars, pickles, graham crackers... I knew it was in a lot of diet drinks, juices and yogurts, bought some pudding cups for DSS that we knew had it in it, didn't even think to look for it in breads and oatmeal... So, I'm going to try cutting all of those things out for a few weeks and drinking a lot of water to flush the chemicals before I do the new round of testing. Called my doctor and she agrees it is worth a shot.
I let my vigilance slip and took things for granted. I have to start being more careful.
Anyone make their own bread? I have a bread maker and was thinking I might try it. Pretty disturbed by the sucralose in the wheat bread thing.
I'll be back later to respond to posts, have to run right now.
Shannon, glad you figured it out! That is scary that you found splenda in so many products. Were the brands of bread and oatmeal that you bought labeled "low-carb"? A lot of the time if something is labeled "low-carb" it will have artificial sweeteners in it.
Now I'm going to have to check out our bread at home! I buy Pepperidge Farm 100% Whole Wheat bread usually. I kind of assumed it probably had HFCS or sugar in it but I wouldn't expect it to have sucralose. As for oatmeal, I usually just buy the big fat canister of oats where the only ingredient is "oats." It only takes 5 minutes to microwave old-fashioned oats so I don't bother with the instant packet type.
I have tried making my own bread, but unfortunately fresh-baked bread is a trigger food for me. If I make a loaf of bread, I will eat a loaf of bread, end of story. It tastes so much better when it is fresh-baked!
I have to agree that fresh bread is a trigger for me, too. Any soft, yummy bread is. I do own a bread machine and have had good results with it, though. It's pretty easy to use as well. I'm glad you were able to figure out what the cause of your ails seems to be.
I'm in the throes of a sneeze fest here. Let's hope it's allergies (although I did take a Claritin 2 or 3 hours ago).
And I can't access my Facebook. What's up with that?
Jessica - I've been on a mission all morning... I've found it in the weight loss shakes DH has been drinking, the whey protein powder he was making his smoothies with, half a dozen different vitamins I've taken over the last few months, sugar free chewing gum, some flavored teas, Special K Protein Drinks (the new ones)... The oatmeal I got was labeled 'less sugar', I grabbed it fast on a BOGO rack and didn't see that. Normally I know that is a flag... I don't usually go for things listed specifically as 'low-carb'.
Fresh bread is a trigger for me sometimes, too, but I also have an anger reaction that I can use here as well. I have been told I am a seriously stubborn person when I dig in.
So, only 5 minutes to microwave whole oats? Hm. Can you make it with boiling water? I use the instant at work because I keep 208 degree water in a Panasonic water pot for teas.
Allison - it let me get to your profile page on facebook. Weird that you can't.
Last edited by Shannon in ATL; 10-23-2009 at 12:00 PM.
There is so much crap in pre-prepared food it's not even funny. International companies make and market products in the US under different guidelines than in other countries because they can get away with it. Reading labels is an eye opener. I buy the oatmeal that contains "oats", too. I hope you've solved some of your nausea issues, Shannon.
Facebook is working for me. Probably not at good thing, though!
Midwife - I've started buying more and more of the organic products, trying to buy cleaner foods. I'm pretty annoyed that I let so much sucralose slip in on things I didn't think of... I've also let DH consume loads of it because it never seemed to bother him. Well, he has had stomach issues of his own the last two months and it is interesting to me that his sucralose consumption has significantly increased in that time period...
So DH and I were talking about the artificial sweeteners in food last night... Products made overseas without as many restrictions, or products made to sell to people trying to diet. Let's be honest... you don't get 8-10 ounces of lowfat chocolate yogurt for 50 calories, or a chocolate pudding cup for 45 calories, without some added artificial flavoring. Most of us know that, some of us avoid them, and some people have no problems with the sweeteners so keep eating them. I wondered aloud last night if these products do so well because they allow us to keep our large portion size and feed our sweet tooth so we don't feel like we are on a 'diet'. I have cut out so many of those 'diet' foods because I've realized when I'm eating better for me things that I just feel better. Case in point the last two months when I stopped paying attention... Now I need to go to the store on the way home and replace my bread and buy real oats in the big jug. And some more Kashi Go Lean because that is a big go to snack for me.
Okay, back off my soapbox. Continuing with my regularly scheduled programming.
Shannon, I don't know if you can make old-fashioned oats with boiling water but you can also buy big tubs of "quick" oats which I think you can (they are still just oats, but cut in smaller pieces). To do the old-fashioned ones I put 1/2 C oats and 1 C water in a bowl and microwave at 50% power for five minutes. IMO it's just as good as cooking them on the stovetop and much quicker.
In general I avoid all foods with artificial sweeteners. It's not because of any health reasons for me, just because I absolutely can't stand the flavor. To me any product with artificial sweetener just tastes like chemicals. DH likes to say it "tastes like cancer." Half the time the yogurt/pudding with sugar/honey/HFCS is only like 20 calories more than the one with artifical sweetener anyway.
Shannon~I was having FB problems all morning, but they seem to be resolved now. I kept getting a site maintenance error and that my profile was not available, yet I could sign onto my daughter's FB. But it's back and acting normal, so they must have been doing something.
Speaking of reading labels--you may need to do this forever now. I have a friend who's daughter was just diagnosed with celiac disease and she found out that food companies ROUTINELY change their ingredients depending on how much they can get them for and where they come from. So today's bread may be gluten free, but tomorrow's may not. I'm sure it's the same for sucralose and other sweeteners.
Good sleuthing, Shannon. I avoid anything with artificial sweetners, mostly because I can't tolerate the taste - even splenda tastes weird to me. And like Jessica mentioned, in lots of products there's not a huge calorie savings. Often I just have a smaller serving of the real thing. I use the old-fashioned oats as well, in the same proportions Jessica mentioned, 2 parts water to 1 part oats (I do 2/3, 1/3, plus a shake of salt). I suspect you could do them with boiling water, just add the right amount to a cup/bowl, stir and cover, then let them sit til the water is absorbed. The quick oats might be better.
I make bread every week - usually for DH. Due to damage to his intestine from side effects of his bone marrow transplant, he can't digest whole grains well, so I make him a white bread. It has 2 eggs in the recipe, so a litte more protein (which he needs - he fights to keep his weight up to 140 - grrr) We don't like the shape/texture of the finished loaf in the bread maker, so I do the dough in it, then take it out, knead it the second time, shape it into a regular loaf pan and let it rise the second time and bake it in the oven. This eliminates all the mess of the original dough, and the first rising and makes a regular shaped loaf with better texture. I don't eat much bread myself, so I keep a loaf of ww in the freezer. I do eat ww bagels and I keep those in the freezer as well, taking out 1/2 when I want it in the morning.
Alison - tell your friend there are lots of blogs about gluten-free/celic cooking. I started reading Gluten-free girl - she is a really good writer, and many of her recipes are for meat and veggies that we can all eat. She does have a number of bread/pastry ones too. She also has a book out, and is in the process of publising a good book.
I'm home this weekend for a change, and let me tell you, my house has noticed that I've been gone the last two weekends. It needs a good picking-up. DH is good about vacumning and keeping the cat box clean, but I can write my name in the dust (we live on a dirt road so there's plenty) and there's just clutter here and there. We also have to go to the local - hmm, what do you call it, the place that buys up junked/wrecked cars and salvages good parts for resale? Anyway, I need one snow tire as one of mine had a defect and can't be used again. Since all the tires on a car are supposed to match, we're looking for a used one (the others are of course used, having been on my car for 2 winters. ) Other than that, no plans - ahhh.
I had a suspicious mole removed from my left breast yesterday. In and out in 45 minutes! It doesn't hurt unless I hit it (it's on the "inside" so protected in a bra ) or lay wrong in my sleep. I have 5 stitches - which itch - and it's very black and blue - ugggllly! They'll call me Tues or Wed with the pathologist's report. :cross: for good news.
Shannon, if you're switching to regular oats I want to share this blog called Kath Eats Real Food. She loves oatmeal and has a bunch of recipes for it listed under the "tribute to oatmeal" tab, if you need any ideas. She posts a lot of recipe ideas and tries to eat only "real" foods, very few processed things. You just need to get a big enough bowl so it won't overflow in the microwave.
Food sensitivities can change over one's life, too. You may no longer tolerate something you used to.
Good dog! I woke up anyway since I had to go to the bathroom, but it's much easier to get back to sleep when you don't have a dog whining into your ear and licking your arm.
I sort of know what you mean about DH -- my DH suffers from depression and when he gets into a funk it's always the exact same things he's upset about: trapped in a dead-end career, will never be as rich as his parents, doesn't have enough money, life is going nowhere, everything is pointless, thinks he's a failure, etc etc. At least at this point he recognizes that when he's feeling that way it's the depression talking, and he knows that his worries are totally irrational.
It tastes so much better when it is fresh-baked!
Half the time the yogurt/pudding with sugar/honey/HFCS is only like 20 calories more than the one with artifical sweetener anyway.
It needs a good picking-up. DH is good about vacumning and keeping the cat box clean, but I can write my name in the dust (we live on a dirt road so there's plenty) and there's just clutter here and there. We also have to go to the local - hmm, what do you call it, the place that buys up junked/wrecked cars and salvages good parts for resale? Anyway, I need one snow tire as one of mine had a defect and can't be used again. Since all the tires on a car are supposed to match, we're looking for a used one (the others are of course used, having been on my car for 2 winters. 
