Welcome to the thread, AntiCakeChick, and way to go, girl, for being twenty pounds down! Woo hoo!

I made a collage that kind of expresses what I was going through during my depression. And it's also just kind of funny and sci-fi surreal. It's called "at times even ultraman succumbs to abject despair".

Guilt Free Desserts?
 

I recently began dieting, but I just can't help to eat sweets.

How can I stop eating so many sweets?

Good Morning!
kellon55 WELCOME! Sugar is my drug. I need to avoid it completely. When I do I lose. When I eat it I gain and the cravings only get worse. I do not have any sugar in my house. Clean out your house of all sugar and sweets. Go to You Tube and watch The Skinny On Obesity episode 2. Good luck on your journey!
Fi glad to see you but I can not see your collage. Your link takes me to flicker sign up page.
Terra the question of the day is...Did you put away your clothes???
Sam you can so lose 100 pounds by Christmas. Keep pushing it! It will be the best gift ever!
I have been having difficulty lately due to some stress. It is one of those circumstances where it is my business but it also isn't. I just have to find the boundary line. I always struggle with boundaries and that is when I get in trouble in life and with my weight. It feels good to realize that and to know it is OK to say no to protect myself.
Have a peaceful day!

Kellon55 ~ Welcome to the thread and the forum if your new to the forum also.

Ubee ~ Nope not yet, Its still on my to do list

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I woke up at 5:30 a.m. and I let Clyde outside a few mins ago. I'm currently eating breakfast and trying to catch up on my shows that are on the DVR. As soon as I get caught up on my shows, I'm gonna do my 2 mile walk and then I'll do my 2 mile walk again tonight at 6 or 6:30 pm. I also need to take a shower today as well.

Ubee— I have a couple of things to suggest re. your problem with seeing my collage: First, see if there's an X or words like "Close" or "Not Now" in the upper righthand corner of that advertisement you're getting from Flickr. See if you click on that, if then you will be able to see my collage.... The second thing I have to suggest is to look to see if my collage is on another tab from Flickr in your browser. Since I can't see those (noxious! I do apologize for them!) ads myself, I don't know which of those two techniques will work. But surely one of them will, because when I click on that link in my posting, it takes me straight to my collage... Let me know what happens, so I will know what to recommend to people in the future. I sure wish Flickr hadn't started this practice of inserting ads: I complained long and loud about it, and so did a lot of other people, to no avail. Thanks for doing this for me, Ubee!

Hey sorry u haven't checked in on forever I am alive but have a lot of stuff going on in my life right now. Have hoped for the best for everyone here though.

Kellon— Like Ubee, I experience sugar as a bad drug. And the only way to avoid the temptations of a bad drug, I'm afraid, is to give it up completely. Because the biggest problem with sugar is: if you eat a little of it, it gives you a strong craving for more.

Everybody has to find their own technique for dealing with the bad drug of sugar, Kellon, but I'll tell you what worked for me. Last fall, I identified my three worst temptations, which were cookies, candy, and donuts. I decided to be abstinent from those three foods, to give them up completely, for as long as I could do so: I made it 58 days. During those 58 days I learned two big things: (1) that my will was stronger than I had thought it was, and (2) that I was going to have to abstain completely from sugar, since I made myself sick eating pie and pumpkin bars and other sugary things that were not on my list of three abstinence foods.

So now, except for Very Special Occasions like Halloween and my birthday, when I allow myself one very dark chocolate bar, I live a sugar-free lifestyle. That does not, however, mean that my diet is free of sweets. I have discovered that I like the flavor of liquid stevia (a brand called SweetDrops, which for me, at least, tastes better than powdered stevia). I put a very carefully measured (SweetDrops has a eye dropper) amount of stevia—because too much stevia tastes nasty!—in my coffee in the morning, and also in the sugar-free muesli I eat before I go to bed. That means two times a day I have a nice, satisfying infusion of sweet flavor—without the bad drug of sugar.

I hope you find an answer that will work for you, Kellon!

Good morning all. It's like living on a movie set for one of those London based movies where scary things happen and you can't see them because of the thick fog. Unfortunately it will burn off which means I will be able to go out and do yard work.

Anticakechick -- Love your name......and welcome to the group. I would use an anti name, but it would run on to 3 or 4 lines if I included everything that I eat that are problems for me.;) You are off to a wonderful start, and the thrill of being able to do so much more already is wonderful. Keep it up!

Ubee -- Life is too short to not have a good chuckle every day -- and preferably several times during the day. I've decided that I'm going to fix various sugar free jellos and fancy them up with fruit and nuts for my sweet cravings and make baked parmesan cheese chips for my salty. We can do this. We will do this. And I'm looking forward to the day when we post We did do this. (Imagine stirring music in the background rising to a crescendo as we achieve success......although if it plays throughout the entire journey, we're going to be awfully tired of that song!)

Sam -- Please share your techniques for training your DH to cook healthy. I've never been around a male who could be trained. ;) (Sorry, Dean, little joke there at the expense of the males.) It was so nice of you to go over to that girl's house and I suppose she should get one brownie point for at least leaving the copy of the report in the door. If you're right about her dad, he isn't doing her any favors by always being there to pick up the pieces. Emotional support is great -- and all of us need that -- but at some point it's time to grow up. I'm sure that I, personally, will grow up one of these days!

Terra -- I had to put away my laundry this week because I realized that my BIL took one of my baskets home with him when he moved back there and I was too lazy to go to the basement to get another one. Took a whopping 3 minutes so maybe we should just bite the bullet and put it away every time.

Kellon -- Fi and Ubee have given great tips on controlling the sweet cravings. I just noted in my personal to Ubee that I'm trying to eat sugar free jello to satisfy my sweets cravings. Actually, I've found that once I give up processed sugar laden foods (like ice cream, chocolate kisses, and candy in geneeral) that I really can get my sweet fix from eating fruit. Suddenly an apple just tastes like it's the best candy in the world. Hope that helps. It's definitely hard to overcome these cravings because we are literally hard wired to want them.

Fi -- Your collage is perfect for today -- or at least out here with the deep fog we're having. If that's what it's been like for you with the depression, it's very graphic and helps me to understand better. Ubee and Fi, I've run into the problem of not getting directed to the collage that Fi has provided the link for as well previously. I found that when that happens, I just come back to Fi's post and click on the link again. For some unknown reason, it goes to the collage then. From a programming perspective, that makes absolutely no sense so I'm assuming it something to do with Flickr. Anyway, Ubee, try that if the problem crops up again.

SilentArctic -- So glad you posted to let us know that you're alive and super busy up there in the artic regions. Hope you'll post more as things calm down for you. We miss you.

My next door neighbors are borrowing my RV for the weekend, and their plan was to leave in 20 minutes from now. Well, they haven't loaded up anything even though I gave them the keys 2 days ago and he isn't home from his job yet. Not surprised as they're late for everything. They have a beautiful house that they built themselves and have lived in for about 15 years. They're finally going to start working on putting in the landscaping. My reason for sharing this with you? Ubee's comment about learning to love ourselves and learning to say no is something I've been struggling with. While I'm more than happy to help my BIL, I've been irritated with him for scheduling the surgery during a time when I asked him to avoid and for his boys to not have taken a more active role in his care. It finally dawned on me that this happens because I never say no and don't even voice my displeasure to avoid rocking the boat. Instead, I go with the flow (which is fine occasionally) and eat to make me happy. So, I'm working on saying no -- nicely, and often offering an alternative that is better for me -- but still saying no. I just ended a very destructive friendship this week with someone and the sense of relief in not having to deal with her anymore is almost overwhelming. I've always felt sorry for her, but finally realized that she is incredibly needy, but only wants support on her own terms.

This week has seen a vast improvement in my eating and exercise. Some of it is undoubtedly due to having my BIL move back home and being near the end of his recuperation from the surgery. But some of it is hopefully from taking the steps to take care of me. How many of us are in the position we're in with needing to lose a lot of weight to get healthy again because of putting ourselves at the bottom of the list?

OK, enough of the 5 cent philosphy discourse. Hope everyone has a great day.

Betsy— Thanks for the tip re. my Flickr problem, but I think I will just switch to directing people to a different site altogether. It's less snazzy-looking with a white background instead of black, but on the other hand, it's more restful. And art in museums is always displayed against white, so white is just fine... Most importantly, this other site has NO ADS!

Betsy ~ Yeah I need to get in the habit of going in my room and putting my clothes away right after Scott brings them up from downstairs.

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I woke up at 5:00 a.m. this morning and I havent done my morning duties yet but I do put Clyde outside when he woke up. I've also ate breakfast also. I tried to walk outside this morning but my foot started hurting again so I came back inside but I'm gonna do my 2 miles twice today, Once in the mid-to late morning and again when mom goes to bed tonight. I also plan to put my clothes away and I need to clean my c-pap and tube also. Those are my only plans for today.

Hi guys...

Well I lost 2 of the 4 lbs I gained last week, putting me at 266.6. I was hoping to lose more since I worked hard with the cardio this week but I guess I can't complain...a loss is a loss right? I'm gonna try even harder this week and get back on track with everything...I know there's still room for improvement so I'm gonna keep pushing.

So far today the weather seems nice so DH and I are gonna go on a walk together here in a little bit. I still need to measure myself so. I guess I'll go do that. No personals today because my phone is being a piece of crap trying to type and post this lol...Have a great day all!

For those of you who follow my collages, I just made another one: "zig-zag". If you click on the collage, you'll get a larger version of it against black. I'm so happy to be having such a creative week!

Morning all! Have been off grid the past few days - literally - our internet connection went haywire, so it's felt like the dark ages!!!
Online now, down 2 pounds, back's a bit sore but raring to go for a new week.
I hope everyone's weekends treated them well :D

Hi everyone. I've been MIA for a few days but just busy working. Still totally on plan with food, but limited exercise. This will change this week cause I start a 7 day holiday in two days and the BF and I have decided to be active for our time off and enjoy time together. Which makes me feel better about starting up again knowing he is there should something like last week happen ever again. If I can get in a few good workouts together than doing it on my own will feel easier for me. I weighed this week and I'm down 3lbs from last week. Not great, but a loss is a loss so I will definitely take it.

Hope everyone has a great start to their week. I'll be back to do personals in a day or two.