It's available for less money and it's fair trade/organic at many Trader Joe's too! Whole Foods is another good option.

Me? I buy it wholesale and use the traditional "Bombilla" gourd to drink it. ;)

Wowwy! Yeah!!! Someone who's heard about Yerba Mate!:carrot: I read this incredible article about in on bodybuilding.com and thought at first it was some supplement rep trying to infultrate! But no...it wasn't. I just tried it today and I swear I feel calm, and energized (too energized...it's 11:20 pm here), and have been pee'ng all day like a racehorse! (sorry TMI). How long have you taken it? It's supposed to help with fat loss...how (if at all) has it help you??? *EDIT* Oh yeah...I heard about the bombilla guard, is it better to drink it out of that?

I feel like a total prat for not knowing what the controversy actually was. But - whatever. Key point - I enjoy reading Sylvia's posts and Joyce's posts, and I appreciate the **** out of this place. I have no strong feelings about the creation of an Atkins-specific forum - for chatting purposes, this is my main 3FC home. I do enjoy getting different insights into ways of Low Carbing it, but I've no problem with people who are more focussed on Atkins getting somewhere that focusses on Atkins. It's all good.

Ok the water weight is still there, It willhang on until I decide to pee it out. Not much here, just another busy day. I had a laugh at 11 pm after 2 hours of goos solid sleep I was woken by m oncall phone. they wanted toknow what medications my mother was on. (the pt I had sent to the hospital) . when I told them I was not the daughter but the nurse, they were so appologetic. So funny. Ihad left the number for informatin that they would not know over what had happened over the last few days. But Hey just drifted back to sleep in 3 min or less!!

Sb those ships sound very tempting You did great measuring out only one serving and stiking with it during a stress time. Great job!!

gosh darned with sprinkles on top it - I totally am not losing weight this week either!

AAAAAAAAARGH!!!

WTF, body? WTFF?

Right. Fine. Am contemplating a fat fast to kickstart some more weightloss. And now I'm off to the gym.

Dear Universe: Please let the gym be empty, or at least with no ******* using the treadmill. It should be mine! My need is greater than theirs!

Fay you are too funny.

Fay you are too funny! I am on my way to the gym too and cant decide between the treadmill or actually doing an interval class. I think I am going to go interval since I wont have to think about my next move....just follow directions! I definitely need to work my jiggle today!!
Bambi- Can I say WOW at the new pic?? You look great!!
Have a great day all!

Well...on my way out ladies...got to do a "set-out" this morn (eviction). Anyways...just thought I'd let you all know that after only 1 day of drinking that Yerba Mate tea...I lost 2 lbs!!! Yeah!!!! I'll keep you all apprised. Think I may have struck gold with this one!

Have a great day all!

Bambi, I like the bombilla because I'm into indigenous traditions and cultural experiences and the like. :) I drink it and Slim Life Green Tea by Yogi Tea. I like them both for different reasons. I know they do decrease my appetite.

Nasus, thanks, the chips WERE good and I didn't obsess on them, so that is good!

Fay, I think you are amazing. That is all. :D

Monster, interval workout sounds great!

Here's the NSV Scale-free challenge I started, for those who are interested in celebrating all the changes we are making that aren't related to numbers on a scale! There's no reason we can't participate in many types of challenges, and so many people expressed they wanted a way to not focus just on the numbers on a scale as a measure of worth and progress.

http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/show...21#post2127321

I'm really having one of those I-Think-I'm-Starring-In-A-Crap-Sitcom kind of evenings. I can practically hear the laugh track. So having returned home after tutoring a kid after school, I got changed to go down to the gym. It was 6pm - I had time for half an hour in the gym, then jump in a shower, then jump into new clothes, then dash out and jump into a taxi with 30 mins or so to get to the 7.30 rehearsal for my play.

As I was standing outside the elevator waiting to go downstairs to the gym, listening to Hedwig-the-iPod-shuffle, a faint voice in the back of my head screamed: 'Are you sure it's 7.30?'

Hmm, I thought to myself. Hmmm, my self thought back. So I scurried back to the apartment and checked my email.

FECK! Nope, nope, because we've got a photoshoot (for which we should be taking clothes, and I've got the clothes all set out), we're supposed to be there at 6.30 at the latest.

FECK!

I am in no fit state to be in sexy cleavagey dress etc. At all. Buggeration!

Jump into shower, frantically shave legs at a million miles an hour, jump out of shower, manage not to slip and break neck (even with the assistance of the cat), leap into new clothes, leap out of new clothes, put new clothes on again, but right way round this time rather than back-to-front, scoop up dress and heels and wallet and script and hurtle out of house.

Jump into Tuk Tuk.

Pray to the Traffic Gods.

Hear their hollow laughter. It is 6.15, foolish mortal, and you know fine well that the 10 minute drive you need to take will not be less than 30 mins if you are very lucky indeed, for the traffic she is PACKED.

Also, I have managed to find the only Tuk Tuk in Bangkok that likes to go slow and take it easy. "Can't we overtake illegally like they just did?" I implore my driver. Eventually he does a little bit of the driving-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-road to humour me, but mostly, not so much with the humouring.

I look at my phone.

It is 6.30 and I am still on my own street.

I make small whimpering noises.

Eventually we arrive at the place. I am only 15 minutes late, so it's not too bad. As I fly up the stairs, my phone starts ringing. "Where are you?" asks the director. "Here! I'm here! Look!" I say, waving at her through the window.

And then I get to stand next to lots of hot, slender, tall people in gorgeous eveningwear, looking rather like some kind of fat hobbit prostitute with too much cleavage surrounded by perfectly elegant elves, while the director makes us pose in various ridiculous positions and pull silly faces.

After which I spend the next 4 hours demonstrating no social skills because of the proximity of The Bloke I Fancy, (who was in a tux, ******* it) and boggling at the sheer smoking hotness of the very lovely straight girl I also fancy. Who was snuggled into my cleavage for half the photo shoot, and who later asked me to unzip her and help her rip off her corset and then rezip her. Um. Leaving her sans underwear in the general breast region. Um. And then there was the talk of jello wrestling.

Good GOD.

No wonder I drank vodka on an empty stomach and spent most of the rehearsal giggling like a lunatic.

And the real killer? I never got to the bloody gym! Argh!

(Although on the plus side, my mate Justin told me that I've lost masses of weight, and how impressed he is and all that. Which is adorable of him, and also somewhat horrifying - because, man, I am still SO much fatter than Joe Q Public, as this evening's photographs made all too clear. Wow. Man, I really was SCARILY fat back in December.)

Woo...that was tough (eviction). I had to have the sheriff remove a small baby today! I hate it when they know eviction is coming (they get notice) and they just wait there (with their kids) until the Sheriff physically removes them. Well...all in the life of a landlord!

Anyways...I'm still stoked about this Yerba Mate. It definately kills the appetite and works as a diuretic! Down 2lbs overnight! Yeah!!! That puts me back to 165! Hoping I can drop another 5 by this Saturday! I have a feeling that I must be retaining water cuz the mirror is showing more definition than ever and my pants and literally falling off my a$$!

SoulB - How has Yerba Mate helped you? Just curious cuz I want to find out other's experience with it...ya know. BTW, I checked out the new thread you started and all I have is two words for ya....LOVE IT! Finally, a place where I can post other positive changes (other than the scale!)...count me IN!

BAB - I love reading your posts too! I feel like I'm there with you...right there in that taxi...heart pounding! It's a shame you couldn't have had both "blokes" on either side of you in the pictures nustling close on either side...ooooohhh! Anyways...sounds like you may have gotten a pretty good workout in the adreneline rush alone!

Well, I'm going to go do my cardio today...I'm gonna try doing 15 min in reverse (ya know...work those glutes more) on the eliptical and 15 min forward. Hope I can hang in there for the 15 min. reverse...it's much harder to do it in reverse than forward...but wish me luck! I think I'm getting addicted to cardio...I just love the rush! I feel sooooo much better afterwards...it's just sometimes hard to get myself up and going, but after always feel like pure delight!

Hope everyone's day is going well. Chat with ya later! Joyce

Barely made it down the stairs at the Y after my class. My legs felt like spaghetti! I truly considered taking the elevator down but how would that look?? It will just be the treadmill for me tomorrow.
I am looking into that Yerba Mate. I like different and unusual things and maybe I will give it a try.

Well, I'm yo yo-ing this morning. I got home last night and used one of my new ketstix and it was purple! Hurrah! Maybe tasting potato salad and spilt pea soup didn't throw me out of Ketosis! then this morning I did an unscheduled Weigh In (I was feeling light!) and I was up a pound. I didn't eat a pound of potato salad and spilt pea soup! Even adding in the weight of the no no's I succombed to on Friday, it wasn't a pound! Shouldn't that count for something! But for whatever reason, I gained. But it wasn't my real WI, so it doesn't count, right? There's still hope for a whoosh before tomorrow morning! I'm hoping real hard!
Fay, your adventures really are fun to read. And I know your aren't really that scary looking! I was thinking of you when I was at the gym just now and all four elipticals were in use. (But I need them more!!). Luckily one guy left before I turned around and went back to work.
I really did miss most of the controversy with the two threads, but it doesn't really surprise me. I've been on enuf message boards to know that sooner or later someone always gets mad. Sometimes, I think, it's just a tone thing. People come across differently then they think they do. And we're all here because we care about the WOE thing. We all want it to work. I've been guilty of "snapping" at people on message boards when I feel like they're telling me what I'm doing wrong without all the information. I don't like to be criticized.
We all know that there is no completely true answer. If someone can figure out what one thing works, we'll all be skinny. So I'm happy to listen to other plans, although I probably won't act on many of them.
Joyce, let me be the first one to say that muscles weigh more than fat, so definition without a loss at the scales is a good thing. looking like your picture is also a very good thing. Almost good enough to inspire me to do weights!
I'm also tempted by the Couch to 5K. I've heard about it for a while. I look at my very skinny 15 yo daughter (cross country team, dance team) who eats all kinds of crap and think, hmmm. But then I remember that I'm way too old and too overweight to be a runner. I think I'm too old... I think my knees would explode. But I do want to hear about Couch to 5K if you're still doing it Fay.

BaB I just has the best laugh, Thankyou!! I know that clevage was spectacular no matter who was looking at it. and boy that gal just nestled right in there! LOL I can just imangine. I hope you can post a copy of the pict when you get it.

Thanks for the encouragement Lynnar! I beg to differ though (about the running thing), I know you can do anything you set your mind to. Running is great (I used to run track in H.S. but jacked up my knees running on pavement too much). I did enjoy it a bunch...gosh...I didn't even think of it as exercise when I was a kid! I used to eat 5 snicker bars/day and was the skinniest thing (wouldn't try that now though:lol:)! Running will definately slim you up real fast! Lynnar, I'm 41 years old (on 4/29), I smoke 1 pack of cigs/day and before 1/5/08 was a major couch potato! Just the thought of me going full throttle on an elipticle machine for 30 or 40 minutes made me tired and hungry (probably for a Mickey's Dee's double fish filet which I had EVERYDAY!). What I'm learning about myself is that it was my MIND that told me I could never do certain things...my body always could do them, but because my mind told me, "NO WAY...You'll stroke out..you smoke too much and are getting up in age", I stayed away from exercise and dug myself deeper in my McDonald's hole! I started slow (first week 1/5/08), just a 10 min walk around my neighborhood 3-4 days that week and gradually built up the courage to jump onto my elipticle. My point is YOU CAN do it! I'm routing for ya! And...thanks so much for your very understanding comments girly!

Well folks...I did it! 15 min. in reverse and 15 min. forward on level 4/eliptical! Yeah!!! The last 15 min was in reverse and was sooooo much harder than just going forward. But my hamstrings and buttocks are "pumped" and I sweat twice as much (wonder if it's the Yerba Mate??). BTW, one of the side effects of Yerba Mate is increased exercise performance...sooooo...I don't know if it's placebo or it really works! I really do think it was the Yerba but time will tell. Can't wait for my damn caliper to come! Joyce

*EDIT* I second Nasus' motion for a pic BAB!!!