my biggest problem w/ menopause is the anxiety! plus i have a new job so am a little stressed...back to selling newspaper advertising! fun, fun and in December :) anyway, i'm taking the Menopause Complete (you can get a Walmart or Walgreens) each has their own formula. the pm pill from Walgreen has Melatonin and the pm pill from Walmart has Valerian... i also picked up some Melatonin to try. i am so sleep deprived, it's crazy! i'll get to bed around midnite (read until i fall asleep) and then wide awake at 5:30am thinking about work and who i'm going to sell that day. UGH!!!
(yes, i am applying for other jobs (more Marketing or Administrative) - truthfully i'm a top sales person but tired of beating the streets) Anyway, for my "dessert" at night - i have a Syntrax Chocolate Truffle shake blended w/ strawberries. i also have low calorie Dark Chocolate ice cream bars (140 cal.) i try to have no more than 4 a week . (Bad, Big Dog, Bad!!) must be my hormones screaming for chocolate treats!!! i justify them by saying at least i'm not running to Brusters for something sinful. :D

I had weekly weigh in today and stayed the same.. Have two parties this week. Yikes!!!!

MRC has a new cookbook, $12.00. I did not buy it as I never used the one I bought. If anyone does buy it, let me know your opinion, please. As you all know I never use their supplements in their recipes, I always substitute, and scanning book I did see the recipes seem to have supplements..

Big Dog.. Menopause .. Oh me oh my and chocolate.. It is a demon, I swear. My biggest time is in the afternoon and early evening just before I start cooking supper.. I have a cup of Coffee, with 1/4 cup of the MRC cappucino, and some soy milk and froth away.. It does the chocolate trick and handles that craving.. However, if it does not, I will put some sugar free chocolate syrup in there and that does it. It is really too sweet but starves off that chocolate craving. I have had a candy bar on maintenance, but did not enjoy that much, and it gave me sweet cravings, so crossed that off my list of to eat. Maintenance is a challenge, and you add the Menopause in there, what a heavy duty challenge this is.. I found when I hit menopause, started to have a belly.. Did not lose it when weight came off, either.

Patzi

Blah!

I was back down to 151 right before my procedure on Thursday morning. I waited until Sunday morning to step on the scale, and I was up to 154. UGH. :(

I figured I would have stayed the same or even lost a little--even though I didn't run Thursday I was being pretty careful about my food. I did snack a little, but my total calories stayed about the same every day.

I'm hoping it's just bloat from the procedure and my hormones being out of whack right now. As my sister told me, it's not like I ate enough calories in 3 days to put 3lbs on so quickly.

So, I'm just being careful not to snack and started easing back into my running as soon as I started to feel a little better on Sunday. I'm avoiding the scale for a few days...I'll probably wait until Friday or Saturday to check and see how I'm doing.

patzi, i bought the new cookbook and i never used it either, i ended up giving it to a friend, never had the desire to use the receipes!!

Help!!
 

Okay im not on maintence yet but on week four of stabilization, but for the last week or so i've been having cravings again for ice cream, chocolate, chips, etc, it seems like they add alot of foods so quick during stabilzation that i'm afraid i'll go back to my old eating habits, has anyone had this problem? :?:

I didn't initially have problems with cravings once I went to maintenance. I stayed really pretty close to my final metabalance menu with one 100 calorie treat a day. But right now I'm in a cycle of making some bad choices. I've been making enough good choices to balance it out, but can feel a spiral out of control coming on, so tomorrow I'm going back on metabalance.

I have been struggling with sweets lately. Like nwcgina I stay pretty close to the metabalance menu. My problem is wanting a sweet treat in the evening and just eating too much of it - not sure if it is a craving or just developed bad habit! Anyway, I am trying to substitute the hot chocolate or pudding HNS for chocolate in the evenings. Not havng much luck though.......I purposely did not buy any chocolate this week at he grocery store but I still find sweet things to eat in the cupboard (chocolate frosting, chocolate chips) I think I finally have all that stuff cleared out!

Take a look at your food diary and figure out if something new you ate is making you crave ice cream, chocolate, etc (or check with your counselor)

Yes, I did and I brought it up to the consultant and they changed my stabilization up a bit and it worked fine.

Hope this helps.
Patzi

I thought I would share my evening craving foods.. I need to have something at night. I make these desserts and freeze them .

Take FF Greek Yogurt or any FF yogurt, then add any of the following

MRC chocolate pudding or MRC decaffinated Cappucino and whip and freeze

Yogurt with Peanut Butter 2 and FF chocolate syrup, whip and freeze.

Yogurt with any FF, Sugar Free Pudding, optional add Soy milk and

Butterscotch Pudding..Sometimes I add SF FF Caramel syrup to this. Yummo.

Yogurt with any SF, FF jello powder..

There are times, I will add some walnuts in with my dessert. Not many, now, just to make it more interesting and this helps with the crunch problem we have.

Now, the dessert when you take out is frozen, and you can let thaw a bit before eating it, or just eat it frozen, and you would be surprised how long it takes you to scrape the frozen dessert with a spoon to like a slush consistency, and it sure keeps me busy .. LOL
Hope I make sense, as I am at work, and I have to keep stopping to answer questions

I cannot add fruit at night.. It makes me crave something terrible..

Patzi

Oh wow those are great ideas, i'm going to print this off and do this, thanks for your help, also i go saturday to weigh in and get week 5 and i'm going to ask them about my cravings, because i don't want to start back gaining!!!
I've worked too hard to get where i am. :):)

I did, too. Like Patzi, I told my consultant and we looked at the stabilization menu to select different foods to try to see if they also brought on cravings. It was a very anxious time for me (worried I'd go back to old habits), but it was a great learning experience. I figured out which foods trigger weight gain on me, as well as which foods trigger additional cravings. For example, I figured out that I simply need to stay away from rice as much as possible--I struggle to only eat one portion (I immediately want more), and it makes me crave other carbs even more. Instead of rice, I will substitute quinoa in meals/recipes.

Patzi. Thanks for the tips for dessert :). I'll add my Syntrax choc truffle mix to the nonfat vanilla Greek yogurt topped w some strawberries and sometimes will crumble 1/4 protein bar on top. I'm always creating a protein dessert :) to change things up a bit. I also drink more water to keep the cravings to a minimum and fill up ;)

I'm Here!
 

Yay!! I went to my center today and weighed in, i'm maintaining my weight and have now for 5wks on stabilization and guess what?? I was officially put on maintenance today!!!!!! I have finally made it, everyone's support on here has been awesome!!! :carrot::carrot:

Big Dog... Great idea about crumbling some protein bar on top.. I try to use high protein puddings, jellos when I make the dessert..

Skelley... Congrats to you. Pat yourself on back, you so deserve it. Great job. This group is awesome. Could not have made it without this forum, for sure.

Patzi

I pulled a camaswa today...there were two brownies someone left at my house last night after a Christmas get together. I left them sitting on the counter for hubby to take to work...but he didn't. So I thought "if I leave them, I will make some excuse why I can eat them...and none of my family really needs them..." so I marched right out to the garbage and tossed those yummy looking brownies in there. It set me up for other great decisions today. I was starting to backslide after being sick with eating things I shouldn't. But I'm back on the straight and (mostly) narrow.