TOgden3 -- we are a tight group, but love getting new chicks! Welcome to our thread. If you feel comfortable doing so, please feel free to tell us a little about yourself.

Got to go fool with the bird--you'll get lots more welcomes once the holiday is passed.

Tami ~ Welcome!!!!!!!!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I woke up at 3:30 this morning, Its now 2:00 p.m. I just woke up from a nap. I went to sleep at 10:30 this morning. At 4:00 a.m. this morning I made my Strawberry Cheesecake Salad and then I made my deviled eggs and those are the only 2 food items I made for our Thankgiving dinner which we will have in an hour. Anyway I'm about to do my 2 miles and then I'll do 1 mile tonight before I go to bed. I still need to clean the bathroom before everyone shows up today. Have a great day everyone

Tami— Happy Thanksgiving, and a big generous WELCOME!!! to the 300+ Chat thread. We're a tight group in the sense that we've gotten to know each other and we support each other a lot, but not at all in the sense of being closed to newcomers. On the contrary, we love having new people arrive, especially when they tell us a bit about themselves (but only when you're ready) and start posting on a daily or near-daily basis. Yes, it seems that posting to this thread, posting a LOT, is helping us all move forward in our weight loss journeys. Try it: post every day! You'll find out how supportive we all are. =smile=

As for myself, I'm still very labile, easily sliding up and down the mood scale. (Tami: I'm bipolar, AKA manic-depressive, and I keep track of my moods with a numerical scale in which 0 is my desired state, the plus numbers are manic, and the negative numbers are depressed.) But I'm working hard at my Qigong (chee-gung) exercises to help hold myself close to that blessed zero state, so the worst I'm experiencing these days is either +1 or –1. I'm enjoying the fact that the COOP carries smoked turkey drumsticks this time of year: YUM!

Tami- Welcome to the board! Look forward to hearing more from you when your ready.

Hope all my American friends had a great Thanksgiving yesterday. Here in China, of course, I didn't celebrate. No days off of work either. It's just another normal week. I did make some deviled eggs for myself since that is on my list of induction foods. You guys know I'm in week 2 of atkins but boy am I getting frustrated. I am totally on plan, I even went back and re-read the book to make sure I hadn't missed anything. But after my 7.5lbs loss last week this week so far I am just showing a gain everyday. I don't get it and its super bumming. Even though I know I'm feeling great and I know I'm on plan, I really expect to see the scale do something every week because I have so much weight to lose. Not sure what my plan of action will be for the next three days until my official week 2 weigh in but if any of you have any suggestions feel free to let me know. Nothing major planned for this weekend aside from time at home with the bf and a mountain of marking to do for my students. Oh joy! Have a good one everyone!

Hey everyone .... Thank You for the warm welcomes .... There isn't much about me besides for being a special education teacher and a single 32 y/o mother to one beautiful little girl. As you can seed I am struggling to lose weight as I have officially reached 450lbs this year. For the past 7 years i literally gained 1 pound a month because after having my daughter I was 375 ..... i have never ever been a small girl and honestly probably haven't been in the 200s since i wad in middle school. I am currently on a program called Ideal Protein and add of Monday December 1st it will be the end of my first 2 weeks. Slow and steady is what i keep telling myself but really i need a mantra to stay determined (yo yo dieting has been pretty consistent over the past few years ).

I'm very excited to get to know you ladies!

I just made a very dark collage. I'm not sure how that happened, but it feels good to have expressed the feelings. Art is so important to me: I don't know how I'd make it if I didn't have my art.

Tami ~ Thanks for telling us more about yourself

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I woke up at 6:55 a.m. this morning, Its now 9:52 a.m. I have already had breakfast and I've already let Clyde outside. Today I'm not gonna do a whole lot because I have another blister on my foot

Ooooo...I jazzed up my dark collage with a little bit of white here and there, and I'm really pleased with how it turned out. It's called "dark forces are arrayed against us". (As usual, click on the image for a larger version.)

I love art. Not only is it a lot of fun, it's amazingly rewarding on an emotional level.

Good Morning!
Sorry I have been missing but I have good news. My son and his family have moved in with a relative who lives alone in a very large house. The relative is a bit of a crank but they get along with him better then the rest of us. Anyhow he is seldom home so it should work out until they can rebuild. I sure do miss my grandson already! Our daughter with autism is glad to have her quiet house back.
Time to get back on track with food. I have gone off the rails to the point of feeling sick.
Fi why yes that is a very dark collage. I think it is wonderful how you can express your feelings with art. It is much better then stuffing them down with food.
Terra what is in your strawberry cheesecake salad? It sounds naughty. What are we going to do about your feet? Does your doctor have any advice?
Tami I am so excited to have you join us! WELCOME! I have seen people have great results with Ideal Protein. It will be wonderful having you share your journey with us.
shan I feel bad for not being on here and seeing your post sooner. Your gain is normal for some people. Just stick tight to plan and all of a sudden it will whoosh away like crazy. Make sure you are getting enough fat and not too much protein. I will be back to posting daily so let me know how it goes.
Betsy how did the gathering go? Did you send the leftovers home with the grands? Back on Atkins? I so want to see your ticker honest and moving down. I plan on doing the same.
Sam are you back at it? Strict with the food and diet girl we have got a 100 pound goal to reach. No slacking.
Bllondy how was your romantic day? Are you having turkey smoothies with the leftovers? OK that is one way to not eat too much. Are you tossing out a lot when you are packing for your move?
Donna, Silent, Jane, Dean,... how are you?
Turkey day was weird in Wisconsin. They even commented on the news how it felt like Christmas. All the cold and snow has left us confused.
I've eaten like a piggy for the last three days and am disappointed in myself. I have to learn to love myself more. I like myself but taking care of myself needs work.
Have a peaceful day!

Thank you for the welcome and boy do these words ring so loud for me! I'm working on this as well because i feel if i can't love myself this weight loss journey is going to be so much harder!

Hi Everyone!

No personals today except for Tami...Welcome!!! Mynfamily is from Burke and Springfield area of VA so I know exactly where you are!! Glad you are here and hope you'll stay awhile!!

Ubee I am back at it, just did an hour on the treamill and sitting in the parking lot My plab was to start back yesterday but I woke up late and didn't want to deal with the crazy black friday traffic. When I later made up my mind to go I then had to wait to see if DH was going to get called into work. By the time we found out he wasn't going in it was just too late. But everything today is going good! TOM has finally visited me so I'm in some pain but I didn't let it stop me today. With that in mind and the Thanksgiving festivities I'm sure I'll be up a few pounds when I weigh in on Sunday. But I'm not worried about it. What is more important to me is that I keep pushing through the holidays.

Thanksgiving was very good and though I did eat a little more of my mom's spinach dip than I should have I didn't gorge myself on any food so I'm proud of that.

Well I'm going to go check out Target and see if they have any clearanced clothes since I'm out and about!

Have a great rest of the day everyone!

I don't feel like writing about much except my wonderful Friday with my 14-yr-old great niece Grace. Because it wasn't a school day I picked her up at her house at 9:30 AM and we were busy bees until 5 in the afternoon. We started by spreading out some newspaper on the table in my collage studio and making some painted backgrounds on various papers we had mounted on 6" x 9" cardboard. Grace chose a paper with a lot of tendrily inclusions in it because she wanted to make a collage of a ballerina underwater.

On top of the paper she painted some gentle waves in blue and green, and added more wave shapes and bubbles with some stencils I had. We had used my printer to make the clipping she had of a leaping ballerina the perfect size for her postcard. While the paint was drying she very carefully cut out the dancer, which wasn't easy because the upstretched hands had some very tricky bits. Grace has a natural talent with using small sharp scissors: one lesson in snipping I gave her several weeks ago was all she needed, and she cut out her dancer perfectly.

Then she glued the dancer on her dried prepared background. She picked out one of my fish rubber stamps, stamped it in black on white paper, and carefully snipped out six fish to arrange around the ballerina. The final product was beautiful!

Grace also used the time to finish her own psychedelic mushroom collage, which she had started back when I started mine: she used my fine-point acrylic paint pens to add marvelous touches to it. She has a really good eye for just what will work when using paint to jazz up a collage.

She was so proud when I took her home to have two fabulous collage postcards all finished! She and I also have an email correspondence started, which was my idea of a fun way for me to help her improve her grammar, punctuation, and overall writing skills.

I feel so blessed to have such a bright and talented student in my life! And now that I have Grace to talk to about my collages—how I make them from the first vague conceptions in my mind all the way through the process to finished product—I feel like I have a companion to share my work with.

So while I'm feeling thankful this Thanksgiving Day weekend, I'm thankful for having Grace. And also my sweet & affectionate kittens, of course!

Morning Everyone!

Pretty early for me to post today but I woke up early and just relaxing in bed with one of my cats plopped on top of me and listening to DH lightly snore. It's the little times like these that mean so much to me. I'm lucky to have such a loving and caring hubbs and 3 fur babies that I love to pieces. If you had asked me this time last year if I loved my life I probably would have said no. This year has been life changing for me in more ways than one. I lost my very best friend but at the same time grew closer to DH in a way I never thought was even possible and have fallen for him all over again. I always thought people made it up when they say they have fallen for their S.O. All over again after being with them for a long time, but it is possible. All the heartache I've experienced in my life but this year in particular has made me love this man more than I ever thought possible, and it's a good feeling .

I managed to lose a pound this week. Don't ask me how with the holiday and my TOM because I have no idea lol but I'm surely not going to complain. I'm going to try and go to the gym again later today.
My stomach isn't feeling too good right now so I'll see what happens. DH and I are going to hopefully do some shopping for ourselves and get some thing we needed like clothes and shoes and whatnot.

Anyway I hope you all enjoy your day!

Whew! Today is going to be a quiet day (only have about 7-8 items on my to do list), but the little ones have gone home, I'm down to my one extremely large dog, and I think the house and I survived another holiday. Great time with the big and little kids, lots of laughs, lots of game playing because I had decreed it to be a technology free weekend, and feeling very blessed.

Sam -- Loved your post this morning and your expression of love for your DH -- it's so wonderful to see a situation where the hardships you've both gone through this year have only served to strengthen your bond. How wonderful for both of you. And congrats on that pound off -- way to go especially with TDay in there!

Fi -- Glad you had a nice day with Grace -- she does seem to bring you such joy and close to that cherished 0 spot.

Tami -- Thanks for telling us a little about you.......your story rings a bell with most of us. Maybe we can work together to break that string on our yo-yos, because I have a bad habit of getting to a short term goal and then bouncing right back up.

Ubee -- So glad that your son and family were able to find other accommodations that will work better for everyone. The better eating will come back. I'm back to being honest on my sig mainly because even though I had to move it way up, it's fun changing it with every pound lost.

Terra -- Darlin', we've got to get those feet of yours to like you better. It sounded as though the new shoes were doing the trick, but now I'm not so sure.

Shan -- Hang in there. Switching to a different eating style sometimes results in our bodies going into what I call defensive mode. Even though we have a lot to lose, depriving our bodies of anything it's used to getting (like lots of carbs) always seems to result in my body holding on to every ounce it can until it symbolically gives up the ghost and there's a big whoosh of weight loss. Maybe there's science behind it, but just hang in there. It will start coming off again.

In spite of not eating on plan per Atkins, I managed to only gain 2 pounds over the 3 days. I didn't stick to Atkins, but also didn't overdo it, and it seemed to be more of a lack of desire to have the carb laden foods. I'm going to make a pact with myself to not have the Christmas candy/cookies/chex mix "stuff" in the house during December. In fact, I'm making it a goal to lose 10 pounds this month. Anyone else want to join me in the battle?

It's cold here today (in the 30s which is bitterly cold for us ) and we had our first snow fall on Friday night. It's absolutely gorgeous today with a clear sky, sun shining, and snow on all the fir trees. Looks like a postcard. Off to get my house straightened up and put back in order, pay the bills, balance the checkbook, and start planning the Christmas shopping (95% of which will be done online). Hope everyone has a great day.

Ubee ~ Strawberry Cheesecake Salad has Strawberries,Cheesecake Pudding, The powder you dont add the milk, Whip topping,Mini Marshmellows Strawberry or Strawberry Cheesecake Yogurt and banana's but you dont add the banana's until right before you are ready to serve it cause they will turn brown if you add them and let them sit in the fridge. I havent went to the doctor about my feet yet but now I'm thinking now maybe I should make an appt. By the way YES The Strawberry Cheesecake Salad is naughty when your on a diet but its also so good.

Betsy ~ Yeah we definitely need to get my feet to like me better. Mom said every time I need to wear shoes to switch between my new ones and my old ones but we have also came to the conclusion that because I've been doing that, We arent sure which shoes are causing the blisters, Oops!!!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I woke up at 5:30 this morning but I ended up taking a nap at 9 a.m. until 12:45 this afternoon so I'm definitely gonna try to stay up late tonight so I can continue to get caught up on my shows that are on the DVR. I'm still doing okay weight loss wise despite not being able to walk because of my foot. I only gained a pound since I last walked on Nov. 20th. Anyway I hope everyone is having a nice last day of Nov.