Very well put Muse. Going super low calorie like that is just a very bad idea. Your body needs a certain amount of calories a day just to function. Just so your brain work, your lungs expand, your blood pumps. You need a certain amount of calories a day just to live. And when your body isnt getting those calories it starts to protect itself. You have 2 hormones in your body that start working against you, one is Leptin which actually you want working because it tells your body that you are full, when you dont eat enough calories your body stops producing leptin. The other is Ghrelin(sp?) when you arent eating enough calories your body makes more ghrelin which tells your body that you are hungry. So you got hormones working overtime to tell your body to eat eat eat and you are miserably hungry and then when you do eat your body holds on to every little thing for dear life because its not sure when its going to get more. So while you may think eating very low calorie is going to make you lose more weight...its not. Sure you'll lose weight in the beginning but the first thing your body is going to start burning is your lean muscle tissue. its going to hold the fat and burn the muscle.

What Muse said was right on, its so important to your overall health to make sure you are getting the calories your body needs to function so that these defense mechanisms dont kick in.

Like I said before its a hard concept to grasp but you HAVE to eat to lose.


Okay off my soapbox...I had a great day yesterday eating wise. Feels good to be in control! Today should be another great day. Still studying for that tax exam I wonder how many calories get burned with brain power? LOL!

Okay menu for today:
Breakfast: scrambled egg w/ cheese, coffee with cream & splenda
Lunch: Salad w/ romaine, shred cheese, bacon, chicken, tomatoes, ranch
dinner: pizza baked chicken
snacks: bonbel cheese, cucumbers w/ ranch

I need to work on getting more water today too. My fingers are all puffy today.

Have a beautiful Saturday everyone!

~melissa

I forgot to add my comment on gallstones being like childbirth. The first attack I got I thought I was having a heart attack, dh called 911 and the ambulance had to come take me to the ER where I got a shot of Morphine for the pain. These little suckers HURT! and they can be as small as a grain of sand but once they get moving into that duct watch out!! Just my little warning about doing very low calorie and very low fat.

~melissa

LOL..why thank you Diva! When I first went to school I was going for Nutritionist, but then I found out that my university doesnt have an RD (registered dietician) program so I would have had to transfer for my junior and senior year and then do an out of state internship for 6-18 months..well thats just not doable with 2 young girls. So I switched to accounting, but i did get a wealth of information in that program! I would love to have been able to finish!

I just ordered myself some sugarfree gingerbread and sugarfree irish creme syrups from Davinci..I cant wait!! gingerbread lattes are my FAVE, and I dont get them doing LC, plus even when I switch over to not LC the sugarfree is so much better for me! LOL!! I'm excited!

~melissa

Hi! All!

Hun e.b., diva, muse, thanks so much for caring! No, I'm not offended in the least with your comments, I really appreciate them and it gives me much to consider. Last nite after I posted I did a search on google about how many grams of carbs I should be eating and the site I went to said that we need at least 150 carbs a day for our brain to function properly. It said that we should lose weight on this amount also , so I'm not as worried about them anymore because thats doable for me. I also did a search on how many calories and they said if I understood it correctly that I needed 2411 calories a day to maintain my current weight . So I entered the weight that I desire to be and that brought me to 1500 calories to maintain that weight. So I defintely we consider that. I was also very pleased that my sodium levels was low . I love fitday. The American Heart Association recommends that we should eat no more than 300 milligrams of cholesterol a day to maintain a healthy diet. Mine is averageing around 360. So, I know I need to watch that. Without my vitamins I would be no where close to getting what I need.

Here's a question for ya. If your body was going into stravation mode , would you feel hungry?

Not necessarily. Starvation mode is kind of just a figure of speech when used in the context of dieting when you are eating like you should be. Starvation is something your body goes into when not eating for several days. But if your body does go into "starvation mode" your metabolism slows way down, so you arent burning as fast as you normally would be. In weightloss we want to be burning faster. Plus you are burning muscle and not fat. so you might not necessarily feel hungry, but it could be a good sign.

another thing with feeling hungry...you have to decide if its true hunger. If you arent properly hydrated, you will have that "hungry" feeling when you just need some fluids. That "hungry" feeling can also be a psychological thing when you know you are dieting. If your hormone levels arent where they should be, that ghrelin kicks in and makes you feel hungry.

Hunger is a tricky lil devil and takes alot of knowing you are eating enough and listening to your body. Thats why they say drink a glass of water and wait 20 minutes when you think you feel hungry. Unless of course you havent eaten LOL!

Sorry IMO there wasnt a straight forward answer there.

~melissa

We are getting an education on here today! Loving it. Here's a thought for you Melissa. After getting that degree in accounting...wait isn't it a double major in psych too? You could so do life coaching or lifestyle coaching...with the acct to run and start the business, psych and nutrition background to help people with making changes. Just a thought. Or you could team up with someone. I think you would be great at it. Oh yes, I think you answered the question--"not necessarily".

Okay so my BF keeps taking me to this great Vegetarian Restaurant. Matter of fact it was just voted onto the Top 50 Places to eat in the DC Metro area. Anyways so this time I got General Tso's "Chicken". It was so good. Normally I would only eat half but I ate the whole thing this time. Oh well, weigh in wise I think I will still be fine.

Today's Menu
BF--2 banana waffles, yogurt, coffee, sf flavored creamer
S--blueberry cottage cheese double
L--beef tamale, yogurt
S--100 calorie chocolate
S--sf pudding
D--chicken parmesan

WW--26+3 flex pts=29 pts

LOL Shay, yes its psych too, you know I would love to do something like that. Not a huge call for it in Montana though. I LOVE General Tso's chicken. YUMMY! I've often wanted to try to make my own sauce so i can do it at home and do it a little healthier but just never got brave enough to try. Speaking of vegetarian, I recently saw something, I wanna say that it was on Food Network, anyway the host was going around getting "Halloween" recipes and he was visiting a vegetarian cook, she did a Goulash with this stuff she made that was basically bread but kneeded under running water it was called Seitan I think. It really interested me. Was that the type of "chicken" you had or was it Tofu?

"Soy protein"? Whatever that is-- it is good. That's what was used in the Curry Surprise or Supreme,can't remember, I had a few weeks ago too.

Good morning everyone,
TOM is lurking so I decided before he comes in and takes over to go ahead and post my weight. I'm down 2 lbs this week. We'll see what this week holds for me in regards to TOM and starting the C25K. It may balance out and I may maintain for week 9 and post a decent loss in week 10. We shall see.

Today's menus:
BF--cereal, soymilk, coffee with sf flavored creamer
S--ww cinnamon raisin english muffin
L--beef tamale and sf jello
S--pineapple cottage cheese double
S--100 calorie pack
D--2 slices of turkey sausage and cheese pizza

WW--26+7=33 pts

Good Sunday morning!! Did everyone remember to set their clocks back? Not much in store for me today besides football and studying tax. I've been experimenting again. When I used to live in Phoenix there was this chinese food place there called Dragon Palace that had the most amazing chicken called House Special Chicken. It was just chicken in this brown/ginger broth...I was addicted. But noone around here has anything like it. So I've been experimenting and I think I may have figured out the sauce! Last night it was so close, just not quite right. And the great thing is even if I'm not low carbing I can have it!!! Once I figure that sauce out anyway LOL!

I woke up early and couldnt get back to sleep worrying about Danielle. I havent heard from her in weeks and I emailed her about her family (her family lives in San Diego and thats where some of the fires were) anyway, I havent heard anything back so I got to worrying about her this morning. Danielle if ya just happen to lurk...EMAIL ME BACK!!

Here's my menu for today:
Breakfast - scrambled eggs w/ ham and cheese, cinnamon/hazlenut coffee w/ cream and Splenda
snack - 3 sausage links
Lunch - hot sauce chicken, cucumbers w/ ranch
snack - celery w/ chive cream cheese
Dinner - Another attempt at house special small romaine salad

more water!!!

Shay...way to go on your loss!!!! You are just cruisin along arent you..so exciting!! I'm going to be right there with you picking up the exercise this week. I cant do C25K but I will be getting on that elliptical for 30 minutes every morning this week. Then I want to hit the gym 3x.

Alright, i better stick my nose in the books! Have a lovely day everyone!

~melissa

Diva--The main reason I do soymilk is bc it is better for my body. Since I was a baby I've had problems with milk. I've always been a skim milk drinker but over the past few years my body can barely tolerate that. My brother is fully lactose intolerant. My mom has trouble with milk, she does soy now, and yogurts which she just had to give up. My main issue is milk. So I began drinking soymilk. For me personally I like the vanilla better. I actually do vanilla light. I am not good at describing anything. To me soymilk is an acquired taste. I just recently actually began drinking it out of a cup . Normally I just use it on cereal. To me the consistency is thicker than regular milk but I've only ever had skim milk so I don't know.

Well, what a disappointing morning...I got on the scale and I'm up a pound . Not only that but I managed to hurt my neck this weekend. How I don't know, but yesterday I could barely move it side to side and today its still really sore, so no exercising yesterday and so far none today. I hope its better by tonight or its gonna be really painful bowling. Yesterday I did a little grocery shopping to stock up on a few healthy items so this week is gonna be much better.

Diva congrats on the 4 lbs. I'm glad the lc is working for ya. As for soy milk I think they've improved it over the years. I tried it a long time ago and it was really gritty. Now its much better. I usually use it fruit smoothies, on cold or hot cereal, and sometimes I just drink it but not very often.

Melissa: Sorry your team had a disappointing loss. But on the other hand I was really glad to see my LIONS WIN . I wasn't very happy when they changed the game at the 4th quarter, but I suppose gotta keep the viewers interested.

menu:

breakfast: 2 cups all bran yogurt bites w/ 1 cup milk
snack:WW key lime yogurt
lunch Smart Ones santa fe beans and rice
snack: banana
supper 2 veggie dogs with wheat buns