G'day all,

I thought I had better start a new thread before the end of this year.

Welcome to CJD, always nice to have new members join our little group.
This weight loss business seems to be a forever struggle.

I am at the stage that I just try and eat healthily and hope for the best!

Nice to see you Peggy, pleased the soap thing helped for you both.

Trish my dh came home 2 weeks ago and it already seems like he was never away. My picky customer is still being VERY picky but I have had my little say and told him that enough is enough.
He apologised and accepted that he was being unreasonable and I should be able to upload his website early in the New Year.

It is quite hot here at the moment and the forecast for Christmas day is HOT
We will probably have our Christmas breakfast outside but our lunch will be in our airconditioned dining room.
I had my first swim down the beach yesterday afternoon.

It has been quite an eventful year in more ways then one.
It will be interesting to see how Barack Obama will settle in as President and what changes he will make to effect the world.
From what I can gather it will still be a bleak year for finance

Morning Ladies
From up here in a cold and snowy Canada (over a foot of new snow since

Friday morning) I just wanted to WISH EVERYONE

A WONDERFUl HOLIDAY AND LETS ALL HOPE FOR A GOOD NEW YEAR

Suz

Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year to all!
Just wanted to stop in and give you all our greetings. This has been a very up and down year for many of us but, through it all I think mine has ended on a very good note. My diabetes has gone because of the weight loss that I have had. I will accept that 30#'s since May is this year's number but I will try for more after the Holidays. This is the time of temptation and I will succumb some but not like in the past.
Maria: Happy to know that Alan is home and you are swimming (how I envy you).
CJD: Welcome, it is always nice to meet new people. I am retired and so is DH. We have 9 GKs who manage to keep us busy.
Trish: Welcome back. Enjoy your time with your DD and DGD.
Peggy: If it weren't for the GKs I might not put out so much of our Christmas items either.
Karen, Ann, Glenda, Norma and Sally hope you all are enjoying your Holidays. Stay warm.
Gloria

Hi everyone:
I can't believe how long it has been since I have been here on the board. I had to go back and read the previous thread all over again to get a sense of where we are.

So First of all - A VERY VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!! It is hard to believe that 2009 is almost here. 2008 has brought us all some ups and downs, but I know who is in control, and my motto for 2009 is not to sweat the small stuff, and don't worry about the stuff I cannot change.

We just got back from a very nice lunch/dinner at the Red Lobster on some of our kids. We made it an anniversary lunch, since today is the big day. You can tell just how romantic we after so many years. We didn't even shop for cards for each other, just gave each other a kiss, said Happy Anniversary and then went about the usual day, with time out for lunch. Pathetic, isn't it!

Welcome CJD. It is nice to hear from someone new, and as Maria said, the struggle for weight loss is common to us all. It is a lifetime committment, and sadly, we just don't want to do it all the time. And this time of year, there are so many tempting goodies. I understand about likeing carbs. I really like all the verious Pasta dishes. And it is hard to stick to just one cup!

The recipe books that I made for my GD's for Christmas went over very well. They were very happy to have all the family recipes, as well as some from their Great and Great Great Grandmothers. I am fortunaate to have my mothers and grandmothers hand written cookbooks, and I wanted the girls to share in some ot fhem I got a lot of writers cramp getting them done, but it was worth it, since they were so pleased.

Our Christmas was quiet,but we did have a community dinner at our clubhouse, for 115. I helped in the preparation and the serving. It was a lot of work for us all, but enjoyable too.

The bar of soap remedy is an unusual one, and probably not scientific, but who cares, as long as it works. Peggy- two of you with the restless legs, could be a real kicking match without some help.:

Suz- I don't envy you all the snow. I understand from family across the river, that they had rain, and now have ice. Did you get that too? Sorry about the shoulder. Hope all is better now.

Gloria: Do you have any Great grands? It is nice you are close to your family members. Ours are far away, and even tho' we have 6 Greats we never see any of them as they are spread out all over the country. How great that your diabetes has flown the coop since your great weight loss. That is wonderful. Congratulations

Trish- Nice to see you on the board again. We just have to support each other. Now maybe with the new year coming we'll all do a better job of it. Do you like the online program? I've been wondering about doing that, but haven't known anyone who has tried it. I know that every year they come up with some sort of change, but it seems the bottom line is always eat less, and eat the right foods.

S0 - Everyone -lets hope that the new year will be the best ever for all of us with much success in the weight loss struggle.

Ann

Morning Ladies

Ann & Trudy We got lots of snow in just over a week we got about 15 inches but the last 2 days were well above freezing close to 60F on Sat and about 40F yesterday and very windy Sat night It spilt my nieghbours big willow right down the middle and took a couple of our trees at the back down as well It has gotten cold again and we are expecting snow later today I wish it would stay below freezing and be sunny We did not have any flooding here but saw on the news that other places did

Hope everyone else is well
Happy new year everyone Suz

G'day all,

Another 9 hours and 2009 will have started for us!

It does seem incredible, it seems like only yesterday that we turned over to the year 2000!

The big party for Poppy's 2nd birthday is on late this afternoon, about 40 adults and about 20 kids. Not sure how I will cope with so many little ones.
The weather is perfect and all I have to do is get some fruit platters organised.
My face is looking better though still quite yellow and pale purple. I don't think I can camouflage it much, I have experimented and it looks worse so I will just go as it is and put up with all the 'jokes' of Alan punching me in the eye!
I must fly, my little houseguest has just woken up and is rearing to go.
I will be pleased to have my house back to myself again.

HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL!

Cheers,
Maria

Morning Ladies
Well another new year ours came in with snow and cold weather I gained about 3 lbs over christmas but have managed to already lose 1 1/2 lbs this year i am planning to lose the weight i have been trying to get rid of about 25 to 30 lbs I will let everyone know how I am doing I fiqure it will take 6 months or longer

Suz

Hi Ladies,

I can't believe I haven't been here for a while. I think the last time I wrote was before the kids from FL came in for a week around Christmas time. I need to go read the old thread and see what I have missed. I want to wish everyone a belated HAPPY NEW YEAR. Like Ann said we had our ups and downs in 2008 and I just hope we will all have a much better 2009. We had a good time with the children and we too decorate more and cook more goodies than we would do if they weren't here.

Ann I joined the online WW to get the new Momentum program. It is kind of a combining of Flex/Core with the emphasis of eating more Core foods which are now called Simply Filling foods which is what some people used to do anyway and called it Flore. I like it pretty well. I am trying to watch my portions and do more SF foods and less junk/processed foods. I am also trying to learn to cook with herbs/spices and give up salt so I don't retain fluid. I could probably learn more by going to meetings from what I read people saying, but it is cheaper for me to do it at home and to pay to be a member on the website. I did good during the holidays with my eating even came out the same as when the holiday eating started and then this week I was up 2.5 lbs. So I am really going to have to clamp down and get OP.

It is nice to see everybody here some I know and some I don't and I will try to do better about getting back here more often as I would love to get to know all of you.

G'day all,

Nice to see you both Trish and Suz.

Time does seem to get away from everyone and we don't seem to post as often, perhaps we should try and rectify that in 2009.

The new Weight Watchers program is adevertised here as well, I am not sure what the difference is from previous programs.

How are you liking the on-line WW Trish?

I don't think I would ever join WW again, I was successful once but since that once I have re-joined several times with very mixed results
I do still subconsciously look at food and tell myself how many points etc!

I am very interested in Oprah's series of 'Live your best life', it makes a lot of sense to me and to get into this living your best life I have made an appointment with my doctor to get some of the tests that Dr. Oz suggested such as cholestrol, bone density etc. etc.

I have been riding my bike and walking again, the weather has been so good that it has been little effort to get motivated.

Cheers,
Maria

Hi Everybody,

Maria - I like some of the things on WW online. I don't like going to meetings so it works for me. I tried the new program and gained so I have started over with the Simply Filling program because I hate counting points. This way I can get my healthy fruits/veggies, water, dairy, good oils in and stop eating. When I count points, I either end up through eating for the day and still have pts I have to count or I end up wanting more pts because I've probably eaten something processed that made me want more. I am aiming mostly toward healthy eating.

Everybody have a great weekend

Thanks all for the welcome. I'm due shortly for my physical and my sugar is up from last year based on my own testing. I really must get serious because I don't want to take the next step into medication if dieting alone can keep me in the correct range. I've set this Wednesday Jan 14th as my restart date. I have been successful with WW in the past and usually do it on my own using a points book from a number of years ago. Even if the program has changed somewhat, I figure if I could manage to lose it before, I can do it again using the same info. Hope I'm right. If I can't get it together, I'm thinking of doing the at home program online.

I'll be 63 on the 17th. I suffer from a variety of bodily problems that resulted from a misdiagnosed gall bladder problem in 1991. By the time they diagnosed the problem, I was nearly dead, had been jaundiced for 3 months, and underwent surgery which found my gall bladder had spewed poison throughout my body, resulting in scarring of all my organs and making my common hepatic duct thinner than the human hair which had made me jaundiced. Month after month in the hospital and a shunt inserted in my body to open the duct to the liver, I finally returned to my pale, freckled complexion. Miraculously, the common hepatic duct began to become larger than the tubing and 6 months after my initial surgery, it came out. I was very lucky to have survived but my body has never been the same. It doesn't process anything correctly. I have daily bouts with diarrhea from the scarring on the bowels no matter what I eat or don't eat. My hair turned completely white and thinned out and my teeth and nails suffered as well. I don't make good use of vitamins and minerals for it seems I only rent my food. (No one can explain to me why I still have weight issues as it seems to me, I should be in negative numbers by now, LOL)
I developed osteo which they found in 2002. So, I'm a mess. Weighing in at 198 lbs now at 5'2 1/2' doesn't add a thing to my health issues so I am writing this not only as an intro about me but also to myself so that I can see in writing the reality of where I am. Last year I reached my high of 220 lbs and had actually gotten down to 184 but then I self destructed and began to put weight back on.

I am divorced and have 2 grown children who are the joy of my life. Both are unmarried, and they share a home. My son is 37 and my daughter 34. Between the three of us, we have 3 lovable dogs who despite our love of Cesar Milan, are our children. I am still working and enjoy what I do and love spending time with my kids, brothers and extended family and friends. I love to play the piano and read. I wish I could say I love to exercise, because as a former dancer, I miss that so much but I destroyed my right ankle in a fall, breaking all the bones and now have plates and screws holding it together.

I look forward to getting to know you all and hope that I can be a supportive member to each of you.

G'day all,

Good heavens cjd that sounds horrific.
For the record I am 63, married with 2 married children and 3 grand daughters and another grand daughter on the way.
I work from home and if you click on my website it will give you an idea what I do.

I had a physichal last week or I should say I attempted to have a physical but the GP I went to see was so rude and obnoxious that I have ended up reporting him to the medical board and also wrote a strong letter to the practice.
Your experience again highlights the fact that doctors do NOT know everything and that it is definitly worth a second, third or whatever it takes opinion.
It certainly does seem strange that you are still overweight with the problems you have mentioned.
Can anyone explain to you why that is so?
It sounds imperative that you loose some of your weight, you would not want to have to start taking medication if by loosing weight you can avoid doing that.

I am on a real health kick and so far so good, I am feeling a lot better eating heaps of vegetables and fruit, the scales are starting to go down so I MUST keep at it and not get lazy and start eating rubbish again.
I have a set of friends that I only see once per year, I really would like to show up at our next Christmas function looking and feeling great

Trish everything you say sounds all so familiar I hope the WW online will give you enough incentive to get really serious.

Adelaide is having a heat wave and the temperature is 42 degrees today (107 F in your language), thank goodness for airconditioning.
I walked to the beach early this morning and it was already very hot.
The kids and grandkids will come late this afternoon to swim at the beach and then stay and have some dinner. Sounds simple but I will be exhausted after they leave with everyone tracking in sand, having to have a shower and providing dinner
Tomorrow we are looking after the grandgirls and it will yet again be very hot
My poor garden is suffering a bit

Cheers,
Maria

Maria - No. No one can explain to me how I still have weight issues. I think it's because of the diabetes and the fact that I love pasta and bread combined with a lack of activity along with aging and slowing of my metabolism. After my gall bladder disaster, I lost most all of my good cholesterol but when I keep my diet in check, I can get to the low acceptable range. I'm on blood pressure med and take Actonel for the osteo. You're right about the importance of my making healthier choices and just making food not so important in my life.

I went to your site. What an interesting job. How nice that you can do it at home. It must be a nice feeling especially to be able to restore old photos for people. In many cases the photo may be all they have left of the person and seeing it restored must give them so much pleasure.

Morning
Cjd I think I am the baby of the group at 56 I do not think I will complain about myself anymore after reading about all your medical issues have you ever thought about going and seeing a nutritionist about getting an eating plan that could help you lose some of the weight and helping the diabetes
as well
I to am trying lose some weight I eat pretty healthly just too much I need to measure my portions I have also tried WW a couple of times was successful the first time not not the next I have been gaining and losing the same 3 or 4 lbs for the last year or so Its very frustrating I exercise with a group 3 times a week and want to start walking at least 3 times a week but it is very cold right now and will be for a while longer

Hope everyone else is well Suz