I thought I'd start a little section for just general chat. I'm sure most of you are contributors in other parts of the board as well, but for Whole Foods questions and general discussion, I thought maybe it would nice to have it all in one spot!

I was wondering if anyone ever has trouble sticking to this WOE. I'm sure that once the cravings are gone, a big piece of chocolate cake just sounds downright icky to most people. Okay wait, I don't like chocolate cake, I'll have to think of something else.

My main reason for this WOE is, first of all, health and secondly, weight maintenance (which hopefully will be the natural result of getting healthy). My mom had bypass surgery week before last; my dad had it when he was my age (49) and my sister passed away four years ago from cancer (she was also diabetic). Mom and Dad have both had malignant melanoma, Mom is diabetic, Dad has degenerative joint disease and has had both knees replaced. Both have high blood pressure, and Mom has super high cholesterol, although she's controlled with medication. She also has fibromyalgia. Dad suffers from depression and also has breathing difficulties, which the doctors think is due to a paralyzed diaphragm from working around paint and chemicals for most of his adult life. I am so DOOMED if I don't take care of myself.

I just need to buckle down and do it, and not think of it in a way that I'm giving up anything, but rather that I'm taking care of myself and adding more happy and healthy years to my life.

Love the idea for a weekly chat

I'm still so happy eating this way. Mmmmm greek yogurt and strawberries - the best!

I cook at home most of the time and have a VERY big garden (30 tomato plants i.e.) I love vegetable soup and fruit smoothies made entirely of fruit. I can't have calcium for health reasons but I enjoy soy milk and especailly the 4gm of fiber per cup. I get Westsoy Original because it isn't fortified with calcium. I have so many eggplant that a friend is coming over to get some of them. This year was a great year for gardens. I like all the good reading here. I have printed off some of the success stories and use them for encouragement.

Carol, I just planted some lettuce over the weekend and am hopeful that it'll grow. It's in a hanging pot right now, but I'm moving it to a larger pot tonight. Our temps have been hot but now they're dropping so that will help for sure. It would be so nice to go outside and pick fresh vegetables -- we had a big garden year before last, but last summer we tilled it under.

It is supposed to freeze here (WI) this week so we'll bring the vegetables into the garage. But once it gets cold that is usually the end of the garden except for the broccoli and cauliflower. The sometimes lasts till Dec.

Okay, so when I bought the lettuce, I saw that they also had broccoli plants. Our temps here in Texas are now in the mid-50s in the mornings, and mid-80s in the afternoon but later in the week we'll be dropping down 10 degrees on each. Is that good broccoli weather? I should do some research. We eat a whole lot of it and I would prefer to grow some instead of buying it.

I am so envious! I would love to grow more veggies (I certainly have the room) but I can't get anything to grow. I've tried tomatos for the past two years and I'll get a lot of buds but they don't mature. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the sand here in the desert. I guess I could go any buy a bunch of pots.....but I have all this garden space! I know the summers are too hot to try to grow too much, but the fall and winter are optimal. I guess I should check out the local extension offices to get some growing tips.

I agree, health is the main reason I am doing whole foods. I love that I've lost weight and I'll do everything I can to keep it off (this time!). My family seems to have a lot of heart disease and diabetes. I don't want to be one of the ones that has bypass or valve replacement surgery!!! But you know, some of the cravings haven't completely gone away. I keep them at bay, but from time to time that old comfort food beckons. Iguess if it is only from time to time, it's okay to give in....one meal once in a while???? What does everyone else think? I doubt I give in more than once every month or so.

I wish I could have a garden! I have a great yard for it, but my landlord doesn't want me tearing it up. I used to have a patio tomato, but squirrels couldn't leave it alone. I am going to attempt to grow a pepper plant indoors this year.

I am in the process of changing my schedule, which is allowing way more opportunities for "restaurant food", so I have to rethink my restaurant strategies.

Oh a weekly chat thread is a great idea.

Kathy, that sounds like good broccoli weather to me. We have a large garden and a green house with tomatos. Everything is done for the year now, but we had tons of lettuce and spinach, plus peas, carrots, beets, potatos, and green beans. In other years we've grown cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower, but we skipped them this year to try to break the lifecylce of the pests that eat them. (A friend says this won't work, we'll see) We did pick at a local farm though, so my freezer is full of home-grown veggies, and DH-caught salmon! Right now the grocery stores have a large variety of hard (winter) squashes, so I'm buying those. I love all kinds of squash.

I'm doing this both for health and weight loss. My sister has lots of health problems, many of them weight related. She has a lap band and has lost about 80-90 pounds, but is still on a lot of medication. She is finally off of her C-Pap machine for sleep apnea though. I've avoided most of the family health problems - except high cholesterol which both my parents had even though they were not overweight. I take medication for that, but otherwise all I'm bothered with is some arthritisis in my fingers and a bad knees, a condition aggraveated by being overweight.

I usually plant my broccoli and cauliflower from seeds in the spring and by fall they are just right. You don't have to powder either because the bugs don't bother them when the weather cools. This is my tip for tomatoes. My sister-in-law told me to put newspaper around the plants and then grass clippings. It really worked!!! Last year my tomatoes died rather early because of some blight but this year they were great! And you can till it all under later because the newspaper will just rot. This is the longest my garden has ever lasted but it is pretty weedy. I get tired of tilling by mid Sept. and sometimes it freezes by then so it gets a little weedy. We picked green beans all summer and just Sat. got half a Walmart bag. I love fresh green beans but can about 75 qt. besides. We freeze corn, strawberries, broccoli and cauliflower. Makes for a busy summer.

Okay, I got more vegetables tonight and will plant them tomorrow after work. I got red cabbage, broccoli, and zucchini squash. I also got long thin planter boxes to put them in, so that they could go up on top of the deck railings in th sun. If it starts to get too cold (or heaven forbid, there's a chance of freezing) I'll move them indoors.

It's just an experiment at this point, but if it works I'll be happy to have some fresh vegetables this winter. We'll see...

Such an interesting thread, with so many gardeners! I once tried to grow zucchini here, and I think that anyone who's grown zuch knows how easy it is to get carried away. I just couldn't make it happen--don't know if it was the soil or the climate, but I basically gave it up.

Mostly, I'm trying to have a healthy lifestyle. Time passes, I have a new(ish) kid, and I want to be around for a while. I try to eat well most of the time, exercise, get enough sleep, and I try to remember to mediate or read something inspirational every day. I also remember what it is like to be morbidly obese, and I'm not going back there, ever. Couple extra pounds is one thing, a BMI of 43 is another.

My basic philosophy is to eat plant-based products in as unprocessed a form as I can find, with a few exceptions (tomato comes to mind), and animal-based products processed to a healthy level--I like my milk skimmed, pasteurized, and yep, homogenized, my chicken in boneless, skinless breast form. I think organic is nice, but if I have to go out of my way to get it, or pay a lot more for it, it probably isn't going to happen. Fortunately I like most of this stuff. My basic philosophy is tempered by my need to live in the real world, and the real limits on my time, and also by the fact that I have a one-year-old with no chewing teeth and a DH who hates most vegetables, many fruits, and all whole grains and doesn't see the need to eat them.

And when I'm honest with myself, it is also tempered by the desire to make less-healthy choices like peanut butter cups and Cheetos. Yes, I've lost 100+ pounds, am keeping it off since 2003, and I don't care what the enthusiastic dieters say, the cravings never ever went away for me, and I just don't think they will at this point.

So it works out that I shoot for an 80/20 kind of diet, where about 80% of the time I make good choices, and live with the fact that 20% of the time it just isn't going to work out for one reason or another. I try to get at least 6 servings of fruit and veggies a day, 10 is better, and 3 servings of whole grains, 6 is better, fish a couple times a week, beans a couple times a week, not eat too much junk, and the rest pretty much takes care of itself.

For the short term (I hope), I'm still working at taking off the last 10(ish) pounds I put on during my pregnancy, and I appear to still be getting there, slowly, but yes, the scale still moves. So I'm striving for more of a 90/10 split these days, but am not being terribly successful at that.

Anne

My whole morning went to pot when I woke up to crashing rain AND the sprinklers were running. I had to wake up DH and ask him how to turn them off (he's the sprinkler guru, not me) ... then the big doggy said she had to go outside, and so I figured she would take a quick potty then come right back in. Oh noooo ... she wanted to play in the rain!

What an awesome statement! You put into words what I feel, yet couldn't actually think of a good way to say it. That is perfect!

I'm also afraid that some of my cravings are so deeply ingrained that they're with me forever. All I can do is keep them at bay for as long as possible.

Anne, Have you ever posted your weightloss story here? I don't recall seeing it in Goal but could have missed it. The woe that you describe is something like intuitive eating which I try to follow. There is a thread here, Intuitive Eating #2 where this is discussed. The best book I have read on is is The Overfed Head by Rob Stevens. He lost 140lb in a year and a half after countless diet experiences. There is also a website, www.undieting.com, where you can receive a weeks worth of messages free (there is also an e-book to buy.......I don't like those) but the messages are very interesting. I had a great day yesterday sticking with eating when hungry and stopping when satisified and feel great today. A big garden really helps with that.

Hi Carol,

I'm really really bad at intuitive eating. I'd eat cheetos and pb cups all day. I plan, journal everything, count calories, and watch portion sizes, food types. I have to be pretty obsessive about it. But the flip side is that if I do want an occasional piece of cake (and sometimes not so occasional), I'll have one, I just track that. I'm so used to it now, it just seems intuitive.

My story is posted over on the Maintainer introductions board, try this link and scroll down--I haven't figured out how to link the exact post:
http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/show...t=34539&page=4
There are also before/after pics of me around the maintainers area somewhere, I'd have to do a search. My dirty little secret is I never had a weight goal, and I never reached a goal, and by BMI standards I'm still a statistic, that is overweight. My final weight is more than many people's starting weight. I try not to let that bother me too much. I can do pretty much anything I want to do, and the whole weight loss thing was about a lifestyle change for me, and not so much the number on the scale. So you probably won't find my on the Goals board anytime soon. I actually don't go there much--I'm happy that people get there, but staying there is of much more interest to me, so I spend most of my time on Maintainers.

Anne