Sorry its been a few days here since I dropped by! Hope you all are doing wonderfully with nursing and eating right.

Sara, I read Sommers latest book and thought there were some good things to consider as far as insulin goes. And her recipes look fabulous! She mentions fat-free cottage cheese as okay with the carb meals, but doesn't mention whole fat cottage cheese anywhere, is it a "funky food" do you think? It's high in protein and fat, but the carbs are pretty low. Still they're there, but it's such a GREAT source of protein and easy to get. I also read Protein Power and calculated my BF % and it gave me some more ideas about eating LC. I've ALSO read Body-for-Life and am going to start some resistence training tomorrow, but not eat low-fat with carbs, like BFL suggests.

Jenny, have you started BFL? How's it going? What did you decide for eating plans?

My scale looks the same. But my pants feel looser AND my husband agreed to pursuing lasik surgery for my eyes when I reach my goal!

Talk to you later.

Sara, I also saw above that you're homeschooling your little ones. How wonderful! Mine are only 18 mo and 4 mo, but we're planning to teach them at home when we're at that age. I can hardly wait for them to get older to start some days!

Have a wonderful rest of the weekend.

Jami

Hi ladies! Hope everyone had a great weekend. It was rainy most of the time here -- and I loved it. Those rainy, chilly days make me feel so cozy.

Jami, Yep, we started BFL this week and hoo wee am I sore!! But, it's a good sore, you know? I feel stronger already, (and Bobby said he already thought I looked a bit smaller! ) As far as the eating goes, I'm following the book, but I'm trying to choose really unprocessed and low glycemic carbs over bread and such. I figured that with breastfeeding and weight lifting that the carbs wouldn't be too much. I do intend to give up sugar, though. After reading Atkins I KNOW that I'm addicted.

By the way, there's a neat website - radiantrecovery.com that focuses on sugar addiction. They do allow carbs, but some of the principles are interesting.

We're also thinking of homeschooling!! I'd love to hear how you like it, Sara.

Have a successful week, Jenny

I had an interesting morning on Saturday. I woke up and felt "thin." You know that feeling where you just feel like you must have lost weight, though you can't see it? And I don't have a scale, so I can't be sure---but hey! it probably would have said something like, "No, Sara, you gained 2 lbs. overnight!" But the weird part is that I felt dizzy for a while--until I had my balanced breakfast of eggs and oatmeal w/ cream and butter. Is the dizziness from needing carbs? I don't like the dizziness much, but the thin feeling is great. That, however, is gone now as I made muffins last night to go with chili and ate 3-4 (lost track) They were whole wheat, but, oh well.

On the homeschooling side--we've been hs for 8 years now. Since my dd started 1st grade. I have an 8th, 6th, 4th and 1st grader. Hsing is very cool; lots of advantages, but can be extremely difficult at times. I'm totally overworked, but I guess any working mom can say that. Teaching is literally my job from 8-2. Sometimes I have to "work" after school too. But it has soooo many blessings too!

Hi all,

I have a baby who will be 4 weeks old in a couple of days and I started back into Atkins when she was about a week and a half old. I am currently in Ketosis and am exhibiting moderate Ketone loss. I managed to meet my goal weight previously and held it there successfully for over a year before I fell pregnant, and have great faith in the Low Carb way of life, although I have to confess that I "lost the plot" in the last couple of months of pregnancy ( I should update my profile to reflect my new increased weight status). So when my daugher was born (8th Oct) I decided to give myself a couple of weeks and then get back into induction.

My baby is happy and healthy and exhibiting good weight gains, I feel good ( I have 2 other children aged 4 and 2 1/2) and I can say that I don't feel that eating at induction levels in anyway affected me. In the first week of induction I lost almost 9 pounds, but in the subsequent week and a half, haven't lost a thing and my clothes certainly aren't any bigger on me. This now has me wondering if the inital weight loss in week 1 of induction was just the usual shedding of weight that one generally gets quickly after birth at work, rather than the Atkins diet.

I am intending to stick with the diet, but despite my keto-stix, I don't feel as confident that it is working this time around. Does anyone know if you have less positive results when you go off the diet for a period and then come back onto it?

Congratulations on the new baby, Joanne! They are soooo wonderful. I guess every baby and Mom is different, but if you go back a couple of pages on this thread and read about my experience w/ induction when my baby was 6 months old. Basically, it totally sabotoged my milk supply and she was miserable.

I think 4 weeks is a little early to be seriously dieting. For the first couple of months I Somersized. I believe it is a much more wholesome, balanced woe than Atkins. I managed to drop 30 lbs. in that 6 weeks. And I had tons of milk! So much that her weight gain was low because she was getting too much low-fat milk and couldn't eat enough to get to the high-fat milk. This is characterized by an extremely fussy baby who wants to nurse all the time and has green stools. It's so bad that you think you have the opposite problem of not enough milk! With Atkins, I really had no milk!

Even in my 2 months on Atkins---only 2 wks at induction levels---I only lost about 5lbs. And that was during induction, but I may have added too many carbs because my milk was so low.

Remember, your body is programmed not to lose weight now to protect your baby. It may come off very slowly--that seems to be what we're all experiencing. It can be depressing, but those little smiles are worth it! Happy mothering!

Hi Sara,

Thanks for the comments... I haven't heard of Somersizing before... obviously I need to try and do some research when I get the chance. I personally am not having problems at all with my milk, although my daughter is 4 weeks old today, she actually looks bigger and is gaining weight without a problem, which makes me think that milk differs between people or I should have been a cow! She is quite happy and content.

I am eating above induction levels and the scales have suddenly moved downwards by a couple of pounds or so in the past couple of days. ( I have to say that I have to think about reporting pounds as I am to used too kilograms!) So am feeling better again.

If anything I have to say that I have discovered a decadent treat which is low carb and would make most people shudder... if anything it is probably the sort of thing you would associate with a pregnant woman's cravings... I have a cream charger in which I always add some Splenda & Vanilla Essence, and I have been eating this like ice cream in a bowl drizzled with the smallest amount of diet caramel topping. Very addictive!

Thanks for the comments

Joanne

I'm glad it's working out for you, Jo, and your baby is gaining well. Actually, I'm jealous! I would love to have had a roly-poly baby and lose weight myself! But she is like her brother who is as thin as a rail no matter what she eats!

Now that she is well on solids, I'm going to try to get serious again and stay on some sort of plan. I like Schwarzbein, but I seriously want to see the scale move downward soon---okay, I don't have one of those, I forgot! I want my clothes to be too big!

hi gals! just thought i'd check in... welcome Joanne! i haven't been losing any weight recently, just hovering. we have had a couple of really busy weeks though with company and illness, so i haven't been following anything exactly.

sara, so which plan do you follow? i read Schwarzbein and really like the balanced approach, but you mentioned that you're not losing either. do you think it's because of the nursing? i know our bodies like to hold onto some fat; i'm 5-10 lbs. over prepregnancy weight, and i've heard that's the hardest to lose. But, i was overweight before i became pregnant. so there's more than enough to sustain a baby!

i too am a little jealous of you joanne. my son's 8 1/2 months old and is just now to the point where he'll eat solids fairly well. he's skinny - 17-18lbs - and tall. last dr. appt. he was 50th percentile for weight and 95th for height! so i can't afford tohave my supply go down either. you are fortunate!!

well, i'll sign off now. i hope everyone is doing well and giving those babies lots of hugs! jenny

Jenny,

I may not be losing because I'm no good at sticking to my carb limits! I did so much better on Atkins because it was easy to eat pro/fat all day with just a salad or two. I'm such an addict that I lose control even if it is something like potato, or nuts, or natural peanut butter. These are great healthy foods, but I can't stop at just a little.

I'm right there with you on the "overweight before pregnancy" thin! You'd think our bodies would know that there is plenty to support a baby!

I think my solution to this is to find the time to sit down and plan some meals for myself using the proper carb limits and see if I can stick to it. I just can't seem to stick with anything for very long. Except Atkins, and I just don't want to do that again.

Sara, Boy, do I hear you!! I've tried just "limiting" carbs and even the moderate ones are hard to stay away from. Sorry for another question, but, out of curiosity, why don't you want to do Atkins again?? Thanks in advance, Jenny

-- I was just rereading the thread... can you believe I've lived here 12 years and have never been to the Cowboy HOF?! Shame on me! I'll have to go check it out. --

Hi again everyone,

Thanks for the comments. In Australia, we don't have access to all of the foods that you have in the US and Canada, although yesterday I found someone who has a limited range of the Da Vinci Sugar Free Syrups. I have picked up 6 flavours... Chocolate, Strawberry, Banana, Vanilla, Irish Cream, and butter rum. If I had only found these earlier!

My decaf coffee will never be the same again! Problem is they taste too good that I am now drinking more decaf than I used to ... so I hope that doesn't have any negative impact on my breastmilk.

If anyone has any good recipes using these flavours I would be appreciative... I checked the Da Vinci Site and there seems to be a lot of stuff which needs flavours we don't have here yet. (Might have to work on the proprieter a bit to import some!)

Will report back as I go and let you know how things progress. I still have about 20 lbs to go to get back to pre-pregnancy weight.

Good luck to everyone!

Joanne

Hi there!

Jenny, I didn't want to do Atkins again because of the breastmilk issue and because I wasn't eating well at all! And I honestly don't know whether Ketosis is bad for you or not! It's so confusing!

But----I'm going to try it again anyway because it seems to be the only thing that makes me drop any weight and I can't seem to get the carbs under control since Halloween. Love those Snickers Crunch bars! (as if I needed a new favorite candy!) I'm going to stick with protein and veggies and stay away from the cream, Atkins shakes and bars. I'm just going to eliminate all starches and not count carb grams. This time I'll keep a closer eye on my breastmilk, but I'm not as worried about it since Meggie is 9.5 mos. now and eating pretty well. I'll keep you posted--you and I seem to be in about the same spot and have the same goal.

We seem to have the same skinny baby too! Mine is way tall and only about 18-19 lbs.

Check out that CHOF some Saturday! It's a lot of fun and my mom says it was just redone a couple of years ago so it's good that you waited!

Aussie Jo--I've been dying to find some exciting DaVinci flavors. I've only been able to find Vanilla, Hazelnut, and something else that I forget. I want more exciting flavors! Some people make "snow cones" with them. I want Peanut Butter to flavor my chocolate pie and have a Reeses Peanut Butter cup!

Hey Ladies! I thought that maybe this thread had "died", but it was still at the top of the parents page, so I'm just checking in. How's everyone doing?

I ended up starting Atkins this Tues. and was fairly strict at it and by Thurs. morning the scales showed a 5lb. loss! I had to pick myself up off the floor! But, that day the withdrawal symptoms hit really hard. That was something - I've read the book and thought I knew what to expect, but it was awful . I was afraid that I was going to faint I was so shaky and dizzy. So I've upped my carbs just a bit, and the weight has stayed off so far. (Well, I'm only four days in, so I guess that's not as miraculous as it sounds. ) I am loving this! My little guy, now nine months old, is eating food really well, so, like Sara, I'm not quite as concerned about the milk production. Although, there doesn't seem to be any problem so far.

So, ladies, where do they sell these DaVinci syrups I've been hearing about, or have I just been living under a rock?? They sound wonderful and I read about them everywhere.

Keep up all the good work and have a great weekend!!

Jenny

No wonder our kids are really similar in their statistics... I was being nosy and looked at your profile, and we are very much alike in stature and size!!

Talk to you later! Jenny

I'm in agony over here! I'm soooo confused about what to do with my stupid diet! I said I was going to start Atkins again, well, I just started on Tuesday also and then took Meg to the Dr. on Thursday for her 9 mon. checkup. She only gained 10 oz. in the past couple of months (I think her last checkup was at 7 months)---which means that she dropped off her weight curve and is in a lower percentile now.

I don't know if this is because of my LC diet, or what. It certainly seems that some people don't have problems producing fat babies while they LC, but I do. And I don't think I've even been that LC lately--just staying away from sugar and white flour. I haven't been counting carbs at all.

I weighed myself at the pediatrician and at Linens 'n Things (LOL!)and I appear to have lost a little weight--I'm down to 180 or just below. Ijust don't know where to go next! Should I SP and keep a steady stream of carbs going or Somersize and just have fat-free carbs at breakfast, but enough to fuel me for the day. I'm really scared to do Atkins again if this "weight loss" in the baby is my fault. The pediatrician isn't worried about her yet, but she does think that Atkins is too strict.

Okay, stop whining now! On to DaVinci Syrups. They are sold with the coffee at the grocery store. Only some stores carry them. Here, they always seem to be inside that special unit that houses the grinder and the coffee beans. You can also order them from www.Davincigourmet.com . They have a zillion flavors, but I haven't ordered any yet. I want some of the ones that don't sound so "coffee-ish." As I said, peanut butter!

Take care.