Hi! I knew someone would look in eventually!
Good on you for doing something proactive about your health.

I'm finding this WOE very useful at the moment. I've been on holiday (at home!) so have been doing a bit of experimental cooking, and found a few useful recipes which will help keep me on the straight and narrow.
It can be a bit frutrating when you read stuff on the internet about products available elsewhere which you haven't a remote chance of getting in ireland, unless you ship them in at enormous expense. But i have found some useful ingredients and items in dublin so far, and hope to look for more as time goes on.

Heres my list of usefuls over the last few weeks. i know some of them are obvious but well, I never claimed to be the shiniest penny!

health food shop:
psyllium capsules. helpful fibre in a tasteless package. still not enough, but now i also have baked goods with flax which seems to be sorting out the fibre count.
soya flour (pancakes, and pizza base, but does have a bit of a bitter aftertaste, so needs sweetening or seasoning)
flaxmeal (*also called linseed)(also found this in tesco, not cheap, but worth it! a miracle for low carb cooking, makes a fabulous bread, very like a good irish brown bread, also muffins, which are sort of spicy things, and great for upping the fibre count of our diet)
xanthan gum (haven't tried this yet but i believe it can be used to thicken sauces in place of flour)

in tesco's
low carb bars, which i haven't tried yet. hidden away n the vitamin section of all places.
Roasted peanuts - hurray, salty crunchy tasty,and i can forget about pringles forever!
Ground almond (americans call it almond flour)- pricey but a useful baking ingredient, not just for christmas cake icing
Dessiccated coconut - i've bought this but not yet made maccarroons and a few other recipes i've found.
Cheese strings - another great 'treat'. I'm intolerant of dairy, so i have to watch how much i eat, but still becoming another emergency favourite.
sugar free jelly. with cream. great. i keep a tub in the fridge. also tescos have a new range of ready made s-f jelly in individual pots. weird flavours put me off, but i tried them and they are delicious. much much cheper to make up one at home, but these could be great emergency stand bys or when travelling or something.
sugar free bacon - its weird but there are rashers with no sugar, it does not seem to be related to price or quality, you just have to read the labels.


Boots (Dun Laoghaire)
Oh joy! Atkins bars, soy protein flavoured like 'chocolate wonder or something like that. also boots own brand version. All fairly disgusting and won't be buying again,
Atkins Endulge chocolate very expensive, nice taste in the American style of chocolate)
Boots own diabetic sweet range - swiss chocolate (delicious and half the price of atkins stuff) toffees (totally yum) and mints (yum again)
So yummy sweets for the occasional treat to stop me falling off the wagon. Only issues with these are price, and they contain polyols (to count or not to count? atkins says no, and they certainly don't trigger cravings for me but they do have a hefty calorie count which might be an issue at a later stage, and of course, the laxative effect - yep thats true! but one or two squares of choc or a toffee or two is not a problem. and as i can have luscious desserts of other sorts, and really only want the occasional 'taste' of a sweet' that should be enough.

I'm still looking for shiratake noodles, pork rinds, and vitamins that fit the atkins profile. i had started a multivit but it has iron and so i have stopped it again.

What i really love is the fact that i have just stopped craving food, i used to eat and eat and never feel satisfied. infact if there was one frustration it is the fact that I don't feel hungry - so now what do i do with all the time i spent eating? lol.

Now that my body seems to be adjusting to this woe, i find i can tackle the amount i eat, i have downsized in several ways - i don't graze constantly, my meal frequency is lower and my portion size is smaller. This is all without gritting my teeth, i really just want less food.
And i find the 'pyschological issues' of comfort eating, are much more clearly identifiable. Yes i do eat out of boredom, or for comfort, but not very often at all, and when i am in that mood it now stands out clearly and is much easier to identify simply because there is no confusion about whether of not i am physicaly hungry. don't know if that makes sense, but it is great because i thought i had much more psychological issues around food than i now think i have.

anyway thats enough for now.

keep going, i can see you are losing already, and hope you are also feeling other health benefits. GB!