For me it's not really about health or beauty, it's about function. Health has been a fantastic by product for me. So I guess there's all sorts of reasons to do this, this loosing weight business. Beauty can't be measured like joint angles, mass and triglycerides. It's very subjective.

Searching for answers and asking for help indicate to me that you are already a beautiful person. If you look in the mirror each morning and briefly thank the image staring back at you for being your best friend, you might find that, after a while, you'll see that beautiful helper smiling back at you no matter what your shape.

You will do well. We can help each other along the way.

Thanks Thud123. I appreciate your comments. I'm a realist as you can probably tell. I look in the mirror and there is nothing there that anyone would want to call their own. Not even me. Not feeling sorry for myself here, just stating fact. If you took a board and whacked it against another board painted black, that's what you'd get with me. Just an ugly mess. I am trying to change it a little bit though because from my point of view, as I age, its only getting worse.

Dunroven,
You are not being a realist. EVERYONE has good and wonderful qualities, just like everyone had ugly and not-so-wonderful qualities. You seem to be focusing on only the bad, and none of the good. This seems to be hard for you, so start small. Already you are reaching out and working on a plan to get healthier and lose weight. That is good! You are worthwhile and worth the time and effort. LIFE is worthwhile and worth the effort. There is so much beauty in the world, if we only stop to look at it, or think about it. I don't know your situation, or anything about your life, but I do know how a negative outlook can affect your life. You can do this - focus on good things and then STOP. Don't spiral away from the good and look for the bad. Focus on the good! And I'm not saying that you need to be unrealistic. If you're fat, own it. I know I'm fat. But I am working to lose fat and get healthy. Stop there. Working to lose the fat, and get healthy. Those are good thoughts, and worthy goals. You have health issues. Losing weight will help with them. It. Will. Help. That's good - stick with that. Don't go down the but.....<insert negative thought> road. I know I'm repeating myself, but you need to hear it and believe it! You're doing good, you are working towards your goals, you are doing good!
Best of luck, my friend!!!

Yes. Yes. Yes.

There have been experiments where people had their moods measured, and then were shown pictures of depressed people, and told to try to imitate the facial expressions of the depressed people.

When they again had their moods measured, they were significantly lower.

The opposite occurred when they did that same experiment with pictures of happy people. I figure, if pretending to be sad or happy can lead to being sad or happy, why not go for happy?

I won't repeat what Tracy said: she said it perfectly. You can acknowledge the challenges that you have, and still choose to look at the good things that ARE in your life right now, along with the good things that you are choosing to bring into your life.

I appreciate all the advice folks. I'm trying to be more positive, but with my life, that's extremely hard. I can't give you all the details, not because they are so bad, but there are just too many of them. Let's just say that right now the only good thing in my life is the idea that I just had a goat give birth to triplets. Yep, that's the biggest thing, and I'll accept it cause they are cuter than heck, but nothing else in my life is going right. Again, just way too much to get into, but I'm sticking with the program. Pork steak was sooooo good today, I couldn't believe that I didn't have to eat the whole steak though. I fixed 2, one for lunch and one for supper. I ate the fat from them and then I didn't have enough room for the meat. I was drinking water along with eating the protein, and I'm really full tonight. I don't get that way very often. I can eat a 5 quart bowel of popcorn and then want the candy bars after that, and still be wanting more, so this is kind of amazing for me. I didn't get time to cook my eggs and my chicken today, and may not get time to do it tomorrow, but we'll see. I may not need to cook up a bunch!

You are discovering the wonderful secret side effect of NOT EATING ARBS: lack of appetite. It's not that you don't get hungry. It's that you don't get crazy hungry, and want to eat everything in sight.

Yes and I'm thrilled about that. I hate to eat so well in front of my husband but I think it's going to take a little proving before it happens.

You believe that you are stating fact but you are just stating your perception. Your perception can change. Perceptions are based not just on what's out there but also on the assumptions we bring to it. Believing that you are the worst of the worst is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It takes you down the rabbit hole of despair. It is possible to change your self-perception but it takes work and it is work only you can do. How you look in the mirror is not the most important thing about you. Please don't base your perception of yourself on that. You see an ugly mess. I bet others see something different. I bet you can too.

Jean

Dunroven - baby goats are possibly the cutest little ones on the planet! What kind of goat? And look - you had delicious food, weren't really hungry, weren't tempted off plan, and you also have fresh eggs and chickens. Your hubby will see that this plan works - maybe he will be interested in also participating. Stick with it and have another awesome day!

Yes, the goaties are the cutest animal alive, I think, but then there is also the little jersey bull calf I'm raising. He's just like a baby deer. I love my critters. We don't have fresh eggs right now. Gonna order some chicks just before it starts getting cold. Chickens take 20 weeks from the time they hatch until they start producing, so I'm going to let that 20 weeks be in the winter, which is also the time they normally stop or slow down on laying, so its a good way to start, and then fresh eggs in the spring! YUM! For now, store bought, but they will do, and we have 71 new Muscovie duck babies too. They are growing and we will have TONS of fresh duck eggs. I love those as well. Of course a lot of these are to sell and hatch. We have a segment of the population out there that just loves Muscovie duck meat, and we plan to help cater to that segment so we can raise some extra money. They reproduce MANY times, so could be a great side business for our farm.

I have lots of good things that I'm trying to focus on right now. Including the 1 pound I lost yesterday, although today, I have that Atkins flu. Headache, upset stomach, the whole 9 yards. It will go away though and I'm going to stick with it. Take it day by day, and I'm going to try to stop weighing other than once a week. I'm finding it seems like I have been on a diet forever when I weigh every day. So gonna stop that. Just on Mondays from now on (I hope). LOL

Have a great day everyone!

For your carb flu: drink broth with salt in it. If you don't have broth around the house, (and you certainly don't have time to make it right now) just pour some lukewarm water and add salt to it so it's still palatable, but a bit salty tasting. Add more salt than you are used to to your food.

When you start to dump water out of the fat cells, you also dump stored water. And because you are switching over to a metabolism that burns fat for fuel, instead of popcorn (heh), you won't be storing as much salt in your fat cells, either.

Congrats on the pound and on the baby goats. I detect a bit of optimism there, Missy. Feels good, yes?

Yeah, you know it does feel good. I welcomed this "flu." Not that I don't want to feel okay, but it lets me know that I'm on my way and hopefully in a couple of days it will pass and the "good vibrations" will start happening to me (right?) LOL I'm looking forward to feeling better. Goodness knows I could use a bunch more energy right now! LOL

I have to say, my husband came home tonight and (surprise) hadn't eaten much of his diet food for the day. Now to be fair, he's stuck with this thing for the past 3 weeks, and he's been rewarded well. He's lost 15 pounds. Yay, hubby! Even with no exercise other than struggling to get to the bathroom.

Anyway, he hadn't eaten his lunch (4 ounces of turkey, 1 cup of plain white rice, and 1 cup of mixed veggies which were green beans and carrots). And he hadn't eaten his afternoon snack, 4 ounces of turkey and 1 cup of salad greens.

When I asked him why, he couldn't tell me for certain. He said he wanted to stick with this way of eating until he had lost 20 pounds. But I asked him if he'd like to try my way. Well, what is your way again? So I told him and tonight the 2 of us had fried pork steak and we shared a can of green beans fried in butter. Yay on him again! Now he's talking about the bacon and eggs for breakfast. I love that man! LOL I knew he'd cave!

AND it'll be so much easier, not making two different menus for two people.

The only times I make special stuff for my (tall, thin, curse him!) husband is when it's a special occasion, or on Friday, when he eats pizza and I...don't. Sometimes I'll have a salad. Sometimes, a repeat of breakfast bacon and eggs.

Sometimes I'll make a stir fry, heavy on the kale from the garden, and soft over easy fry a couple of eggs for the top.

Those are the Fridays that he gets jealous of my dinner, LOL.

And, not very often, but sometimes, I make a Fat Head Pizza, and we both eat it. (You can google the recipe, or look on YouTube for a video making it.)

My family has a farm in Texas. Not a garden any more as we did when my mother was still alive, but we have goats and chix and lots of poodle dogs. I don't live on the farm, but my daughter does.

She has a job she hates and some of our relatives there are ex-cons and dangerous. Sometimes she gets really scared. Most of her free time is spent caring for her animals, though, and they make her so happy. They save her life every day.

There's this one kid she calls miracle because it was basically dead at birth and she saved it, bottle fed it and kept it in the house with her dogs. Now it sleeps on the porch. Miracle the goat thinks he's a dog.

Animals, even those who aren't pets, can save us.

Wow, headache is still here, but its okay, cause I know I'm close to the other side of it now.

Blessing this morning though! I'm down a total of 4 pounds in the last 2 days. Now here's the weird thing. I had been on the 6-week body makeover before. In fact, hubby and I started it together but I got bored first and switched. I did loose 8 pounds on that, so I'm actually down a total of 12 pounds this morning, but I got a big water loss from that, so I'm wondering how I'm getting such a good loss with Atkins. I really didn't expect more than 1 to 2 pounds for the week. Not that I'm complaining! We have a set of doctor's scales that we weigh on and now I'm just 6 pounds from moving that BIG weight down to the 200 mark. Its gonna happen soon!

I'm so pleased right now. I feel good even though I feel bad, you know?

Bluesinger, I have so many chores right now due to hubby's surgery, but I can truly say that I know each of my animals personally. I'm like your daughter. The animals are healing. They are nonjudgmental. They see you with kinder, gentler eyes and they tell you they unconditionally love you and you can pick up a baby goat and cradle it in your arms and its the most wonderful feeling to your heart. I love these babies. I also raise and sell Siamese, Balinese and Russian Blue and Black cats. I have a website, www.dunrovenfarms.com. Cats are a BIG part of my life. I have 38 breeders and I hold and pet everyone of them each day. They all come to me for attention, like I'm their "mom" and I love being able to pick up the newborn kittens and talk to them and have them start coming to me immediately. Anything wrong in my day, this heals my heart. Tears can flow, but animals know.

Well, storming right now, so better get off of here. I feel a journal entry coming on, soon as the storm is over. Have a great day my LC friends!