Please may I join?

[deborah jane]

I will be 50 quite soon & while waiting for my next students (I'm an English teacher) I have been browsing this board. So many of your issues are mine too - especially the slow-losing one! - that I feel like I'm coming home.
This is my 2nd time on Atkins. It really worked brilliantly the first time but this time I am having awful trouble losing weight - 3lbs in 6 weeks. However I feel so good I won't stop & once my semester/term gets underway I hope by getting exercise sorted out things will speed up - just a little!
A little word about me - mum of 4, living near Paris, France (so no access to all those Atkins bars, cereals & stuff I read about on the boards), teacher, married to a man who can lose weight by thinking about it. Pre-menopause but nothing significant yet.
I enjoy swimming - this will be my exercise I think, but I like jogging too - more later.

[shawnee]

glad to have ya. Pls poke around here & all over the board & DON'T be afraid to join in the posting, you'll find a whole lot of new friends who can help/support/guide you in your Atkins journey

Welcome again!

[Chris]

Bienvenue, Deborah. C'est notre plaisir de vous avoir entre nous. Vous avez deja perdu trois livres, et, sans doute, vous atteignerez votre but!

[deborah jane]

love the amazing before & after pix

Thank you for your warm welcome - and - ça alors! a French one too! I'm being spoiled!
yes I know :anger whinge time! I have lost 3 lb but compared to last time when the weight just floated off I'm pretty disappointed :anger (whinge time over). However I will persevere not least because I feel great on this WOE. I have been doing Induction for these 6 weeks - what do you think about moving on up even if the weight hasn't shifted? I keep reading about eating more helping the pounds disappear. I suppose it is worth a try. In any case it seems I should be eating more calories, esp. fat, but it's so difficult when you don't feel hungry.

[Cobbystock]

Hi Deborah Jane, good to see you on the board thet're great lots of good advice & support.
I live in the UK & supply teach but I also have a house in Mayenne, France where DH & I spend 4/5 months of the year (Mostly summer months.) We occasionally catch the train to Paris!. Doing Atkins is easy in France, especially eating out. Good luck with your WOE.

[ScotsCats]

Welccome, just jump in whenever you feel comfortable. Us 50-somethings are a real amiable lot.

[shawnee]

It is true that if you don't eat enough your body goes in starvation mode, trying to hold on to the pounds.

How many caloires are you eating every day, what does you daily menu look like?

[Becky Sue]

Welcome Deborah,
Be glad you don't have access to the bars, shakes and other so called low carb foods. They are not for us slow loosers.
I live in the USA, but I don't buy the overrated, expensive, stall causers. So don't feel bad, you are better off.

I eat simple, nothing processed. I cook from scratch. This is what works best for me.

You will never regret eating this way. Atkins Rocks!!! :icondance

Becky Sue

[deborah jane]

Thank you all for your comments

..and your constructive ideas.
I must agree, Becky Sue, cooking from scratch seems to be the answer. And in France it's easy because they have such wonderful ingredients and are huge carnivores - so eating out is no problem at all!
Cobbystock - just a question - where do you come from in Lincolnshire? As an ex-north-Lincolnshirewoman myself (Winterton, near Scunthorpe) I'm curious. And I have been driving thru' through Mayenne quite a bit recently since one of my daughters has just gone to Sciences Pô in Rennes & we have been settling her down in her minuscule apartment.

My weekday menu tends to be a bit scant. I know this but (there is always a but isn't there?)
For breakfast - if I have it, & when I'm working I often don't because I get pretty tense & don't feel hungry! I usually have 1 or 2 scrambled eggs - 2 eggs, butter, milk, & 3 small rashers of bacon
Lunch: if I have had breakfast I often don't have lunch because I'm not hungry & there isn't a lot of time, but if I do it is either
a lump of soft cheese & some cold meat - because I am eating on the run
OR something cooked - often turkey escalop or liver cooked in butter & some salad with french dressing or mayonnaise
Evening meal: usually something cooked, generally with whatever of my kids are at home at the time, a piece of meat (sometimes fish), usually cooked simply, plus vegetables.
(In the afternoon, when I get home from work, sometimes I am hungry, in which case I usually have cheese & nuts or a slice of ham but I haven't been doing that recently - I guess because I haven't been working regularly for the last 2 months).
Snacks: miracle fluff (the recipe is on the boards somewhere), which involves whipped cream, cream cheese, no-sugar jello.
Now I do eat this quite often, not necessarily every day, though, because it is easy, but not in the mornings, I usually have it in the afternoon or when the others are having dessert at home.
However I do drink a LOT of water, at least 2.5 litres/day, and in the morning I have at least 3 large cups of ordinary tea, and often in the afternoon too. Well, I am British!
I take quite a few supplements, including a vitamin pill, chromium & various oils - because of course I can't get the Atkins formula things over here and I'm too tight to pay for having them shipped from the states!

I must say, looking at it this menu looks rather pathetic.
Any reactions?

[Cobbystock]

I live in Grimsby, very near to Scunthorpe & in Mayenne in a village near to Lassay-les-Chateaux ( about 25 mins from Mayenne.) We actually thought we'd bought a house in Normandy, but we're about 3 miles over the border! Buying this cottage was the best thing we've ever done.

[deborah jane]

Grimsby

Ah, Grimsby! We used to go shopping in Hull but if you needed a really big hospital it was Grimsby. I had all my teeth out in Grimbsy when I was about 7.........
Did you know that one of the Humber ferries is now a floating pub on the Embankment in London? I think it was called the Flamborough Castle. I remember being taken down to visit the engine room by my father, an old salt who couldn't resist all that noise & heat.
I hope you are having a chance to enjoy this wonderful weather. We were too hot in Rennes on Saturday (rare in Brittany!).

[Cobbystock]

We're in the UK at the moment as our daughter is getting married on the 18th. Will be back in France for all of October. Then back to the UK for the winter.
Seem to have two completely different lives - in France we have no TV (although do have DVD & video) & a mobile phone which we only use for emergencies a it's so expensive on our UK network. Keep meaning to have a phone installed but somehow never seem to get round to if! We hit the village phonebox quite regularly.
BTW weight loss slows down when you get older not much you can do about that, except exercise of course. Also when I'm teaching I get my lunch ready for school the night before so I only have to grab it from the fridge when rushed. You could do that for breakfast too.
Good luck with your weightloss, Kath.

[deborah jane]

Older and older.............

Thank you Kath for your suggestion. This year I hope I will be working less & will be more organised. Of course until a couple of months ago I wasn't too bothered about what/when I was eating but now I really need to be sensible - so I will try the lunchbox idea. In the mornings I don't think I can change much, it's the stress as much as anything.
I do take exercise (honest!) tho for the last couple of weeks, with getting my daughter set up etc it has gone by the board. I used to jog, sometimes 20K/week but I did one of my tendons in & now I swim 3 times a week, doing about 1K I think, maybe more. If I walk to the pool which is nice in good weather I can add 4O minutes walking to the total, but I don't think this will be an option in the winter!

[deborah jane]

time for a whinge

boo hoo! I have lost my way this time & while I haven't put any weight on (thank goodness! that would have been the pits!)I haven't lost any either & I seem to be doing everything right.
Any suggestions? More exercise is the one I think will come top of the list - which with autumn & winter coming on will be a hard one!
This really is not a get-out, but does anyone think stress slows down weightloss? At the moment I think stress is easier to solve than losing pounds.