I sure hear you, Sabine. I finally feel like my regime is working too. I take the same, but in the form of the patch and a progesterone pill. They are also bioidentical and I don't get anxious from the Estrogen - which was a HIDEOUS side effect.

I am stable at my current weight for two months now. I go up and back down a few here and there...especially after weekends! I too, try to eat low glycemic mostly because sweets make me feel so ****ty now. It has really taken the fun out of it. It has also help me not put on the extra pounds while I have increased my calories.

The next challenge will be the 7 pounds I want to lose by 2/24/14 my next vacation. Unlike you, I totally suck at exercising and will need to get my flabby butt moving if I want to make this happen. Calorie restriction alone won't do it.

So it seems, it never ends, does it? Best to you, as always!

Jayne

How nice to find this group!

I found that it was only after I went flour free that I was able to manage my weight without starving myself or feeling ravenous.

I like to think that as I've grown older my body is a better feedback mechanism. It is simply reminding me via weight and energy level, that refined foods are energy depleting.

Yep.

This sounds silly, but isn't it nice to get older and smarter?

In my younger days I somehow thought that every revolutionary new diet that promised I could eat whatever I wanted in whatever amounts actually existed....

Oh, foolish youth!

Now, as an adult woman I realize there is no unicorn...

I have struggled with my weight and finding the right combination of bioidentical hormone replacements and right diet for the past 6 years. I am finally fully menopausal and have only the occasional hot flash -- when I drink coffee -- but was still struggling with the weight. No matter how many calories I reduced, how much I exercised or how much I cut carbs, the best I could do was maintain my level of overweight. If I went off that struggle to diet for even as little as a week, I gained weight.

My sister was finally able to lose the weight she had gained by dropping her calories to 900 and running 5 miles per day on the treadmill. I guess you can have time to do that if you don't work and aren't afraid of destroying your knee joints, but I can't live that way. Further, I don't think that level of caloric restriction and exercise is something that can be maintained long term. So as soon as she has a little bump in the road that knocks her off the wagon, so to speak, the weight will come piling back on.

Around Thanksgiving I went on search of another diet and was reading about some of Suzanne Somers' books. When I got on a Facebook page for her Somersize diet support group, I was delighted to find a lot of people posting. They weren't just posting about how hard it was to lose weight, but posting recipes and about how well the diet works. I decided to try it and have lost 14 lbs in a little over 1 1/2 months. To me this is a miracle!

What's more is it really isn't like a diet that you go on until you've lost the weight, then just eat sensibly. It is a fundamental change in what you eat and how you eat it. It is very similar to Atkins, in that it is ketogenic, but also includes food combining. You don't eat Proteins/Fats with Carbs and you eat Fruit separately from either of the previous groups. You can eat Veggies with either group, except Fruits and there are time intervals between switching from one group to another. She has a list of forbidden "Funky Foods" that have protein/fat/carb all in one food in poor combination that are banished all together. I eat well, don't have to count calories or fat grams and never go hungry. I can pig out and still lose weight. Love it!

I expected to have to exercise to get any results, but amazingly I've been losing the weight with very little, sporadic exercise. My exercise has consisted of walking the dog around the park on weekends and holidays. Which I may convert to evenings too when the weather improves and days get longer. When I lose enough weight -- say down to 150 or so -- I may try to begin running. I think that would be light enough as to not damage my knee joints.

By summer I hope to be able to wear a bathing suit without being totally disgusted when I put it on. Wish me luck!