Good morning, duckies! Thank you all for your long and thoughtful posts yesterday.

I'm pre-coffee so will need to write more later, but I did want to say how much having you all share the tough, emotional aspects of your journey here is so wonderful and healing to me.

Karen

Morning, all... *YAWN* Frozen strawberries are great for blending or cooking, but most folks won't want to eat them alone after that, even defrosted. Making preserves can be super easy...I think I found a recipe with strawberries, sugar, and lemon juice. But you can make all kinds of things... Check out www.skinnytaste.com I think her desserts page is where all the strawberries things are. Strawberries are really low in sugar and glycemic impact, so they are naturally awesome.... Enjoy it. Never been picking, but I'm a strawberry addict these days. LOL

TOM - hormonal cravings are on a whole different level from normal cravings. Ignoring them make me a murderously raging rampellian wretch! LOL I try substitutes, but if after a bite or two it doesn't work, I give in at least a little or I will hoover up everything in the house doing WAY MORE DAMAGE than if I had just given in in the first place! LOL

Good luck on your weigh in Norah! I went through something similar in our weight loss competition at work, and I was devastated and so setback when I came in like #7 out of 20. 5 of the top 6 were guys who binged before the first weigh in and lost 20 pounds in the first week or two, mostly just from taking a dump of their gorged meals.... Crazy stupid...but only one other lady and I are continuing on it... I seriously had to regroup, though, because I was doing things like what you say below. Stopping myself from a run because of a weigh in. In the short term, not a big deal, but after 15 weeks of this, putting things off became a habit for me. I was so annoyed when I realized it... I rebounded for a bit, but it hit me hard. Please make sure you are aware of this potential outcome and don't set yourself up for where I ended up... I want everyone I know to learn from that lesson!!! (but congrats on your goals, progress, and workouts!!)

Just another day here...trying to stay awake. Eating more carbs due to financial necessity has lead me to setbacks both in my weight (carbs are my enemy per health conditions and endo's instructions - and they make a ridiculous impact) and in my food narcolepsy. But, I just keep on trucking. It will get better because I will make it so.

Happy Hump Day, everyone...

Hugs, Carly in OK, land of 1000 suns, all in my face since they cut down the trees on our sidewalk and the sidewalk across the street and installed bright white pavement at the perfect angle to blind me for 90% of my workday...

Hi again,
Thanks for all your good wishes yesterday. I'm starting to feel better, loving the giant horse pill antibiotics but missing my swims. I know you all want an update on my colon, so here it is. Today is clear liquids only day, then tonight I get to drink the "cleansing" drink and spend eight hours clutching the toilet. I think... I have to clear with the doctor that I'm good to go even with the pneumonia issue. I hope so... I don't know if I can drag out colon talk for another week or two.

Yesterday was a day of heavy duty fat talk, so I decided this morning I would add some levity and tell you one of my funniest fat stories.

I was about 13, I think, very interested in boys who looked right through me. I was chunky, not very stylish, and the daughter of a dysfunctional mother who never taught her daughters anything about boys and men other than they were not to be trusted, EVER. What I remember most about this time was that I stopped looking at my body, something that became a life-long habit. I was ashamed and embarrassed by it, and as long as I kept my head tilted up, chin forward, and made eye contact with everyone, maybe they wouldn't notice my lumpy body either.

This summer, we were camping on Cape Cod, and my only aunt, Aunt Marilyn, who had always been a wild, sexy woman (everything I learned about sex as a teenager, I learned by reading the paperback novels she hid in her closet), came down to camp in the site next to ours with her husband. We didn't see them often, and she was so excited that I was growing boobs! She dug through her clothes and found a bathing suit for me that was much, much more grown up and sophisticated than the one I'd been wearing. This suit had some wild woman colors in it--fuchsia and turquoise, was cut a little higher in the leg, and had an amazing dip to reveal some cleavage. Of course, my thirteen-year-old's little boobies didn't fill it (and I'm sure my jiggly belly did), but the best part of the suit was that it had these stiff, plasticky cups that stuck out even though my boobs didn't. Did I ever think I was HOT... I walked around with my chest thrust out, showing off those 32 C's like they were really mine. No one, I figured, could tell that I didn't REALLY fill that suit!

I took myself and my new boobs down to the waterfront, swam out to the float where all the boys were diving and jumping and fooling around, and climbed up on the float with them. chest thrust forward. I don't remember the reaction of the boys... I think they just ignored me... I had my nose up in the air and was stretched out on my elbows, ignoring them as they splashed around, but imagining that they all secretly wanted to kiss me because of my amazing boobs. The sun glittered around me on the water, hot on my skin, and the air was full of the unmistakeable musk of puberty.

After lounging for a bit, I decided to show off and dive off the diving platform. This time I watched carefully. YES! At least six of the boys were staring at my boobs, mouths gaping!!! Yes!!! I had the power!!! I looked down at them myself then, at my powerful boobs, and realized that during my swim out to the float, the little plasticky cups had dented inward. There were my boobs, all right, with two giant concave nipples, like little post-eruption volcanic craters.

I shrieked, dove straight into the water, and swam for shore. And put the suit away for good.

:blushing:

Strawberry talk, yum!!! I have a quart in the fridge and just thought, ohhhh... I can have some of those in a salad for lunch. NOT. Maybe tomorrow!

Last year I made jam for the first time with blueberries from my neighbors' bushes. SO, so so so so easy. I boiled the jars, filled them with the jam, put on the lids, boiled again--boom--instant perfect christmas gifts. I am most definitely doing strawberries next week. If you get them local and ripe, you can do a very low sugar, no sugar, or stevia jam that's delicious. I like to use Allrecipes.com and read the comments below the recipes, because that's were everybody tweaks them for the best products.

Karen

OMG! That is flippin hysterical Karen!

Good luck with the colonoscopy thing. I can't imagine them agreeing to put you out with pneumonia though. ;-(

Omg, Karen, that is hilarious! I showed the girls off today. At the conference we had to do a team building exercise and I was stuck wearing this horrible ill fitting bra which I guess I posted on Facebook which one of my friends pointed out and I promptly removed. Anyways, we had to build a container to transport an egg out of mini marshmallows and toothpicks. Here I am reaching across a banquet table in a tank top and bad bra trying to do this with my girls on full display. Finally I just said I give up, I'm hanging out to one of the directors. Screw it...I have no modesty here.. I will post the Facebook pic so you get the idea.

Pat, that sounds so frustrating. I'm really sorry.

Carly, that's pretty messed up that your coworkers would do that! Thankfully, we only have the two weigh-ins -- the initial one, and the one tomorrow, so I haven't been stressing about it each week. I ended up going to the gym and doing both my running and lifting. I remembered that I have plans tomorrow night which means I won't be able to make it to the gym and I didn't want to go so many days without it.

By the time I got back home and refit the new tire I realized the pump wouldn't get up to the right pressure and it was nearly four and the roads would tart filling up so I have called it a day. I can only put of paid work for so long.

Wow, I hate when the roads fill up with tarts.

LMAO

Aww happy half birthday to your baby! I'm sure having two kids running around will give you a good workout every day