BlueSkyShoal Member

I bought Trader Joe's No Stir Peanut Butter for the first time. It's the best peanut butter I've ever tasted.

I started doing Quest protein shakes because I was having trouble hitting my daily protein goal. Truly the best protein powder I've ever tried. It's so good. I got a variety pack so I could test the various flavors before I committed to a big canister.

Even though you can't spot reduce, you can do exercises that will strengthen your abs. :) As the fat goes away (due to calorie deficit) your killer abs will become visible.

I am going to try to make a sweet bread (not to be confused with a sweetbread, lol) with a rice pudding filling. Will post it in the recipes section if I get anything edible.

For me the elliptical is easier to maintain a fast pace on. Something about being responsible for my own momentum, rather than having to "match pace" with the treadmill, really motivates me. Elliptical is also less jarring for me. On the elliptical I burn off around 300 - 330 in a half hour; on the treadmill I burn off…

If you don't eat your exercise calories back, isn't that the same as eating too few calories to begin with? Like if I exercise 200 calories off, and then eat 1200 calories, isn't that the same as doing no exercise and eating 1000 calories? (This is assuming that you know the "real" amount of calories you burned off . . . I…

There's nothing inherently gross about eating insects. There is a taboo against it in western culture. And if the taboo makes someone too uncomfortable to eat insects, then that's fine. I mean, I wouldn't ask a traditional Hindu to eat cow or a kosher Jew to eat pork. Just realize that the "problem" with insects is in your…

It doesn't do anything, toxin-wise. Basically, it's just something that's good to cook with. Also, drinking it can hurt your teeth enamel.

Just wanted to say that taking a study like this at face value, without looking into the peer reviews and critiques of it, is not very useful. You can't just say, "Study XYZ reached conclusion ABC, therefore conclusion ABC is DEFINITELY true!" It's thinking like this that leads to news outlets releasing stories with…

I had a shirt that fit worse. It had a beautiful embroidered pattern on the front, but now that my boobs have shrunk, the shirt just kind of sags. Due to the embroidery it has more weight on the front than the average shirt, and not as much "give." I ended up giving it to Goodwill because it's still in good condition and I…

Same, LOL. Like others have said, you can lose weight while eating rice, sugar, and bread (or rice sugar bread). However, if you eat a lot of those three items, and then cut them out (without substituting new food in), then it is likely you will lose weight. The thing to understand is that you won't be losing weight…

Regarding cats, I've heard that a lot of them are actually lactose intolerant. That said, one of my cats loooves dairy. If I'm eating yogurt he will grab my hand and try to get to the spoon. (The other cat doesn't care about dairy.) Dairy is perfectly healthy. Some people do have ethical problems with it; a lot of vegans…

Well said! Incidentally, I was overweight when I went to college as an adult and it helped a lot with my depression. Previously I'd been stuck in a low-paying, very stressful job. I would have been miserable there regardless of how much I weighed. And I felt liberated in college, regardless of being overweight, because I…

Why is it important for you to be lighter to be happy? Why wouldn't having less fat and looking trim and toned, while at the same weight, make you happy? To be honest, OP, I am wondering if you have an eating disorder. Maybe your mom is jealous or controlling, or maybe she is worried for totally justifiable reasons.

OP, it sounds like you find cooking intimidating and a bit scary. Would you say that is accurate? That's how I used to feel about cooking. I didn't know where to start. I definitely didn't know how to have multiple dishes going so that they were all done at the same time. (How did my mom do it?) Plus, if you're living by…

Are you living at home? That can make it harder to make your own food choices (at least without a family ruckus). How old are you? To a lot of people food = love. They get food for you, or make it for you, as an expression of love, and then can be hurt when you turn them down. It may be useful to sit down family members…

I wanted to add, OP, pay attention to your body's signals. Stop eating once you're not hungry any more. That might seem super obvious but a lot of people (including past-me) get in this mindset that they MUST eat everything presented in a restaurant or else they're wasting food / money. But weight issues aside, what's the…

If you always go to the same pub, at least you only have one menu to suss out. Just order a meal and then only eat half, or a third, of it. Box the rest and have it for lunch the next day. (If they do this in the UK? It's common in the US.) Or order a salad, if they have one. Personally, I would want to find a way to…

Lean Cuisines are okay, but Amy's microwaveable meals are the bomb. Mmmm.

Carbs are fine. I eat tons of carbs and I lose weight. :) Some people can fill up on a salad and others can't. Just experiment with various foods and figure out what makes you feel full. Did you just start on your weight loss journey? During the first week to two weeks, I was ravenously hungry most of the time. And I think…

Are you new to cooking or is it something you're practiced in? When I was new to cooking I found a lot of recipes overwhelming, and also found a lot of them required ingredients I didn't have (like spices). But once I got over the "mental hump", it turned out that a lot of things are actually really easy to cook. Here are…

I don't use a scale. I use measuring cups or I go off of what's in the package. Or just pick the closest thing in the database. Like I bought hot dogs from the farmers market, no nutritional label on them. So I looked up "pork hot dogs" in the MFP database and chose the one with the highest calories. I almost always pick…

I agree with grilled cheese, it's quick to make and most kids love it. Great with tomato soup.

First, congrats on quitting smoking! You've just made a huge commitment to your health just by doing that! Second, is it possible that you are replacing the movements of smoking (hand to mouth) with eating more than you realize? I would suggest logging every single thing you eat for a week and seeing how many calories you…

Theo Chocolate is where it's at. Mmm.

I use several apps. MFP is useful for it's food tracking / calorie database. I use S Health for tracking steps. (Mostly steps while stair-climbing, so I can estimate how far I went.) For logging my workouts, I use Simple Workout Log. Like the name suggests, it's a very simple app with a very efficient layout. Easy to…

I like the Quest protein powders. They are very sweet. Not chalky at all.

I think you should see a therapist. I don't think your unhappiness is related to weight, but more to underlying issues. You are trying to pursue perfection; then you look in the mirror and think, "I'm not perfect. If only I could lose even more weight." But no one is perfect. Isn't 8st3 only like 115 pounds? Unless you are…

I wanted to add that to me buying ethically grown / raised food is more important to me than buying organic. When I buy something, I support it. And there's a lot of crap going on in the food industry that I just don't want to support, even in a small way. A lot of the companies who care enough about ethics to get…

I was kind of skimming and initially thought it was crab cake flavored ice cream. But yeah, Halo Top is amazing.