evilangelwings Member

This. I have never been majorly overweight (only a few pounds), and I have stretch marks all over, just from puberty. And as someone else pointed out, my BF never noticed!

This happened to me. Commercial bread made me incredibly ill after eating occasionally. As a test I baked my own, ate it like it was going out of fashion and I was fine. Interestingly I've now moved countries, and the bread here is made from different grains and I'm still fine. Maybe I'm just allergic to crappy white…

Personally, I include cooking and cleaning, if I'm doing unusual or hardcore stuff e.g. kneading bread or mopping floors, both get me into a Jillian Michaels level sweat! But I agree, that you shouldn't include it if you're just chopping veggies, stirring soup etc.

Sources of protein - eggs, cheese, tofu (my favourite, yum), beans (chickpeas are incredibly versatile). Also think about using wholemeal carbs such as bread, pasta etc as I've found these to have a higher protein content than their regular counterparts. Also, bread made from more unusual flour such as spelt and rye can…

I'm not sure where you live, but in the UK you can get organic veggie boxes delivered to your door, which sounds like it would be expensive, but I used to get a big box of veggies (potatoes, onions, carrots + 5 randoms) for £20 (~$30). It would last me 2 weeks in combination with a few bits from the supermarket and things…

Not necessarily, especially at northern latitudes. I currently live at the extreme (near the Arctic circle!) and take a vitamin D supplement, but even in my "motherland" a little further south (UK), the sunlight isn't powerful enough in Autumn/Winter. Here's a link with some more info, OP-…

I think its doable with a little research. I'm vegetarian but eat a lot of vegan meals, and even over the carb heavy period of Christmas (alcohol, bread, potatoes... mmm...) I'm still only hitting between 150 - 250g of carbs a day on average. Feel free to add me if you want to see what I eat! I cook a lot from scratch…

Ditto for part 1 and I'm working on part 2 :)

I find drinking a hot drink soothes me if I'm having trouble sleeping, just some tea or maybe low cal hot chocolate (I drink something called options, its 40kcal per serving but I don't know if that's available in the US).

I have bad knees too (bad joints all over in fact!), but I find the 30DS fine as long as I really concentrate on my knees, i.e. knees don't go over toes. But I did kickboxing with a trainer for 4.5 years, and she got me into good habits with the knees because I had bad posture. I think physical therapy would be great too,…

I am on day 6 of the shred and have exactly the same issue. Up until I year ago I did kickboxing one on one for 4 years, and even by the time I'd stopped, I still could not do a full, proper push up. So, I wouldn't worry about it. If you can do all the other moves Natalie style, you're obviously getting fitter. Even though…

I find that a little frustrating too. I find it helps to search "generic x y z" to cut through the crap.

As others have posted, don't worry about 0.5, I can "gain" multiple kilos over the weekend from drinking less water, too much beer and too many salty snacks on a Saturday night... I find it's just water weight, that clears after a day or 2 of more water, fruit and veggies. You say you're new to this and that your diet is…

I'm veggie and I cook a lot with lentils, and I find they are a great replacement for mince e.g. Shepherd's pie, Moussaka, Bolognese. Red lentils tend to "mush" as you cook so are great for the classic dahl/dal as others have mentioned, whilst green hold their shape more and I use them to bulk out veggie burgers (e.g.…