history_grrrl Member

I usually keep a package of Baker’s 70% chocolate on hand. When I have a craving, I’ll melt a square and stir in some fresh strawberries. Alternatively, heat a bit of unsweetened baking chocolate with a small amount of sugar, butter, vanilla, and milk, and do the same. Or 0% Greek yogurt with fresh fruit. I adore desserts…

Tortilla filled with scrambled egg, refried and black beans, sliced onion, and cheese, fried up in a pan. Filling, tasty, and about 400 calories if you add a glass of OJ.

Ah, I have found my people. Chocolate connoisseurs, unite! For a tiny treat, I keep some Baker’s 70% in the cupboard and melt a little to eat with fresh strawberries, or sometimes make a frozen chocolate-covered banana. I have some very simple, quick chocolate pudding recipes, too. I got inspired by the Great Canadian…

I love oatmeal, and my go-to is McCann’s Irish. I get the quick cooking version that takes three minutes, but they also have steel cut for overnight cooking. I do find it boring, but berries on top liven it up.

Grace and Frankie: very smart comedy about two women in their 70s whose husbands leave them for each other. Stars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. Enough said. Call the Midwife: drama about midwives working in London's East End in the late 1950s-early 1960s. Impressive at dealing with sensitive and complex issues of class,…

When I was younger, I used to get this all the time from strangers passing me on the street (I'm a woman), and so did all of my women friends. I think of it as somewhere on a continuum with other kinds of street harassment that men do to women; usually it would be, "Smile! You'll look prettier," or "Hey, baby, how 'bout a…

Sorry to hear you are struggling. I just want to encourage you to get counseling for the depression if you aren't already talking to someone - especially since the recent weight gain may be making you feel worse. Also, I was struck (and a little saddened) that you say you want to get back on track for your husband and…

Not sure if the OP is trying to eliminate all sugars or just refined sugar. I have a particular problem with sweet dessert items (cookies, cake, pie, eclairs, cannolis, anything with chocolate, etc.). So I have to stay away from those or at least learn to be satisfied with a very small amount (two squares of a Camino 71%…

Water.

Another 1,200-cal person here. I'm 5'7" and currently 170. Just turned 54. I find 1,200 to be manageable when I'm paying close attention to what I'm eating and especially portion size (the great benefit of MFP). It's easier in summer, when there are lots of fresh vegetables and fruits around. I could easily live on grilled…

Can you tell us some of your menus for different days?

Hopefully nobody is wearing a pink ribbon to "support breast cancer." But actually, some of us do think the "fun!" hype around breast cancer is harmful, not helpful: http://thinkbeforeyoupink.org/

This is a really important point, and it's part of the reason why some of us find things like the pink ribbon campaign so problematic (to the person who recommended the documentary Pink Ribbons, Inc., thank you!). I also have trouble with this campaign, and I think it's because I'm political. I think many people,…

Just wanted to add one more thing I remember from my early days of quitting. There was a woman on my quit-smoking board who talked about how she had used cigarettes as a coping mechanism and, without them, had to learn entirely new ways of managing the stresses and strains of life. That really hit home. I started smoking…

Hi, OP. I have always said that smoking was the hardest thing I ever did. Two things helped a lot. First was an online quit-smoking support group. I quit back in 1998 when there wasn't much happening on the Internet, but I stumbled on a fledgling group. I don't think it's around anymore, but a lot of people used a SilkQuit…

I'm curious to see what other people say about this, because I've had the same experience. Until I joined MFP, I rarely drank water (or any liquids). Then I got a water bottle and starting drinking a fair amount, regularly. Now it's part of my routine. But if there's a day when I forget the bottle or for some other reason…

Yikes. This website contains absolutely no evidence for any of its claims, and there's not even any indication of who operates the site. I'm afraid this is a good example of the problem with "I read on the Internet that . . . " Aside from that, like others, I also generally ignore the high fruit-related sugar counts on…

Isn't this an obvious impediment to losing weight, based on MFP's model?

Here are the contestants in the first Miss America pageant, held in 1921. It's shocking how much popular views of what is a "normal" attractive woman's body type have changed.

I switched to half-fat mayo and found it tastes exactly the same (unlike 0% sour cream, which is terrible). Also, hummus is good for dipping/spreads.

I wonder why the Trayvon Martin thread got shut down but this one is still going . . .

Trail mix for sure; I used to eat it by the giant handful, but now I can't even really have it around the house. Also fresh pineapple kind of depresses me, because it's so delicious -- and who can have only half a cup? I still remember when I first joined MFP and looked up the foot-long meatball marinara sandwich from…

Absolutely! Thanks.

I stand corrected on the incidents people have reported here, and I'm really sorry that happened to you. I absolutely do not think it's okay! To me, it's nobody's damn business and totally out of line for strangers (and usually, non-strangers) to comment on appearance (I used to get this for being nearsighted, and I still…

Because we live in a society where thin/slender/slim is held up as the ideal and fat is considered totally unacceptable. Thin people are privileged; fat people are discriminated against. I'm very surprised that so many people on this thread are talking as though fat-shaming and "thin-shaming" are equivalent. I don't see…

Lately I've been trying the 1-2 squares of dark chocolate approach; there are some fair-trade brands I like (Camino or Divine, around 70%). I found the 85% a little too bitter. This works well until I'm stressed out, and then I'll eat 1/3 of a bar in one day (which, granted, is still a lot better than a whole bar!). I also…

Same to you and everyone else here! I just became a Canadian citizen (last week!) so I'm really "legit" now. (And I get two Thanksgivings now, technically speaking.)

Mini cucumber with roasted red pepper (or whatever flavor you like) hummus.

For what it's worth, fast food chains aren't doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. They're doing it because it's now mandated by the federal government as part of the health care reform. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/business/24menu.html

Another one in peri, and it seems like I've been in it for about six years! (But it's coming to an end soon. I think. Maybe.) In the past few years I've developed belly fat that's really hard to get rid of. What works best for me is cutting way back on refined sugar; when I do that and eat healthily on a regular basis, I…