40+ Yummy (or not-so-yummy) Mummies, Come and Eat Cake

[ladymac]

Have taken the plunge, hope this is acceptable to everybody.

Good (Snowy) morning to all.

Like bonzo his lordship decided to go the blw route ... just 10 days before I could claim my medal for doing 6 months exclusive bfing the little so-n-so swiped the top off my banana while I was on the phone...The only purees he has ever taken are the Ellas Kitchen sachets and I think that is only because he likes sucking them out of the top!

Well, the diet has started...I threw all the chocolate and pastries out this morning[weeping emoticon]...and we are looking for a Wii with Wii-fit so I get some excersise...what I find so hard is the fact that I have done all this before...I lost 4st 7lb in 2000...kept it off until after our wedding in 2004 and now am having to tackle it all over again[depressed emoticon]...Off now to Tesco for the batteries for the scales if we are doing the weigh in tomorrow...hope everyone gets off to a good start.

Oh and Ermintrude...my best friends husband isnt a Gordon Ramsay look or act alike (thank heavens) but he is the son of a famous chef/restauranteur (their wedding was the stuff of hollywood dreams!)so we haven't much chance of living up to his standards but we do try

we are a goodie free zone here too - send leftover Thornton's to work with OH - plus the remaining Christmas cake and any other tempting items.

Darn it. We got the cold but not the snow. I.Want.Snow!!! [throwing a fit emoticon]

In other news, co-irker isn't in today, due to her baby being in hospital since New Year Eve. YIKES! Baby is better, but mummy was, understandably exhausted and called in. Of course, even not here she managed to piss me off my moving a very important document I needed. Boss wasn't too pleased either.

floriatosca, YOU THREW OUT THE CHOCOLATE?! Now that's dedication, everyone else has been scoffing it in prep for the big diet

Happily, the snow has reached the north and the south but missed out the midlands - tho it is icy. My DH took DS to school this morning and the kids were all falling on their backsides in the playground. After one particularly comic fall he said to the mum next to him 'Shame I didn't bring the videocamera; I could have made £250 from Jeremy Beadle' and she wasn't amused at all. It was probably her child, oops.

But then he went off to work and as you say MrsB, I will miss the family hibernation time. Those hours between 3.30 and daddy home time are going to d-r-a-g.

If anyone's interested the DM website has a piece on the All New Atkins diet and how to do it - before you all scream about not eating only steak and bacon and cheese for ever it is actually very good. It is basically a diet with all bad carbs (yes, the yummy ones) removed and you can eat quite a lot else. Also very good I think for those worrying about diabetes like me - as it is all about managing blood sugars.

Okay, can the diabetic chime in here about good carbs versus bad carbs and eating correctly and all that? Y'all can ignore this or follow it, up to you!

According to my nutritionist, who seems to be a very smart lady, there are no such thing as bad carbs per se. Yes, some raise your blood glucose (BG) higher faster. But that doesn't make them bad. Just not as good!

When I was first diagnosed with Type II two years ago, I was told to eat like this: -

Imagine a plate. Divide it in half. Divide one side in half again. So one side of the plate is half the plate and the other side is two quarters.

Fill the half side with veg. Any kind of veg, but veg. Fill one of the quarters with protein. Fill the final quarter with carbs, i.e. potatoes, bread, rice.

By following this I lost nearly 2 stone in about a year. I did gain some of it back before I was pregnant, but that was because I stopped following the plate model.

Also, don't deprive yourself completely of sugar. If you do, you'll binge more.

Feel free to tell me to shut up. But I thought I'd put that out there.

We gave the rest of our toffee to the cat. Ever seen a cat chew toffee....I have

Well, the snow was bonkers....so we abandoned plans to go out - as our road isn't gritted and it's STEEP! Decided my driving skills were'nt up to that of the Ice Road Truckers!

I've not weighed myself since Iris was born...! Last time I was weighed was before my c-section...and I asked the nurse not to tell me! I work on a purely 'do my clothes fit' basis... Yeah, tres scientific I know. I dread to think about such things such as BMI. DP's brother's girlfriend - who swears by Weight Watchers - is sooooo glamorous and a size 10 on top and 12 on her bottoms and, at 5ft 10 is classed as obese...???!! I'm way too scared to think what I must be then!

tee similar to what I did when I was pregnant and I lost weight too. I'm trying to get back into the routine of not having highly processed carbs so I'm back to my porridge etc. I find milk makes my sugars spike too so I've started back on green tea and using half skimmed/half water with the porridge.

Have an appointment with parish priest tomorrow to sort out K's welcoming ceremony. She can't be christened again (obviously) but we need to have God parents in place. Guess who isn't going to get asked? Expect fireworks as she'll expect to be asked...she isn't a catholic though...tee hee (runs away and giggles)

Tee, that sounds very sensible. On a similar theme, but slightly more drastic, I always liked the weight-loss diet described by (I think) Muriel Spark in 'The Girls of Slender Means' or was it Miss Jean Brodie who advised this? Must check): Eat half. Have your usual plate of food at every meal but eat exactly half of everything on it (I guess to avoid waste it would be better to just put half of it on your plate!) If you eat 2 biscuits with your tea mid-morning, eat 1. And so on. Simple but effective if you do it religiously, makes sure you get all the food groups and you don't need books and calculators to work it out. Probably not much good if your average meal is a large portion of fish and chips followed by a Gregg's pasty though.

And slightly less sad than those diets which tell you to eat out of a baby bowl with tiny cutlery

Awww, JW but she'd be sooooo good at it.

JW I have now 'trained' myself to be very happy with porridge made with water. Helps to boil it up with some raisins or other dried fruit, for sweetness, and makes me feel very virtuous .

Didn't realise you were RC!

Hi all.

No snow here, just a bit of slush. DH is so sweet, he told me not to go out in case I fell over! Need to do some food shopping though as his parents are coming round later and the cupboard is bare.

We went out sofa shopping yesterday. I was under the impression nobody had any money and that the shops were paying people to take their goods away But the furniture shops we went to on Tottenham Court Road were very busy and the average reductions we saw were only 20 - 30%. Then we hit Oxford Street to go to Laura Ashley, who have been advertising big reductions and guess what, they've disappeared! Shows how often I go there.

We had a quick look in M&S and ended up nabbing an ex-display 2 seater in cream Not the most practical colour with small children but beggars can't be choosers. At least it won't show baby sick.

I don't mind porridge made with water either - doesn't really taste any different to me. If I remember correctly from my 3 week period with GD - full fat milk is better than semi skimmed in terms of blood sugar.

Sensible and easy to follow approach tee. Problem for me is I can't really do sensible - I would be hard pushed to keep the carbs quarter down to only a quarter. Better if I don't have the offending food at all.

I would LOVE to see a cat chewing a toffee

Twelfth night tonight isn't it? Don't want to take my tree down.

Oh I have thought of a good way of writing down my weight without giving to much away - will write only the pounds - so will be xx stones and 11lbs for example. So will be able to say how many pounds I have lost without giving too much away!

Oh I love porridge with water - that's the way it comes here at JJ towers...mean to the last!! And I second the raisins, fruit - especially banana.

mrsB 12th night is the 6th - you've got one more night of lights Liking the weight charting....I'm all for lbs only!

ladymac hello dear. Yes, don't go falling over now. My mother used to put elastic bands round my shoes to give me grip It's a thought - and will look exceptionally stylish....

You're right about cream not showing the sick - cos we've got a new black sofa bed - thought it'd be good for not showing crayons etc....but boy you can see the puke marks

jw are you sure you don't want to SIL to be a Godparent?? I realy can't think why - I reckon all that concern she shows for K means that she'd be 'perfect'......*runs to duck from things being thrown from a North Westerly direction

Administration news!: Gosh - I see Wedgewood looks to be a gonna.... Blimey - we should have sweepstake on who's next!

Noticed that Blooming Marvellous is a casualy as a result of being bought the other year by an Icelandic company. Such a shame - as I bet it'd be still going if it was owned by those women who started it. I see Jones The Bootmaker is also owned by the same company - that can't be good

yes jw think of all those tea-time phone calls enquiring after K's welfare? Perfect opportunity for her to fill you in on other relatives' shortcomings as well

I didn't know you are RC either jw - I was, obviously, being Irish and my parents are most keen to hear about a Christening - they will be disappointed. My mother told me I should have a Christening for D even though we are both atheists

OMG Mrsb I am waiting for the conversation to happen with my MIL, who is very Church of Ireland. She is still a bit upset that neither DH and I nor her daughter and son in law were married in the Cathedral in Derry.

My family, especially my older brother, have already enquired about bris/naming ceremony (my family is Jewish) to which I replied, 'the what now?'

stands up, clears throat and says... My name is JW and I'm a catholic. (cue the applause). Sits down and speaker says 'well done, it's the first step'.

Aye, I'm not a practicing one in that I hardly ever go to church but we had K done the night she was born and my older 3 were all christened and went to catholic schools (you can't beat them...no really, you can't. That's the catholic schools motto! ) However, after phoning first church of choice was told by Father Chris (my, how things have changed since I was a lass) that I could only go there if I lived on the opposite side of the road and I was outside his parish sooooo, sent to the one in the middle of the council estate which I really didn't want her to go to. However, he also told me I had zero chance of getting K in the first choice school as it's rammed already. (waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah). We were considering moving before she starts school so think it will be on the cards. DH says it's against his principles to send K to private school (i.e. his scrooge mentality) so we'll have to go somewhere that has a good school on the other side of Bury.

Tree went back to whence it came several days ago as I was sick of looking at it! Hurrah for another year

ah but tee can't you tell the MiL that the children of a Jewish mum must be Jewish (that is the rule isn't it?) and tell your own family that since you live in Ireland you will do the baptism thing then just do neither or whatever you want!!

When I had my first son I went home to Ireland for his first Christmas and my mother hand arranged a Christening - I was too young and silly to tell her to get stuffed.

I believe Aspinalls is another one of those companies owned by the Icelandics that might be in trouble. There will be plenty more. Luxury handbag makers/sellers are in for a rough ride too I reckon.

Have to take my tree down today to make way for the new sofa. Hate how the house always looks a bit drab when the decos come down.

Got my Orange phone bill today and I have just opened it to discover that for the last month I've been dialling the wrong access number to get cheap calls to DS in Russia (did wonder why my £3 credit was stretching so far) so instead of paying 4p a minute to a company called JustCall I have been paying Orange the princely sum of £1 per minute. I am now poorer by £40, on top of my regular bill and the bill only goes up to Christmas day. I know I've made at least 3 more calls to him since then.

Shall I just hope DH doesn't notice? We've got no spare cash at all at the mo. We were only able to buy the sofa cos we asked both sets of parents for a contribution towards one rather than buying us christmas presents.

Proper belt tightening from now on in the ladymac house. Porridge with water 3 times a day and lentil soup for a treat. By the way I always make my porridge with water too but then have a splash of semi-skimmed to serve it, as well as a banana and if I'm feeling naughty some golden syrup. Yum. That's made me feel hungry. Off to have a sandwich

Hello all. I will be 41 in ten days' time and am about 9 weeks pregnant with what I hope will become my 4th child. Still shell-shocked after all the waiting, and not yet confident about the whole thing.

Ooh, I love the RCs coming out of the woodwork. I had a lovely RC upbringing but I and all of my 5 siblings are atheists now - we were brought up too intellectually, questioned everything and - oops, don't believe any of it. My poor devout parents have decided to be glad we're all law-abiding and employed and in marriages/ltrs and have given them lovely grandchildren, but I know they'd have loved an endless round of christenings and weddings (not in that order of course .

I'm heavily against all state-funded religious schooling and am in constant battle with the DC's primary which is a community school but is in cahoots with the local CofE church and has a smug Anglican feel to everything that happens there - totally out of order. Am about to address the board of governors about it - they include at least one agnostic, a Jew and a Muslim, so I must be in with a chance of a good hearing [fmile].

The best thing is, I have all the kneejerk RC anti-Prod prejudices without any proper foundation at all - DH is amazed and slightly horrified at this.

haha ermintrude I could have written all of what you just said - except I have three siblings and haven't yet had the school issue but would resist any sneaking in of religion whatsoever.

Funny thing is the only time my RCness ever rears its head is when Rangers v Celtic is mentioned and I'm not into football either

To quote Traci Lord in the Philadelphia Story....."I'm such an unholy mess of a girl"

stands up after JW*, clears throat "My name is JJ and I've never been to church......."

I'm apparently Christened in CofE - but that's it....not even been to a Christmas service My bible knowledge is shocking and I don't really know the difference between RC and Cof E!!! Never even think to ask what religion anyone is! Our next door neighbours are muslim and they sent us a Christmas card - I was confused! All I do know is that around here - the RC and C of E schools are FAB!

You've all promoted me to ask a question.

MIL is very religious - she attends the Christian Science church and wants to start taking Iris and Verity.......I'm not happy about it. I've said no. But do you think I'm being mean....????? It's just that I feel any spiritual (if any) guidance should come from me and DP. What are your thoughts?????

JJ - faith schools are often fab in terms of their results (because they're v discriminatory in terms of admissions) but I don't want my DC to be brainwashed by people who believe stuff I don't. They can make their own minds up in later life (when they'll probably become vicars in rebellion!)

Hence - I'd never in a millions years let anyone else take them to church unless it's for a one-off like a wedding or something, in which case I'd be going too anyway. Especially not the - erm - weirder end of the Protestant spectrum.

I tell the kids about all sorts of religions and explain what different people believe, and some of their friends come from religious families so it's not a complete mystery to them. I don't tell them what they should or shouldn't believe. I also tell them bible stories, like I tell them fairy tales and Greek myths, because they're culturally important - and lots of them are really good. But that's as far as it goes.