shrinkingme,

Don't be so hard on yourself! Quiting smoking messes with you in so many ways. I became anti social, and I ate sweets very late at night, because I was depresed and didn't care about anything (you know what I mean), and couldn't smoke. I stoped really talking on the phone, because well I smoked before with every conversation. I don't think I gained any extra weight, but I didn't weigh myself. 3 months later, though and I'm fine. I feel better emotionaly, and physicaly, as a direct result from quiting... So no worries it gets better...

You want motivation? I'll give you some motivation! Do you want your 30's, the prime of your life being overweight? Or do you want to look as good as you did before you had kids? Perhaps even better! Well it's going to happen! But you have to be COMITED, seriously, it starts mentaly. I know, you take a beating mentaly after quiting smokeing... BUT, this is about takeing control back, not giving up on yourself! This is not about dieting, this is about simple changes with big results, that's it! It's easy it's just different... You did something way harder, quiting is way harder then treating your body good, I promise!

So first things first! Cobbler once a week get some fruit in your house, and lowfat yogart, cottage cheese, things like that for a quick snack. Start making yourself drink a lot of water (incase your not), you can get it all down by just refiling a water bottle all day.

Ok, so you can't exercise right now.. Ok, but dont take this time as "I'll eat what ever I want time", because you may even at extra weight thinking like this. Loosing weight doesn't mean deprivation either, you will be able to have all the foods you want and enjoy. You can still loose some weight, even though you can't exercise, just by doing some tweeking with your nutrition.

Listen I've been doing this for only about a month(started the end of march).. And I am amazed! Since April 8th, when I started takeing measurments, I have lost 9 inches in my HIPS! 10 inches in my waist! And 4 inches in my arms.... You can do it!

If you want to get it off the healthy way, here is what I'm doing and it's what is recomended all over this site....

You need to find out how many calories your body burn even while your laying in bed sleeping... So go to BMR Calculator. Enter your info there....

Then you need to find out how many calories you need to maintain your current weight, with the activity you are currently at.

This is called the Harris Benedict Formula (you can google it for all of the formula, because I don't have the one for sedintary and I belive since you can not exercise right now, this may be the one you need for right now)

You take your BMR (basal metabolic rate) BMR x 1.55 for moderate activity (don't think your there yet)

For light activity BMR x 1.375

After you find out how much your body needs to actually stay what you are now... You take 15 to 20% off of that, to creat a defisit. Since you are not taribly overweight and have less calories to work with you should only probably take 15% off, to be safe (that's just my opinon)

After you figure that out, that is the amount of calories you should be eating to loose weight and still be full, it's like making sure your car has enough gas to get you where you want to go.

Anyway, it takes like only a couple minutes to figure it out, so don't feel overwhelmed.

I didn't want to be a calorie counter, but it's important to know what is going in your body and if you don't, then you don't really know, and can't "tweek" your outcome as easily...

I just enter my food that I've eaten in Free Diet Plans at SparkPeople. its free and it's so great, I don't have to stress, or count calories, I search for my food, and the web site totals everything. They also give you a calorie range, but it's a little on the low side and I wouldnt follow it, maybe the higher end but they make too much of a deficet, which means, less fuel, and possibly slower weight loss....

Anyway, this is the stuff I learned from reading a lot of the STICKEY threads on this site, you should check them out for yourself too.

If you need any help at all, just let me know.

Oh, yeah, 5 kids, my husband and I started out very young. We have a 15,14,9,8, and 7 year old. Once you learn how to multitask with 2, then you have the skill to do it with five. Actually once you have three, it's even easier. No more then three kids out of 5 at a time ask for something at the exact same time, usualy only 2 kids though talk at the same time, etc.. At least with mine. Sounds overwhelming, I know, but it's not. There your kids after all not some one elses, so they all learn the same excepted behaviors etc. It gets a little loud sometimes, but that just comes with the number, and to me isn't that big of a deal.

Hope this info helped!!!

Hope2 (get to know you better!)