Well seeing this forum is about support and encouragement, I wondered (for those of us that celebrate Christmas) how we are all planning on managing the various social activities coming our way.

When I embarked on this journey to the new me, had thought that I would have a celebratory glass of wine and perhaps relax my eating a little on the big day. As that day looms and I have lost the weight with no intentional deviation (other than mozzarrella and crackers ) the thought of having that drink or eating non cohens is less and less attractive to me.

I don't want to slow down the weight loss. I don't want to have to detox again (not that I had any side effects) and I don't want to have to wait 3 or so days for the weight loss to kick in again.

So, what do others plan on doing?

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Started Sept 4th 2006 Completed refeed May 2nd 2007

In terms of Christmas day itself, I plan on having Cohens breakfast and dinner, and my normal Christmas lunch, with the exception of any bread. I'm prepared to forego the 3-4 days weight loss! I will try to do some swimming etc to make up for it.
For other functions, I'll be asking for special menus and doing my best to follow the plan,

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I'm so glad you started this thread. I was wondering what everyone else was going to do over Christmas. At this stage I'm going to stick to Cohen's but am not sure how I will feel on the day. I'm not sure if I will have the will power

Irene

I also plan the same, I will eat 2 cohen meals and just try to minimize my intake of starchy foods and alcohol, but I plan a few glasses of wine and sake

As I mentioned before I went on a holiday and I ate restaurant foods except for a Cohen breakfast and all that happened was that I stopped losing weight for those 5 days. For me that was OK price. However I know if I stuffed myself with cakes, beer, potatos, breads I will certainly put on weight.

Think of it as a practice for life after Cohen

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Status: On Refeed (Started Sat 17 Mar 2007)
My Diary

Ok, my thoughts - and I so hope I don't influence others...

For:
Christmas is only once year... I can taste the turkey already dammit!
It's a planned deviation for one day only... I'm prepared to detox and add the 3 or so extra days to get back on track.
I'm not doing any of the other planned social events dining/drinking.
I'll exercise to make up for it.

Against:
There will always be other Christmas's.

I'm going to join in. I won't go overboard. I'll have fun and enjoy all the positive comments from people, knowing by next Christmas, this will be all behind me!



Goal 1: Day 1 Monday (started 2nd time around 6 Nov 06)
Goal 2: No deviations for 1 week
Goal 3: Drop 10kg stat.
Goal 4: Be under 100kg by Christmas!
Goal 5: Weigh myself December 6!
Goal 6: NO deviations for 2 weeks!

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I will one day love my belly button.

Hello all

At the moment i'm planning on having my mums traditional roast lunch,,, yummy and i have a dinner that night, so i'll be having my yogurt for breaky and i will have my turkey for lunch at try to limit my vegie intake, and not to eat the potatoe, and for dinner do the same. hopefully I won't gain any weight, I know I wont lose any but I generally only gain a little if I eat carbs,
I know I'll still want a fruit mince pie though but i'm staying well clear of the puddings and creams, i'm not overly fussed on those anyway.

So finger's crossed to all. and ho ho ho merry xmas

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Attached Files

SeasonsGreetings2006.pdf (75.8 KB, 75 views)

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Sparkles, Stars & Smiles (and much, much less of me!)
Jody

Started Cohen's 14th March 2006
Finished Cohen's 16th October 2006!

How all?

Christmas is coming soon and I find it harder to fight temptations. As I walk around the shops, the strong aroma of coffee surrounds me. I feel so tempted to order a mocha frapp. Or I may walk past a bakery and the smells of bread is so tempting me. What about chocolates man?

I don't know why but as I reach the last stage of my weight loss, I tend to get hungry easily. I realized the best way for me not to feel hungry is to actually eat, sit, eat, drink and minimize any movement.

My weight loss is slowing down and I'm trying very hard not to deviate. So any suggestions on how I can fight off the temptations? I'm scared that my brain power may be weakened.

Hi newlife

My consultant warned me that I would start to feel hungry as I approached my ideal weight. The trainee consultant was particularly vocal about how hungry she had become, but she had misunderstood the instructions and thought she wasn't to order the refeed until she had reached the bottom of the healthy weight range.

I must admit she actually looked a bit scrawny, and this influenced me to stop at the top of the healthy weight range.

Now, I realise that another two kilos would probably have removed the bit of flab left on the belly, but I have no intention of fidgetting about and interfering with the balance - I have maintained 60 kilos steadily since 24th June with less than one kilo variation at any time.

So, my little story is to encourage you to perservere until at least the top of the healthy weight range. You have done a mammoth job, to lose 56 kilos, and you know that achieving the ideal weight increases the liklihood of maintaining the weight indefinitely.

You must be feeling weary of being on the program by now, it has been a long haul, 1 year and 2 weeks - and probably another 5 weeks to go before refeed.

May I suggest that if you are particularly distracted when you are out doing the Christmas shopping that you try and eat before you go, perhaps take your crispbread in a zip lock bag and some cut up fruit in another, and of course plenty of water. But what about taking a friend with you? If you have someone to chat with will that take your mind off the smells and sights of food? Otherwise, buy a long black, but sit in the mall to drink it, not at the cafe tables where the apple danish are so temptingly close at hand!

You have been so strong, deviations really do matter, for the sake of one pastry or one piece of chocolate, especially now that your body is obviously stripping the last of the fat reserves, don't give it any excuse to give up on the job!

My consultant stressed 'One deviation means one week without weight loss' and I ate three silly meals during my program and for each of those weeks did not lose any weight.

As a slim person now, I am very glad that I had only those three lost weeks. I am sorry to hear that you are discomforted, but it is not for long now. Make sure you talk to your consultant, you may actually be closer to finishing than you think, these last five kilos may suddenly shift - and just when you thought that nothing further would happen, Bingo! these last stubborn bits may dissapear in a week or so.

So don't let yourself down, by Easter you will have finished the program, finished the refeed, and be nice and stable, slim and trim in your size 10 pants, and you can enjoy your Ernest Hillier chocolate egg with a clear conscience!

Lotsa love

Chelsea

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Nicely put Chelsea.

Newlife Simple get it out of your head! Block out that voice in your head that tempts you. Just keep walking!

You've done too bloody good to delay yourself any longer. My contract was about the length of yours... and you know what, I'm pretty sure I would be in the same boat as you right now if I hadn't fallen off the wagon nearly a year ago. To THINK I'd be 5kg off - man I'm kickin' myself.
Like I've said before. You KNOW what those things taste like. You've eaten them befoe. What's the good in deviating when you know what's coming.
1 deviation + 1 week JUST NOT WORTH IT!

Keep it up, I remember you saying you only had 7kg to go. Now 5! You are doing BRILL! Just think of the taste of finishing and how good that will feel. Much better than a 2 minute indulgence of chocolate or bakery

Good luck. I look forward to your post that says you have made it



Goal: Day 1 Monday (started 2nd time around 6 Nov 06)
Goal: No deviations for 1 week (done)
Goal: Weigh myself December 6! (done!) 8kg lost!

Goal: Drop 10kg stat.
Goal: Be under 100kg by Christmas!
Goal: No deviations until Xmas Day!

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I will one day love my belly button.

Dear all,

Thanks for your replies.

I just wanted to tell you that I'm working very hard on this, considering that it is my last lap. I'm proud of myself today as I resisted chicken drumlets, a chocolate fudge cake and tiramisu! When my friend ordered tiramisu, I got reminded of the dream that I had with a whole big tiramisu in front of me! So it was like deja vu cos when the tiramisu arrived on the table, it was like saying "eat me! eat me!" Luckily beforehand, I told my two other friends to help me resist the temptations as they knew I was on the program. So when my 3rd friend offered me the desserts, my two other friends took away the fork from me. So it was much easier for me as I was drilling into my head not to eat those desserts. So for the next 15 minutes, I was fighting a battle and as the time went on, it got much easier! =)

I'm so proud of myself. =) I'm going to work much harder on this. I'm also manipulating my eating of crackers. Usually, I will start on my crackers at brunch like about 2 hours before my lunch. But now, I'm having them much later in the afternoon like after one so that I can have more crackers for the latter part of the day.

I'm also drinking more green tea. Black tea is fine but too strong a tea gives me gastric and makes me hungrier. I'm also trying to limit my drinking of black teas as I realized that if I drink too much, it has a constipation effect.

And yes, diet coke works wonders for me too.

I'm going to weigh myself tomorrow and I hope I will see a lower reading. (*cross fingers*) I think if I see a lower reading, I will be more unwilling to deviate for Christmas. I'm having two early Christmas dinners next week as my family will be away for a holiday during the Christmas week.

But I wish to thank the two of you for your kind support. Seriously Chelsea... I hung onto your words throughout today and made it a point to brainwash myself that thou shalt not deviate.

And yes dreamer, keep going. I myself have been so surprised at how long I persevered through. When I first started on this program, my consultant told me to be very patient and determined because it is going to be a very looooong process (I will never forget how he said 'long'.) But the key thing is, if we keep on trying, we will just reach the end.

Oh well... tomorrow is another challenge. I told myself that if I were to lose another kg, I'm going to buy the punnet of Aust peaches I saw at a supermarket today. They smell good and sweet. And it costs Sing$8.65 (rather expensive for a punnet of 8 small peaches.) I'm looking forward to treating myself that! =)

Have a good weekend all!

Dear all!

I weighed myself this morning and I am now 68.9kg!!! I'll be buying the peaches! Yayyy!

I am so happy! Suddenly, all those effort to resist the temptations seem so worth it. Yesterday, I resisted chocolates with macadamia nuts and some fried stuff. I was about to take one fried stuff up when I reminded myself not to give in... it will pay off somehow!

And it did! I'm so happy! I'm going to work harder today and the other days!

But just don't know whether I should let go a little bit for Christmas...I will probably need to think of a strategy.

Well, what a weekend!
We had a double Christmas celebration , Friday night was my work Chrissie party at a restaurant in Melb. Even tho' the menu was preset and quite varied, not really Cohen's orientated. The chef did cook my meal as requested tho' which was great but so much of it, grilled chicken and salad, of which I only ate about 1/3, tried to estimate amounts. No dessert, but he was going to make me a fruit salad which I cancelled, no Cohen's fruit in it, not too worry.
Saturday morning we flew to Sydney for hubby's company do. Lunch at the hotel was a side salad for me and small piece of hubby's steak and plenty of water of course. Popped into the local supermarket and bought some yoghurt, fruit and CF diet coke (for the evening). Everything went well, knocked back the nibblies of tandoori chicken, prawns, sushi... stuck to water and Diet coke. Dinner was catered in a marquee, the usual Christmas fare with ham, turkey, roast beef, potatoes, salads. Stuck to some turkey and was disappointed that the green salad already had dressing on it. As that was all there was that was close for me to eat I tried to be selective of the lettuce etc, nothing dripping with dressing but it was there nevertheless. I decided that not having any veg was probably worse than eating selectively. Again the fruit platter was unsuitable fruits but luckily I took an apple and cut it into small pieces and ate that whils they were tucking into mud cake and tropical fruit and strawberries etc.
I am pleased with the choices I made and even today at the airport, we had lunch while waiting for the flight, I was careful and fussy about what I ate. I wasn't able to weigh anything but I feel that I didn't do too badly. Always left food on the plate, listened to my body when I felt I was getting full and only deviated with the salad dressing last night.
Tomorrow is weigh and measurement day so here's hoping all will be well. If not, it can't be helped I did the best I could with what was available.
Sorry about the long post but I just wanted to pat myself on the back .
Cheers to all.

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Started Sept 4th 2006 Completed refeed May 2nd 2007

Good on you lonniecee

After all, eating selectively is what it is all about.

If we had eaten selectively in the first place we wouldn't have gotten in that mess!

Or would we?

After all, Dr Cohen's philosphy is that obesity has little or nothing to do with will power ... and I can trace my accumulating weight back to when I had a retail store, and did not eat or drink between about 9.30am and 5.30pm six days per week.

My body obviously became dehydrated, I started to bloat, and gradually the weight started to creep on - it took twelve years to accumulate 24 kilos, but with Cohen's it took 20 weeks to permanently shift 25 kilos. Gone for good!

Now, I look at what I eat, and if it isn't worthwhile I simply won't eat it.

I went to a Christmas dinner last week. It was a long time since I had a nice, not-supermarket mince pie, so I had two and enjoyed every crumb. The meal also included a dinner roll and a glass of wine (I was driving otherwise it would have been two glasses!)

The next day, I restricted carbohydrate intake to crispbread only, and by Friday had actually dropped to 59.5 kilos!

Back to 60 kilos today, but I have to tell you, I will measure this Saturday - I know I am still shrinking (nearly 6 months after finishing the weight loss) - all my size 10 pants are now loose, and the size 8 are a comfortable fit, not tight anymore.

Believe me, if you think this program is just about weight loss, think again. This program is about fat loss, body rejuvenation, shape change, muscle toning, skin de-wrinkling, the works!

This program is the Elixyr of Youth!

When you finish the program is when you will remember how much absolute and total rubbish the ordinary person eats in the course of a week.

Never mind McDonalds, look at all the wheat and dairy! That is the junk food, the typical too-much-of-a-good thing syndrome.

As we move into Christmas, remind yourself what you are doing this for.

You are doing this for you. Not for them, not for him (or her), but for you.

A mince pie is still just a mince pie. Big deal. When you are finished you can eat mince pies next year. If no one made mince pies this year you would not even notice.

So turn a blind eye to mince pies and to alcoholic drinks and to bread rolls and pasta salad. Take your crispbread in your pocket, sip a glass of plain soda water, laugh a lot, and no-one will even notice if you're eating everything or nothing. Borrow some one else's messy plate, hold that, a stemmed glass (with soda water), a crumpled napkin and a toothpick!

There, you look the part and you can say 'thanks, I just had one' when the next lot of deep fried spring rolls is offered to you.

Remember, nothing tastes as good as being slim feels.

And believe me, being slim is feeling better and better every day!

Yeah!

Chelsea.

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WOW CHELSEA

Your so inspirational. I decided the other day after eating naughty things at the drive in cinema that i am not deviating anymore and especially not on xmas day. Like you said mum will always make those yummy xmas mince pies and all of the other delicious things. So I'm going to have my usual yogurt breakfast and then be selective with lunch , turkey and cohens vegies, and then same for dinner and I will snack on fruit and crispbread.

I know how proud I will feel on boxing day after not giving into those tempting treats, I think it is a good idea to plan ahead, make the desicion now not to deviate so your so prepared for when people offer you food or say go on have one, surely one isn't going to hurt BUT WE KNOW BETTER ONE WILL HURT IT WILL HURT A WHOLE WEEK.

So good luck to all, I wish you all a very merry and safe christmas
di

HOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO

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