I have been reading a bit of your journey to thinness and would like to know your stats from when you started to now? I started Cohen three days ago and had one wobble already but am back on track. Can I ask you, did you ever drink milk in your coffee??? I dont like black coffee and coffee was my love in the morning - and i was wondering if anyone drank just one cup with milk in the morning? Thanks for the diary - it is inspiring!

Hi Skyla, There is no milk at all while on Cohen's, not even a few drops in your coffee. It's black & white. If it's not on the program it's not allowed. I have not gone back to having milk as I no longer enjoy it. I much prefer a long, black to a cappuccino & only have 1 cup in the morning & no more caffeine for the day. Cheers, Cate.

good advice cate.

I found it realllllly hard right at the start, but now I really enjoy it too. Sometimes I find it a little too strong, so I ask for a weak long black, with some hot water on the side, so I can dilute it. It's yum!

Skyla - It certainly is hard at the start, but stick with it. you can do it!

wow! Your weight loss journey is impressive...KEEP IT GOING!

Today's diary post- I might opt out for now as I'm almost falling asleep.Long busy day with much heavy furniture moving in Launceston, helping SIL & BIL. Not recommended whilst on Cohen's original plan portion food. Might be back later, xo Cate

Hi Joh- It's funny how much your tastes do change. Now that I have pushed the boundaries & found where that took me I am in no hurry to eat anything sweet. I just want more food. I'm really pleased all of this has happened without it being too much of an ordeal. It has taken a month to get down to my lowest weight after Cohen's (well...only .5kg over it). I feel so good but overdid it today helping my SIL. I had told her that we were going to come visit while she was taking time off work to look after her husband. She asked if we would mind helping her with a job, which, of course, was fine. She has so much stuff it's mind-boggling. She wanted 1 set of shelving moved from a shipping container up to 2nd floor of their 2 storey shed(American Barn) & I can't possibly tell you how much stuff we had to move out of the way before we even tried to do the job. We also had to twist around junk & step on a dodgy step that you had toput your feet dead centre while carrying the very heavy shelving upstairs. OMG. I am aching all across my shoulders. Once we had done the first one she was on a roll & we ended up shifting 2 more. I am stuffed.
We then had a salad for lunch, got home about 3 & my LH had to go do the bar for the golf club.
I know my SIL really appreciated our help & she should be able to start doing some serious sorting. The funny thing is she has 4 grown up children all married & all living in the same city as her. We live 60km away & I'm 55 & my LH turns 60 this year. I feel really as fit as I have ever been at the moment but am really wondering if I am going to be suffering after today.It was way too heavy for me. Plus it was having to hold something heavy up quite high & doing contortions at the same time. Ouch!!!!
OK- enough whinging!
The good news is... Only .5kg to go to my LW & I only have 1 day left before I re-do re-feed. Yay!
I'm really too tired to say any more tonight so will head.
Thanks FlaMie for your encouragement. You are contributing well to the forum already by posting your recipes. That's good! Cheers, cate, zzzzzzzzzzz/ouch/zzzzzzz

Today I decided to stir fry vege with prawns. Gosh the sweetness of the prawns brought out the best of the vege...or is it the other way around? Anyway, had 2 prawns (as I also had steamed fish). I cut the prawn into 3 parts...so that I could chew "6" of them slowly while eating...hahaha ,

Really, I thank you guys so so much on keeping me on track these 4 days. I was groggy a little but managed it eventually...coke light is a BIG help.

CATE: I'm jealous of you!

FlaMie- No need to be jealous sweety. You, too will lose your excess weight. I'll be jealous of you eating that yummy, fresh, seafood! I wish I could twitch my nose & be transported somewhere to buy beautiful Asian clothes. Hanoi would be nice! I would fit into them now! Still probably size L but who cares? Cheers, cate
Still only .5kg over my LW.
I drop weight & then my body adjusts to that & I feel myself shrink a little bit more. I now look pretty good even in undies. TMI probably. I find myself looking in the mirror all of the time when there is no-one about. Better watch that. I might get caught. It is such a fine line between vanity & learning to love yourself. I have always disliked vanity. I also have spent most of my life thinking that I am not anything special. I lived in my older sister's shadow as a child. She was always the clever one & the pretty one. I was always the easy one (read invisible). I'm ok about it all now. You can't change what happened in your childhood. I was still quite a happy child. One thing she was able to do before she died was make me feel really special. We did lots of talking in the last five years of her life and it reversed a lot of my thinking about myself. I discovered that she had envied me. I was really shocked! No-one ever had high expectations about me but they sure did about her. She was never happy, always striving for bigger & better things & never being satisfied.
When I visited her in the US on my own, 2nd time, we really talked & talked. I was with her for 3 months. She was so ill & so was her husband & I took over responsibility for almost everything in the household, including ordering her med's(Morphine etc), administering them, arranging appointments etc. It was quite traumatic &, looking back I stepped up into the role of big sister. Before I left I had her organised with a portable oxygen pack & able to change her own bottles so that she could go out with them. She was back on her feet.
I started typing then & went on a bit about that but will leave it in as I need to remind myself what I am capable of.
What I was trying to say is I think I am now able to sort out my feelings about always feeling like I was unimportant & not so bright because of my childhood & can put them behind me & move on. My sister helped me feel really good about myself. She had so much faith in me & helped me realise that I am really capable and a good, kind person. Her husband, who I also loved a lot, used to say that I was "such a good person". I love that! They both made me feel really special and I still have that feeling with me. Sometimes it hides & then I have to remind myself. My sis thought I could do almost anything!
Enough of all that as I now feel a little teary. It's ok though as it's good teary. There is such a thing!
Time to head off & do a bit of house-work. I'm hurting a little still today after all that heavy lifting yesterday but had a really good night's sleep- about 9 hours! I rubbed Metsal into my shoulders & that helps & a really hot shower this morning.
We are getting a quote on covering the entrance to our house ( a really big verandah) on Monday afternoon I think. We don't have much money left but I would love to have it done as it would be lovely for Winter to have a covered entrance & also a place to sit in the sun when it's not too windy. Fingers crossed that we can afford it!
Also the work will be finished this afternoon with the bobcat so I will be able to park my car back in the garage tomorrow. Yay!
Cheers for now, cate.

[B]Awww your so cute cate!!!! I'm so happy your doing so wonderful.. I am enjoying the cohen so much. I am dropping more and more weight. It has been difficult though to follow it perfect for me to the exact . I don't know why. I always want to have something else.. It's all in my mind but I'm doing it .. Your doing amazing and I love reading your posts..I loved the story with your sister.. that was beautiful and I'm glad you were able to get over everything and know that you are something special. I love coming into your diary cuz your are so so inspiring and seem to know so much.. thanks cate for your kinds words all the time [/B

The sister thing is difficult. I had two older sisters, and there was absolutely no doubting in our family that the oldest sister was the family 'star'. My father doted on her, she seemed always to get the special privileges and be allowed to do all sorts of things that we weren't. He never stopped speaking about her in our hearing as the "model daughter". The middle sister, on the other hand, was horrendously jealous of me as a child and always told me things like that I was ugly and so on. Even though I was happy most of the time, you do grow up thinking you're not very important and having to learn to appreciate yourself and love yourself.

And funnily enough, neither of my older sisters has had particularly happy lives. I'm the only one happily married and truly in love with the same guy.

Thanks for telling us about that - the more we realise about ourselves, the more we can learn to do with our comfort substitutions like over eating, or eating unhelpful stuff.

Yoz Cate,

You know what, from all your encouragements and virtual help, you are indeed like a 'big sister' to everyone of us here. I love your sharings and couldn't have made it Day 5 today without some of them.

I'm the oldest in the family but I don't kinda feel like I'm the star? Hmmm...well, I've got a little sister who seems to be the star though. She's the slim and pretty one while I'm the FAT and ugly one. I've always had to battle with weight but she breezed through them all these years. Only 2 years difference in age and yet so much difference.

I used to enjoy sports and dance - was a dancer for many years in fact. However, things changed when I met my husband. He 'encouraged' me to enjoy food...gggrrrr that was the start of all evil and ever since then I never looked back at the weight I piled on myself. I used to be able to cross and twine 2 legs together (don't know if you guys get it) but now I even have difficulty crossing my legs smoothly (something people do it naturally!). Gosh...I know I have to do something.

I'm a teacher in a high school. FAT is a taboo amongst teenagers. I'm not slimming for them of course but I think a slimmer version would allow me to catch up with them a whole lot easier too. I want to be able to breeze the day without feeling sluggish any more. I want to feel perky! Most importantly, I hope the weight loss can get my body to conceive a whole lot easier too. I want to start my own family and I've certainly heard so much about weight loss = easier to conceive.

PS Cate, noticed one of your pictures was at a Pho Bo stall. My son-in-law is Vietnamese (but born out here) so I have 2 half-Vietnamese grandchildren - very cute!!! I made him Pho Bo for his last birthday - don't know how authentic it tasted as I've never had the real thing, but he ate it politely anyway!

Ivette- I still have trouble accepting such lovely compliments & never quite know what to say. Thank you is probably the most important thing that I want to say! I'm still my toughest critic! Learning though.....xo Cate
Niyah- The sister thing/family thing can be really hard. I'm lucky like you that I have a lovely, supportive husband & that I, too am really happy, xo Cate.
FlaMie- You sound very sweet & already very perky! Big sister....what a nice thought. You have so much enthusiasm that it's a little contagious. I do get you about the twining of the legs. I don't think I have ever done it. I'm just so grateful that I can sit with my legs crossed now, although I try not to! It feels wonderful. Cheers, Cate
Niyah- Aaahhhhh.........Vietnam. I so want to go back there!!!!!!! I loved almost everything about the place. The only exception I can think of, off hand, were the squat toilets. Our guide I got to let me know whenever we were near a "western" toilet. I probably wouldn't find them quite so bad now but would rather not know. Thanks for your visits to my diary, cheers, Cate.
Today-
My weight had gone up .5kg so have not started re-feed.
I have had a wonderful day today. I went into our local town & met so many nice people in the street, had coffee with one of my "Wacky Walker" buddies & generally just had a lovely, sociable time.
Food today-
Yoghurt/mango for breakfast.
Fish salad for lunch
Will have fish & salad for dinner.
Have had no crackers today I just realised(!????)
Only had 1 fruit & I'm not at all hungry.
Go figure! It's quite strange really but I'm happy.
No Beck- I'm not doing this on purpose. If I had woken up same weight as yesterday and/or hungry at all I would be doing re-feed.
I'll come back for a look later tonight. Cheers for now, Cate
P.S.- Thanks Caz & Niyah for joining in my new thread!!!

Hi folks! I got up early this morning as I woke & felt refreshed so jumped out of bed, left my LH there still asleep & went outside in my PJ's & watered the vegie/herb garden. It was lovely. I wasn't sure what time it was so I snuck back into bed & my LH said "you're crazy" and then the alarm went off for him to get up & go to work. So I've already done some chores, had breakfast, pottered around on Facebook, sent an email & am going to do the ironing shortly after I do the vacuuming.
Weight-Back down .5kg. I am a little constipated at the moment & that could explain the "plateau". I don't mind plateaus so much but don't like seeing the scales go up even .5kg. My problem. I'll have to learn to get over it or stop weighing so often! Of course they go up & down, up & down.
FlaMie- Is very active in here at the moment. I remember how I felt when I first started Cohen's. You are so full of energy on Cohen's food & feel almost high. It's a great feeling. Don't be in any hurry to finish FlaMie. Let your body learn to get used to eating so healthy. Your wants & cravings will change, believe me. The things you think you miss the most won't have the attraction that they have now. Your food tastes will change. It's one of the best things about the program (other than guaranteed weight-loss ). I couldn't possibly go a day without fresh fruit & vegetables & some lean protein. I am now looking forward to be able to have some yoghurt with my fruit after dinner, instead of only once a day at breakfast. I am also looking forward to being able to mix my lean, low-fat proteins eg putting some low-fat cheese in my omelet.
All I am looking forward to is being able to eat healthy, well-balanced meals, without having to weigh anything, the occasional "carb" vegie(sweet potato or beans?) or a little rice, an occasional glass of wine & some good-quality dark chocolate once a week. I am not dying to have cheesecake or sweet biscuits or lollies etc. I can just feel my body sighing after I had typed that! Well.... my brain just told my body.
Affirmations- My Tai Chi teacher has affirmation cards & I have been looking online for some. I am going to make my own that are more relavent to me when I can find some decent cards to write on. I will buy a nice calligraphy pen. I'm a very neat writer. I have cut & pasted quite a few into a word document and might use some of my reasons I want to be slim as well. If anyone is interested I can copy & paste them into my diary as well.
Housework beckons. Well it always does but the forum always wins out.
Cheers for now, Cate

Hey thanks there "Big Sister" for the advice. Guess it is an irresistable feeling of wanting to finish after having read so much weight you senior members have lost. I'm totally impressed and yet worried that I won't be able to make it myself. Yesterday was a terrible, terrible day for me. I've actually contemplated deviating and my husband wasn't helping by wanting to offer water melon to me (noooo that's not allowed). Well, I'm lucky that my pride takes the better of me and flatly said no but I wonder how long I can go on saying no. There's just too much of a temptation for food in Singapore. Quite right that I'm kinda filled with energy. Since yesterday, I no longer feel that heavy head or grogginess...I'm beginning to feel energetic that I didn't even really feel sleepy at bedtime. I'm actually feeling alright to be up at 8.30 on a Sunday morning! I usually wake up around 11-1pm...piggish! However, I do feel so much wanting to go laze on the bed as I only get such luxury on weekends...I wake up at 5.30 to do my lunch cooking on weekdays because of school whilst on Cohen.