First there is October when suddenly 20 lbs of candy appears in our house. I stood happily at the door dispensing the teeth rotting, gut swelling, poison until not a carb remained. Unfortunately, 30 minutes later the kids returned, bringing 25 lbs back in the house!

Now comes Turkey Lurkey time! We have the honor of hosting this years feast. While my wife and I would be truly thankful for a few slices of white meat and a plentiful salad, we are obligated to offer stuffing, cranberry sauce, candied yams, mashed potatoes, biscuits, pie and enough starches to carbo load the entire New York Marathon.

As soon as we've finished the last slice of pumpkin pie, the real holiday season starts. Here comes the cookies and fruit cakes, the egg nogs and punches, the endless parties and social obligations, the gifts of fruit baskets and chocolates until we all collapse into a stupor.

We awake a few days later ready to make one last fling of suicidal eating and drinking in reward for all our sacrifices and self-denial of the preceding year. WE eat and drink like there is no tomorrow and end the evening with a resolution to never do this again.

Let's hope that when the New Year arrives and everyone suddenly becomes aware of their expanded waistline and are searching for the latest diet craze, ( I hear the Bangladesh Diet is very effective) that we will be able to have a self-satisfied smile and know that we have been true to our low carb principles and have survived this cruel season unscathed.

Seaons greetings to you all!

Les,

You summed it up PERFECTLY!
Thanks for the smile.

And you're right; those of us who stick to our woe (through all the holiday *battles*) will be the only ones smiling in January!

Summer


www.herstorygirl.com

I knew I should have offered the little goblins boxes of raisins or something--but I didn't want discarded boxes of raisins strewn across my front yard.

I've pretty well learned to regard sugar as POISON for myself. So...that must make me a fiend, since I'm now bringing piles of it to the office just to get rid of it. Oh well. Better them than me (or my husband!)

Happy Thanksgiving,etc. We'll make it through.

Barb L.
Started Atkins January 2003
162/141/130

"we are obligated to offer stuffing, cranberry sauce candied yams, mashed potatoes, biscut, pie and enough starches"..... Where is it written that those are things that have to be at a thanksgiving feast.....Cranberry sauce can be made with splenda and made low carb, as can yams, no candied or marshmellows, and who says you have to have biscuts, and mashed potatoes. Why not make lots of veggie side dishes - ie mock mash potatoes (with cauliflower instead of potatoes). There are lots of alternatives to the "traditional" fare, and because you are hosting it you can change the menu to please your diet.... let everyone know what your menu is and if they want those other items, let them bring them, and cart them away when the dinner is over....same goes with those pies.... just because you are hosting it doesn't mean you can't make changes--- pumpkin pie with splenda or make individual pumpkin custard cups with whipped cream instead of the pie.... so
I plan to lose another 15 lbs between now and the end of the year... I plan to go to a thanksgiving dinner that is usually piled high with carbs and I plan to eat what I can eat, and leave the rest I don't care to eat.
Hope this helps put a different light on the up coming holidays/.

carolyn in texas
started 8/11/03
327/302/150

My kids have been whining at me "Mom... for Thanksgiving you're going to make your usual "GOOD" food not that LC crap right??"

I told them yes. But on the sly I am just going to compromise and make some of each. (but I'm leaning heavier on the LC GOOD stuff) and I'm not planning to even tell them.

Neener Neener Neener to them. LOL

Michelle -- 208/196/140
Started Atkins 9/03
On my way to finding the new me.... WATCH OUT WORLD!!

Most amusing post, Les, and so many nuggets of truth. It's just about this time of year when so many people decide to do something about their weight "after the holidays". That gives them license to pack it in with fervor for a couple more months. Having done this for about 20 years myself, I know how easy it is to justify two months of over-eating once you've decided to do someting about it "after the holidays". After all, you've made a commitment to get healthier, it just isn't time yet. Not your fault it's only November; nothing to do but keep pigging out on starch and sugar till New Year's Day!


We'll see a lot of these "resolution" people on this board come January (I hope not so many that we crash!), and they will all be 10 or 20 pounds heavier than they are right now. Of course we'll welcome and help them, but they'll all be cranky from the sugar jones and the sore muscles (having over-done it on the exercise they've started "after the holidays", too).

Isn't it great to know that none of us low-carbers will suffer such a fate?


Sky
Atkins since 8/02
186/144/under 150

I kinda enjoy feeding other people the things that I can't eat. Oh well...

I don't feel jealous or deprived around things I used to like. I already know what they taste like all too well. The only ones that sometimes bother me are new items. So Thanksgiving trappings don't bother me.

**************
"Sometimes I think you have to march right in and demand your rights, even if you don't know what your rights are, or who the person is you're talking to. Then on the way out, slam the door."

20lbs of candy goes out and 25 lbs comes back in!!
ya hit my funny bone.

Jackie

All I have to say it Thank Goodness I'll have been doing this WOE for awhile before this rolls around... If I was just starting I would have the hardest time...

My DH has seen the great things I've been doing and wants to start the Induction when he's home on Christmas Break. I won't be here for 2 1/2 weeks so he's going to be tested. It will interesting to see if he can behave himself... especially around Christmas... while I'm gone.. I can't wait. Whether he cheats or not... It's going to be great to have both of us changing our WOE.

Started Atkins 10/6/03
220/205/170
"To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides."
- David Viscott

Just an interesting sidebar to the rant.

We in western culture seem loath to give up traditions that when created made sense. Feasting at the end of the year, usually at the winter solstace <sp> was used as to celebrate the fact that our forebearers survived yet another nearly universal famine. All Christmas celabrations are a hold over from the Saturnalia, acknowledging the Roman god Saturn. The two week period was marked by feasting, partying and overundulgeance in the extreme. Sort of an antique "Eat, Drink, for tomorrow we die" kind of mentality.

Now 1000 years later we still over indulge, without the real need to.

Funny how "advanced" we in the west are, is it?

Information gladly given, but safety requires no unnecessary conversation.

http://www.fitday.com/WebFit/PublicJ...wner=RedLegg46

LC - 7/3/03
290/233.8/169

Les, that was so amusing!!!

I plan on making LC stuff just to show people how good it is. I am going to have mashed (red) potatoes with garlic, cream cheese and white pepper, tho. And I am planning on having a tad of that. I will probably make yorkshire pudding too, my family would absolutely die with out it. But the rest will be fairly low carb. Turkey, brussel sprouts (an in-law tradition), s/f pumkin pie, with almond flour crust, HAHA, and I guess I will have to make stuffing. I am going to try to do it with lc bread, from scratch. I suppose I should experiment before the BIG day. I think it could be good. I had better start planning now, eh?



Barb
Atkins-3/14/03
174/146/135
"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

Dr. Insomnia,

I am with you... When we have treats at work, I love to bring them home and feed everyone else! I get some sort of motivation from seeing other people eat unhealthy. Kinda messed up huh!?!?

Not gonna quit!

start date 9/10/03
235/203.8/160