Congrats, Stephanie!

What is it about physiology that makes this sugar/mood drop thing happen?

I get spacey, a bit cranky, and then it progresses to a lot spacey and losing words.

I fell off the low-carb wagon while we were in Vienna in October, and haven't quite managed to get back on it. I know I need to, because eating more veggies, fruit, and protein makes me *feel* better, plus shrinks my waistline pretty fast. I'm going to try and go back to having a small handful of mixed nuts when the overwhelming craving for crunchysalty food hits.

Portion control is my biggest battle. I suffer from portion creep. It keeps getting slightly bigger until I realize I've gone over the edge and getting back down is difficult.

Yep, I have that issue, too. It's the only reason I contemplate trying WW. Unfortunately, I've been assured by a couple of people I know that WW will drive me batshit crazy.

JILLI! I had a dream this morning that you were pregnant and woke up thinking, "When Pete hears that, he's gonna say, 'Not bloody likely!' " and then be mad at me.

beathen, I understand, and I wasn't even there so I have no firsthand knowledge of what the place was like, but I wouldn't have been allowed to seat people in an unopened section either. It's not really up to the hostess. She's at the bottom of the totem pole.

It's possible I'm taking this far too personally, however, having been yelled at myself- once by some guys who wanted to sit by the bar. I said smoking or non- they said by the bar- I said "So smoking?" they said yes, and then wanted their meals comped, because they were sat in the smoking section by the bar.

JILLI! I had a dream this morning that you were pregnant and woke up thinking, "When Pete hears that, he's gonna say, 'Not bloody likely!' " and then be mad at me.

Gaaaaah! No! No babies for me!

Possible TMI: Besides, Steps Have Been Taken, ensuring no babies from Pete. Aaaaaand since Pete is the only person I have sex with, and plan on having sex with, no babies. Thank goodness.)

We just wanted to sit at them - and said we realized that the the tables weren't set, but we were more than willing to forgive this lack if they would let us sit.

Yeah, it was bizarre. The restaurant was *empty* (it was pretty late for lunch), and the only thing keeping us from being seated was that the place settings were missing menus. The hostess told us this. We said we didn't care and were willing to wait, and she *still* wouldn't seat us until we said, look, one of us is a diabetic, and one of us has MS. We don't care that there are no menus, but we are TIRED.

I was this close to pulling out my "Look, I've worked in food service, and you're being unreasonable" card, only Tep was doing fine on her own.

[edit:

but I wouldn't have been allowed to seat people in an unopened section either.

No no, the section was open. She literally wanted to keep us standing while they carefully placed menus at each place setting.]

Congrats, Stephanie!!!!

Portion control is my biggest battle.

This is me. Completely. What? An entire bowl of cereal isn't one serving, it's really 3-4?? Hurts me, it does.

Many congratulations, Stephanie!

Therapist is gone. The babies (probably Kara) stole one of her toys so she spent a good 15 minutes poking about, as were we all--but I was hoping to keep her to the living room since I hadn't cleaned anything else--trying to find it. No luck. Some days, a smacking is too good for them.

Paul turns into crankyman if he hasn't eaten. I've been known to forget to eat until it's almost supper time because I'm good at not noticing hunger. We both need to re-learn how to eat right, but my, it's hard when you've no real time.

Last year the nurse practitioner who does my primary care gave me the cards for some nutritionists when I said I kept trying to do WW but was unwilling/unable to stick to it for any length of time. I never went because of money issues and I lost the cards, but this year we A) aren't quite as broke, and B) have one of those flexible spending accounts and could get reimbursed for that sort of thing. So maybe I should try that again--say that true low carb is off the table because I want to actually enjoy my food, but that I'm open to any other suggestions for an eating plan that will work with my lifestyle. And maybe I should back away from WW until I get some professional advice on how to manage my particular hunger patterns.

I know I need to cut back on pure junk food, FWIW. And I've really gotten worse with it in the past few years than ever before--it's like I feel like I have to drink all the Dr Pepper and eat all the fast food I can now because I feel like someone is going to take them away from me.

Beth and Jess already explained it, but the deal was that we mostly needed to *sit,* and there wasn't enough seating in the waiting area (or maybe there was none -- I can't remember). My first action was to quietly tell the hostess, "Look we have some people with diabetes, and a person with MS, and we *really* need to physically sit; we can certainly wait for menus and place settings." [Note: the tables weren't dirty; they just didn't have flatware or menus on them.]

The hostess said that wasn't possible, that they could NOT seat us until the place settings and menus were on the table. I said, "I understand that you need to set things up, but we're not asking to place orders right away; we have people who NEED to sit because of medical conditions." She refused again, and I finally snapped.

I don't make a habit of getting all diva on restaurant hostesses; I wasn't asking to be seated right away simply because I thought we were too good to be kept waiting. We had people who were going to hit the floor -- literally -- if they had to keep standing.

Is it better for a restaurant to have customers passing out because they aren't allowed to sit in chairs that are clearly unoccupied, just so that they can set menus down on the unoccupied tables? That's insane. And, I'd wager, would put the restaurant legally at risk.