Dear Skeptics and Haters,

Please allow me a moment of your time while I get something off my chest.

You entered my giveaway of your own free will. I HOPE you read the entire post before you entered. While some did not, I don’t mind sending you a friendly email reminding you of what I need to enter you in the contest. We all miss details sometimes, right? I’m asking for full mailing addresses for the giveaway so I don’t have to track people down afterwards. The first time I ran this giveaway, I didn’t do that. Well, I did, but I let it slide and entered the names anyway thinking I could find out their addresses afterwards. It took me hours of extra work to find these people. They either didn’t reply to my emails or their email addresses didn’t work and my attempts at contacting them came back undeliverable. THIS is why I ask for your mailing information when I have a giveaway. I delete everything after the winners have received their prizes (non winning information is deleted earlier).  It allows you to get your winnings faster and it’s less work for me. Is that so wrong? I work my hiney off putting together a giveaway and then I get an email like the one below. You can only imagine how annoying this is to me.

Person R sent in his/her guesses – no name, no address. How do I even know how to announce the winner? Plaster their email all over the internet? I doubt they’d appreciate that very much.  So I write back thanking him/her for his/her entry and asking for the required mailing info I’d need to send them their prize, should they win. What do I get back? This:

I shouldn’t have bothered. You have my email address. If I “won” you could easily ask for my address then.

This is clearly an attempt to get addresses and emails to use for some other purpose. While underhanded, it’s no more so than what “everyone else” does, so I guess you shouldn’t lose sleep over it.

R

Someone obviously has issues. I’d love to have my former winners, and even those who have entered in the past giveaways but not won,  post a comment explaining if they have EVER received any marketing junk, or any other unsolicited item,  from me in their mail or email. And feel free to do so. But I really doubt it will do this person any good. They’ve already made up their mind that I’m a villain.  LOL

Anyway, I wrote back explaining my reasons and thanked them for being rude to someone who’s only trying to do something nice for the low-carb community. *sigh* Sometimes I wonder why I bother.

Thanks for letting me vent. I hope 99% of the people reading this don’t fall into this category. If you do, then save us both some time and don’t enter. It’s not my loss.

Sincerely yours,

The Alleged Shifty Sheister – who is sleeping wonderfully each night.

UPDATE: Well appearantly R has decided to go public with my shenangans. He/She obviously feels they are justified and must save the world from my evil intentions. Anyone care to give her some facts? Feel free to post at this link ( http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/b/2010/02/08/win-valuable-low-carb-prizes-2.htm) in the comments section. I already have and am waiting for Laura to approve it. I fear this person will just scare potential entries off with this nonsense.  Builds great odds for the rest of you, but not fair at all. And I’m not about to sit by and let this person smear my name and reputation because they are scared to enter a contest I’ve been running successfully for years.

(And no, this person has yet to respond to my email explaining why I do the contest this way.)

UPDATE: All settled! Thanks everyone!

All weekend this question kept bombarding my cranium – how important are our thoughts and attitude in regards to weight loss? A positive attitude obviously never hurt anyone, but does negative thinking really hinder us that much?

Negative thinking undermines every positive thing you set out to do, if you let it. We all suffer at times from doubts and fears, but we can not let those feelings and attitudes lord over our efforts to do something good for ourselves. The Little Engine That Could is a great children’s story that we all should take a lesson from. If we continually say we can’t, then we won’t. Why? Because we already feel defeated and will not give it our best effort. If we convince ourselves to do our best, regardless of the outcome, we are rarely disappointed. Not everyone loses 10 lbs on induction ( I sure didn’t!). Not everyone looks like a supermodel at their goal weight (again… not happening here). Not everyone even keeps the weight off the first time they lose it (ahem… again me), because there is a learning process involved. But with each day, we learn a little more about what does and does not work for us. With each positive step we gain momentum to keep going. Yes we have set backs. I’ve had more than my fair share, let me tell you. But despite that, I know I can’t give up. This is too important to throw in the towel and let negative thinking overtake my actions. If I do, I head straight for the pizza and feel even worse afterwards. So what if I’m in a stall? So what if I’m struggling with eating right for a day or two? What matters is that I keep going and remind myself of a few positive things. I’ve come a long way weight and health wise. While I’m not where I want to be, I’m sure as heck not where I used to be. Is it because it was easy when I first started? No. It was because I kept pushing on, even when the going got tough.

I may just be talking to myself here, but I have struggled the last several days with negative thinking. I’ve struggled with physical responses to that negative thinking. Once I let the doubt creep in, I found myself craving foods that normally don’t tempt me. I found myself slightly depressed about the effort I have to put into losing this excess weight, which in turn causes me to want to respond with comfort food. It’s a vicious cycle that we have to break and keep a harness on.  The more you indulge in negative thinking, the more damage it can do.

As an experiment, today I woke up determined NOT to crave unhealthy foods. I’ve spend the day thinking positive thoughts about my choices and my weight loss efforts. The results: so far so good. No cravings and I’ve stuck to plan perfectly. Tomorrow may be tough, but for now I’m only dealing with one day at a time – and today is gonna be great because I choose to make it so.

So remind yourself that despite how tough it seems, you are worth fighting this battle. And like the Little Engine, keep chanting that mantra to yourself, only change the word “think” to “know”. I KNOW I CAN… I KNOW I CAN… I KNOW I CAN…

Karly Randolph-Pitman knows the perils of sugar addiction.

Many may remember my talking about a wonderful ebook titled Overcoming Sugar Addiction. This wonderful free download was written by my friend Karly Randolph-Pitman and is loaded full of inspiration and information for freeing yourself from the sugar addict within. But sometimes information isn’t enough. Karly knows this and has started an online support program for those who need that extra help in shunning sugar for good.

This online program (including audio, timed emails, private forums, web based content, etc.) is structured around 12 weekly lessons, which can be tailored to your specific needs. Karly tells us “My program helps women retrain their brains so that they don’t need sugar to cope. It’s a proactive lifestyle change founded on souful self-care – mind-body-spirit practices – that give women tools to honor, love and care for themselves without turning to sugar or food. It heals overeating and sugar bingeing at the root and enables women to find sugar abstinence for greater health. This potent combination of support and new tools enables women to create new pathways, where they aren’t reaching for the candy bar or soda to manage through life.”

Ladies who have taken Karly’s coarse agree wholheartedly.

“Today, I’m celebrating 90 days sugar free! I’m unbelievably fortunate
and grateful to have been able to learn so much from you and for this
AMAZING community of women. You speak the truth that is within me…”
- Kaitlin

“I’ve lost 25 lbs simply from learning to
love myself in healthier ways. I have lost my taste for sugar. I don’t
enjoy sweets like I used to but I do have my moments of weakness. When
that happens I just forgive myself and get back on track. I am so
proud of myself for doing this!“ – Kathy, Vancouver.

Taking care of yourself is one thing, but learning to love yourself in the process can prove to be tricky. Karly has the solution for both and presents it in an understandable and usable manner. If you struggle with sugar addiction, you owe it to yourself to at least look into her course and see what it’s all about. It may be the best think you do for yourself this year.