Bluebird, you are right about diet drinks causing cravings. Studies show that diet drinks increase your appetite and are very harmful to your bladder.

Check out the book entitled: Sweet Poison

Drink lots of water. It really is the best thing for your body.

Except for 1 or 1 1/2 cups of coffee in the a.m, water is really all I drink.

Except for the occassional Margarita..

I still drink coffee but not in the amounts I use to. It was causing me to have lumpy, painful breasts. Within weeks of cutting back the lumps and pain went away and haven't returned.

Wow, I never heard that before. I don't drink much because it causes my heart to race and my hands to shake.
You sure the lumps weren't from the estrogen in the milk? I've heard of that happening.

I do not drink milk or consume any dairy products. In fact, I haven't in over ten years. When I occasionally eat icecream it gives me terrible cramps. For those in my family who use milk I buy only the organic, skim milk. It's worth the extra cost. I also noticed after giving up dairy products I no longer had any joint aches.

[ December 17, 2005, 03:14 PM: Message edited by: ladybug ]

The same happens to me when I eat dairy products. This is something that has developed with age. As a child I drank gallons of milk.

Also, caffeine is horrible for those with fibrous cystic disease. Vitamin E takes away the lumps!

I learned many, many years ago when I started to have breast pain, the doc asked me if I drank a loft of caffeine. I told him I only had one cup of tea in the morning, not thinking about all the soft drinks I drank during the day.
Caffeine causes breast pain!
I'll never forget a birthday cake that my co-workers had made up for me with two "boobies" on it with a big OUCH underneath them. I think my good buddies were tired of hearing me complain about my sore boobies!
Lynne

Dotsie most human beings are lactose intolerant. Black people suffer from it the most. Healthy people in Africa never drink milk even as children and they have virtually no osteoporosis. In fact they don't consume any dairy food.

Yes, caffeine is a source of painful, fibrocystic breasts. I learned this not only from experience but from the books written by Dr. Susan love.

I can verify this too Ladybug, as I use to get the lumps as well as my doc said, "cut out the caffeine." I did NOT know that diet drinks can increase your appetite though and I am glad to hear it. Glad because this explains a lot of things to me! And...it strengthens my resolve to NOT drink them anymore, or to cut back to one or two a week. Maybe I will lose my taste for them LB...Let's hope so.

Vicki, I've gone back over the threads to see if I've missed any important tips that I could incorporate into this new lifestyle of mine and the "mini" goals you mentioned really appeals to me. I'm giving that a whirl.

I sincerely thank you all. And I've already had emails from people outside of this forum saying they too were going to try some of these tips so see? You're helping more than just me. You are simply the best!

JJ