Everybody needs a week like that!

Jason, I don't know a dieter out there who doesn't say the heck with it for a week and then that helps them get re-inspired.  We went to a movie today and Wayne and I split their GIANT bag of popcorn and enjoyed other delicacies so I'll be ecstatic if I drop a pound this week.  It'll get easier on the downhill side of this contest as we'll all be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel and then and will want to make a killer finish.  I have to say, I'll be ready for the next 6 weeks to be over with, my craving for chocolate-covered peanuts is nearly getting the best of me.

I'll be lucky to get back to my weight last week...

I just finished my production week (high stress, deadlines, long hours) and am relaxing now a bit.

Julie was working for part of the time so Mom and Dad came over to help watch Jonny for a couple days. Mom (the superhero) came over and made dinner 4 days in a row so Julie would have dinner ready when she got home and I could continue to work. Delicious meals, salmon, spare ribs, meat loaf, veggie soup. All using 'sugar substitutes' and friendly to my diet...

and yet, 2 days and 6+ lbs later...arrrrghh@##$%$


So I'm working hard to get back down but the superbowl party will be tough ...grrrr!!!
I think I'll send my results Monday night after I've starved myself all day after gorging myself on Superbowl necessities.

Fickle Scale

Sara you would think it was me who "jumped off the wagon".  I'm still following my diet to a tee, exercising like a fiend and was one pound HEAVIER today!  WHY do I weigh before Monday????  It is way too discouraging doing that.  But I did that another week and had a fine loss on Monday so I'm not worried about it.  They say your body can fluctuate as much as 2 lbs. a day and I believe it.

Also Sara, you were skinny from the get-go so a couple of Cadbury mini-eggs and a cherry pepsi or two are actually probably good for you.

And Doug, LOTS of Cadbury mini-eggs, and cases of cherry pepsi, and tables full of pizza would be really good for you.

I didn't fall, I jumped

Off the wagon that is.

The boys have been sick the last few days and we have all felt cooped up and a little edgy. I have discovered that when I have a hard day I end it feeling like I DESERVE a treat. Today, all day, I felt like that. And I indulged it. I ate an absurd amount of hummus and pita chips, had a chai tea, had a cherry pepsi (the first I've had in over four weeks) and bought and ate some Cadbury Mini Eggs. It was truly a spectacle of self-discipline gone unconscious. I did work out which maybe burned off half the Pepsi but that's about it. I have every intention of getting back on that wagon but for today, oh, did it feel good to not be good. Worth every calorie I tell you. Doug, you really ought to try it!

Week Three Results

Well, another amazingly good week for our small yet mighty group of fitness buffs.

Doug- 6.4% (He is the man to catch! Contact me for his address if you'd like to send him beer or doughnuts. I bet a heaping mound of spaghetti with bread would work too.)
Jason-5.6%
Julie Reynolds-5.6%
Angela-5.0%
Greg-4.9%
Helena-4.8%
Adam-4.7%
Julie Montgomery-4.5%
Justin-4.5%
Matt-3.9%
Sara-3.8%
Dave-3.5%
Lianna-2.6%
Wayne-0.8% (I should clarify that he did in fact loose several pounds this week and that I misrepresented his total loss last week. So, this is a step forward, not backward. My bad.)

Keep up the good work! I just got home from the gym after a 2.5 mile run and some upper body lifting. What have you lazy bones done so far today?? (Angela, I know you were right there with me girl!)

What works for Greg and Sara

We have stopped eating. We are hoping to kill our metabolism so that from here on out every time we eat a morsel of food our body clings to each calorie because it believes we are starving.

Actually, our two main focuses are getting more exercise (4-5 times a week) and portion control. Our diets have always been reasonably healthy but I'm upping the ante for our family these last few weeks by eating more fish, trying new healthy recipes, and eating organic whenever possible. We both want these changes to be long term so are trying to be fit, healthy, and realistic.

And, while on the subject, tomorrow is weigh in day. How is the motivation? Do we need to do something to add more incentive? I'm looking forward to seeing the results tomorrow.

Happy Sunday to you all.

Weight Watcher's

I guess I've made it clear that I use Weight Watchers.  I have the South Beach Diet book and cookbook too as tried that in the past, which is similar to Atkins, which I have always done.  For me personally, W.W. works the best only because it's not much of an adjustment back to "real life" as it basically just teaches you to eat in moderation.  You can eat whatever you want as long as you stay in your point system which isn't hard because they give you a pretty good range.  For instance, my range is between 18-25 points so if you're somebody who doesn't get terribly hungry you can linger around the low end but if you need a bit extra then you can use them all.  I know most of you probably don't really know what the point system is so for instance, 4 oz. of salmon is around 4.5 points, 3 oz. of chicken is 3, bread is different because the more fiber in it the less points are in it.  I make w.w. bread so a 2 oz. piece is 2 points.  Most fruits (depending on their size) are usually 2 points as well.  A TON of vegies (broccoli, onions, carrots, zucchini, cabbage, cauliflower, spinach, peppers, lettuce, tomatoes, gr. beans, etc.) are 0 point so you can eat as much of those as you want.  I like to dip some of those in hummus and you can have 1/4 c. of that (which is more than you'd think) for only 2 points.  I like it because I don't have to deny myself anything, if I want a cookie, I eat a cookie, I just have to decide if it is worth it to give up that many points.

The one thing about W.W. though is it's kind of a slow and steady thing, it's not one of those where you lose a ton of weight the first couple of weeks as like I said, I think the most I've ever lost my first week is 3 lbs. but the more you have to lose, the more those results are too.  The first time I ever used it, 3-4 years ago, it took me a little over 3 1/2 months to lose 20 lbs. but until this last holiday season, I'd been able to keep the bulk of that off by doing the proportion thing better.  However, I really partied this year so needed to lose 11 lbs.  versus the 5-6 I usually have to at the new year.  Gotta love that divinity!

What method are you guys using to lose weight?

I'm going with the South Beach method...

You must eat at least 6 times a day 3 meals and 3 snacks. and LOTS of water.

Phase 1: The first phase lasts for two weeks and has you remove starches like bread, pasta and rice, potatoes, fruits, milk, yogurt, honey and baked goods. Sugars are completely eliminated. During the first phase of South Beach, you'll enjoy three balanced meals and some snacks that should include lean meats and fish, eggs, low-fat cheese, fresh vegetables, beans and nuts.

Phase 2: Phase two of the South Beach Diet will allow you to slowly re-introduce fruits, whole-grain breads and pastas. You'll choose just one carbohydrate and include that in one meal each day for one week. You are encouraged to wait a few days and if there are no noticeable effects, introduce one more healthy carbohydrate. Continue this until you're able to successfully have two or three healthy carbohydrates each day. Phase two will continue until you meet your goal weight.

Phase 3: You'll begin the maintenance, or third, phase of South Beach once you've met your goal weight. It's here that you'll put to practice all that you learned in phases one and two.



My typical day goes like this

Breakfast: 3 egg omelet - olives, and 3-4 pieces of turkey bacon or sausage. 1 cup of coffee
Mid morning snack: sugar free jello or some unsalted mixed nuts,
Lunch: Leftovers from dinner :) or some tuna with relish, mayo, and mustard
Mid afternoon Snack: Kind of the same as mid morning snack... maybe munch on some smoked salmon.
Dinner: Lean Cuts... steak, chicken, shrimp, pork chops, fish veggies w/ cheese, and lots of water.

Best part is I'm never really hungry so it doesn't feel like I'm dieting.

Although I am extending the 'phase 1' from 2 weeks to...indefinitely? Until I finish the actual book.

All things considered, I'm fairly happy with the results. I have really only excersized a small amount 2 to 3 times a week (less than half an hour a day?) so it has not been a lot of hard work yet. I know I will plateau and I have reserved all the hard 'working out' for pushing through that plateau.

Probably the hardest part is staying away from sugars as I have a RAGING sweet tooth but have curbed it temporarily with sugar free fudge bars and pudding. :)

Another good recipe

I like people sharing good, lo-cal, lo-fat recipes so I'm going to share one I just tried tonight that both Wayne and I loved.  I've been looking up Weight Watchers recipes and this was one of them.  I'm going to write out the recipe just as it was and then at the end will tell you the changes I made but to each his own.

Low-Fat Mexican Tamale Pie

1 c. corn meal 4 c. water

1 onion, chopped 1 green pepper, chopped

1/4 c. fat free chicken broth 1-20 oz. can tomatoes

1/8 t. chili powder 1 lb. ground turkey or chicken

Preheat oven to 375.  In large bowl combine corn meal and water.  Mix well and set aside.  In lg. nonstick skillet over high heat, saute onions and pepper in broth till tender.  Add tomatoes and chili powder and cook till thick.  Cook gr. turkey in another nonstick pan and brown.  Remove from heat and rinse with hot water.  Combine meat with tomato mixture and mix well.  In 8x8 nonstick pan, pour half of the corn meal batter and top with meat mixture.  Then cover with remaining corn meal batter.  Bake for 30 minutes or till golden brown.

O.K. so that's the recipe but I am certain the 4 c. of water has to be a misprint.  I mixed it that way but decided quickly it couldn't be right and dumped out about 3 cups worth of the water so I think I'd start with just 1 c. of water and see what you think.  I also used hamb. being as I have REALLY lean burger.  I also only had a red pepper so used it and my can of tomatoes was a 15 oz. can so that's what I used.  Since I didn't have any chicken broth I just didn't use anything and finally I just did not think 1/8 t. chili powder would season it enough so used quite a bit of taco seasoning instead.  So, as you can see I changed it quite a bit but it was still awesome and for those of you doing W.W., for 1/6 of a pan it was only 4 points so very low.  Of course since I had enough points I ate 6 points worth and it was worth every one.  I have a couple other recipes I'm going to try and if we end up liking any of them too I'll pass them on.

Slow cooker salmon and other wonders of the world

I made the most rocking dinner tonight that must be passed on. It's salmon, cooked in a slow cooker. I found it of a blog called 365 days of slow cooking. It will change your life.

Ingredients
9-12 oz. of fresh spinach
1/2-2lbs. of salmon
2 lemons
Seasoning of choice (the original recipe calls for dill, salt, and pepper)
1/4 cup white wine (you can also use water, apple juice, or broth)

Put all the spinach in the crock pot. It will be heaping to the top. Place the salmon on top of the spinach and season as desired. Place slices of lemon over the whole piece of salmon. Pour the white wine on the top of everything. Cook on low for 2 hours. (That is what the recipe said. I had to cook it on high for two hours and it was perfect.) It is AWESOME!

Are they catchable?

Wow Julie and Doug, you threw down some pretty amazing numbers, they're going to be hard to beat if you keep it up BUT I'm still going to try.  :)  We all did good and should all be proud of ourselves.  Here's to the next 8 weeks!

Results, Week 2

There are some serious competitors in this group. This will be a some hard earned money, there's no doubt about that.

Adam has had a death in his family so has a bi this week. Other than that, the results in full are below. Send a prayer for him and his family.

Happy trails and no carbs to you!

Julie Reynolds- 5.6 %
Doug- 5.4%
Helena- 4.3%
Jason- 4.2%
Angela- 4.1%
Julie Montgomery- 3.7%
Dave- 3.5%
Lianna- 3.4%
Justin- 3.2%
Matt- 3.0%
Greg- 3.0%
Sara-3.0%
Wayne- 1%

Whining helps!

It's hard to say how all this dieting stuff works because like I stated, I broke my cardinal rule and weighed mid-week and had lost .2 lbs. which naturally caused me to cry.  I even weighed myself after my pity party hoping the tears I'd shed weighed 3 lbs. but no luck, still .2 lbs.  Then I ended up with a 3 lb. loss this week, better than last week and I NEVER lose more weight than my first week when dieting.  I think God got tired of hearing me whining and scraped some excess fat off for me.  Whatever, I'm far happier with my numbers now.  From this point though, I typically really slow down, to 1-1.5 lbs. a week but I'll still be happy with that because it'll get me to my goal, not in the money, but to my goal and that's really what I want anyway.  Good luck all!

My Bathroom Scale Hates Me

Honestly. My scale will spit out one weight 3 times in a row... I will take a hot shower hoping to sweat off another 1/2 pound maybe get another pound lighter, get out of the shower, completely dry off and it spits out a weight 2lbs HEAVIER than the first time! Julie measures herself on the same scale too. Wondering if the scale has a flaw for people as 'heavy' as me I went to double check on my uber-high tech Wii fit and it spits out a weight 1 pound LIGHTER than the pre-shower weight. So there's a 3lbs discrepancy between my bathroom scale and my Wii Fit Scale. Of course I began using the bathroom scale so that is begrudgingly the weight I will use to report.

On the flip side, Julie weighs exactly the same on both scales...but I'm 3lbs heavier on the bathroom scale?

The Wii Fit loves Julie too. It tells her she is of 'normal weight' and applauds her progress. It tells me that I am 'overweight' with a cute little frownie face and 'disappointed' sound effect. The worst part of the Wii Fit is, if you are measured at 'overweight' it substitutes your would-be torso for a huge beach ball shaped one...

Oh well. One day I'll be "normal" again.

Working hard, losing nothing.

Lianna, if it makes you feel any better I have never worked so hard at a diet in my life with worse results!  I'm exercising like a maniac, and like Jason pretty much living on water and gravel with a pine cone thrown in every once in a while and by mid-week I'd lost POINT 2 lbs.    So, at weigh-in tomorrow I'm sure I'll have lost, at best, half of a pound.  There is no  justice so I guess we'll just have to forge forward and hope for better results next week.  You honestly may have just gained muscle weight, you have always had a tendency to do that and there's nothing wrong with that.  Good luck to all but it really looks like it's me who needs that the most.  I'd counted on the rest of you to not be as focused as I am but boy has that not been the case, you are all animals.  Eight weeks to go!

It's that time again

First of all, Lianna, I am sincerely sorry. Maybe it's because you now have a rock hard body and can crush nuts with your rear.

To the rest of you, the time is near. Tomorrow is our week two weigh in. Please email me your CUMULATIVE percentage lost, not just what percentage you lost in the last week. (See Lianna, you'll still be okay.) I will have the results posted by Tuesday morning.

Good luck to all. Go ahead, wear a garbage bag and run six miles. Nothing like a little dehydration to make those numbers look good. (That was a joke by the way.)

i GAINED this week. i'm furious. would someone mind sending me a big spoonful of quit eating?

thanks. (hope everyone was more successful than me.)

I'm Hungry!!!

Enough trash talk...I'm hungry! :) I have the late afternoon munchies and sometimes a cup of tea has really helped me through that time. Today, I want more than tea! What other suggestions does everyone have to get through these cravings? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone?

Hi fellow dieters,

I thought you all might be interested in a soup that is for the Weight Watchers diet and is "zero points" meaning you can eat as much of it that you want without having to count it.  It's good too, if you like vegetable soup.  It's called "Garden Vegetable soup".

2/3 c. sliced carrots 1/2 c. diced onion

2 minced garlic cloves 3 c. broth (any kind)

1 1/2 c. diced green cabbage  1/2 c. green beans (I use frozen)

1 T. tomato paste 1/2 t. dried basil

1/4 t. oregano 1/4 t. salt

1/2 c. diced zucchini

In large saucepan, sprayed with nonstick cooking spray, saute' carrot, onion, and garlic over low heat until softened, about 5 minutes.  Add broth, cabbage, beans, tomato paste, basil, oregano, and salt; bring to a boil.  Lower heat and simmer, covered, about 15 minutes or till beans are tender.  Stir in zucchini and heat 3-4 minutes.  Serve hot.  ENJOY!  It actually is quite tasty, I have a mongo batch in my fridge right now.

Need a math check...

So I was an art major...

I got my percentage but I think I did it wrong....and i think I told adam wrong...and julie wrong.

method 1 *easiest

lbs lost/starting weight
8/214=.0373 correct?

method 2 (much more complicated which I used of course)

I took current weight 206/total weight 214=.962616
subtracted result from 1 (1-.962616=.037384) move the decimal over...somehow my calculator spat out 2.8 for some reason.

Now I can't figure out how I came up with 2.8...but I think I'm at 3.7% I must have lost the weight from my brain.

Week One Results

I think everyone did great. Keep it up for week 2!

Lianna -4.0%
Julie Reynolds-3.5%
Greg -3.5%
Jason -2.8%
Helena -2.7%
Doug -2.5%
Matt -2.5%
Sara -2.5%
Angela -2.3%
Adam -2.3%
Justin -2.2%
Dave -2.2%
Julie Montgomery -1.6%
Wayne +1%

Technical difficulties

I am having trouble getting email to send tonight so I'll post the email here. Hopefully everyone found this blog.

I listed all of us as authors to the blog. That means anyone should be able to post here. Some ideas include trash talking, healthy recipes, and anything you'd like to communicate to the group. You know me, I sure love this whole blog thing! Let me know if you have trouble accessing the blog or submitting a post.

Also, just in case you forgot (haha), tomorrow is weigh in day. Please send your percentage lost to me tomorrow and I will list all of them, from high to low, on Tuesday, on the blog. If I dont' get your results I will list you as a 0% loss. By the way, I cheated on my weight because I cut a lot of my hair off. It's a weight loss tactic I highly recommend, no self control needed. Similar to cutting off a limb.

Last thing. Credit where credit is due. This blog idea was Helena Reynolds (my brother-in-law Jason's mom). Thanks for the good idea!

Happy weighing!

First, Second, and Third

There has been some discussion about instead of having a winner takes all money pot, allowing for a second and third prize. One idea was to give third place their $20 back, second place gets $50, and first takes $210. It does give the winner less but may keep everyone still interested and motivated if there becomes an obvious front runner. What do you think?