Karen, that is so great that you feel so much better with a small adjustment. I learn so much from this forum. Now if I ever have gallbadder issues I will know what to try! Thanks for sharing that.
I am feeling up and positive today and I had my Hot Cocoa so far. I am a little behind on my meal window so need to go grab a shake. I so have one Optavia biscuit packet left. I want to do something with that for lunch. I read somewhere that they are better baked in the oven, so I will do it in my toaster oven. I am thinking I could use part of my Lean today as 1/4 c Egg Beaters, scramble it and make an Optavia biscuit sandwich! Sounds good right? And totally on plan. I can use the rest of the Egg Beater Lean (1 3/4 c if I remember correctly) to make a dinner omelet with spinach and peppers inside.
I almost forgot! Here is my victory: last night I went to a party and they served pizza and soda there. I did not eat any of it! I am so proud of myself. Have a great day everyone!
Thanks for the congrats! So this morning I decided I needed to really try and get my steps in. Where I live, there is a really cool trendy part of town with vintage clothing stores, records shops, art galleries, antique shops and unique restaurants. I have always wanted to just walk through that neighborhood, so I planned to do that. My husband pointed out there were thunderstorms and rain expected. I changed my destination instead to an enclosed mall, but when I hit the road, the sky was clear and blue as far as the eye could see so I rerouted to my original destination.
I parked at a Starbucks at one end of the street, bought a coffee and water and set off. I tracked the first mile with my Garmin so it was recording a workout; I walked without stopping into any shops but noted the ones I would check on the way back. I overdressed in a sweater because it got above 70 and was really sunny so I was a tad overheated. The whole area is just under a mile and I turned around at the 3/4 mile point (a major intersection) and headed back to my car. When I was no longer tracking my workout, I wandered into the vintage clothing store and eyed some 'goal' clothes to buy later. When I got to the record store, I figured out my 25lb reward: 2 albums from my youth (the 80s) Alison Moyet (who was Adele before there was an Adele) and Scritti Politti (whose album I had on cassette back in the day). Now I'm home and listening to them.
That excursion got me over 4,500 steps so I figured out how to get more. When I'm in the office, just walking from my car to my desk racks up a ton of steps, so I drove up to the office to pick up some Medifast meals from my desk (the majority of my stash is at work, and I had been running low at home). Long story, I didn't plan to work from home on Friday and had to make up for the meals that were set aside in my desk with my meager home stash. Even though I could have brought the food back home on Monday, I knew I could add steps to my Sunday by heading there. By the end of that errand I was at 90% of my daily goal at over 6700 steps. I now need less than 500 steps for the rest of the day to reach my goal - SWEET!!
I decided that I will start going to the gym in the morning and preloading my step count by doing 30 minutes on the treadmill as I want to increase my goal to 10,000 steps.
I almost forgot! Here is my victory: last night I went to a party and they served pizza and soda there. I did not eat any of it! I am so proud of myself. Have a great day everyone!
STEPH! That is HUGE!! I am beyond proud of you!! I know how difficult that is and with being frustrated with not losing, it would be SO easy to just throw in the towel and play with everyone else. I totally get that.
Thanks Laura. You are inspiring me to start walking more too! Maybe I will strap on my old pedometer and start making a few walking goals. You are doing amazing!
Friends, I have been struggling. I had reverted back to my old ways this week. I believe this 8 week class I am taking - "Food and Mood" - is uncovering some deep emotional attachment that I have with bingeing. This program is presented by a psychologist who is certain that you have to go through it to get to the other side. I was perfectly content on Medifast until I started this program: never thinking it would play havoc with my resistance to sugared items.
Joyce - You may have struggled this week and gone back to some old habits but you were able to recognize it, stop it and get back on the horse. If you are able to understand the root of you negative habits, maintaining once you reach goal will be that much easier.
That being said, I think for the most part we will all have down times where we will do and eat things we shouldn't. Stopping before it gets out of hand is the key. Look at way Carmen held herself accountable after a week of what for some people would have only been the beginning of the end. I see the same in you Joyce. You struggled, maybe for different reasons but at the end of the day, here you are, being accountable and dealing with it in a way that will only make you stronger in the end.
Like so many of us have said, this group is source of inspiration and strength not only for us but also for those who may not participate by contributing but I know are out there reading our words. We get lots of views of our posts and my hope is that others feel strength from them as well.
Carmen, Congrats! You must feel great about your progress. Now that you are so close to your goal, it makes sense that both you and Karen have moved to a 4 & 2. There are some days when I also do 4 & 2 because I feel I need to eat more. I can rationalize it 100 ways but the bottom line is that I am just hungrier on some days than others. As long as its on either 5 & 1 or 4 & 2, I'm ok with it.
I almost forgot! Here is my victory: last night I went to a party and they served pizza and soda there. I did not eat any of it! I am so proud of myself. Have a great day everyone!
Steph!!!! Way to go! That would have been a killer for me. I love pizza. That's a huge victory.
Laura, Congrats on upping your steps and your weight loss! Everything counts in the weight loss arena. 25 lbs is fantastic! You have really done an amazing job.
Today is my weigh in day and I am down 1.5 pounds this week. I am choosing to rejoice in this loss! There is always a greedy part of me that wants "more more more," but I am learning to be satisfied in the journey. As long as I am going towards my goal and not away from it, this is victory! Thank you friends for your part in holding my hands to help me stay on course.
I have a question for all. In the mornings, do you drink coffee/tea? Do you add anything to it? I remember seeing someone added vanilla shake as creamer. I like to have a cup or two in the morning. I sometimes go over my daily condiments because I use 1 Tablespoon of sugar free creamer in each cup. I wonder how others handle the morning coffee situation. I know it is a couple carbs each cup. I have been counting it as my "snack' since I don't eat the Medifast snacks. Thoughts?
Carmen! I made your crab cakes today for lunch. OH. MY. GOODNESS!! They were so good!!! Thank you so much for sharing the idea! So simple to make too! I have rarely actually eaten crab cakes, let alone made them. Fantastic! I didn't have the turnip part available but found some Birdseye Buffalo Cauliflower in the freezer section that I thought I would try and it paired nicely. I had a side serving of Wishbone Chipotle ranch dressing and everything came together so nicely. I'm going to try to insert the link to Carmen's original post: http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/5299409-post443.html
I have to work today and am actually taking it easy because I fear I may have overdone it yesterday. My heartrate is really low and I sometimes forget that I'm only 8 months away from having been in the hospital with my heart issue. I feel much better after that wonderful and filling lunch though!
Steph, I drink my coffee black. I used to drink very milky coffee, I'd add almost 1/4 cup of milk or cream (which translates roughly to 3 tbsp) and knew I'd likely have to give that up on this program. A few years ago, my roommate and I would take our Sunday hikes to a Starbucks a few miles away. Back then, they didn't have pre-mixed ice coffee and she would order a drip coffee over ice. When I joined her, I drank it black (not sure why, maybe because that's how she took it) and it helped acclimate my palate to the taste of black coffee. Since my heart thing, I try to not have too much - I'll order a grande and only drink half. I find that more than one cup upsets my stomach. When I was out yesterday, I got a grande and put the smallest splash of half & half just to see if my stomach liked it better, but still only drank about half of it. If you're one who likes sweet creamy coffee, I'm afraid my solution wouldn't work for you.
Steph, on the 1.5lb loss!! It's nice when the scale actually budges, isn't it? Look back on your food log this week to remind yourself what worked and led to the loss and keep on track! You're going in the right direction!!
Today is my weigh in day and I am down 1.5 pounds this week.
I have a question for all. In the mornings, do you drink coffee/tea?
Steph I'm so happy you were able to "move the needle" and lose some weight. I know you've been frustrated but it is all downhill from here!
Regarding the coffee, like Laura, I gave up drinking anything in my coffee. I take it black now. When I started this diet in January, I always added french vanilla coffeemate but realized I would need to give that up to stick with the plan. Rather than find a substitute, I started buying a better brand of coffee and grinding my own beans. After about 10 days, I became used to it and realized I didn't miss the approx 100 calories a day I was consuming in coffeemate. As a bonus, I stopped drinking as much coffee and started drinking more water.
Oh and because I know you are a huge fan of making new things out of MF food, I also save coffee we don't finish in the morning in a pitcher in the fridge and use the chilled coffee to make a MF shake with instead of water. That way, I have caffeine and my MF morning fueling! Sometimes I do that in the am instead of hot coffee. The Mocha flavor with coffee and crushed ice in teh blender is particularly good!
Another trick we just started using was to use the powdered peanut butter (PBFitt) in the shakes. 1 Tsp is only 25 calories with only 7.5 of them being fat and .5 grams of sugar. If you like peanut butter, this is an awesome substitute.
Carmen! I made your crab cakes today for lunch. OH. MY. GOODNESS!! They were so good!!! Thank you so much for sharing the idea! So simple to make too! I have rarely actually eaten crab cakes, let alone made them. Fantastic! I didn't have the turnip part available but found some Birdseye Buffalo Cauliflower in the freezer section that I thought I would try and it paired nicely. I had a side serving of Wishbone Chipotle ranch dressing and everything came together so nicely. I'm going to try to insert the link to Carmen's original post: http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/5299409-post443.html
Laura and Carmen, I forgot to mention that I tried the crab cakes as well and man, they were so fantastic! I used the MF honey mustard pretzels with an egg as the binder and broiled them until brown. They were wonderful. Very filling and tastes like a real treat. I generally try to buy the canned, fresh crab meat when it goes on sale here because otherwise, the really good stuff is really expensive. Now I can't wait to find it on sale again. I think I'll buy 2!
Sheila! Love the idea of the honey mustard pretzels! What about the protein in the pretzels? Do you have to accommodate for that in your crab serving?
I just added a full order of the crackers to my next order because I think my husband would actually eat these! He is not a fish person and I am always trying to find ways to get more fish in his diet.
Also, I thought I'd try the parmesan cheese snack things (can't remember what they're called) because unlike the popcorn, they have protein in them and I think they would be satisfying between meals.
Sheila! Love the idea of the honey mustard pretzels! What about the protein in the pretzels? Do you have to accommodate for that in your crab serving?
Also, I thought I'd try the parmesan cheese snack things (can't remember what they're called) because unlike the popcorn, they have protein in them and I think they would be satisfying between meals.
Laura, The pretzels are just a regular MF item and because our crabcakes made 5 with 2 packages of pretzels (I had 2 and my husband had 3). I just ate a little more that day. I find my calories vary from about 900 - 1200 on the high side. Honestly, I am not super strict about my L&G as long as I know its in the ball park with the protein and veggies amounts and it stays inside the calorie range for the day (generally about 1000). That means I likely ate over the protein amt but so be it! I can't live and die by an extra 10 or 11 grams of protein.
Because I broiled the crab cake instead of fried it, I calculated that the entire set of 5 crab cakes was 800 calories and because I ate 2 of the 5, that put me at about 320 calories plus the spinach and red pepper mix we ate for veggies. For about 375 calories, I had a ton of food. I figured it was lower than some of our other meals even including the pretzels.
Oh, and the parmesan cheese puff things. We did not care for them at all. They had little taste although they did start to grow on me a little. My husband never could tolerate them. I had to eat the bulk of the box. In exchange he slugged down the seaweed Optavia shakes I hated.
I am beyond proud of you!! I know how difficult that is and with being frustrated with not losing, it would be SO easy to just throw in the towel and play with everyone else. I totally get that. 
on the 1.5lb loss!! It's nice when the scale actually budges, isn't it? Look back on your food log this week to remind yourself what worked and led to the loss and keep on track! You're going in the right direction!!
