teacherlady... It was GREAT seeing recipes for maintenance.. Thanks for sharing. I love spaghetti squash, and last night had it and tried your recipe. Delicious...
Patzi

Okay, ladies, I need some help in the creativity department.

I want to start a food/recipe blog, but I can't come up with a title that isn't weird, lame, trite, or already being used.

I have had so many friends, family, and new acquaintances ask me how I lost the weight... and now they're all asking me how I'm keeping it off, what I'm eating, etc. I had 2 friends tell me (after I posted the spaghetti squash recipe on facebook with my changes) that I should start a food/recipe/healthy eating blog. I think I want to do it.

I may eventually incorporate exercise information into it, too (more like, "what am I doing now for exercise" updates), but it's going to start just being a food blog. Some of the food ideas/recipes I put up will be my own creations, but many will come from other food blogs I have followed or recipes I have found and adjusted, so I would link to the originals and then include my adjustments (usually to make it healthier or yummier).

Help! Several of my friends suggested "Natalie's Nibbles" (my name is Natalie) but I hate that. It's cutesy, and I am most definitely not a cutesy or girlie person.

Here are a few that I'm considering (I don't like them all, but I'm keeping them on the list of possibilities since they aren't already being used by someone else):

Seven Parts Full ---Based on Chinese dietary adage: eat only until you are '7 parts full' (70 percent full).
My Own Taste -- with this quote as the tagline: When baking, follow directions. When cooking, go by your own taste. ~Laiko Bahrs
Cooking Skinny
Delicious Flavor
A Bite to Eat
Grab a Bite
On a Silver Platter
Healthier Taste
Gastronomical Rex
Taste Tester
Taste Test
Teacherlady's Test Kitchen

Hi...
I had posted this recipe before, but now that I am on maintenance and experimenting to see what I can eat and not gain, thought I would repost it.

My friend gave me this from a diet she is on..

FAT -FIGHTING PANCAKE.

I double this if I am hungry

1 egg white
2 tbsp.oat bran
2 tbs. fat -free plain Greek Yogurt
1 tsp.Splenda( I use liquid Stevia)

Beat egg white till foamy.
In separate bowl, combine oat bran, Greek Yogurt and sweetener.
Mix with egg white
Cook in non stick pan over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Flip and cook 5
minutes more...

I drizzle a HNS over it, like the grape or wildberry, gel HNS for a syrup.

Since on maintenance I had some smoked salmon with it this morning and last week had some turkey bacon with it..

Patzi

Here's the rough draft version of my food blog:
http://stringbeansandskinnyjeans.blogspot.com/

I decided to go with the title String Beans & Skinny Jeans, as the ladies on two different discussion boards (MRC and an infertility board I'm on) voted more heavily for that one.

I put up my first post last night, and I also have an "about" section, a My Story section (for my weight loss journey), and a fitness section. I still need to add pictures to my fitness section...(I was thinking of getting a picture of me running and another of me doing yoga).

I'm still calling this my "rough draft" version, because I wanted to run it by a few people and then make any final tweaks before announcing it open to the world.

Let me know what you think!

Natalie

love your blog and the name is perfect!!!! :-)

Natalie...
I LOVE the blog and the name is great...

Patzi

Even though I started this thread, I never felt like I should post here (that's just me) because I wasn't at my goal. Today, I can see, I feel like I've earned that right.

Going through my week one stabilization menu, I really wanted to have the Fat-Free Graham crackers since I haven't had them so long. Only problem was I couldn't find them at two different groceries stores. Is there someplace special I should be looking for them at?

Yay yay yay! Congratulations!

Hmmm. I've always found them at my regular grocery stores here in Omaha (HyVee and Kroger).

Thanks, Natalie!!!! We don't have those stores here. Our two big ones are Publix & Winn-Dixie. Neither had it. I think there may be a Harris Teeter in the area. I'll also look for them at Target and Wal-Mart supercenters. Amazon didn't even have them and I thought they had everything. I decided to add in the animal crackers instead. Yummy! Those are good. LOL Since I run at least 3 times a week, I decided to do my extra startch on those days after the run. Yesterday went well and I was actually down 0.2 pounds according to my scale. We'll try them again today and see what happens. If all is well, Multi-Grain Cheerios are my next add-in. Oh how I have missed those. In a way, this is fun, but I'm also scared of gaining weight. Then I saw you post about being 25 pounds under and it calmed me down some. Thank you for that!

Just read an interesting research article about weight loss maintenance. The link is below, but a few habits that have been shown successful maintainers follow:
1. Eating a consistent eating patterns between the week and weekend and over holidays
2. Eating breakfast everyday
3. Low calorie, low fat
4. High levels of exercise (about an hour a day of moderate activity i.e. walking)
5. Self-monitoring weight (daily or weekly) and correcting immediately

Other interesting info in the article. I figure any helpful info for this step of the journey is great. I had a couple days of "up"weight due to TTOM and kinda freaked. But it's back down just with the hormone changes. Phew.

http://www.ajcn.org/content/82/1/222S.full

Jen, I felt the exact same way when I started stabilization and maintenance. I was scared to death I would gain. I have to say, though, that maintenance has been mostly pretty darn easy. Like Patzi has said before, with regular weigh-ins, you just keep track of any gains and immediately take action.

One huge reason I've been so successful on maintenance, I think, is because I implemented a strong exercise program for myself while still dieting. One of the big letdowns when starting maintenance was not seeing any losses on the scale (after being so conditioned to see progress on the scale every week), so I started creating fitness goals for myself to focus on, and I think that has kept me committed and able to focus on eating to fuel my body.

Keep up the running (or whatever else suits your fancy) as much as you can, and you'll be fine. I do the same as you--my splurges and "extras" are usually on days when I've gone running, so I feel like I truly know that those calories have definitely been burned.

Well, things are going very well. Somehow I lost 2.5 pounds in my first week of Stabilization. I'm blown away by that and don't expect it to keep up, but I love having some buffer room.

Gina, that was a great article and gives me motivation to stick with this. All the things they mentioned are habits I've been creating over the past year, so that's encouraging. Please feel free to share anything else you think may help.

Natalie, I just checked out your blog and saw your latest picture. You look wonderful! Congrats!!! I'm definitely going to try to keep up with the running. The summer is always my downfall, so I need to figure out how to keep it up in the extreme heat. I'm not a morning person whatsoever, so that's out. It's still in the high 80's after dark, but I may have to endure it and see. I'll just take it a day at a time. I've got my sights set on a Disney 1/2 marathon in November. I'm very excited about that so hopefully having something to work towards will keep me motivated.

So I'm officially off stabilization and on maintenance. We figured my calories...with my weight and activity level the # she came up with was 1900. (I'd come up with the same number...or even up to 2200 based on some formulas). So we decided since I'd like to lose about 1 more lb to go with 1500 for now...and if I feel like I'm still hungry I have a little wiggle room (especially if I had a hard workout and I'm more hungry). She also encouraged me to experiment with one meal a week that is a little higher calorie-wise (or what I call a treat). 2 weeks ago I tried pizza and over did it. I was scared to try it again, but I used her tips (have a big salad first, lots of water) and I stuck with 1 piece and since I kept my overall calories for the day in the right range, I was down .5 this week. I'm using MFP to track (I like it, I know some don't track calories, but it keeps me honest...otherwise my hand starts finding the animal cookies).

But I had really liked the consistency of my meals on the MRC plan and felt like when the whole supermarket was opened to me....even though I followed Patzi's idea of trying one thing at a time...I was overwhelmed. So I got a little OCD and for each meal of the day (breakfast, am snack, lunch, pm snack) made a list of food combos for each of those meals that equal about the same calories (within 10) and fat/carb/proteins. So breakfast and lunch are around 300 calories, about 200 calories for the snacks, leaving me about 500 for supper...which is usually a meat, protein, and veggies. So far it's working for me...although when I'm being really active I need at least 1600 or I'm overly hungry.

Jen and Gina....
Welcome to the Maintenance Board..

Jen, how wonderful you lost more weight on stabilization.

Gina.. You have it worked out for you, and that is what counts. I have some carb, protein combos I am experimenting with that are working great for me..
I learn from everyone's experience.

I agree with Jen, Natalie, you look fantastic and I love your blog.

It is so nice to have this board growing and I thank Jen for starting it awhile ago.

Patzi