New here, been lurking for a week, gaining lots of info from you all.

Anyway, today I had my first weigh in with my weight loss coach. She gave me crap when I told her I've been using black pepper to season my veggies. She said it's not allowed. However, when I looked on my sheet, it says nothing about using black pepper. I just assumed it was considered a spice and since it wasn't on the sheet, I put it on pretty much everything.

Now, should I take her advice and not use it to season my veggies? Or should I just keep using it because my sheet says nothing about not using it?

I did lose -6.8 lbs this week, so how bad can it be?

Black pepper is nothing but a spice. It has no nutritional value to affect your diet, there is NO reason why you can't use it.

Some of these 'coaches' kill me...i remember the one who said only frozen spinach was 'reala spinach...

I have no idea why your coach would say that. Maybe she is confusing it with the other bell peppers? It doesn't make sense, and I'd find another coach. I put black pepper on everything. Cassia cinnamon too!

I will add my "two cents" about pepper -- we know a person who worked in a pepper factory and he said he would never use anything but peppercorns in a grinder (tastes best anyway). He said to stick away from ground pepper as it's the worst quality of the pepper that they use for that, and it has lots of fillers. My MIL thought she had a wheat allergy and her dr also told her to avoid pepper as it has a lot of flour as filler. Maybe that is what your coach was thinking (?) but really, unless you have an allergy, how much flour would we be having in spices?
Still, grind your own pepper my friends, grind your own...

Yes, pepper is just spice. I use it all the time of my veggies also. I grind pepper too.

I can't believe some of the advice coaches give. That being said, there are some great coaches out there for sure. I hope everyone finds one!

And if not, this board is the best coach ever!

I use pepper all the time but I do grind my own. I also use a commercial bell pepper seasoning that is very hot. I thought it would help rev up the metabolism. I have had steady losses even though I don't use it regularly.

Also in coaches, mine is nice but not overly knowledgable. I think she quizzes me a lot since I have a steady weight loss and she is learning from me but I only restate what I learn in this forum. So I agree that this forum is the best support and coach ever!

[COLOR="Indigo"]WOW, that is all I am going to say....WOW

And this is why I'm finding this message board so much more helpful than my coach. I kinda figured pepper was just a spice, so what's the harm? And I lost almost 7 lbs eating it all week, so it can't be all that bad. And like I said, nowhere on my sheet does it say I can't eat black pepper.

Oh well. I'm gonna keep eating it. Thanks everyone