[MemeToo]

Tammy ... if you're really serious about wanting to lose some weight try this.

Drink a Boost (I like the choc.) for breakfast, drink a Yoplait Nouriche (I like the Strawberry best) for lunch and eat a lot of protein and veggies for dinner. Have a piece of fruit and some sugar free jello for snacks. Buy some Viactive calcium supplements and some Vitaball Vitamin Gumballs and have a couple each of those a day and drink lots of water. You should lose about 5 to 7 pounds a week for the first couple of weeks and then a couple of pounds a week after that. You can stay on that as long as it takes to lose as much weight as you need to because it's a healthy eating plan full of vitamins. I never get hungry. I drink the Boost every morning when I get up and then I don't usually get hungry again for hours. If I do I usually reach for a Nouriche and that fills me up for several more hours. I eat whatever I want for dinner but I'm maintaining my weight now. I keep Viactive and Vitaballs in my purse, too. If I want something while I'm out I just pop one of those in my mouth. Or, when I'm watching TV at night ... have my snack and vitamin at the same time. A lot of time eating is just a nervous habit all about 'chewing' and not about hunger at all. Those four little vitamin tricks (along with a bottle of Dasani) have saved me a lot of calories throughout the day. Anyway ... give that a try for a couple of weeks and let me know how you do.

Hubby just took his dad back to the hospital ... running a high temp again. They're doing tests ... don't know if they're going to keep him or not.

[Tammy]

Meme, I think I'll wait until school is out to give that a try. Remind me in a couple of weeks. I know I don't drink as much water as I should because I'd be running to the bathroom all day at school. I'd like to get at least 10 pounds off by the time we go on vacation in July. That doesn't sound like a lot, but the way things have been going I'll never make it!

Hope your FIL is ok. Keep us posted.

[MemeToo]

They sent him home ... going to have the nurse come out every day with his antibiotics in an IV again. We just went through a 4 day hospital stay and 7 days of this same treatment and he just finished his last IV 11 days ago. I think they should be finding out what's causing this infection myself. Why is it reccuring. There must be some underlying reason. I think they are just treating the symptom of some deeper problem.

[Mima]

Sound like it Meme! Hope he feels better.Tammy-I came home 4 lbs over from Fl and I have only lost 1 lb-it ain't easy.MY IBS is so much better, I changed to Benefiber and I haven't had the pains. It's expensive but I'm worth it. Just had a problem because I ate fresh beets. Going out with Brad;s sister for dinner today, And his son and girlfriend are coming to church again. That's a good reason to be up here. I am going to sing with the church choir for our 50th Anniversary Mass in June and have already started working on the Craft Fair-making a Poncho. Doesn't help the fibro but it's fun .
Candice-are you ok. I will pray for you. Bye Mima

[Mima]

Good morning where is everyone? Going to Northhamton today-only 3 days. Bye Mima

[MemeToo]

The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him. (Ps 28:7)

My ankle is healed ... it has skin on it!

[Joanne D]

That is good news Meme.. I know you have been worried about it..
Tammy- Sounds like Meme has a good diet plan for her.. I favor the South Beach diet. I tend to want a little more food.. Protien and lots of veggies work for me..I have been maintaining for several months. Phase 1 will let you lose quiet a few pounds.. I have been staying on phase 2 . The hardback cost about 17$ at Walmart. They sell a small handbook for about 5-8$. A lot of Tops members are using it with good results..It was written by a heart doctor.. It is healthy.. WW ofcourse is now top of the list for weight loss,some say. It is expensive.. I lost 60 lbs there. I then joined Tops and when all else quit working tried SB. I lost 12 more and am happy.. Ofcourse exercise is 50 percent of the battle.
Mima- Back to grind ,I see.. Ofcourse that extra income helps.. It is warm here now. It was mid 80's Yesterday. Some people are getting a little rain ,we haven't yet.. My yard is dry.. I will have to get out and water tonight if it doesn't rain.
We are going to dinner tonight with a neighbor we have lived next to for 44 years. I have never even had a cup of coffee with them.. We pick up their mail when they are out of town..We have never visited in each others home! Does this sound strange? They asked. We accepted.. They are very nice people though. I am sure it will be a nice time...
Candice...You will be fine.. When is your surgery?
Bye,Joanne

[MemeToo]

Two exciting things happening at once ... first my ankle is healed and now I HAVE A NEW PUPPY!!! The puppy I was going to get didn't come about. I called the lady who had the female today and she said the mother only had one pup and it was a male ... I wanted a female. So I found some in the paper about 40 miles from here and hubby and I went to see them tonight. They had ONLY ONE black female and it was love at first sight. It's so little and cute and cuddly! She'll be 8 weeks old Thursday and only weighs 3.5 pounds. I'll make a picture tomorrow when she's more settled in ... poor thing is nervous and scared to death tonight and she's finally settled down in her box right now. I'm going to go to WM tomorrow and get a carrying crate for her to sleep in and some food dishes, food and toys and stuff. The lady I bought her from gave me enough food for a day or two. We don't have ANYTHING because we weren't expecting to do this until next month. I DON'T EVEN HAVE A NAME FOR HER!!! I've thought and thought and can't come up with anything. Can you tell I'm excited? My BD is Friday so "Happy Birthday To Me!"

As far as diets go ... no "diet" is good unless you can stay on it forever. You absolutely HAVE to LIKE what you eat. That's the bottom line. If you aren't enjoying your food you won't continue to eat that food. And ... that food has to sustain you ... meet your needs or your daily requirements. If it isn't doing that, you can't stay on it forever. It might be ok to go on a 2 or 3 day fast or just eat soup or drink liquids or something to lose a few pounds for a reunion or something like that but if your talking about a long term diet that's really going to work, the food you eat has to have the vitamins you need and you have to like what you're eating or it'll never ever work ... you'll either get sick and have to quit or you'll get sick of the diet and quit. And what each person likes and dislikes is not the same just as each person's nutritional needs are not always the same. Like me ... I need a lot more protein and iron than most people because I'm severly anemic. Also, I hate being told what to or not to eat by someone else so a structured plan from a book doesn't work well for me when that might be what another person really needs. And some days I don't eat hardly anything while other days I eat like a pig! I'm different! So ... each person has to know their own bodies and what works for them and work out their own eating plan and it has to be for a lifetime ... not just for a few weeks.

My FIL has one Dr. telling him his blood is low ... sent him to another Dr. today and he said his blood isn't that low. He pulled some more blood and sent it off. Didn't tell him what his count was. I'd like to know. Wish I'd went in with him. I'm going to tell him to ask when he goes back next time and write it down. Bless his heart ... he's been though so much the last month.

Mima ... sounds like you're getting right back in the swing of things. Don't you just love to sing? The song I sang Sunday morning had 4 verses and 3 chorus' and NONE of them were the same ... it was hard to memorize!!! Thanks for the tip on the Benefiber ... I'm going to get some this weekend. I've been having an IBS problem, too, lately. Been killing me!

UT OH ... puppy just woke up and is crying. I may be in for a loooong night.

[MemeToo]

Taking a vote ... help me choose a puppy name. I'm soooo stuck here! And desperate!!! Here are my choices. These are all French names I've found that I like:

Gabrielle (Gabby)
Isabelle (Belle)
Jacquline (Jackie)
Jeanie
Joelle (Jo)
Julie
Koko
Madeleine (Maddy)
Michelle (Chelle)
Nicolette (Nikki)
Nicolle (Nikki)
Nina
Noelle
Rochelle (Chelle)
Sacha

Vote ASAP because I can't keep calling her PUPPY!

[Tammy]

Joanne, when I lost weight a couple years ago, I was doing the South Beach diet. I should find that book and read it again. Tonight!! lol
I agree about WW getting costly. I was a member there, and I rarely lost much even when I was very strict with the program.

Meeting after school today. The superintendent and principal were there to tell us what we will be teaching next year. Instead of meeting with individual teachers, we were all in one room and the projected the names and grades on a screen. There are 4 of us at second grade right now. Only one of us will be there next year. I am going to 4th grade, my team teacher is going to 8th grade, and the other teacher is going to 5th. People are NOT happy. I think it was the administrations way to say that they can do what they want, and we can't do anything about it.

Meme, I like Jo because that's my middle name!!

[MemeToo]

Well ... so far I have a Nikki, a Jo, two Gabbys and still no name. They asked me at the vets when I called to make an appointment what her name was and I said just put her down as puppy for now and maybe I'll have a name for her by next time! I didn't get the picture made yet, today has been extremely busy with 2 trips to town ... maybe tomorrow will be better. My cousin is wanting a picture, too, so I'll try really hard to get one. She's soooo cute! Hubby is even falling for her!

[Mima]

Sasha-gotta go to work. Got a new haircut and tons of compliments, Mima

[Joanne D]

Tammy- We all know that 50% of any eating plan to lose weight is exercise..The easy way is put on a pair of walking shoes and go out the door. Tell your family "see you in an hour". Read the SB book again. It is always hard to get back to changing our way of eating to a healthy way. I tend to modify my eating between SB and WW.In other words I still count points..I don't write down everything I eat unless I have gotten way off tract. My daughter has walked with a fellow teacher for quiet a while. She also goes to her room where all here exercise toys are and does about an hour there most days.Getting rid of the white foods is a start..
They did much the same thing in her school when they moved the teachers around. My daughter was upset for the whole summer because of the way it was handled the last day of school. Now she is glad.. She is still grade leader(which she was tired of) but it seems less stress.. All Fl. schools are stress these days..A lot of changes need to be made.For my daughters sake I am glad there is only about another week or so left in this school year..
Meme- Sasha sounds good.. I sometimes would like to have a little dog.. My hubby is against it.. They are a lot of work. We don't have a fenced in yard and it would have to be on a chain whenever we took it out..It would limit our time away from home etc..
Tops tonight. Have to face the scale!
Bye...Joanne

[Happy Canuk]

Good afternoon ladies.

I have been to fatigued to even bother typing. Last week, I went to the city to help my aunt with her garage sale. Went Wednesday, came home Friday afternoon, and went back Saturday and came back Sunday. I came back home Friday, because I was afraid of crashing and then having to stay in the city longer, until I felt strong enough to drive. Hubby came with me on Saturday. Then for the past 3 days, I have done nothing - not even sleep. Today, it is past noon and I feel back to normal, thank goodness.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEME!!! I like Gabby for a name, so that is my vote. My DIL name is Jackie and her sister is Jo They are French and their names are really Jackaline and Jolene.

Joanne - hope you get some rain down there. It is trying it's best to rain here, but it doesn't seem to be happening. Just little spits and spats. Enough fell to get the leaves popped out, so everything is beautiful and green. The Environment people say we are in for a drought again this summer.

Tammy - soon school will be over!!! I am sure you feel just like the kids on that one FREEDOM!!! I have been trying to lose weight, unsuccessfully for the past few years. It won't budge and I get discouraged. I do all of what Joanne said, with the exception of walking. Now that my foot feels better, I will give that a try, but I don't expect anything to happen. I am burdened by a chronic yeast problem and than makes your body retain a LOT of fluid.

Also, the SB diet doesn't work for me. It causes my heart to go into Atrial Fibrillation, even when taking meds. The heart specialist said it gets the Electolytes messed up. So, I find myself between a rock and a hard place at times.

Joanne - I haven't eaten white stuff for years. I don't drink pop, eat much candy etc. I eat really healthy as a matter of fact, and rarely do we have junk food here. I need to cut the portions down, down, down. I was on WW for 6 months and lost 9 pounds and that was in the first couple of weeks, then NOTHING.

Meme - hope you are having yourself a nice day. That puppy sounds so cute. I would love one, but won't get one, as I want to be free to come and go at will, and that will get to be even more so,when hubby retires in 5 years.
I was going to try drinking a Boost and having a Yoplain Nouriche, but it seems that nobody has that one here. I guess I could go with 2 boosts. Did you use the Boost with extra fiber or protein???

Candice - Where are you? Have you had your surgery yet?

Mima - so you are working again, well have fun! I could never move to a place like Florida or Arizona as the heat would kill me. I hate hot weather. I like it around 75 degrees, as that is just perfect. Plus, I guess I am a homebody and I would miss my friends and family too much. So, I will spend the winter in snow country

Well, hope everybody has a good day.

[MemeToo]

Anne ... you and I must be just alike! TN even gets too hot for me during July and Aug. Yes ... I drink the boost with extra Protein every day because of my low blood.

Well ... I started to name her Gabby because so many people liked that but I was also leaning toward Nikki. Then I liked Koko, too. It was so hard. Almost as hard as naming a baby! But ... then I went back through the baby names again (on a different website I found) and came up with some new names. I decided on one ... Tanika. It's different. Guess I'll call her Nika ... it just seems to fit. Since I'm going to register her I'll need 2 or 3 names so I think I'm going to register her as Princess Tanika Domonique (so I can sing "Dominique, nique, nique" to her!!!) Hard to type ... she's sitting in my lap with her head on the bottom of the keyboard!