Ok I have been counting calories and staying under 30 carbs. The program I am doing is called Medi weight loss clinic. I go to the clinic once a week to weigh. So far I am doing good. I have tried probably 10 other diets but I have been able to do this one the best. I think do to the low carb. My hunger and cravings a very few. Hoping I am half way good for Christmas. I am trying to be at 250 by jan 1 don't think I am going to make it??

The desserts are what's going to be hard.

Well hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and enjoy your family!!!
I have 2 Christmas parties and a wedding before christmas. Busy busy!!

Joe I agree I love the way a loss feels. So I am thrilled when I hear I have loss. But I do understand it may not always be that but it's ok. We will just keep moving forward to our goal.

Happy Holidays, my QWLC friends.

It's been a busy and awesome week. I stayed on plan with eating and I worked out hard at the gym more days than not. My personal trainer has me pulling 35 pounds in a machine with each arm. The first set of 15 was pretty easy...the third set of 15 not so much. She mixed it up with dips and push ups. I am pretty impressed with the strength I am building. I lost a bit less than 2 lbs this week and my dress size is smaller. I am an official Medium.

This week I don't expect to lose any. Family will be in town and I intend to eat with them. I will forego bread, candy, and desert. I plan to eat the veggie bits of the meal (in smaller portions-no seconds) with a salad (no dressing). I will also have a bite of a gingerbread cookie if my grandchildren choose to share theirs with me. I will also keep up with my workout schedule and perhaps run a mile with my son to burn the extra calories. My goal is to find ways to enjoy my favorite holiday meals in moderation and not gain weight. I'll let you know how I do on Wednesday.

I hope you all have a terrific holiday weekend.

TTFN

No post-Christmas posts! How's everybody doing now with the NY almost upon us? Isn't it wonderful to have already begun this journey instead of waiting until a New Year's resolution to begin? I'm so thankful that I started QWLC in Nov. I'm down 25 pounds in 7 weeks, and I feel great even though I still have a ways to go, expecting to reach my goal weight right around my birthday in March. Spring and summer will be grand, I just have to hold onto that thought. NYEve and NYDay for my family are non-events, so no worries there. Onward and DOWNward! Hope everyone is having great successes.

Happy New Year my QWLC friends,

As mentioned above, I was off plan for the Christmas holiday. I watched portion size-no seconds and worked off those pesky calories with extra workouts. The result was a one pound loss for the week. Considering I have been averaging 1.8 each week, I didn't do too shabby. My counselors are going to increase my calories on Monday. It appears that I may not be getting in enough calories and that's why my weekly average is a bit low. Here's hoping they allow me an extra protein bar each day---they're super yummy...especially the caramel crunch and peanut butter brownie.

Nino, Kudos on the 25lb loss. That's awesome.

TTFN

Happy New Year to you as well, BE Veggie! And great job getting through Christmas and still having a loss, that's wonderful. They've told me every week since I started that if I don't eat the full daily protein servings, my loss will be slow. So maybe you do need to eat more. I only WISH I could have those protein bars, they won't sell them to me because I have kidney stones and lots of protein makes the kidneys work harder.... which makes no sense since they're pushing large protein servings. Oh well, saves me money I guess but sure makes for a boring food list. I'm never, ever able to eat the full protein servings but still having good losses. 6-7-8 oz of meat, fish or THREE eggs is way more than I can handle (unless of course it's breaded, deep-fried, or covered in butter and salt). ha Which is what brought me here in the first place. Anyway, keep up the good work, it's a new year for us all!

Happy new year everyone. I just got back from vacation. We went to the Smoky Mountains and rented a cabin. It was nice, but cold!

My goal for the trip was to stay on my diet as much as I could and to at least maintain my weight. I am happy that I was able to do that. It was hard eating out sometimes. The concept of a "vegetable" in Tennessee seems to be different from home! Very few menus had any green veggies -- other than green beans cooked with ham -- let alone steamed. Most were loaded with fat (i.e., mashed potatoes, creamed corn, broccoli and cheese casserole, etc.) I ate a lot of salads -- when they were available. Even that wasn't always easy! At once place the only choice of salad dressing was ranch! I suppose I should have planned a little bit better and should have taken single portions of light salad dressings with me when I was out. But anyway, I'm just glad i was able to maintain my weight while I was gone. Now that I am back, I should be back on track. The hardest thing for me to do, I found, was to drink enough water. It was much colder there than I'm used to. Most days it did not get above 40 degrees. Its easy to drink a lot of water when its warm outside. But I found that in the cold, I hardy drank anything at all.

Hi All,

I have finally decided to start posting in the forum and wanted to introduce myself. I've followed this thread for awhile but just haven't posted. Now that the New Year is here, I wanted to get started on QWLC for the second time.

A bit about me-

I did QWLC about 5 years ago. Lost about 20 lbs and maintained it for 3 and half years. I was religiously going to the QWLC to see my counselor for about 3 months and just realized I could do it on my own. Summer of 2011, I started noticing a lot of weight gain in a short period of time, even though I was following the diet (more or less). Once I had gained my 20 lbs back plus a little more I decided to go the doc. Found out I had thyroid cancer and since then, it's been a struggle to get back onto the plan with the commitment and drive I have 5 years ago. At my lowest weight, I was 145 lbs (I'm about 5'9") and I was happy at this weight. Now, I'm 205 lbs and a bit embarrassed in myself that I let it all come back like this.

And so I'm here and would like to trek along with the other QWLC folks in our journey to a healthy weight.

I am beginning the prep phase today. If any of you could help me confirm my memory of the prep phase - was it 3 days of all greens and unlimited protein (your choice of only 1 protein)? Only a certain kind of Italian dressing for the salad?

If anyone has the original books/ plan lists scanned, could you please let me know so I can provide you with my email address. I've searched my house high and low and couldn't find any of the original paperwork I had.

I look forward to continuing my journey with this community!

Send me your email, Vdshelton.

Although it was never really a mini-goal, I realized today that I just passed my half-way point towards my ultimate weight loss goal. But its not really a goal that is set in stone. I just picked it because that was the lowest weight I have ever been as an adult and I think I would be happy at that weight. As I get closer to that goal, I will know whether I need to lose more or less.

Lately I have been having slight issues with the quantities of some of the food I have been eating. Once again, almonds are the main culprit. I simply can't have them around or else I eat too many of them. I've eliminated them from my diet before, but I have since given them a second and third chance. But each time I can't seem to keep myself from overeating. It is very frustrating!

One thing that I have recently added to my daily diet plan is a diet decaf cafe' mocha. Its a nice, sweet treat -- and only about 15 calories! I put 1/2 of a hot cocoa packet into a cup. (I use the diet Swiss Miss that is 25 calories for a whole packet). Then I add the coffee and a packet of splenda or stevia. I use my office's Keurig machine to brew a medium sized cup of coffee. I bought the Newman's Special Decaf because it was the only "Extra Bold" decaf coffee at the grocery store. I thought that with the hot cocao added in, I would not need a sweetener. But I found that it was not sweet enough without it. I need to tinker with the chocolate protein powder to try to make it with that instead of the hot cocoa mix. Has anybody done that?

Hmm, it seems I can't send any PMs until I've posted at least 10 times. So I'm going to post away until I hit my 10 and them PM you instead of putting it in my post.

Congrats on hitting your halfway point Joefla70!

Also, I was just googling the other day coffee alternatives that I could do on QWL plan. When I was on the plan before, my diary was limited but I did sneak in a venti non-fat iced latte from Starbucks one day a week. I've been so used to my normal daily coffee since I've been off the plan that I've forgotten how blah caffeine withdrawals are. Thanks for the recipe for your cafe mocha!

I too am doing this one on my own. I found the centers to be good emotional support but there was some very underhanded and illegal things going on in my center....that's when I decided to drop out and do it on my own. Good thing is, you have all the information and you CAN do it on your own - savings yourself some big $$.

I just found this forum and have read all 23 pages of responses.

Here's my story: I joined QWL in 2011 and lost 65 lbs. I started at 257 and worked my way down to 192. I felt great and thought I looked great. I was going strong then life happened. I had to have a hysterectomy and my friends and family took great care of me and during my recovery I gained a few pounds back. I started back up and then my DH had a motorcycle accident, stress and not eatting right helped me to pack on a few more pounds. I started up again and then I ended up having to have another surgery which meant another 6 weeks of friends and family feeding me. So at the end of 2012 I weighed in at 218, which means I gained back 26 pounds during 2102.

On Tuesday I walked back into my local QWLC. I was going to try to do it myself, but I need the nagging phone calls, and accountability my center offers. On Wednesday I started the 3 day induction. Things are going well so far. I know this plan works becasue I have seen results with it in the past. So here I am at day 2 of induction and will start Plan 4 on Saturday.


***257/218/135

Hi jp4ga!

It looks like both you and I are restarting QWL around the same time! To me, the hardest part is the 3 day prep. I really have trouble with eating my salads/greens without any dressing (I'm not going back to QWLC to buy their dressing and I've yet to find one that is low cal/low carb/low sodium in my grocery store.) If you have any food suggestions or recipes, let me know.

Also - has anyone really seen a stall in their weight loss with QWL when they mix proteins at one meal? I've found a low cal/low carb/low sodium recipe for homemade gyro meat (which combines lamb and beef) and I really want to try it, even though the rules tell me not to combine proteins.