No we buy two "pints" at the store and we each eat one. And the only pints available are really high cal full cream with added candy, nuts, etc.

I've been looking at recipes for ice milk and fruit sorbets (we like those as much as ice cream) and people try all sorts of lower cal versions with mixed results. There are also two serving plastic ice cream makers - which I suspect don't really work.

I'm thinking it would be better to splurge with stuff whose ingredients we choose, rather than the high cal pints which make us feel sick the next day.

I'm going to go look at an ice cream maker that comes with a recipe booklet. If I can adapt the recipes I can probably fool around with the quantities as well - will check that in the directions that come with the machine too.

Or DH and I can walk to the local ice cream parlour and each buy a one scoop cone - for $5 apiece. DH is really balking at that one but I think this might be the best choice for us right now.

Thanks for the input!

Dagmar

On the matter of ice cream, I am neutral. Do what you really wish to do, which sounds like, you really want to make ice cream. Shame you can't, like, borrow or rent the equipment for a little while first, to see if you want to buy.

Weigh in: 139.9, down another half pound. But it's the weekend, and I am still shaky after a meeting with my manager, who just unloaded a lot of responsibilities on me because my ex-manager gave notice.

Today's Meals:

Breakfast: Banana prune muffin; egg bake with spinach and artichoke hearts; cherries & yogurt
Lunch: Avocado lime chicken salad with roasted vegetables, fresh salsa and a handful of peanuts on top of spring mix greens.
Snack: Two guavas
Dinner: Thai chicken thighs with broccoli and mixed stir-fry vegetables
Dessert: Double chocolate chunk Quest bar

Today's Exercise:

At the gym: 20 minutes recumbent bike, hills, feeling good, then Strong Curves 9A workout, which is deadlifts, pushups, squats, and then a 60-minute Pilates mat class. And a walk into the village to get a legal document notarized and mailed, and pick up a good-bye card and graduation card for friends. So my leg is complaining now.

Sunday morning. My return to work and a hard week of training a moody new hire is nearly at hand. It's supposed to rain for much of the day, and my injured leg keeps confirming the forecast with twinges along the embedded plate all the way down to the screws at the bottom.


Weigh in: 139.7, not much downward, but still downward, which is a good trend to see on a Sunday morning.

Today's Meals:

Breakfast: Banana prune muffin; egg bake with spinach and artichoke hearts; cherries & yogurt
Lunch: Spring mix greens with avocado chicken salad, fresh salsa, raw bell peppers, peanuts
Snack: 50-calorie bag of Bare Fruit Granny Smith apple chips
Dinner: Thai chicken thighs with green beans and mixed stir-fry vegetables
Dessert: Cookies n' cream Quest bar

Today's Exercise:

20 minutes Cybex arc trainer, hill program, resistance at 9; then workout 9B of Strong Curves beginners program. Oh those Bulgarian split squats, my old friend from the NROLW program. Nothing brings home to me how weak my left leg has become. Also the single overhead DB press. I started at 25 lbs. but soon found that 22.5 lbs was more realistic if I really wanted to get 12 reps each.

Congrats on the weight loss saef

I weighed this morning and I'm down 2lbs. I suspect some of it is water retention though.

OK, I can weigh in on the icecream maker.

I have a cuisinart, this one...

It's 1.5 quarts. Here's what you need to know:

It does not work that well if you freeze the drum in a regular freezer. I found it pretty much worthless for that. I now have a deep-freeze and that works pretty well.

Even thought this is a 1.5 q capacity, I really get less than a quart out of a batch. I usually put about 3 cups of mixture in. I can add in up to 4 cups and have it turn out, more than that and it comes up out of the top and also doesn't freeze as well.

The ice-cream is best when made fresh and eaten at soft-serve consistency. If you freeze the made icecream in a container, it will become rock hard and you have to leave it out for a while or use a chisel to chop it out and then let it thaw for a bit to get another portion. I'm experimenting with making icecream sandwiches to get around that.

It makes great sorbet too, and that seems to keep better and thaw better. It also seems to be more consistent to taste after refreezing.

I have found that I can reduce the sugar in a recipe and still have it come out pretty good. I usually use about half the recommended sugar in sorbet it it's great.

I have small ice-cream/custard dishes that make it easier to keep to a normal portion.

I have found that the best use for this ice-cream maker is for when I have a larger group or am babysitting for the neighbors, and can dole out 6 servings of fresh icecream and call it good. It is just never that awesome refrozen, and a lot of that is due to consistency.

This summer I'm thinking about using it to make popsicle/ice-cream bars. I think it would be perfect for that.

Hope this helps. I think the pint idea is ok too, if you don't have a problem with diving in for seconds and thirds, and you can afford to buy them. I love ice-cream and really miss it when I don't have it, but I'm also failing to lose wt I've regained, so I'm not an awesome example of ice-cream related maintenance success!!!

Oh yeah, this machine is NOISY. I usually run it outside because it is so loud. It freezes a 3 cup mixture to icecream in about 15 minutes.

This Monday has been one where I run out to the new hire's desk, answer email, call someone over, run a WebEx meeting, run out to the new hire's desk, over & over.

Weigh in: 142.5, which I'm sorry to type here after reading Slim CB's congratulations. It's okay honey, you didn't jinx me or anything. It's stuff that I ate on Sunday, while mostly at home, and all the Diet Pepsi that I drank down in the humidity. I think. I was peeing like a race horse today.

Today's Meals:

Breakfast: Coconut mango muffin; egg bake with spinach and artichoke hearts; raspberries & yogurt
Snack: What the grocery store said was a peach, but I swear, it's a nectarine
Lunch: Spring mix greens with tuna, roasted eggplant and kale, bell peppers, sunflower seeds
Snack: 50-calorie bag of Bare Fruit Granny Smith apple chips
Dinner: Curried lentils with tomatoes and spinach over quinoa
Dessert: Raspberry white chocolate Quest bar

Today's Exercise:

Physical therapy: 12 minutes Cybex elliptical; 3x12 stepups with 10-lb dumbells; 3x12 leg press alternating with 3x12 calf raises; 3x12 hamstring curl/3x12 quad raises; 3x12 abductor/adductor; walking 12 minutes on treadmill.

Thanks a lot Saef- now I'm totally jonesing for a coconut mango muffin. What a great flavor combo. Are you using fresh mango chunks, puree or some other form? And I assume the coconut is shredded, no sugar added? Also, at least you know it's impossible to go from 139 to 142.5 overnight due to fat gain, so it's clearly fluid/salt retention.

I've been logging my food daily on MyFitnessPal for almost 3 weeks again, in the vain hope that seeing my excesses will spur me to more control/moderation. So far, no results on the weight loss front, but I'm getting really good at finding which of the 14 different entries for, say, "grilled skinless chicken breast" has the portion size option I usually eat (4 ounces).

I'm up over 140 lbs . Time to start weighing and measuring and counting calories again. And weighing more than once a month. SIGH.

Maintenance is never-ending. I keep hoping that I can do it "intuitively" but it's not happening. The numbers have to be calculated. Bleagh.

Or I could be overweight and not care. But I've put too much work into the last 8 years to do that.

Dagmar

Mudpie - I've come to realize that too. Its a never-ending struggle. Sigh

Saef - your post made me lol. I'm sure you will be back to 139 in no time.

Andrea, I had three really overripe mangoes in my fruit drawer, so I cut them up and scored them into chunks. Probably should've pureed them, but biting into the chunks in the muffin tastes pretty good and is a nice surprise. And yes, I used flakes of unsweetened coconut. They have a nice chewy slightly grainy feeling.

Weigh-in: 140.7, a good drop, which is a relief

Today's Meals:

Breakfast: Coconut mango muffin; egg bake with spinach and artichoke hearts; raspberries & yogurt
Snack: Another mislabeled nectarine. This is from a greengrocer with great buys on produce, and I'm thinking these were only 99 cents/pound because someone put the wrong PLU code stickers on each fruit.
Lunch: Baby arugula salad with roasted asparagus, raw veggies, grilled chicken breast slices
Snack: Two guavas
Dinner: Curried lentils with spinach and tomatoes over brown rice
Dessert: Cinnamon roll Quest bar

Today's Exercise:

At the gym, 20 minutes on the recumbent bike, then Workout 9C of Strong Curves. I am sad about the very low weight of my parallel barbell squats, due to my weakened leg.

I also need to face reality soon as the scale continues its upward creep. I'm eating the right foods and exercising, but probably just too large of portions... again....

I hope I can start seeing a downward shift soon....

After many attempts to eat intuitively or in moderation or eliminating foods, I've realized that weighing, measuring and logging it into My Fitness Pal is the only way for me to maintain. It's so freaking annoying, however. But better to be annoyed and rather obsessive than to weigh 261 pounds again. It's rather frightening how fast I can put on weight when I let myself go on vacation, both literally and figuratively.

I am also in the "must track to maintain" column. It no longer annoys me - I see it as my most important hobby. And I am always looking for ways to streamline the tracking without sacrificing accuracy. My Net Diary is much faster to use (IMO) than MFP or any other app I've tried. Plus you can take 2 photos of any new food with a label and they will enter it in the database within 24 hours.

Some parts of dealing with food have become easier. I don't crave ice cream any longer, probably because I have my low-cal high-protein greek yogurt smoothies to substitute. I'm seldom tempted by mediocre food because I want my calories to be as delicious as possible. Planning and preparing meals is somewhat time-consuming but it's a pleasant way to spend time. I wish we could all chat while we prepare meals, like women used to do long ago. It would be a social occasion without the eating.

I am still prone to overeat carbs. When I got home from the backpack trip on Sunday night I was tired and hungry and consumed many peanut butter m&ms, then crackers, then more m&ms. Didn't want to "waste my healthy food" on an unhealthy episode.

My problem with tracking is portions. It's easy to weigh a piece of meat or an apple (even though we have 2 systems here - metric and imperial - my scale has both) but I have problems with half a cup of cottage cheese, a "serving" of lasagna, etc. I tend to measure stuff before I cook it and that changes it too.

Plus now I've handed the cooking over to DH. SIGH. It will get done.

Dagmar