JJ

Thank you for being so supportive here. It really keeps us motivated.

Time for the "Big Game" to start...gosh I want a red beer so bad!!!!! I should have started MRC before football season... :D Have a great weekend.:hug:

Fifties Lady---I am soooo with you on the beer thing! LOL! I love pizza/beer/football....that combination is the best! Oh, well.....too bad there isn't a beer flavored diet rite for all us "alchy's" Well, on second thought.. ::D

So, I weighed in today and was down 2 lbs!!! AND my little monthly visitor is just about here....I have felt bloated and just yucky all day and though there was no way I'd see any kind of loss! I was shocked! Yea! :carrot:

I love reading everybody's posts! It's so encouraging on good days AND bad days. I love reading the honesty poured out on these pages! Let's all keep up the good work!

Depending on how the game turns out, I may have a glass of merlot. It's healthy for you, right? You enjoy your weekend, too, FL!

so i went for my saturday weigh in. After losing 9 pounds in 9 days, i guess my body is kind tired. I didnt lose anything ( last WI was on wednesday).

I am eating OP, drinking OP, something in my head is saying:'hey your body is used to this healthy stuff now, confuse it a bit and go eat something thats totally whack for one meal or maybe one day and then go back on plan'.

I dont know if its just the munchies for something else then veggies and chicken. Does anyone else have that ? i guess i need some help. My counselor basically said, just wait and see, but i am kinda nervous. Here is why:

I have been seeing a personal trainer at a gym for 1.5 year now and evreytime we hit the 320 mark, i stick there and stick there and just sit at it for months. Now i had let myself go for about 2 months, didnt go to the gym, and started MRC about 2 weeks ago ( including Pre-conditioning). So i dropped back to 320 in a hurry again, but i am kind of afraid i am gonna keep sitting here again....

Well....I have to confess....I had a Miller's Lite 64 with V-8.....just one...at least the V-8 was healthy...LOL....Now back to being OP. I guess I can't count that as one of my HNS's today can I????

Hey....NEBRASKA WON!!!!:carrot::carrot::carrot:

YAY HUSKERS! and don't feel bad, guys--during the season opener last week, i definitely had two club soda/vodka drinks. whoops? the upshot is that i'm totally a cheap date now, lol.

AND in reply to some comments on page 7: i too have been kind of disappointed to have "only" lost 12 pounds in the first month, but holy lord! 12 pounds is awesome!! that would've taken me MONTHS AND MONTHS in my old way of eating! and like it was already said--it took years and years to put this weight on, so we can't expect it to just fall off all at once. :) as dori days on finding nemo, just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

New Recipe... Ranch Chicken Fingers
 

OK, New Recipe for all of you that is absolutely delicious... I got the idea from the ranch seasoning mix commercial I've seen a few times in the past week, decided to give it a try, it was a huge hit with me and family... here goes:

Ranch Chicken Fingers:

Ingredients:
16-20 Roasted Garlic Melta Toast Rounds
2 lbs of boneless skinless chicken brst
1 packet of ranch dressing mix/seasoning
2-3 tbsp of olive oil
cracked black pepper to taste
pam olive oil spray

Directions: Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Pour 2-3 tbsp of Olive Oil into a large glass casserole dish and set aside. Place Melba toast into food processor and grind until the consistency of bread crumbs (or crush in a baggy by hand until fine). Place into a mixing bowl, add packet of ranch dressing mix and several twists of freshly cracked black pepper then mix all together. Slice chicken into long strips. Place 1/4 of the chicken at a time into mixture and coat evenly then place into casserole dish until all chicken coated and in dish. Pour remaining melba toast mixture over chicken. Spray all chicken with pam olive oil cooking spray. Cover with foil and bake 10-15 minutes, uncover and increase oven temp to Broil and bake another 7-10 minutes until chicken is done and crispy.

Makes 8 - 4 oz servings
Accounts for 1 protein (4 oz.) and approx 1/2 bread serving

Incidental discovery:
Some of the melba toast was more coursely cut than the rest of the bread crumbs and when I poured it over the chicken, it settled to the bottom of the pan. When this came out of the oven it was absolutely divine and reminded me very much of a delicious stuffing, the melba toast had plumped up just like stuffing does when moisture is added. It was sooooooooo goood that I plan to attempt to make stuffing this way in the very near future and I will post that recipe when I've tried it. I bet this would be so wonderful with our Thanksgiving Turkey!

Have a great night ladies :0)

oh karen god bless ur a life saver .. its raining here - im loving this weather - n was just feeling so sad that i cant go out n have some yummy fried chicken .. im so going 2 try this recipe 4 dinner tonite :) thanks a ton !

Karen...this sounds absolutely fabulous...thank you so much...I like easy and tasty. I plan to try it soon. You are awesome. :hug:

Karen---that sounds great! Maybe I'll make that for dinner tomorrow night! Thanks for posting!

You both rock! The mental challenge is sometimes the worst! Phat, 21.5 pounds in 7 weeks! That is great! If you ever need a reminder, grab one of the bags of dogfood and lift it at the grocery store and see how much a 20 lb, or whatever is your current loss, feels like to lug around.
Funshine, 12 pounds in a month is nothing to sneeze at, that is 12 pounds gone forever! And you are right, the more one has to lose, the quicker it goes at first. I compare it to the use of toilet paper. When the roll is full, you use more sheets, however the closer it gets to the end, you tend to use less to conserve it. Especially if it is the last roll in the house and means a trip to the store!
So as you get closer to goal, the weight will come off more slowly. Sad but true!

This is the mental challenge that binds us all to unhealthy ways of living and eating. I know because I have heard that same voice. It is like a manipulative "friend" that wants you to do things you really don't want to do. Mine likes me to fudge a little and put cheese on my buffalo burgers at night. My "friend" says it is in the plan, just not at this time....blah, blah blah. Sneaky little devil.
I have heard some things here that I would like to revisit. One our bodies sometimes hold onto a weight that it was comfortable at. Someone also said something about a mental block, like a particular situation in the past either happy or not that was significant with that weight. So, maybe some journaling about things in your past that revolved around that weight.
Another thing to consider, plataues. Around 7- 10 days or 7-10 pounds you should expect your first plataue, our fat cells hold onto water to maintain the cell shape. However, this can only hold for so long as the water is heavier then fat. Also if you are going back to exercise, realise that muscle weighs more then fat and since you are so restricted on calories, make sure you are not pushing yourself into starvation mode. This might have been happening to you before. Trainers don't really understand the MRC consept, mostly caloric intake and mine felt I needed more calories. I said no, I needed a more modified workout. So we compromised, I worked out on days that I had the higher cal foods like the twice a week steak and not on a day with a meal replacement bar.
Good luck and tell us your progress!

I agree completely on what is being said regarding plateaus, water holding on and starvation mode...however I politely disagree with taking whatever MRC provides in guidance regarding exercising and the diet...My center's counselors are trained and do provide the guidance for all clients, whether they exercise or not and how much they exercise. Excersie is not limited because of the need to show big numbers on the scale. My counselors have educated me to understand my body and its needs to how I live and not how to fit in a certain program. I am like many and hit a plateau every 10 pounds and it is frustrating, however since I began running (which I love) back in April I have not only lost weight but my body is gaining shape and pulling together, no sagging of the girls and stomach, even though I am down 47 pounds. My discussions with my counselors are not how to reduce my exercise because the scale doesn't show big numbers every 3 or 4 days or that I am hungry all the time, but how to get the program to work for me. Just a week or so ago I had been struggling with losing and being hungry all the time and just not having the energy to run, I am only running 9-12 miles a week at a moderate to slow pace nothing to hit the record books. When I went in to discuss this with my counselor she immediately said the Meta Quick is not working for me and that I should consider moving to the Meta Balance menu because I was losing muscle weight along with fat...even though I had been running and doing other exercises for the last 5 months...I was pretty shocked, I thought all along I must be gaining muscle weight and that was why the scales were not moving...no...my body was in starvation mode...so I switched to the Meta Balance and I had an immediate result, 4 lbs down the first week. The Meta Balance is given to individuals who exercise and are struggling with Meta Quick and to diabetics; it keeps the body in a more balanced level all day. I do feel so much better and am able to continue my lifestyle while on the program which is working wonderful for me…the program is flexible enough to change as the client changes which is a huge plus for me…when I started I was not running and the Meta Quick worked very well, as I changed and became a runner the switch to Meta Balance is helping me continue on this journey without being hungry and not only losing the weight but gaining a healthy lifestyle that I will be able to continue as I hit maintenance, just my two cents! Thanks for letting me vent.

@GWE and Lori, thank you for your explanations. I am just going to stick to the program and will be going back to gym from today onwards. I was always doing alot of weightlifting and not enough cardio. So i think i will switch that and go for an 45 mins to an hour cardio per day and leave the weight lifting to a minimum and see where that takes in a week or two.

I didn't listen to my 'friends' voice in my head last night and i dont think i will either, i've had it with this 320 range. I am going below it and thats my final decision.

thanks for your support!

i *still* haven't been told about the meta balance option at my center, which is kind of frustrating. i whine about exercise all the time (i LOVVVVE my exercise program and HATE scaling back on it) but they never say anything, and i don't want to bring it up because i have a feeling they'd be very suspicious as to where i heard it from and i heard they don't really appreciate the message board, hehe :)