Hi everyone.....well the work day is over......thank God, at least for the next 15 hours or so :-) Seems everyone is doing well and that is great. Welcome Robin, this group of people really are the best. I know you read that a lot on other boards but I hadn't had the kind of comrodery (sp?) as I do here, and have never said that on any other board.
Danny my wish is to LIVE in Ct. but my husband loves it here S.Fla (formerly NY. Westchester County) As you know we just dealt with H.Frances....ughhhhh!!!
Anyway, my week so far is going good, doing the pts thing right now. Yes Linda(in NH) I am and I have beat myself up. I guess I said "it seems to work for everyone but me, is because my people I am in contact with, be it here at home or at work, and some on the boards are doing so well with losses. Me I tried it for two days of my 7 and w/i showed me +.5!!
Your recipes sound soooo delicious that I wanted to try Core just to have them :-) And NO I am not a cook either. I'm with Janette, open the can and heat it up. Danny even cutting the vegetables would have been considered too much work for me :-) But God bless those of you who do cook - if I did I'd be making some really good meals, I always say cooking is too much like work. I did get inspired though, Linda by your recipes and have even written them down to try, once I figure out what the heck program I am doing (hahaha)
If I can only learn how to tell if I am full or just satisified I may have a shot, so for the rest of the week I am Flexing. I heard someone say that those who combine the both say they are doing Flore ( I thought that was funny) In reality you really shouldn't combine both (BUT WHY) does it do something different to our bodies?? and CIN I agree with the logic of the no journalling, but I am soooo used to writing it down..... funny thing is when I had to write day in and day out, I hated it , and now that we have a program where we don't have to I feel the need to....go figure!!
CIN how many ounces of meat be it chicken, fish do you think is appropriate?? I heard 6 oz. So much being said out there, you don't know what the heck to think.
Robin I thought of doing the Barley soup thing too. Just might when my new week starts. Does anyone have any good CORE desserts, CIN??? Does that get discussed in the meanings or am I the only dessert nut :-) I just can't get into that fruit thing, except for grapes and a banana every now and then.
I am hanging in there with my Flex for the rest of the week, but I sure don't want to NOT be part of this board. You all are sooooo supportive.
Janette what do you do to please your dessert cravings? or do you even have any? Don't tell me..........fruit, right :-) :-) :-)
My husband just may have a point CIN - I just may be a points person right down to the Core!!
I hope you all have a great OP day, I am being very focused and will let you all know about my w/i .........
Have great days out there in your part of the world..........L.J.

Hello everyone - I thought I'd jump in and join this thread (edited to add) "again". You all seem like interesting folks with interesting questions and discussions. I am, as you might have guessed from my other posts on this board and avid core person and loving it. I'm trying to get back to goal after straying upward over a two year period. Recent months have been complicated by surgery that required a long (and immobile) recovery period. But I'm back up and around and trying to get physically fit for ski season. That requires losing at least 15 pounds and a huge effort at improving the strength in my legs. Only a year ago I walked a full marathon and I know I can get strong again!
Hope you don't mind me hanging around - its a little hard to catch up on 10 full pages of core discussions but I'll try to follow along from here.

Hi Everyone,

Welcome back Susie. I have a daughter back in PA and her name is Susie also. I am on the CORE program, however, yesterday I got a very bad sore throat and today, you guessed it, I have this awful head cold. I still managed to do my program and even had steak on the grill, a baked potato and a salad. I even made a statement to my husband this evening--can you believe I can eat all this food and still lose weight! If I had been well it would have tasted much better. I found some WW fudgecycles (?) for 1 pt and I will have that later.

Thank you ladies for your fine contributions to this board--it really makes me motivated to know we are all in this together. Has anyone done the "free" two weeks on the WW website? I have one of the coupons but thought I would wait until I was more into the new program.

Take care,
Nita

L.J. I don't usually eat dessert but I will snack on fruit or fruit salad if I get hungry. Tonight I was a little hungry after a not too satisying dinner (fixed the wrong thing, didn't like it so I didn't eat much of it) and I made some ssff chocolate pudding.
CIN, you are right of course 6 oz of meat (tuna) is a serving so why do they list the nutritional value as 2.5 servings per can? Is that if you make tuna salad? But when I fix tuna salad I don't think I could eat all of it at one sitting anyway. And I don't much care for just tuna alone--not a real fish lover!
Susie, glad to see you are back.
Have a good evening everyone.

Janette - I love your pic! It's very . . . . October!
Nita - I haven't done WW e-tools but had "on-line" for three months. I just cancelled because although it was great for Flexpoints, I didn't see a lot of benefit now that I am on Core. I made a simple spreadsheet for my PDA to track my WPA's, etc. there instead. It's definately worth the time to take advantage of the free two weeks - if nothing else you can copy the food list and peruse the recipes, meal suggestions, etc. The recipe and menu ideas helped me get interested in cooking with core foods.

Tomorrow I leave for my first business trip since starting Core and I'm a little nervous. I am a consultant - which translates to I buy a lot of drinks for people at conferences. The meals shouldn't be too difficult, its the cocktail hours and hospitality suites that pose the biggest danger for me (fortunately I have graduated out of the partying group and have younger staff to take the "late shift" - Getting old isn't all bad ). Our company is throwing a big party for clients one night and I hope there are other WW's there so they can appreciate all the thought that went into the menu .
Better go pack, now.

HI everyone!
I love to cook and Danny's recipe didn't sound all that difficult to me! I do think we all have our limits in terms of what kind of time we'll individually spend.
There are short cuts, though, and don't overlook those. I buy, for example, frozen bags of chopped onion and also peppers (red and green mixed) and I also buy garlic that is pre-minced/chopped in jars. This saves a ton of time and if I do spend a bit more on these ingredients the time it saves me is totally worth it.
Also, if you don't have time to cook beans like kidney, navy, etc. buy them canned! I'm sure lots of you do that already! If you like lentil soup, I love the Progresso and if you add about a tablespoon of red wine vinegar to the bowl, it makes it more nicely flavored! Quick and easy, but do note the portion size on the side of the can - why is they do that? A can is about 1/5 "portions", so either you overeat, or there is waste, or it ends up in the back of your refrigeration "growing things" in some container a few weeks later after you've forgotten you put the remains away..... hmmm....
Also, my mother in law used to have a saying on a notepad that was so fun, it said "Got more time for misbehavin since I started microwavin"! So, let's think about time saving things so we can misbehave, but not misbehave with our eating!!!!!!
Cooking GOOD foods (meaning healthy and good tasting) is very important to prevent boredom. Maybe we should all share shortcuts with each other that will help us to achieve what we desire! Crock pots are great and with colder weather approaching, those kind of meals will start to appeal to us all as well. Not in TX, though, when it's in the 90s still!
I am a quantity eater and do eat an entire can of tuna for a meal, but don't add things like mayo, etc. with it. I absolutely HATE ff or lite mayo, it's got to be the real stuff (and Hellmans) or none at all, period. I'd rather go without. I coud use points, of course, and have that mayo, but I'd rather save the points for eating out, my biggest downfall of all. I have some chick peas, black eyed peas or kidney beans alongside tuna and also a salad or vegetable.
Cin, I need to clarify, just one more time..... so if I buy, for example, Boars Head "oven roasted" turkey or the store oven roasted in the deli, I can use that? What about the "thin and trim" brand of ham or something like that? Making take-along lunches on core is very hard to do! The stores around here have store roasted roast beef as well, thinly sliced. It would be a "Godsend" to be able to buy a few deli meats that are considered ok for Core. I'm really tired of canned tuna and hamburger patties already. I grille chicken cutlets as well and have them, but that is getting boring and I'd rather have that kind of thing at suppertime.
Cin, as you are a WW leader, how important is the oil that you are supposed to have? Do you think that helps with weight loss? I clarified with a question about that at my meeting last night. I was hoping that an olive oil based margarine would "do" for the oil requirements, but was told that if I wanted to use that it was flexpoints. I'm not big on oils in my food and don't want to use flexpoints to have Italian Bread to dip in the food!
This morning, rather than non-stick spray, I used olive oil to sauté my onions and peppers in for my egg sub. omelet, at least. Maybe I can just step up on that a bit to get what I need? I also might buy some flax seed oil capsules and take one of those later on.
Hello to our newcomers! Love to read all your stories.
Also, I am looking for suggestions of chain restaurants that are "core friendly" (chain because we all are all over the place). For example, Applebee's is offering the ww point entrees, but that doesn't help us on core at all, we'd have to count flex points to eat those specials, though they are healthy choices, not core.
I haven't been to Applebee's in awhile, but wonder if one can order a simple broiled chicken cutlet, baked potato and a salad with lite dressing (actually I know they have the salads). Then, do they have margarine instead of butter as this place, which would be flexpoints on the potato. Just using that as an example.
I think we need to examine what places are out there that actually do have things like a baked potato on the menu. Lots of places are doing fries, mashed, probably lots of butter there) and rice pilaf (not brown rice and with added fats and spices). I know the Cracker Barrel chain prepares their lima beans and green beans "Southern Style" with bacon fat - huge "no-no" for us.... so what else is "out there"?
As for me, yesterday was my weigh in. I lost .8 and am not as happy with myself as I wish it could have been more. Not sure Core is helping me break through that plateau, but maybe by adding the olive oil, it will work better for me? Can't imagine adding a fat would MAKE a program like this work? I have it in my head that I must be more fat free?
Are you all coping with this any better than I?
Linda in lovely NH

Good morning, everybody -

LJ - when people say that they are doing both plans, I assume they mean that they are limiting themselves to the core food but still tracking the points and staying w/in the flex plan limits. I would think that would work wonderfully - you are staying within your points total AND you are doing it with mostly the healthier food choices.

Susie - I've got a similar challenge coming up, except I'm not leaving on my trip until Friday. I had a little pre-trip warm-up last night, meeting some friends for a dinner party at an Italian restaurant. I did okay - I didn't use any points all day prior to the dinner. Before being seated, we had a drink at the bar, and I had a club soda with lime twist. Looks just like a vodka tonic. During dinner, I limited myself to 1 glass of red wine and skipped the bread. We ordered several communal appetizers that most definitely were not core (calamari, caesar salad w/ fried oysters). I took just a few pieces and ate them very slowly, figuring that they constituted my about 5 points). I specially requested olive oil and vinegar for salad, and ordered a seafood fra diavlo (served w/ pasta w/ spicy red sauce) and limited myself to just a few forkfuls of the pasta. Took a pass on dessert and walked away comfortable but nowhere near stuffed. I know I went a few points over, but still felt that was in control. Anyway, that's the type of control I hope to keep during the biz trip - - good luck during yours.

Got my weigh in in a couple of hours - I had hoped for a really, really good second week after starting off really well, but between slipping over the weekend, not exercising because of this awful cold, and last night, I think I may have slowed the loss down. I'm hoping for 3 lbs and will be very happy if I get it.

Hi Room
Wellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll I just posted a long explanation and answered several questions only to "lose" it before I got to post it! The phone rang and when I returned I hit something wrong!

I will try again!

Linda- Oil is for essetial fats and vitamin e..................it is freedom of choice if you do not want to include it.it is simply one of the 8 healthy steps "suggested"...it proably will not make or break your weight loss success.

Janette-I dont think I said 6 oz of tuna was a serving I think I said YES I think it ok if you eat the whole can....remember it isnt really a total of 6 oz of tuna once it is drained etc. Servings sizes are on all labels but that doesnt mean you have to stick to one serving.

Sunny-Portions of meat servings question- Use wise judgement..and normal portion controil like on the Flex Plan. An example is...now that I am on Core I still only make one salmon fillet or one chicken breast for each adult I am preparing for. Same with popcorn.I still share a bag with hubby almost every evening.................we dont eat our own bag.......we split like always.

As far as desserts.........you may certainly have them.............using Core Foods (like sf ff puding) or count points for those wonderful ice cream treats that are low point or high.....they are your points! )

I love a Pumplin Custard I make.......I use one small pkg of ffsf butterscotch or vanilla pudding and 1 cup of can solid packed pumpkin ( not pumpkin pie filling )...............blend together and let set.....this is CORE and yummy!Reminds me of pumpkin pie..................I have it at Thanksgiving to! Graham crackers in the bottom are simply points if you want to add them!

Now Deli meat ?????????????????? Many questions.
Basically.if it is a packaged lunchmeat roasted or not it is NOT Core.
Deli meat means sliced from the deli by a store employee .
It may be roasted turkey or beef ( I would choose lean)
Our trainer said it should be shaped like a turkey or Beef roast............I have looked everytime I go to the store for turkey or bef shaped like a real roast and to be honest have not found it.
The update I received recently basically said Roast turkey or Roast Beef from the Deli are both CORE............so your guess is good as mine........perhaps we CAN buy roasted in any shape.When I find out I will let you know.Actually the portion control things is probably more important than anything else.
LEAN HAM is Core.....so what is lean? well many say 93 or 97% ff is lean.that is what I have used................how about you?

I know this is clear as mud but it is what I have and I am a stickler for program detail myself!

Lets all use our own wise judgement and not over-think this whole thing.

Hope this helps.

By the way.I have led 6 meeting Mon & Tues and have the same questions in the meeting as in here.........I told them the same thing....lets TRUST the plan and not try to 2nd guess or re-write...............it is there for us to take or leave..we have options now..........personally I love both plans!

Hope I havent bored you to tears!

Have a great day!

Cin~

Hi Everyone,

Cin -- Thanks for all the good information. I am definitely on CORE all the way and yesterday at my grocery store I bought "Natural Turkey" from the deli. They had Smoked Turkey but I thought the Natural was a better choice. I have also decided to try going to a restaurant and bringing along my own spray butter and a small container of FF sour cream. I remember in the olden days we used to do this as well with our dressings. The last two days I have been sick with a cold but I still stayed on the program. I do believe some of the meds I had to take probably slowed down my weight loss and because I felt so bad I didn't do my usual exercising. But I will get back into the swing of things in a couple of days.

This board is truly wonderful and it sure gives me great incentive to keep plugging away.

Hope everyone has a "super" happy day!
Nita

Hello everyone-can I join ya'll? Today is my second full day of CORE, I really think I'll like this way of eating. I hated looking up and guessing points, though I did lose 60# on the flex plan, when I reached lifetime, I thought I was done. But I went back to me old way of eating and gained back 27#! So now I am back at WW to try to lose it again! I have a highly stressful job and I am a big stress eater...so I appreciate this board for support.

My WW leader mentioned on MOnday that she received an e-mail that said the 94% popcorn was no longer a core food...did anyone else get this info. I don't think she'd say this without being sure-she is a high school teacher so I don't think she would have said if it weren't true.

Wow.I hope she made a mistake in reading.......the e mail I got said 94 Kettle Corn could not be counted as Core.
Cin~

Is Protein powder core?

No

Well, that really sux. I have a big ol'e can of it. I made a smoothie with it and I thought for sure it was. I dont understand why it isnt. It has 90 calories, no sugar and no carbs. Its all protein. How is it different from me using a hunk of tofu in my smoothie?

Greetings ALL and newcomers.....welcome to this fabulously supporitve board.....
Linda in NH - let me start by saying I am right there with you with the not coping so well. I more than anything want to do CORE but the more I think about it the more I realize I am a pts person, so even if I do Flex I am staying with this great bunch of people!! I might give it another try on Saturday when my new week begins!! ughhh!!!
I am finding more and more interesting desserts so this may be a good thing. I have been weighing myself every day since my w/i this past weekend to see if that ~@!@!@!~ .+5 is Gone.......well my friends I am sorry to say it is not.....the good thing is I am still the same. I better be, I am working very hard at this to get this last 3 (now 3.5 lbs) off me!!!!!!
As far as the popcorn 94% kettle popcorn is NOT a Core Food...due to its abuse potential, that is the info I have rec'd. Jlollytime 94% FF Popcorn is something I never eat but tried (the whole bag I might add) it the two days I did CORE, maybe that's where my +.5 lbs came in :-)
Susie, I wish you well on your business trip with the Core Plan....you will do just fine. Hang in there and make those wise choices and then come back and tell us how focused you were......
Danny (in my beloved Ct- my husband laughs when I say that) that is what I was doing then it just overwhelmed me so I stopped and am doing Flex for the rest of the week. But someone posted a Good sounding barley soup that just might work for me - I'll let you know. Hope w/i went well. Let us know....inspire me.........PLEASE!!!!!
Idealperson, that' great that you love Core right off the bat, I wish you well, and please let us know how it goes. I had a tough time the few days I did it because as everyone knows I love my dessert!! But I am reading about so
me very interesting CORE ones.....so maybe there's hope for me yet (hahaha)
So CIN....would 6 oz of chicken or fish be good?? sounds like it would be enough food that is for sure. I am still trying to figure how you all know the difference between satisfied and full?????? Guess everyone's comfort zone is different....
See now that Pumkin Custard sound FAB!!!!! Right up my alley and it's CORE CIN??? Not too worry I know it is all about portion control even on Core, but that sure sounds soooo good. Thanks for sharing......
Well everyone......I will stop by tomorrow and chit chat......in the meantime have a great day/evening.........let us know how you are doing and handling it all. Wishing you all a great OP program day - WE CAN DO THIS !!!!! So Lets Rock and Roll and keep those losses coming..........

L.J.