Hey chicks, a quickie.... I have tried to post 3 times now and my phone won't stop ringing. Skiing yesterday was a blast.... ate on plan all day long. Did 10 runs down the hill and am a little sore today but not to bad. And TOM finally started, of course just before we left yesterday morning. Today is day 6 and still having a small nagging headache every now and then, but not to bad, I am starting to feel sugar free. Jumped on the scales this morning and am down 4 pounds but not going to count anything til wed when it will be a true week. Well I have to dash my todo list is not getting done. Have a great day and I will try to pop back on during nappy jammie time.

Good Monday morning, everyone and good evening to Kara!

Hallelujah, the migraine's gone and thank you for all the well-wishes yesterday!

Cottage: I'm glad you're back to Curves! I'm sure you were really starting to miss it! Oh goodness, Girl Scout Cookies already?! Thank goodness we're on a strict budget this year!

Kiko: Here's some and WTG planning out your meals for the day! Hope it's a great one for you!

Cat: I saw that episode on tv yesterday morning, but didn't get the recipe because I know I'd eat them all! Maybe I'll try them when the family comes in for a visit. Have a great day back at school!

Kara: I'm glad Kadyn's feeling better and I sure hope Avery's in bed soon! Hope the money management is going well!

GonnaBe: You are a busy lady today! Hope it all goes well - especially that training session at lunch! Don't forget to eat!

Cyndi: I have to say that I love to have a hobby that involves exercise! What a great way to forget that you're exercising!

Dawn: I wish I was feeling the same way, I've got a lot of things that need to be organized! Have a great day and I hope nobody messes up today!

Ruth: My your operation is closer than I thought! Hope you're able to get everything done in time!

, Phx and Schmoodle! Congrats on getting to day 7 and I hope you have a wonderful one!

GonnaBe: Have a great day!

Stephanie: Yep, that is interesting. I hope there is a really good reason for it; I'm pretty sure that if she was a new hire in our office, she wouldn't still be on the payroll after a first day like that!

pear_fairy: to the ! One of the best ways for me to stay on plan is to check in with these ladies every day! Hope you have a great first day!

LC: Congrats on the 4 lbs lost!! I'm glad your skiing was fun! Hope you have a great day!

Me: Back at work today and I don't know if I'm ready for it! I didn't get my print job done as I ended up having some sort of problem linking to the printer after the first 200 pages, so we need to get that done today.

I had a nsv this weekend! DH and I found out that I have knees!! And they're actually pretty pointy. It's probably been about 2 years since I've seen my actual knees what with all the fat that was surrounding them! It feels great to finally see some progress!

Not much going on today. I've got to clean at least one room tonight and work on a meal plan for the week (I'm a little behind). I'm doing much, much better pacing myself with the book I'm reading, so there shouldn't be anymore late nights for me. I really need to get used to waking up earlier as I start classes a week from Thursday! I don't know if I'm ready for it yet!!

After trying the peanut butter cookie recipe yesterday, it got me to thinking. I really don't mind the splenda taste too much, but wondered if I could make cookies using agave necter. I'm about out of peanut butter, but had other stuff that I've thrown together as an experiment.
I used 1/2 cup oatmeal flour, 1/2 cup almond flour, threw in a handful of oatmeal and a handful of almonds, then added an egg and a vanilla bean, a little olive oil, and streamed agave necter over it till it looked like the consistancy of cookie dough. Then I added some fresh cinnamon and nutmeg. It may be good, it may be horrible. They are in the oven now. I'm sure one cookie would be pretty "caloric" because of all of the almond stuff, so maybe one cookie for a serving of nuts? I'll let you know how they turn out.

Oh, Cat, you got me thinking. I did a Take 3 on the Bean Brownies yesterday and they came out pretty good. Take 2 was VERY fudgy and I was trying to make a cakier version. Here's what I did...

1 15 ounce can of cannellini beans
2 T oil (I used canola)
1 c egg whites (or 4 eggs or 4 egg whites)
1/2 c sugar free Davinci vanilla syrup
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/4 c unsweetened cocoa powder
1 t vanilla
1/2 c dry milk
about 3 ounces sugar free chocolate, chopped

I just blended it all in a blender and then baked in a 350 degree oven for about 40 minutes. Last night when I tried it, it kind of tasted like chocolate bread pudding and I wasn't impressed. But today, it rather resembled a brownie! This version was 29 calories a brownie, if you cut the pan into 16 pieces - not bad for a brownie!!!

Next time I am going to try a little more dry milk powder and some nut flour or ground nuts.

Kara

Kim, how beautiful are your knees?! Way to go!

LC, glad you had fun skiing! Hope your day settles a little!

Stephanie, I really can't think of a good reason for being more than a half hour late on your first day of work! Yikes! I hope she's OK.

Welcome, pearfairy! Take it one hour at a time, one minute if you have to! Just think of yourself at the end of the day looking over your food choices. I have a new mantra - "Is it worth it?" It's saved me from a couple spur-of-the-moment almostbad decisions!

Off to bed for real this time!

Kara

You sure are pretty adventurous when it comes to cooking, aren't you, Cat! I bet the cookie concoction will turn out great, though, they sound really good to me. I would make one cookie= 1 serving of nuts, though. You must have a ton of willpower to be baking them and not gobbling them all up at once!

Cindy just called to tell me Audrey is home with a fever today. I guess that means we have to cancel her piano lesson this afternoon, too. I offered to go over early but Cindy said she'll stay with her until after I pick up Maggie at lunchtime. This afternoon will just be a cuddly lay-in, watching movies. That actually sounds pretty good to me.

Kara, that sounds just yummy!!!!!! I'm going to give it a whirl after I collect the ingrediants.
My "cookies" turned out real good, but were missing "something". I figured it out...a pinch of salt and vanilla or almond extract (I am out of both and used a vanilla bean instead)
I typed it up real fast before I forget what I did.

Almond/Oatmeal cookies

1/2 cup oat flour
1/2 cup almond flour
handful of rolled oats
handful of almonds (toast the almonds first if you want)
1 egg
olive oil
pinch of salt
vanilla or almond extract (1 teaspoon or to taste)
Agave necter
a little cinnamon and/or nutmeg if desired

Mix together flours and egg. Add a drizzle of olive oil along with rolled oats and almonds. Add salt, almonds, oatmeal,vanilla and cinnamon and/or nutmeg.
drizzle agave necter to taste until it's the consistancy of cookie dough. Spoon onto cookie sheet with either silicon pad or sprayed with Pam.
bake at 350 for about 12 minutes or till slightly browned.

It's kind of a cross between a cookie and a little muffin! You could add dried fruit also. One or two cookies should about equal a serving of nuts.

Not sure of the calories per cookie. Need to figure that out. It made 12 cookies.

I made those cookies before and I think I calculated it out to be two cookies equaled one nut serving (I think they ended up having a tablespoon of peanut butter each).

Kara

ETA that I made the recipe with peanut butter, sweetener (I used Equal), and vanilla. I think that was it. There might have been an egg, but I can't quite remember.

Okay, cottage and Kara, I am counting on you to perfect the bean brownie recipe. I tried them once and they weren't great, but I could see they had promise. I prefer them fudgy though, what was your take 2 recipe kara?
Kim, I have to ask, what were you and DH doing when you discovered you had pointy knees?
Cat as usual, yum, I will add it to the list. I won't be making cookies for a while either though, since I am also cookied out, and DD is selling GS cookies right now.

I will come back and finish personals later. I had a long telecon this morning and work is still calling.

Kara: Thanks! They are beautiful! (It's so weird to be so taken with my knees!)

Schmoodle: Actually, we had just finished working out and I had my pants hiked up to cool off my legs! My mom asked me the same question and then screamed, "I don't want to know, I don't want to know!!"

Kim, congrats on the knees. I can just picture your mom jumping up and down with her ears covered. To funny.

Kara and Cat- you girls rock.... I don't often experiment with recipies. I am not good with temptation so I just don't bake. lol.

Eating is going well and my slight headache I had went away. My biggest problem is that I am not really hungry once I have a big protien and veggie filled breakfast. I will be glad for ph 2 so I can have my cereal, or banana and pb.
Most of my little jobs are done. Just need to finalize my notes for the meeting tonight which requires a phone call. Then it is off to the shower and get dressed to go out.
Gotta to dash have a great afternoon.

I jumped the fence from WW Flex Plan that I had been following since Sept. After doing a lot of reading, I decided to follow SBD from now on. I began P1 on January 1. I have eaten out twice in the past seven days. I feel fortunate that the only symptom(s) I have had was an increase in hot flashes! and a clear up of an irritating rash I had. I have NOT felt any physical cravings for sweets AT ALL! I am really glad though that I did a modified version of P2 during December ( I just couldn't wait! I was too excited!)

In the past, I have made some different desserts from a cookbook that used Splenda as the sugar source. I am not sure if I will be baking right away on P2 or not. I have decided that I will add 1 carb and 1 fruit each day of the first week of P2, then add 2 carbs/2 fruits-week 2 of P2 and finally 3 carbs/3 fruits-week 3 of P2 and that is where I plan to stay until I have lost all of my weight.

I think this has been one of the easiest food plans I have ever been on.

look forward to joining you here

DH just found out he will be leaving for Diego Garcia in 2 weeks. He'll be gone for 4 months. This is for the $$, and for being a single parent again... Oh well, this is nothing new, he's been doing this for 20 years now, I'm just out of practice because it's been a couple of years since he's been away that long. It's always tough on the kids. So we've got 2 weeks to get all the loose ends tied up that I don't want to have to deal with alone - cars, refrigerator repairs, etc.
I'm not whining, I get lots of help from my family. Just kinda bummed, even though I knew it was coming. I was hoping he'd get something in Baltimore.

pamatga, sounds like a good plan, but maybe adding stuff back too fast after Ph1. I did only oatmeal for one full week, then week 2, oatmeal and strawberries, and so on. If you are eating 3 fruits and 3 grains by week 3, you may have some cravings return. Also, it should be the same grain and/or fruit for the full week, so you can see if there are any particular things that may cause you trouble. Some chicks have found they need to stay away from pasta, others that they can't eat fruit in the morning. It took me about 6 weeks to really feel like I was all the way into Ph2. Of course, you'll have to figure out what works for you, but I wanted to share my experience, because my first time on SB, I did what you plan to do, and it caused me some problems.

Sure is a busy afternoon here.

I got my lunchtime workout done and will soon be back to work hard at it.

Cottage I hope Audrey is feeling better soon.

Cat & Kara you gals are a life saver on gettting us through this new lifestyle with all your experimental recipes.

Kim on those sexy knees

Check back a bit later