I was told all the soy puffs are restricted, but when I looked at some of the old protocol sheets, they weren't marked as restricted. Do you all consider them regular or restricted?

Hi, Sarkbait, If you're in your seventh week, that means you've completed 6 weeks, so you have almost averaged 3 pounds per week. I am now averaging about 2.5 pounds a week. So depending on the day of your birthday, let's say it's mid-May, you have about 7 weeks left. Seven times 2.5 would be 17.5 more pounds. At that rate you'd still have about 9 pounds to go. But you're probably already looking fabulous. You might not be able to celebrate with food the way you'd like, but you could make a cake with low-carb "flour" and use some alternative stuff. Then again, you might get some pointers from your coach or others on this forum that could speed up your weight loss. Seven times 4 lbs. per week would put you past goal.

Good morning IP friends,
I had my "early" WI yesterday (normally on Sat, but my coached changed me to Thurs) and I was down 2 lb's and 3 inches! I was pleased with that and I'm actually down another pound today, but I will keep my official WI's to post.

There was an awesome recipe for stuffed cabbage posted, can we have savoy cabbage on phase 1? I thought all the green cabbages were a no-no,
except for bok-choy,red, & pak-choi. I love savoy with olive oil, garlic and hot pepper flakes! (an italian staple as a kid!)

Thanks for all the info and comments on the restricted!
Julie

BandMom Week 3 or 4 was my hardest week. I was starving a few days back then. Once you get over that hump, it is a piece of cake.(ok poor choice of words)
Last night I wasn't even hungry for dinner (still ate it anyways). After a few weeks of trying the bars, the cereal, stew and soups(ugh), I have pretty much settled in with 3 vanilla box drinks a day. I think of them as my "light" vanilla milkshakes. I am a very impatient person and will lose focus and motivation the moment the scale stands still. The restricted items are just not worth it to me if they slow down my loss in any way. BUT the bars tasted pretty darn good the week I was so very hungry and compared to all the junk I used to eat, they were a very intelligent choice. Just do what you have to do to stay on track. For me it's gotten easier and easier.
I am similar to your height- want to weigh 149- a size 8. My last successful diet 5 yrs ago, I got to your goal and really looked great. (I was a size 10 too.) But pretty quickly, I wasn't anymore. So sad. Hope this time it is different. It's really all about maintaining, isn't it???

www.ourhealthcoop.com. Called liquid calcium, it's in the form of gel capsules. About $7 per bottle.

LMAO!! That is so funny! I know how your feeling though. I have 14 month old twin boys and I think they want to sabotage my efforts too. Doesn't it suck trying to make their meals with variety and you can't eat hardly any of it! Whats worse is my boys are very into "sharing" their food with me. I don't give in when they are desperately trying to force a bite of their cookie/cracker/sandwich or whatever down my throat, but I still feel a little guilty when their cute little faces are looking at me like "Mommy, why won't you eat my offering"

I am hypothyroid too, taking .112 mg levothyroxine daily. I was reading online that when you go into ketosis that your T3 levels drop a lot almost immediately. It's the T3 that makes us have lots of energy and that is what is in Cytomel. I'm not sure what this means for our bodies, though. I seem to have plenty of energy on the diet. I'm just wondering if your doctor would have reduced your Cytomel if he had known you were doing a low-carb diet.

Good morning, just wanted to quickly share my NSV for today: Tried on a pair of size 16 pants for work and THEY FIT!

I bought three pair of size 16's a year and a half ago, when I was doing really well on a diet and figured I'd be in them soon. HA HA HA didn't happen, but now it is and I am so excited!

Happy Friday everyone!

Good job, Hockey mom. That's awesome.
Thanks Bev for the website.

Good job steelgal....It is hard to weigh in early, but just think about the big loss you'll have next time!!!

As I'm doing my official weigh in's at home doing Idealtogo, I had my official weigh in this morning, only 1.5lbs, no time to measure before work, so I'll do that when I get home. I was so discouraged when I saw only 1.5lbs all week, until remembered a couple things, my TOM is almost here and I remember everyone saying that slows down everything, I'm only 6.5lbs from goal, and I remember someone saying if you have less weight to lose, it comes off slower, and I have been eating a restricted item most days (sometimes none, sometimes one) as I would be cheating if I didn't, so that is something, and people are noticing my weight loss, I feel and look thinner, my clothes fit better (though not yet in what I call my skinny clothes) and tomorrow I go with a friend to get my bridesmaid dress for her wedding, and it will be a much smaller size than it might have 3 weeks ago, I'm still sure it will need altering before the June wedding, but I'll look awesome in the dress!!!

Julie - I specifically asked my coach about savoy and nappa cabbage (b/c I love love love them - so versatile!). He said all that was good as was the bok choy, pak choy, and red cabbages. I also looked up their nutritional values.
Savoy has 4g carb and 19 calories for 70g (which is 1 cup of finely shredded). Napa has 2g carb and 12 calories for 100g.

Green cabbage has 6g carb and 25 calories for 70g. So I'm not really sure why its restricted at all since green peppers have about the same amount and those are unlimited.

As far as I know, green cabbage is not restricted. The wording on the protocol form is just really ambiguous.

One more recipe.

Turkey meatloaf with mustard greens:
Just under a pound of ground turkey or chicken
6 cups of mustard greens
2 stalks of celery
1 onion
Dill
3 cloves of garlic
1 egg
Mustard

Heat the oven to 350.Finely chop the mustard greens. If I do this again I'll use the food processor so I can make the pieces really small. Cut up celery, onion, dill, and garlic.Throw all that in a bowl with the meat and egg. Mix it all up. Put it in a deep pan. Spread mustard on top (I like to use both whole gran and spicy mustard). Put it in the oven for 45min -1 hr. Makes 3 servings with meat and veggies included.

Thanks so much for the info! I have a little piece of savoy in the fridge, it's going to be cooked up tonight with our grouper for dinner.

This is such a helpful forum and it's nice to have the support doing this diet.
Thank you all!
julie