Fatmad, so sorry about your Mom. My mother passed away this summer and it was quite a shock to us all, even though she was 92, she was very good for her age. Losing a loved one is never easy.

Tamaraj, good luck with the HM. I've never used a purchased diet but everyone has to buy food so it may not be as expensive as you think.

It's a gorgeous sunny day here but tomorrow we've been promised a Spring storm so that means more white stuff mixed with ice pellets. Hope I can get out for my walk before the worst of it hits.

Got good news yesterday about the laptop. It will be here on Friday. Yay!!!

Take care.

fatmad: So sorry I missed your earlier post and didn't send my condolences. I've very sorry to hear about your mom. My thoughts are with you and your family.

retiredone: Thanks for the well wishes. The stuff I have to buy is actually just the herbal supplements, they don't really sell food other than a few protein bar and shake options. The food you eat on HM is from the grocery store which is how they teach you to eat "real" food and just select good quality foods and watch portions.

I weighed yesterday and was down to 211.8 which is almost 8lbs in 5 days. I'm back today and then tomorrow is my one week check where we weigh and take measurements. I'm hoping to see some inch loss as well since I've been 100% on plan for the week and have been doing 4x/week of deep water workout. Last night totally kicked my butt, I thought my arms were going to fall off! I love the no-impact aspect of it as my back it out of place right now and I can still work out because there is no impact. I need to get started on weights though. The deep water is ok for cardio but it's not going to build a whole ton of muscle.

I can't wait to see my results tomorrow and will update.

PS...has anyone had the Chapman's Dark Chocolate Yogurt plus frozen yogurt? I had 1/2 cup last night with 1 cup of sliced strawberries and it was absolutely divine! It even has dark chocolate pieces that you can savour while they melt in your mouth. Easily my favorite frozen treat to date that is OP.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful day.

T

TAMARA ~ yes, I have some of Chapman's dark chocolate lf yogurt ice cream in my freezer which is only 90 cals for a half cup; I have this 1-2 times a week for dessert or a evening snack. Is that the same as the chocolate yogurt or frozen yogurt you had?

RO ~ I sure hope you don't get too big of a nasty storm; we have been blessed with such wonderful weather lately. We did have a tiny bit of ***** one night but the sun melted it by the afternoon. Our snow is almost all gone here, just a few places where they had to pile it up left; that may mean our lot is almost clear now, so we'll have to go up there and take a looksee ...


We were blessed with even more today too; GOD IS GOOD! It is cooler here right now, as the temps have dropped a bit, but all this glorious sunshine makes up for it. I just took it easy today; I blooped and overdid it a bit the last few days and paid for it with sore legs and feet and fatigue. So, I put my legs up for awhile this afternoon and fell asleep ...

Thank goodness I woke up just in time to put dinner on -- we were just having fish & baked fries (mine were sweet potato fries), with coleslaw and veggies so that didn't take too much time. I just did our usual daily stuff today, but had lots of time to send up prayers for those with special needs at this time.

Hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday tomorrow; and do take good care of yourselves ... Rosebud

Good morning everyone! I'm feeling really good today and looking forward to my 1 week results on HM.

Justwant2Bhealthy: It's the Chapman's Yogurt plus dark chocolate rapture. It's 150 calories (1/2cup) and 6g fibre, 3g protein, 3g fat...but oh my! It's soooo good. I tried to attach the URL to their website...not sure if it will work.

I had such a yummy dinner last night! I used my good old "Hungry Girl Cookbook" and made chicken fingers (done in fibre 1 "crumbs") and butternut squash fries. Did everyone know that butternut squash tastes similar to sweet potato but is about half the calories! I had no idea but Yum! It's my new favorite thing along with spinach salad with hardboiled egg, Yves veggie bacon and dressing made of olive oil and seasoned rice vinegar (1 Tbsp each).

I'm off to HM today to get my weigh in and measurements done. I was 211.4 yesterday so that was only 0.4 from the day before...but I'll take it!

Check back soon!
T

Hey y'all... did ya miss me? It was really nice in Houston, not that I got to spend much of it outside but I did go out during breaks in the meetings. They had flower gardens in front of the building with snap dragons and a few others I didn't know, I would just sit on the retaining wall with my eyes closed, face in the sun and inhale deeply. What a wonderful treat for a Canadian girl... even if I got sicker then a dog as soon as I got home

If my scale is to be believed I didn't gain any weight while I was gone... I really don't know how that is possible, eating out for every single meal, drinking and not training. There was a lot of fish and seafood true but I just don't see how it could be possible. My only thought is maybe I lost more then I thought I had and only gained a bit back leaving me still to the good side of the numbers. I dunno.

RO - I'm glad your back is better and that your new computer is coming soon! I'd go nuts without mine, it's a good thing my hubby is a tech!

Fatmad - So sorry about your Mom. I'm very close to my own Mom so my heart goes out to you.

And a big hello to everyone else!

Good morning fellow countrymen! LOL (That is how my mom who now lives in KS greets the Canadian geese down south).

Well my one week weigh in at Herbal Magic gave me the following updated results!

SW: 219.2 1 Week: 210.4 and down 8.5" (and this AM my home scale said 209.5!) Woot!

I'm very pleased with these results! I'm aiming for ONEderland by April 15. How's everyone else's day going?

Aunty Jam: I hear ya with the weather down south. I was in Houston in January Florida in March a couple of years ago and it was so nice to have the heat and sunshine! Glad to hear that being away from home didn't derail you. I've found in the past that even though there are not great choices when on this journey we still tend to pick things that are not horrible and smaller portions. Sorry to hear you got sick when you came home. Take care and feel better soon!

T

You know, from what I'm reading in this thread, it seems to be true what they say about us Canadians ... that they travel a lot, esp to the US in the cold months! I can't really blame you though, esp if you can afford to do it and you have good health too.

Hi AUNTY JAM ~ yes, it's nice to have you back with us again; glad you had a great trip and enjoyed all the warm weather and nice flowers. It's even better that you didn't gain any weight either ...

Ms. T ~ glad that your herbal magic plan is going well for you; do they just give you a diet and you take herbal supplements along side of that; or do you have to count calories too ... just curious?

We live in a small town, so we are a bit limited on the Chapman selections here. Our local grocery store does carry tons of the low-fat yogurt ice cream products, but hardly any of the low-sugar/lower carb options or yogurts, which is disappointing, esp since there are so many diabetics and pre-diabetics out there (like me) who need them ...

We are having very cold weather up here right now too ~ it's -10 C right this minute; but we did have beautiful all day long, so that made it seem much warmer. Like others though ... we had some ferocious winds last night and this morning -- they woke me out of my sleep in the middle of the night. Plus our garbage can was found rolling around on the street, but DH managed to rescue it before it got hit by passing vehicles ...

They are predicting a really cold -16 C for us tonight so I just turned up the furnace a bit ... Hope you all have a fabulous Friday tomorrow ... Rosebud

Good morning all and TGIF!

Justwant2Bhealthy: On the HM plan I just buy normal grocery store food and I have a little book that tells me what a serving of certain things are. For example...I'm allowed the following per day:

1 Dairy (8oz skim milk/ 1oz cheese/ 6oz NF yogurt/ etc)
1 Free Exchange (100 calorie pack/ NF pudding cup/ 4Tbsp NF Sour cream/ 2 Tbsp NF salad dressing/ etc)
2 Starch (2 slices weight watchers bread/ 1/2c pasta/ 1/2 pita/ low-fat tortilla/ etc)
2 Fat (1 Tbsp Olive Oil/ 1/2oz nuts/ 1/2 Tbsp PB/ etc)
3 Fruit (self explanitory)
3 Protein (5 oz poultry/ 4oz lean beef/ 1 veggie bacon/ 2 eggs or 4 whites/ etc)
4 Vegetables (2c lettuce/ 1/2c corn or carrots and the rest is mostly 1 cup)

I also have to really limit sodium and most things are non/low-fat. So far I'm having a great time coming up with recipes and different things. I'll choose my favorites and they'll become my easy staple meals. The above are just a few examples of long lists of things I can have. It's very much getting into the routine of portion control. I don't have to count calories but I do keep track of everything on livestrong.com. There has been an incredible drop in sodium (used to average below 2300mg/day now I'm closer to 1000mg/day), calories (used to average 1500-1700 and now between 1200-1400), huge increase in protein (used to average 30g/day now average 60-80g/day) and my sugars (other than fruit sugars) are virtually non-existent.

I've upped my water intake to about 3 liters a day and I have to take their supplements which cost about $50/week. I've dropped to one small cup of coffee in the morning and then switched to herbal teas with splenda to get my caffeine. During the first few days I had a hard time getting all 3 proteins in a day so I bought some of their bars, but have only used 3 in the last week as I've found ways to get "real food" instead. I do carry one of the bars in my purse though just in case I get caught out without food and need something. One of their bars counts as only 1 protein and they have snack bars that count as a free exchange.

So far it's working for me, I'm enjoying the food and I'm feeling good and more importantly very rarely feel hungry except maybe right before bed and I just drink some non-caffinated herbal tea with some fibre-sure in it which I've also started adding to my hubby's evening tea (he doesn't know) since he eats a ton of fruit/veggies but rarely eats any whole grains. I decided to boost his fibre intake a little, but it's good for him.

I hope everyone has a terrific OP weekend!

Tamara

ps...yesterday's weigh-in was 210.0! I'll be in ONEderland by mid April and hopefully out of the Obese BMI (175lbs) by Canada Day!

T ~ yes, that does sound like a low calorie and lower carb plan too, since you only get one a very small starch/grain serving each day but you do get 3 fruit and piles of veggies, I see. I bet the fibersure will help you though. You seem to being doing quite well on it, and you are losing so that is great!

Thanks for sharing a bit about the HM program with us; I didn't know what it was all about. I bet you could do the plan as it is, and just take vitamin supplements, herbal teas, and have a protein bar on hand for emergencies like you do now. I like the fact that you can just buy normal food at regular grocery stores as we don't have health food or specialty stores anywhere near us here.


Old man winter paid us a visit last night and today: we got a steady stream of ***** all day long as well. It is quite light right now, but it is pushing towards 2" right now, but the temps held at 0 C all day. That's not too bad really; we were very spoiled this month, so we can't complain really.

We spent our morning sorting out the rest of the Christmas decos and filled up 5 totes in all (DH gave me one of his which I will repace later); that is a lot better than 20 odd shaped boxes. Now they stack up nice and neat and take up much less room. I am so impressed that I am going to pick up some more to put some other stuff in as well; as the smaller ones are on sale this week. We worked at that til about 2 pm then called it a day and now we are gonna relax for the rest of the weekend.

Hope you all are well and that you all have a wonderful weekend too ... Rosebud

Technically I'm half way to my goal now... why do I still feel as if I have 50 pounds to lose?

Aunty Jam You're doing fantastic. I know it's slow going but you'll get there and you probably already look amazing. Keep it up...it will be sooo worth it!

YES, AUNTY ~ half way to your goal is fabulous! Those of you who have 50 lbs or less to lose can see your end goal in sight fairly quickly. You can chip away at that last 25 lbs -- 1 lb at a time. You could be there by the end of this year or sooner; the slower the better so you won't gain it back.

Well, the ***** stopped yesterday and the skies cleared up and we had a beautiful full moon last night, as we do right now, only it's much bigger and closer tonight. We had lovely all day long and lots of that snow melted; our deck is clear and dry so NIKO just loved going out there and spent a good part of the day out there. It was still a bit cool, but the sun was gorgeous just the same.

I just did daily chores and meals today; and spent the rest of the day giving myself a personal care day ... some good old-fashioned pampering! A pedicure and manicure too -- and some nice pretty nail polish would be a fitting way to encourage the spring to come, I think. Also did my hair today too and am letting it dry by the furnace as we speak ...

After dinner, I spent a while doing some reading with my legs up and will do some more later too. Most of the province is supposed to get nice sunny skied this week; us too! Hope you all have a terrific day tomorrow ... Rosebud

Thanks guys... I appreciate the support. I guess my biggest problem is that I'm apple shaped and I HATE it. All I want to do is lose that belly and it's the least likely to go I can't see myself ever being skinny enough not to have a horrible ulgy belly.

Aunty Jam - You will get rid of the belly! It might be the last thing to do, which can be discouraging, but you will lose it!

Justwant2Bhealthy - Sounds like a nice way to spend the day! I also got a pedicure on the 14th and got a bright green polish to celebrate St. Paddy's and the coming of spring. I usually go at the beginning of each month but I put it off this month until the middle so that in May I'll have a fresh pedi for May-Long. LOL So I can plan my toe polish months in advance but can't always plan healthy meals!

I weighed today and was 208! Yeah! Tomorrow is official weigh-in and measurement day. (2 weeks) and then I only have to go on Mon/Wed/Fri. I was totally pumped to be down a whole pound today though. I am doing the March Weight Loss challenge in "Chicks up for a challenge" and met and exceeded my March goal of 209. Happy Girl!

Have a great day ya'll. I'll check in tomorrow!

Tamara

will we be going to a spring thread or waiting until summer?

I am off now and trying to catch up on sleep. I spent my off ays last week n Windsor with my Aunt it was a short visit but I had a good time.