Pat and Allison, that is hilarious about the vegetable pie! I wonder how often our other menus correspond. I used lite firm tofu and it crumbles if you just squeeze it in your hand. It could be because you used extra firm that it didn't crumble. The only problem with that recipe is that now I have extra mozzarella cheese in my fridge to tempt me! We actually ate the last of our leftovers of it last night with a spinach salad and some extra mushrooms on the side. Isn't Cooking Light the greatest? 90% of my recipes are from Cooking Light. It sure makes calorie counting easier since they give you the exact portion size and nutritional info!

Anne -- you know, I didn't even think about how many actual grams of protein I was getting. You are right, I'm getting an average of 74 grams per day. I guess I just looked at the percentages and thought "Gee, shouldn't I have at least 20% protein?" I think I should probably be keeping a closer eye on my actual nutrient levels instead of just fat/carb/protein/fiber though, since I've had low iron levels in blood tests a few times so I know I need to get more of that. Where does one get iron, other than red meat, anyway? Isn't it in spinach or something?

Pat - It sounds like Costa Rica was great! I could sure use some warmth and sunshine myself. Indiana may not be as cold as Alaska, but me being a (southern) California girl anything under 60 degrees counts as freezing!

My fiance and I (we need an abbreviation for that, he's not BF anymore and he's not DH yet!) checked out a couple local gyms the past two days after work. I think we found a winner! There is a gym 5 minutes from my office that is enormous, full of amenities, and not too crowded. They have six acres of indoor sports arenas basically, plus a fitness center and aerobics studio. I think their big business is team sports rather than individual memberships so the fitness center isn't very crowded. We stopped by at 5:30 yesterday afternoon and there were plenty of treadmills and bikes and ellipticals available, plus all the weight equipment and an indoor track (yay indoor tracks!!). The equipment all looked pretty new and nice. They have a good variety of group classes (free for members) that start at 5:30 or 5:45, including pilates, kickboxing, step, and even karate. The extra bonus? It's only $53/month for BOTH of us. The other gym we looked at was $55 for the first person and $45 for the second! Plus they said that the basketball courts are usually available for general use during the summer (lots of teams practice on them in the winter) which is good since my fiance likes to shoot hoops. We will be going back to sign up Friday afternoon I think, assuming we can sign up and then immediately use the facilities for our usual Friday workout.

Yay! A real gym! I'm so excited!!! They even have those hill-climbing stairmaster/elliptical thingies!

Anne, I'm also glad you posted that about the protein. Yesterday mine came to only 21% of my food intake but it was 75 grams, so I guess that isn't as bad as I thought.

I used to use DF...

paperclippy~you're absolutely right about the Cooking Light cookbook. I almost bought a new one the other day, too, but decided that if I need any new ideas, I'll just look on their website. Oh, and your spinach?--a great source of iron and also broccoli and beans. If you eat your iron rich food with something with vitamin C (like an orange) it is supposed to increase the absorption.

I haven't been putting anything in fitday lately, so I'm not sure of my percentages. Perhaps I'll take the last few days and put it in and see where I am sitting. My calories came in yesterday at about 1300, so I'm happy about that.

Lily~stay warm! I hope you get to the grocery store safely tonight.

Good morning maintainers,

Mel, the only store I've found the Tofu Shirataki noodles is Publix supermarkets. I've heard you can get them at some Asian food markets and online at Amazon. I found them in the refrigerated produce section, near the tofu and other soy products. You need to rinse them (they come in an odd-smelling water) and then pat them very dry before you use them - this avoids the sticky texture lily mentioned. The Hungry Girl website has some suggested prep tips.

alinnell, my friend who introduced the dip to me has always known it as Carolina dip. She says she has heard other names but is trying to convert the world to the "Carolina dip" name... don't know why, but she gets fired up about it

paperclippy, your new gym sounds awesome, and very reasonably priced. I love good gyms! I went on a trip during Christmas and went to a huge gym, much bigger than my small-town gym. I nearly started salivating.

I went to step aerobics class last night and the gym instructor made us do extra leg lifts. I always think it's kinda weird that I enjoy them, in a masochistic way. I'm going to yoga this afternoon to stretch out. And a birthday party tonight, so I'm currently searching high and low for my willpower...

Have a great day everyone!

I weighed just a few min's ago and am up 2 lbs. Not sure if this is just water wt. gain or if it is from raising calorie level from 1400-1800. (I wish I had remembered to weigh before having breakfast and 2 cups of coffee). That might be what the gain is showing up from. I know that salt is possibly a factor as I did have quite a lot of salt in the stew last night. Plus had some lite popcorn that was salted. This weight maintenance stuff is sure a rollercoaster ride for me. I go up a couple lbs. and down a couple. I'm going to try to push the water today and see if the wt. comes off tomorrow. Funny thing is, I felt really light when I stepped on the scale and was expecting a drop. My tummy is looking flatter and I actually am thinking this calorie counting might help more to trim the tummy than the atkins program did.

Meg , thanks for explaining about the protein. Since I do mainly elliptical and treadmill with no wt. lifting maybe my 75 grams of protein per day is adequate.

Lily, I think that 75 grams of protein in an 1800 calorie diet is perfect for you. Your 75 grams equals 300 calories, so about 16% of your calories are coming from protein. The 2005 Dietary Guidelines For Americans recommends that between 10% and 35% of your calories come from protein - a broad range! - and you're right in the middle of the recommendation.

Don't sweat the weight gain - it's probably salt. You haven't eaten enough extra calories to put on two pounds of fat! Congrats on the flatter stomach!!

Thanks Meg.

Does it make sense that the fat on my tummy would go down better now that I'm eating way less fat than I did on Atkins ? I sure hope so. I am loving using Fitday and getting better at it. I like putting my food plan for the day in it , first thing of the morning. Then my meals are all planned out and my snacks too. I'm doing this too for my DD as she is trying to lose a few lbs. and I pack and send her meals to school with her everyday. I really wish I knew for sure how many calories a day a 14 yr. old should get. She doesn't play any type of sports and is far less active than she should be. If anyone knows what would be a good amt. of calories for her, please let me know. We started her last week at 2000 cal's and I think she looks like she is losing weight but she refuses to weigh yet. Her tummy looks smaller and her jeans are definitely looser. (for a while there she couldn't get her jeans to button and was wearing my clothes, now she is back in her own jeans).

Lily, the Dietary Guidelines that I referred to in my earlier post say that a female aged 14 - 18 needs 1800 calories to maintain her weight if sedentary, 2000 calories if moderately active, and 2400 if active. This is how it defines the activity levels:

So you can decide where she fits in.

I know that most experts recommend that teenagers not make drastic cuts to their calories because they're still growing. I don't think you'd want to go more than 500 calories or so below maintenance. It might be better to help her create a calorie deficit by becoming more active - what does she like to do?

And you might want to check out Anne Fletcher's (author of Thin For Life) latest book: Weight Loss Confidential. It's about helping teens to lose weight and there's a review on the 3FC home page.

Paperclippy - wow that gym sounds great! And reasonably priced. We pay $75/month for both of us, and that's without classes and raquetball privileges. There is a bigger gym in the next town (20-30 min away) but I know myself - it's too far to go on a regular basis. Ours has great weight equipment (i.e. multiple sets of dbs and bbs, balls, etc) and I've never had to wait for cardio equipment more than a few minutes.

Thanks Meg, that helps a lot. I think she is "moderately active" according to that definition. She skates for 2 hrs. every Friday night. Walks 2 miles on treadmill now 4 nights a week. I'll keep her at 2000 cal's for a few weeks and see how it goes. I know she is completely full at this level and often doesn't eat all the food I send to school with her. I don't want her to be frustrated and feel too hungry, a sure fire way for her to give up. She has done that before and when she did go off program she ate twice as much food for a few months, regained all her wt. and a few lbs. to boot. I didn't put her on a "diet" she chose to try to lose 10 lbs. on her own. I'm just trying to help to insure that she has plenty of healthy food available and keeping the junk food out of the house to keep her from wanting it. (I do keep the fat free pringles and 100 cal. snack packs and SF jello and SF pudding and light popcorn for her to snack on). She loves light ranch dip with fresh veggies to snack on also, so we both use this.

As for exercise, she loves skating and walking. That is pretty much it, except she loves to swim , so we go to the lake at least twice a day in the summer. She loves horse-back riding which she does a lot of in spring and fall .

Aw, you're a good mom, Lily!

I agree, Paper- that's gym sounds awesome AND is a great deal!! (we're jealous )

Well the stew went over so great last night that I'm making a veggie stew with chicken in it tonite. It should be good. The snow is piling up out here and I'm not going to be able to go get groceries like I'd planned. DH was going to drive me, Now he's going to be gone out of town to buy firewood. We couldn't find any wood close to home. It's been so cold, it's all sold out.

Hi,
I said I'd wait til Feb 1st to weigh-in. I lost 3.5 lbs in Jan., not bad considering I'm breastfeeding.

Meg, Does your husband really care about the cake? I say, toss it! Better that it end up in the trash than in you.

Hope everyone is doing well. More later. Must sleep now.

I did get to go shopping tonite. When I got home, I was hungry. Walked in and DH had made hot cinnamon rolls (the kind from a pillsbury can), there were 3 of them left. Me , my DD and her little friend each had one. I just knew I had went over my calorie limit. So, I came put that and my orange that I had onto my Fitday for today. Anyway, I was relieved to see that I only had 1610 calories today even with the meltdown with the cinnamon roll. My chicken stew was really good. My son even took some leftovers to work with him. I had made chicken with noodles before but never just boiled with lots of seasonings and fresh veggies. It looked kind of strange because I even put brocolli in it, but it tasted good.