ems -Happy Birthday to you

ems- Happy Birthday I hope you had a great day or maybe weekend

I am hoping that this blizzard that is on full force high tails it out of here by morning and the MNDOT crews have the highways cleared off!! I am hoping to make it home tomorrow for the visitation for my grandpa BUT I have a feeling that I will be leaving at the crack arse of dawn Saturday (like 5am early) to be there by 9am for the funeral that starts at 10!!!

I swear mother nature has PMS or something. We are slated to get almost 12+" with a side of 45-60mph winds all flippin night. I mean come on cut me some slack, I am stressed as it is and this just adds to it

Get this every school around us, miles from us and 30mins from us has a 2 hour late start BUT here!! WTH?! You cant see jack outside and the drifts are waist high..............I swear our sup. fro school lives in a hole some days!

I started using some alternative products because of the cost of IP and use the Quest bars and as long as they meet the guidelines for restricted items, you're good I also use the Pure Protein bars from Wal-Mart (they were on sale) and Muscle Milk or Pure Protein shakes (also from Wal-Mart) as well. I still have a fair amount of IP products so I mix it up.

Jo

Good morning Ipers.TGIF! Day 5 for me, so far this has been an untroubled week. Except for some battles with wanting to mindlessly snack in front of the tv! Last night I got home from work and wanted to crash but I didn't, I gave myself half an hour to roast a cabbage and a cauliflower so I have veg ready for a day or 2. Although, my husband is loving the roasted veg so I have to roast veg more often. Being on this diet makes you cook. I'm enjoying watching Masterchef USA at the moment. Funny, being on a diet and watching food shows.

MntRose I haven't made the puddings into hot drinks but I have made them into cold shakes. I would make a paste with cold water and then add hot water slowly, finish off in the micro. I'm not sure if this works. I'm looking at your stats and you are doing a fabulous job. Well done.

I am a pain wimp too. I completely understand. Mine has never truly been diagnosed but a lot of therapy has helped get it under control.

Re hot choc: most pudding mixes have directions for making them into a shake. I use 8 ounces of water shake it up and then heat in micro in my favorite cup. If you shake with hot water it may explode so don't do that.

Mtnrose - I do the same things as Lisa for my hot drinks except I blend them in the bullet first - I like the texture better.

And sorry you are having so much trouble! That sucks. Just be sure if they do give you pain meds that those can increase the Big C so be wary.

Thanks for the Bday wishes everyone, it was a great day filled with love. Ate at a great local restaurant called Cafe Vermilionville. It's an incredible old home from the 1830's turned restaurant. I used the pointers in yesterdays chat about restaurant ordering. Sadly, they still brought my steak on a bed of mashed 'taters. Tis OK, scraped them off, passed them to my brother and he gave me his asparagus! They steak was supposed to come stuffed with a crawfish cream sauce so I'm glad they got THAT right and left it out!! The family passed around a plate of bread pudding and I sat there with my decaf coffee, super content to be surrounded by love. My uncle is leading his Mardi Gras Krewe (he's king) in the first parade of the season tomorrow evening. He was filling us in on what his plans are for the parade. Can't wait! When I got home, I warmed up an IP brownie, and felt like I indulged!

Didn't feel like I missed out on anything in the celebrations. Like so many people here say, it's your outlook you must change on what is a reward/used to celebrate. Hope everyone has a great OP day!

Oops, running on autopilot and thought I was getting crispy cereal. Nope, had lumpy mushroom soup for breakfast. Mouth is confused.

On the good side, scales were down this morning and that has motivated me to stay OP.

Happy belated Birthday ems70508 and wow! talk about NSV. Inspiring! Sounds like a lovely celebration. Wishing you a great year.

So I thought that I was being 100% on plan for the past two weeks, then I realized that I have been eating way too many vegetables. This is making me a little annoyed, but oh well, I still will have about 4 lbs less on my weigh in 2. I prefer my vegetables cooked or steamed and yesterday I made a mushroom and zucchini stew. Well, that only gave me 4 full cups of stew that I divided into 2 servings. Thinking back I realized that my pan was full of veggies, so raw that was a lot more than only 4 cups of veggies. I also cooked kale earlier in the week, just added some garlic to it, but a full pot of kale reduce to less than half and I was measuring two cups when I was eating it. I guess I will have to change the way I prep my veggies moving forward. I am just slightly annoyed with myself, but nothing I can do about it now.

That made me smile today! Easy to do! Congrats on the weight loss too!

If it's any consolation, I always measured my veggies and meat COOKED--it was easier and I didn't know otherwise. Maybe the "innocent" mistakes don't count, lol!

I so hope that you are right. At least I am eating two cups of cooked mushrooms and zucchini and not gold fish. LOL I can't stand romaine or iceberg, I like red leaf lettuce but my coach says that I have to measure that lettuce. It would be easier to just be given a weight of the veggies rather than cups.

Hopefully more people with experience will chime in here, but I always thought red leaf lettuce could be treated the same as romaine or iceberg or any other lettuce. Nutritionally they appear about the same. Did your coach give a reason why red leaf would be treated differently?