This is a great thread for those who want support, helpful hints, friendship and a great bunch of people to communicate with. This thread has existed for a long time and we keep re-starting it whenever the old one gets too long. Feel free to stop in and chat, we are not a "closed" group and welcome newcomers. Some of us have been together for well over a year, some only a few days, but we care about each other. We offer tips, we share, we pick each other up of the floor when we've had rough times and we applaud when someone does well.

So, please do stop on by and share a bit, support is what it's all about! We can really do this together!

-Tech

Good Evening All -

Well, my vacation is going well. I've been working on drinking more water and today I don't feel nearly as puffy as I did. Yesterday I went to Curves in the morning and then took Linda's suggestion and went to Cape Anne in the afternoon, it was sunny and beautiful if a little chilly and windy. For dinner we went to a place out of the book Thousand Places To See Before You Die that serves fried clams. They were really good but I'm sure they weren't WW approved, but I enjoyed every bite. Today was nice again, we walked around Boston and I got in twice my normal steps 15,000+. We stopped in the North End for lunch, again probably not WW approved but really good. Then neither of us was hungry much for dinner so we grabbed a t/o pizza and salad and had that back at the hotel room. Tomorrow we start to head back west to Hyde Park first. Hopefully it will be a relaxing day, my foot is killing me today. I think I'm going to have to break down and visit a doctor when we get back .

Ann - Don't push the running trust me, every time I think my foot is better I start using it again and it gets worse again. I know you've probably told me, but where in Canada do you live again?

Haylo - Glad your having fun and feeling in control at those b-day party's.

Kim2 - Glad you had a nice dinner with dh for your anniversary. 21 years is something to be proud of. 4 miles is also something to be proud of. I can't dedicate an hour plus to exercise.

Sandra - good luck with the seller.

Linda - started the new thread for you. Hope I did it right. Congratulations on cooking in on Saturday How did your Sunday go?

Laura - you're too funny, we left the heat on and we're not even home. We set the temp low though.

To anyone I missed sorry, that's the problem with starting a new thread you loose track of previous posts.

Have a great day everyone.

-Tech/Donna

Donna, your vacation sounds like a dream trip. I am so happy for you.

We visited with the seller tonight and gave them our earnest money. I am soooooooooo excited!!!

And I'm OP!!!!

Hey, Donna, thanks for re-starting the thread! I went back to the old thread to type in some responses!
Hope the vacation is still going well. At least the last two days around here were sunny ones!
Laura, I'm wondering if you broke down and turned on your furnace? Ours has been on for about the last week or so. It's 37 degrees here right now, definitely time for heat around here! It's only going up to about 50 here today. I'm feeling the need for comfort food, with all this cooler weather. I went through some of my recipes and pulled out a couple of good warm and comfy WW friendly things for the week and plan on grocery shopping AFTER a trip to the gym this morning.
Haylo, do share any great tips you find out about grocery shopping in your nutrition class, I'm always up for new ideas. I wish I had gone to school for something like that as well. I'm very interested in the medical field as well as nutrition. I'm 52 years old now, and not likely to jump start a new career, but it's tempting at times to consider it. My kids are growing up and will be leaving home sometime soon, and I often think about pursuing some kind of new education. However, this is at a time where I tire easily and I feel almost like that old thing they say about not being able to teach an old dog new tricks. I feel like staying home and just doing my quilting and being a bit artistic, perhaps, instead. I might enroll in some painting/art classes and try my hand at painting things to sell, perhaps? I was in college for art, years ago, and maybe it's a good way to earn money? I see paintings for sale at various places and galleries that aren't as good as what I know I can do. It could supplement our future retirement?
Haylo, another VERY low point pizza idea for you is to buy those really large portabella mushroom caps and use those instead of any kind of crust, they are 0 points and if you use canned diced tomatoes instead of a sauce as well as FF mozzarella, they are CORE.... I used to indulge in those when I was on CORE before. I also experimented with a polenta pizza crust that was totally core as well. It was really fun to make due and find the same tastes I was craving.
Sandra, moving is always so stressful. I hope the land purchase goes well for you. When next, then? Will it take awhile to get running water/septic on the property, or is that already there due to the older mobile home that exists there?
Ann, I'm sure you can find other ways to exercise without running, I know you can do this! Can't imagine that you have yet to turn on your heat up there in Canada, but maybe it's a warmer area than this? With all the rain last week, our house really cooled off as well. DH covered over one of our AC units (built into the wall) for the season on Saturday and next weekend, we will take out two window units and put up storm windows. Always a sad time of year when we do this.
Tech, so glad you did go to Cape Anne, it's so pretty and I'm sure the good fall weather with sunshine was nice. Did you see Rockport?
For those of you who are not familiar, here is link to a photo series of Rockport Harbor:
http://www.rockportusa.com/motifone/motif_named.html
Here you will see a photo of Motif No. 1, as it's called, which is reputed to be the most painted and photographed building in America. It truly is beautiful. I've been there so many times, but if invited to journey there today (about an hour's ride from here) I'd probably drop what I was doing and just go! : )
Thanks for the congrats on cooking in. I did the same thing on Sunday too! I actually had a Boca Burger for dinner last night with carrots on the side. Part of cooking at home is a WW thing and part is also a money saving thing. We're really over-spent a great deal, lately and with the holidays coming and inevitable expenses, it's time to figure out cost savings. So, the old recipe book comes out! By the way, I have a 3 ring binder with plastic sheet protectors in it and I slide recipes from the internet or magazines into those sheet protectors, I can keep hundreds of recipes in there and slide them out when I want them. It's really hard to find places to store all the recipes I like. I am also tempted to take a few cookbooks I own and razor cut out the recipes I want from them and get rid of the actual books, themselves, as they all take so much space.
Now, my update:
Firstly, I finished my tracker/journal yesterday and still had about 20 - 25 flex points left after only using 19 points per day all week. One would think the scale would be kind to me, but today's weight looks like it's UP. I went to the gym once and used the treadmill once, so I'm a bit perplexed as everything I did should contribute to a loss. But, by weigh in tomorrow afternoon, I could be down a few pounds - who knows? My weight fluctuates so much.
Today, I am heading out grocery shopping and going to the gym first. Maybe another gym visit will show that scale who is boss?

Today's eating plan, points allowance 19:

Breakfast:
Egg white omelet with veggies sautéed in 1 tsp olive oil and 1 Laughing Cow lite cheese wedge: 3
3 slices turkey bacon: 1

Points remaining: 16

Lunch:
I'm going shopping and I think I will purchase bagged salad ingredients and have a chef's salad kind of thing with a roll? I'll use spray salad dressing. If I choose not to have this, I'll have a WW Smart Ones frozen entree of some kind, limiting it all to 4 or 5 points.

Dinner:
Again, shopping today, but I see fresh Swordfish is on sale for $5.99 a pound at my grocery store. So, dinner is planned as grilled swordfish with steamed fresh asparagus and tiny red new potatoes. Probably about 8 or 9 points. I may have brown rice, not sure yet.

Today's plan is pretty loose, but I will definitely earn a few activity points and will definitely have asparagus as it's a natural diuretic. I hope that will promote some fluid loss before weigh in tomorrow? I feel like I'm retaining water a bit.
Well, sorry this is so long, but it's Monday and there is a great deal to think about for the week ahead!
What challenges are you all facing this week?
For me, it's my daughter's birthday and she wants a ham and scalloped potato dinner (always the birthday person's choice in this house) and we certainly will have cake. I've got to bank all my flex points for Thursday!
Take care!

Good Monday!

I have decided that I like Mondays. It is refreshing to start a new week and "start over", new week of menus, new to do list.... At least that is how I am looking at it today. Yesterday was a stay at home day. Got bills paid and balanced the checkbook (hate that job... always feel so poor afterward!) made a nice homey comfort food dinner. Roast with potatoes, carrots, and squash. Really felt like fall in my house. Yes, I did break down and turn on the heat the other day. It was really cold for the kids in the morning to get ready for school. Today is going to get close to 70 so, heat is off!! Even opened a few windows to air things out. It is suppose to get colder again later in the week, so I think I'll make a big pot of soup. I don't like soup when it is hot, so it is one of the things I look forward to in the fall. May start to move some firewood for the winter this afternoon if I get the time. We burn quite a lot of wood to heat the house, trying to save on the propane bill, so it'll take me a couple of days to get enough moved to get us through the winter. The only good thing that has come from all the nasty ash borer bugs is that there is a plethura of fire wood available in our woods and that of our neighbors. Many of the neighbors have gas fireplaces, so we have taken advantage of that!

Linda - Your dinner tonight sounds fabulous!! I just got back from grocery shopping myself, and now I feel the need to go back and see if they have swordfish and asparagus!! I also like your idea of the mushroom pizzas. DH and I love portabellas, usually we marinade them and grill, but the pizza idea sounds interesting!

Tech, Glad your vaca is going well. At dinner the other night, DH and I discussed various vacations we want to take, some with the kiddies and some without. We want to take the kids to Yellowstone next year. Need to start saving our pennies!

Haylo - hope your throat is feeling better!!

Didn't get a walk in yesterday or today. I was suppose to walk with the neighbor yesterday, but she kept postponing and then just gave up. I ran out of time the rest of the day. Today I had to get to the bank first thing this morning so I didn't get to it. But there is no excuse for tomorrow, so I will hop out of bed, plan to set out my workout clothes tonight, jump into the clothes, and as soon as the kiddies are on the bus, I'll set out on a walk. Back up plan in case of rain.... treadmill for 30 min and 30 minutes of pilates. Hope everyone is having a great day. Give yourself a pat on the back today, you deserve it!!!
Kim2

I did break down and turn on the furnace. I started getting sick yesterday from sinus/cold issues and couldn't stand the cold any more. I broke down and turned it on. It was a small piece of heaven. Such small things we take for granted.

Like I said, I'm sick and things are way busy here at work. Been OP today though and hope to get my water in as I know that will speed the road to recovery.

Will try to come back tonight if I'm not wiped out

Hello everyone, my throat is still a little itchy but I am going to go to the gym. I weight myself this morning and pretty sure I am down 2 pounds.

derry: I love your pizza idea with the mushroom sounds delicious. I don't have any reason why I shouldn't go back to school, other then money and i just don't know what I would do. I have so many interest and get confused as to which route I should take. I think I need to just sit down and start filling out applications and whatever I get accepted to must be my calling. I don't know. By the way it's never to late to go back to school. I think you should try the art thing, it seems like something you could do that you enjoy and not be overstressed about it, and if you sell something great if not well at least you created a masterpiece.

belly: the dinner you had sounds delicious very homey!!!! EEW I hate balancing checkbooks and paying bills it always makes me feel poor too.

tech: sounds like you are having so much fun, I must live vicariously through you.


ann: hello I hope things are going well, I hope your foot gets better I hate when things prohibt me from doing what i want.

Kim, just so you know the swordfish was awesome... just digging it in a bit. It was so fresh and I grilled it. My daughter proclaimed it "yummy" and she usually doesn't even like fish all that much.
Laura, so sorry you are not feeling well. Do you ever take Echinacea when you are coming down with a cold? I swear it makes a huge difference. I usually start up taking it 2 at a time, three times a day along with extra vitamin C. It might not get rid of a cold, but it sure keeps it from getting really horrible.
Haylo, I would try to go back to school as well, if I were you. Maybe you should take a course at a time and just see what you feel like doing afterwards? I have given thought to the art thing. I used to consider myself "talented" (whatever that is!) and I have sold a few items that I have crafted and sewn at a shop in the past, so why not try at least? But, not until DD goes off to college, I think. I'm still a pretty busy mom.
At any rate, I never made it to the gym but I did go on my treadmill. I ended up having my FIL here this morning and it kind of threw off my day, but it was good to see him. He had to drop off something and just drove up and back here in one day. So, this afternoon was reserved for grocery shopping and all that kind of stuff.
Well, it's off to watch a bit of TV and do some knitting to keep my hands busy!

Hello ladies,
How are you all doing?
Linda, way to go getting on the treadmill. The swordfish sounded great. It is so great grocery shopping and having healthy snacks in the house.
Laura, I hope you are feeling better. I still haven't turned the heat on yet. I think I will have to turn it on soon. Way to go being OP.
Kim, I hope your walk goes well tomorrow. I think I may have to get mittens out to walk in the morning. It seems very cool early.
Janelle, I saw the doctor today and she said, I could try running and if it hurts just rest my foot for another week. Are your counting calories? How is work going?
Sandra, congratulations on buying your property. It will be nice to settle down. I hope you find Texas very enjoyable.
Barb, how was your day? Did you get to exercise today? How was your eating.
Paige, how are you. I hope school was fun.
Kim 2, I am keeping you in my thoughts and prayers.
Donna, enjoy the rest of your vacation.
I do hope everyone is doing well sorry if I missed anyone.
Take Care
Ann

All is going well with the land purchase. The seller took the paperwork to the title company today. We should close in just a few days. Maybe Friday!

My eating is wonderful. Tomorrow is WI at WW. I'm hoping to have a good loss. So's dh. We don't have a bath scales any more cuz of living in the 5th wheel. (Where would we put it?) Tomorrow's WI will be a surprise. We don't have a clue what to expect.

I bought some new clothes today so I'd have something to wear to a wedding this Sat. I had a good time shopping.

Linda, the place is already set up for the mobile but we'll have to get it adapted so it will accept the 5th wheel as well. We're sooooo ready to get started.

I am covered with chigger bites from traipsing around in the field. What next?

Kim, I just finished checking our forwarded mail and writing bills. We did take a 20 minute walk this afternoon. I know we should do more. I'm glad you're planning to walk tomorrow.

Laura, I'm sorry you're ill. I hope this message finds you feeling better.

Ann, this is sort of a homecoming for me. I lived down here all my life till I moved to Montana 10 years ago. I can't tell you how excited I am to be a Texas Snowbird.

Okay - I need your help people. I know I let myself get worn down to the nub and yesterday I felt like crud. I just can't seem to break the cycle of eating. I'm feeling a tad better today so I'm going to give it the ole college try again today. I'm reading your posts and I'm not quitting but I'm in a downward spiral

Laura, You are so worth this new healthy lifestyle. If it was something you needed to do for your children or your husband you would give it your all. You can do this. I know that so many times it is your posts that help me to stay focused. I was becoming complacent and it was you who gave me that boost I needed. I reread my week one book, I rejoined meetings, (thanks to you). I think for me it is the weather that makes me think who cares. You have been successful so far, remember you can do this one meal at a time. I am grateful for all you have given me. Remember Erica said, fake it til you make it, sometimes we just have to do stuff even though we may not want to. We all have a choice and I know you can do this. I know when I want to give up this lifestyle I will read something here and realize that I am doing this for me and it is okay to do something for me. Do you have time to plan out your meals and post them here. I know you are not feeling well, I hope you are feeling better soon. Remember healthy eating makes us feel good. I know you can Make It Work

Good morning ladies,
I have decided this morning I am going to do Core, not try, I am doing this. I have no idea why I am so afraid to try Core. I have had this feeling it limits choices but as I look at my book I realize it has so many choices.
Linda, What time are you going to the gym? I think I will walk around 9:00 this morning. One of my DS friends mom asked if she could start walking with me. I will try running this afternoon. Just a small one to see how my foot is. Thanks for the reminder, if I can't run I can get that dreaded bike out.
Kim2, Enjoy your walk today. I found my mitts and ear band, I will put them in my pocket for walking incase.
Janelle, I do hope you find time to exercise today, or to walk. Have an awesome day.
Sandra, I couldn't imagine living somewhere, where I don't get to see snow. I do like snow. I don't like freezing rain though. By February, I am usually reading to go to Florida, or somewhere like that. Good luck with your weigh in.
Barb, good morning. What plans do you have for today?
Hello Paige, Kim, Laura, Erica and everyone else,
Have a great day everyone.
Ann

Just a very quick post from me this morning, will check in later on and be more detailed.
Have to head to MA this morning (about an hour and a half away) to pick up my aunt's sewing machine that was offered to me. She passed away last January at the ripe old age of 95. This is a pretty heavy, older machine.
I look forward to having it, though, as it was special to her.

Laura, you're getting some fabulous advice here. Don't give up. You're worth the effort.

Ann, Core isn't bad. I think you'll like it. I am from this area so I truly enjoyed the snow in Montana. We have small granddaughters down here. That's the main reason we're here. We'll be in Montana in the spring/summer. (maybe fall) We (especially me) love both places. Curtis is mainly a mountain man so he prefers Montana.

Linda, have a safe trip.

We're off to WW. Wish us success at WI. I'm feeling positive about stepping on those scales this AM.