Good Morning, Chickies . . . :hug:

Hey, the wind is down to a dull roar and it isn't snowing right now. ;) Although, we are supposed to be getting some more of the stuff -- guess a foot isn't enough?

Since I had the kybosh put on my original plans for yesterday, I definitely tried out a couple of new recipes . . . both definitely winners, if I do say so myself . . . and then, of course proceeded to eat too much. Proving, once gain, that too much of a good thing is still too much -- especially true of the dessert since it's main ingredient is FF Cool Whip which is full of HFCS. The casserole is just plain good and good for you, too. Anyway, here are the recipes . . .

MACARONI & CHEESE CASSEROLE

8 oz dry pasta (penne or fusilli, or similar size)
2 - 3 cups frozen cauliflower
2 - 3 cups frozen cut green beans
1 medium onion, diced

-- Cook pasta and veggies in salted water, drain.

1 28 oz can of diced tomatoes, drained
2 cups diced ham

-- Stir ham and tomatoes into veggie mixture.

-- Preheat oven to 350.
-- Spray large lasagna pan (or two 9 x 9 pans) with cooking spray.
-- Spread veggie tomato mixture in pan(s).

1 ½ cups of skim milk
3 Tbsp all purpose flour
2 cups shredded, reduced fat cheddar cheese
1 cup 1% cottage cheese
¼ cup grated parmesan cheese

-- Make a basic white sauce with the skim milk and flour.
-- Stir in the cheeses and cook gently until smooth and thickened.
-- Pour over veggie ham mixture.
-- Bake, uncovered, for 25 to 30 minutes.
-- Let stand 20 minutes before serving.

Makes 8 servings of about 2 1/2 cups each. Nutrition Information per serving – 290 calories; 8 grams fat; 30 grams carb (5 grams fibre); 24 grams protein – ED approximately 1.15


CHOCOLATE CHEESECAKE BARS (or Pudding)

Crust:
1 cup Fibre 1 Cereal, crushed
4 tsp light margarine

-- Mix together and press into bottom of sprayed 8” or 9” square pan

Filling:
1 cup FF cream cheese (250 gram tub)
2 cups FF Cool Whip, thawed
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
4 tbsp Splenda

-- Mix together thoroughly with mixer or blender.
-- Spread over crust and refrigerate at least two hours before serving.

Makes 8 servings as bars, with crust . . .
ED of approximately 2.7
-- 110 calories; 3 grams fat; 16 grams carb (4 grams fibre); 5 grams protein

Makes 4 servings as a pudding, without crust . . .
ED of approximately 1.5
-- 150 calories; 2 grams fat; 10 grams carb (.5 gram fibre); 4 grams protein

Anyway, that's it for me, today will be better . . . I promise. Hope everybody else has a great moving and shaking day planned. Keep doing the good stuff as much as you can and the rewards will follow . . . and, stay away from all that leftover Easter Candy . . . See you soon . . . :carrot:

Hi everybody. Well, made it thru Easter without any candy! :) We went out for lunch, though, and while I did pretty good with eating (1/2C chicken pot pie, one chicken breast, cabbage and a salad), I did have an Easter splurge and got an ice cream cone for dessert. Rest of the day rocked. I ate some FF chips with 3 tbsp of french onion dip as a snack late yesterday evening and then 1 1/2 cup lean cuisine skillet creation type stuff...chicken parmesan flavored. I may have overdone it slightly point-wise, but it was Easter! Although, I'm not looking to see a loss this week, even with the workouts. :( I feel like I've eaten like a horse!

Have my third workout today. I've got a pretty bad cold. I'm curious how that'll effect working out, but I'm going nontheless. No matter how rotten I feel. I can't breathe at all out of right side of my nose right now....feel like my head's gonna explode. Whatever would we do without allergy season? Gotta love that pollen!

Well everyone, good luck stayin' away from the "nandy" (as my 2 yr old daughter calls it). I'll be packing mine up probably midweek and taking it to work. Better them to eat it than us! hehe

See you all later!

Diana

Good Morning Ladies!!!

Well the scales went up to 203 on Sunday and have stayed there since!!!

I knew it was coming soon. I am thankful for the loss though!!! Now I've got to really push it to get to 199!!! I'm so close it feels like a dream!!! All of this really feels like a dream because at 228 it seemed like I was never going to make it here. I want to thank you all for continued support and never letting me down, even when I let myself down, I could always count on all of you to help me along the way.

I hope all you ladies have a wonderful Tuesday!!!

Hi Ladies . . . :hug:

Oh Joy, Oh Rapture . . . we have sun . . . :cool: Not warm enough to be having much impact on the snow . . . but all good things will eventually come this way, I'm sure . . . in the meantime, I'm just happy to see the sun. :)

Not much else is new around here. Have to get out and get some errnds done that I've been putting off because of the weather. Hope everybody has a great moving and shaking kind of day planned . . . and no leftover Easter Bunny 'droppings' to contend with . . . See you soon . . . :carrot:

OMG!! I just had a delicious Healthy Choice pizza!! Not sure how many points it was, but I'm thinking 6 or less. It was yummy! It's been a while since I've had pizza....maybe that had something to do with it?? LOL

Weigh in is tonight. Not expecting any loss at all. I'm thinking it has to do with working out? That's what I'm blaming it on anyway! lol Everyone told me it would happen (no loss for a while when I began working out). I'm not gonna get upset about it....as long as I don't gain more than two pounds to put me back up to having lost less than 20 I'm good!

My daughter and I are fighting really nasty colds. Feel like I have my head underwater and my nose is filling up. :( Probably has a lot to do with this WEATHER we're having. Just heard on the news that April is shaping up to set a record for the coldest April in over 100 years. Gotta love that global warming, huh?? hehe We'll be 80+ one day and 32 the next! We actually had a snow flurry in LOUISIANA this past Saturday morning. That is the most unheard of thing ever!! It set a record. DUH! It really is no wonder we're all sickly right now. We got our pool ready for swimming and that night a cold front barrelled thru here. Woke up to BRRRR temps and no swimming! :(

Guess I should get back to work. Yippee fun. :( :sniff: :sniff:

Have an awesome day, everyone!

Diana

I'm back again....guess I'm gonna talk everyone's arm off today. :( We're not going to weigh in tonight. My cold has taken a turn for the worse. I'm feeling awful now. And with the awful feeling I have has come the munchies....serious ones! That's not why I'm not weighing in, though. It's a 30 minute drive and I just feel so run down...just can't go. I can't figure out why I'm munching either. Just sat down with ff chips and (full fat) french onion dip and kinda pigged out. I don't even know why. when my nose is stopped up like this, I can't taste a thing. So I wasn't eating because it tasted necessarily good, I'm just empty....my tummy. Maybe it comfort while I'm feeling bad? I don't know. I can see a gain in my immediate future, though.

Jana, I meant to post to you earlier how happy I am for you! I'm excited for you to finally reach onederland!!! Today, I'm feeling like that 18 lbs is mighty far away for me! Enjoy it enough for us all until we can all get there! You deserve it!!! :cheer:

Diana

Hi Ladies...Hope you all had a wonderful Easter. Sorry I have been MIA again, but we are still having problems with the internet. Finally got someone out here today, and it turned out we needed a new modem, soooooo I'm very happy to be able to surf the net tonight.:D

Michelle...Welcome back and I missed you! I will be in Portland in June, my granddaughter graduates on June 2nd and I can't wait to be back in the Northwest.

Linda...It started snowing this afternoon and we now have 6" of the stuff. The way the wind is blowing, I know by morning I will have drifts over three feet to deal with. Will spring ever get here?

My Hubby is doing much better and went in for tests yesterday. We got a new Foster son on Thursday. He is 4 and keeps me running, which is a good thing! I saw the eye surgeon this afternoon and I go back in two weeks to have the cyst removed. The doctor said I will have a couple of stitches, and the cyst shouldn't come back.

Have a great evening.

Cheryl

Hi guys, I have been reading, but have been so busy that I haven't posted for several days. I hope you don't mind if I just jump right in here. Congratulations to those of you who have been losing. :grouphug: to the rest of us.

Hey ladies, I know I have been absent again and I am sorry. I have been beating myself up for the terrible food weekend I had. Tons of food and none of it good stuff. Scales went all the way up to 227 Monday morning but I am happy to report that with chugging water and strict food intake they are back to 223 this morning. I have given myself a good talking to and I think I am ready to get my rear in gear once again. I know my stall has been because I am not trying as hard as I once was and I have been in the maintenance instead of weight loss frame of mind. But I am not finished here, I want to keep going. I will do this.

Wow, great to see Tammy, Robbin and Cheryl back! Tammy, looks like you've dropped some more?? I thought you went maintenance??? LOL :) Looks like maintenance is treating you very well!
Robbin, make yourself come here or go somewhere positive and encouraging. Don't stay away!! It really does help. And you're right, you CAN do this! However, no one know better than myself that it can't be done alone....
Cheryl, glad to have you back also! Good that you're up and running again. I've been having trouble with my internet service lately, too. Or atleast that's what I think it is. I've been trying forever and a day to upload some pics onto myspace and it just won't work! It gives me an "unexpected error" message. I even tried doing it at work...same thing. It must be ISP or myspace. Very frustrating!!

Well everyone being sick is really causing me some heartache! All I did last night is eat warm stuff....I had soup, spaghetti, a piece of garlic bread. It loosened my chest congestion a little, but was it worth it? And I don't think I can handle working out today. I'm already coughing a lot! I'd probably pass out! I'm gonna give myself a day or two to recouperate.....I don't think I have any other choice, really. I know the scales will go up a bit. Oh well, they'll go back down, I suppose.....eventually. I really feel too crummy to even care right now. :(

Well, I'm already late for work. Still have to take daughter to sitter. I'm sure I'll be 2 hours late.....funny.....I feel too crummy to care about that either.

Have a great day, everyone.
Diana

Hi there . . . :hug:

Another sunny but cold day . . . hopefully it will soon be Spring . . . oh, wait, the calendar says it is already, and has been for 3 weeks now . . . gee, where did all this snow and cold come from? :dizzy: Hmmmmm . . . definitely a time-warp of some sort going on . . . my official WWI tells me that I'm officially still 233 pounds for the 3rd time in a row . . . I think I see some sort of pattern developing here. Hope the pattern of 4 will be better for both the weather and my weight. :^:

Nothing else is new around here either . . . just keep putting one foot slowly in front of the other and waiting semi-patiently for the rewards that I know are lurking out there somewhere.

Anyway, everybody, have a great moving and shaking kind of afternoon and evening. We will all be winners if we just keep doing the good stuff as much as we possibly can . . . and a big WOW for you Tammy; maintenance is certainly treating you right. See you later, gators . . . :carrot:

CHERYL...Thank you for missing me; I missed you too!;) :hug: My DD is also graduating in June in Portland, and has been accepted to the University of Portland this Fall into their Nursing program. She is so ready for her senior year to be done! She is going to see her friend again in Maine for two weeks, and then her friend will be coming here to stay with us for two weeks. They were hoping to both go to the same college and share a dorm together, but her friend wasn't accepted to the university where my DD is going, so this way atleast they can spend time together this summer. I've still been exercising every day and watching my calories. I just get so impatient and want the weight off yesterday, but I'm learning to take it one day at a time.:(

LINDA...Sorry you're still not getting the Spring weather yet. I cannot believe how a lot of the states got hit today with heavy snow again!:(

TAMMY...You're my inspiration and I think you're doing great!!!:hug:

Michelle – welcome back, we did miss you, but I haven’t been here much myself lately, I have been on a plateau since December and it is really getting to me.

Cheryl – Glad to hear your hubby is doing good. Also excited to hear you have a new little one running around your house.

Tammy – nice to see you.

Diana – I know you are right, how many times have I said the exact same words to others. I am just so tired of this plateau.

Linda – I think you pushed some of your cold to the south. We have been having record lows here after having a few weeks of record highs. What’s up with that?

Well ladies on Monday I bought a weeks worth of lean cuisine lunches for work and am just about sick of them. The one I had today seemed like about 6 bites and I am so hungry. I was so set to be “good” all week but being hungry makes me be “bad”. I am gonna have to figure out something else. I can not sit here and think of food for half of the afternoon, by the time I get home I will be crazy and go overboard. Any suggestions of low fat easy lunches I can bring to work with me?

ROBBIN...Something that I have just started eating and it really fills me up is:

-wheat pita
-oven roasted turkey breast
-lots of green leaf lettuce
-1 slice mozarella cheese
-mustard
-baby carrots on the side

I'm now craving this every day, and I love the wheat pita because it only has 0.5 grams of fat and it's filling. Mozarella cheese is lower in fat and I also have it with my afternoon snack with Kavli Crispy Thin crackers; you can have 3 of these, and they are big, no fat and only 60 calories for all three. I was finding that when I would have a Lean Cuisine Mac & Cheese for lunch, I would still get so hungry, but this new lunch is really filling me up. I know how you're feeling with the weight gain, because I've put 10 pounds back on since losing my mom.:( :hug:

Well ladies the scales finally moved again this morning to 201!!! Yipeeeee!!!

I've only had one person notice that I've lost weight and that was just yesterday!!! I am now only 26 pounds from graduation weight. If you took someone who has not seen me since graduation day they could tell from down the street that I have gained weight but if you took someone that saw me last in November (27 pounds ago) they would have to look really close to tell that I have lost weight. Why is that??

Well I'm thankful for the lost anyway!!!

Have a great Thursday!!!