I think beets scare people because we think of the canned pickled beets of our youth. Which Will loved as a baby, BTW.

Skipping dinner to have birthday dessert.

OK, if you ever NEED vanilla pudding. I have a recipe that is delish, and I used skim milk instead of whole.

I'm hiding my head in shame.

I will be trying the Chickpea Stew. The beets? Well, I'll think on that.

I'd like to work out with Jillian. I think I have a girl crush.;)

You know, I'm gonna have to admit that you all are correct. Staring an hour in the face is knocking me out before I even get going. Starting tomorrow, I'll begin with 20 minutes, at lunch. No more waiting until after work when I'm tired and have no energy.

Rhonda I have been doing this with great success this week, I tell myself I don't have time, but I DO have 30 minutes or so and I have done it for 30-40 min each time once I am actually moving on the treadmill...next week maybe more! DO IT! 20 minutes. If you go 23 or 24 when all is said and done, fine. Next week try 25 minutes!

Yeeeawwwn i want more sleep. Don't have to be at client until 9am but need to do a bit of work first.
Today's plan - keep calories a little low today to make room for going out tomorrow night. Client at 9am, hopefully done around lunchtime. Debate on going into the office or working from home, Working from home will win the arguement. I have to run into the mall (I hate the mall) before my class tonight. Class from 6-10 then pass out.

Menu
brek - coffee, biscut and gravy
lunch - tofu stirfry
snack - apple
dinner - enchiladas
snack if needed - clif bar

Morning gang!

Today's plan: Run ~5, heading out in just a minute. It's in the 40s here right now, feels nice!

Food:
Bagel, sb, coffee with stevia
orange
kofta curry, tortilla, cucs, toms, zucc, onions in vinegar
vegetable sushi for dinner

Rhonda-Go for a lesser goal because 20 min is better than none. I only did 15 min the other night on the Wii Fit, but I was just happy that I did something. It's all about small steps. :) You can do it!!!

Anna-This may be a silly question but . . . How do you pay your mortgage off early?

Heather-You totally deserve new workout clothes!

Well it's OP Day #14 for me and I'm getting stronger by the day. I need to eat more during the day because I came home yesterday and even after dinner I had way too many points left. I really need to spread them out more. That is my goal for today.

Question: I'm planning one of our veggie meals tonight. I have a jar of coconut curry that I picked up at WF and some firm (not extra firm) tofu that I planned on using in the curry. Will regular firm tofu work well? Should I saute it first? Or, is tofu a good idea in curry?

Morning everyone :)

Looks like plurk finally got blocked here. Not sure if it's temp or perm. Even woot is blocked. :(

I did my day 2 of strength training yesterday and I came very close to not doing it. I also managed to hurt my left wrist now. As if right wrist hurting already was not enough I lost my balance on the plie squat at the last rep and fell and hurt my left wrist to balance myself. No pain no gain I guess.

It's really cold out here today. 23 deg and it feels like 15 or something. We had light snow last night with barely any accumulation and people were driving like idiots this morning.



Food Plan:
B - Tofu stir fry & coffee
S - Grape tomato and cuke mix
L - Crack, wheat w/ veggies :p
S - Small Salad

Same here :)

I don't think I've ever had beets. I don't know what bothers me about them. Although we almost made beet cake last week but decided not to cuz it's not like I really need cake at home.

:woohoo: on Day 14 OP Jen. That's great.
As for less points, just wondering if you're eating snacks? I know there were times when I would be a lot less in my daily calorie intake too. I've started adding a small salad to go with dinner to make it up.

Rhonda, when I added exercise to my weight loss goals last year I started with only 20 mins on tready for couple weeks just to get my a$$ moving. I hate exercise really but I do it cuz I know it's important. Just try & do 15 mins and be done with it. And if it takes 3 weeks to go from 15 to 30 mins then so be it. You pick up your own pace. You don't have to compete with anyone. Just do what you are comfortable with. Remember baby steps. I like watching shows while doing tready (my netflix comes handy here) and some people like listening to music...you figure out what you will enjoy while doing your 15 mins of tready. Everyone here has given you great advice. And if you need a nudge let us know we'll be happy to oblige ;)

I am but I usually only have a piece of fruit for a snack. Every now and again I will have some PB on an apple but most of the time it's just plain fruit. I need to get more filling snack ideas.

Happy Birthday Heather! :bday2you:

Happy Birthday Heather!!! :celebrate:

I'm doing it! I'm cooking tofu. I'm making something similar to Anj's stir fry. I'll let everyone know what I think later.

Happy Birthday, Heather!

Ladies, I need your suggestions and tips on peeling a butternut squash.

Have you noticed that typically when we all agree, we are right?

Tell me about the kofta curry.

Anything you pay above your payment is applied to the principal, reducing your total amount owed. So, when we make our last car payment, we will add that $500 to the mortgage payment. In the meantime, I run 13 4-week budget cycles, so we we make an extra payment every year. The entire amount of that extra payment goes to principal. Here is a good calculator:

http://www.daveramsey.com/etc/reales...e_calc_swf.cfm

regular firm is fine, you just need to be a bit more gentle with it in the pan if you don't want it to crumble or break. as someone mentioned, sauteing it first would help with this and maybe give it a nice brown on the edges. i usually just throw it in the pan with all the veggies once they have a good start on them and after i've added the coconut milk (ie: don't bother sauteing it specially beforehand) because i am lazy, but the point is, it'll work out either way.

I usually cut mine in half length wise, clean out the seeds and use my vegetable peeler. If I use a knife I end up taking to much flesh. It really depends on what you want to do with it though. I have left the peel on occasionally to microwave or bake.

I just used extra firm in my stir fry. It still crumbled a bit on me and I think next time I will crumble it on purpose as I didn't really care for the overcooked chunky egg texture.

Looks like plurk is working again but slow. Probably another router down or something. They start blocking internet traffic if router goes down. At least that seems to be the pattern.

For Butternut squash, I do the same thing as Billie does. Cut in half, deseed and peel with peeler and then dice it up. I only made it once and it was that taco recipe.

Thank you for the calculator.

IF I could get DH on board with rolling over the entire amount of my van payment onto his truck, then rolling that onto the house, we could be debt free by March 2016. How cool would that be! Even if I only roll my van over we could be paid off in September 2018. Wonder if my van will last that long?

Depends on what you want to do with it. If you want it in cubes, I do it the way Billie mentioned. If you don't care about its form (if you want to do soup or some other kind of mash/puree), I cut in half, de-seed, and roast in the skin. Skin is very easy to slip off after roasting.

I like the pic Jaime, it is flattering...a cool, woman of mystery

Debt snowball!

I am having a bad food day. If I stay OP the rest of the day, I will still be at target, but that leaves NO wiggle room. Meara wanted cheese and crackers, so I joined her. Full servings of both. And two kinds of cheese. Thank god it is a gym day.

Jaime, I agree with Manick, I like your new profile pic :)

Jaime, looking good!

Thanks for the tofu and butternut squash suggestions. I'll be using the squash in my tacos.

I ended up on back to back calls and didn't get a lunch. Looks like I'll be working out after work.

Being hungry at the end of the day is horrid for me personally. It's when my willpower is at it's lowest and I do not need any excuse.

I bought two pairs of pants today!!

I hack off part of the stem, peel, slice, do the rest. Generally about 3 sections per squash. It's not pretty but it works. I use a knife - I can't get a veggie peeler to work.

I'm sorry. Cheese is evil. I've already eaten dinner at 4:15 so it'll be a long night for me.


Going to buy shoes today instead of Saturday! woot woot! Bought two new pairs of workout pants with moola G-ma and G-pa gave me for Birthday. Roommate just called to make sure I liked carrot cake so I'm guessing there is one coming this way. Luckily I do like it but not enough to binge out on it. Okay have a few homework questions then off to the running store and then class.

Another fan of Jme's new pic. You look good!

I mentioned snowballing debt to DH. We had talked once before about rolling van onto truck and he was okay with that. When both vehicles are paid off though he is talking about buying a new truck instead of paying off the van. Idiot.

Yeah. He's just not getting it.

I'm starving, but have a headache. Maybe I'll just go to bed hungry.

Crappy food day. Add to my list of no-no foods....fish sticks. So breaded and tasty. Especially with tarter sauce. Had baked fish for self, but M did not eat hers. Guess who did. And spouse late, so no gym.

And again from me!!

Not so great on food for me either. I was POP for 3 days (tho still up x 1pound today d/t sodium/tom) and then I was felled by THE SNACKS AT COSTCO, and of course- lack of planning :p

We use a mortgage company automatically takes the mortgage out of bank acct every 2 weeks and end up with that same yearly bonus payment. But there is a moderate fee invovled.

Heather, what kind of courses are you taking-- and are you an accountant presently?/ I read about audits and clients..

I have been injured cutting butternut squash. Now I will only buy it if I see it already cubed and ready to go :D

I am about 1100ish :( calories over plan. The trick now is to stay out of the binge monster's path. Luckily there is not much crap around. But I can get creative :devil:

hanging around tonight pretending to clean... see you all later ;)

I say "only" 500 over target, but still. Pathetic.

4 years ago at this time, Meara was asleep on my chest and had her first seizure....we stayed in the NICU for a week.

Anna- first, I've been meaning to tell you-- I have a Will too :)
second, :hug:

And, look at her today. From all you've told us, it's obvious that she is a happy child who enjoys her life.

Well, with that many boys, it was bound to happen. :D

Good morning...TGIF!

The scales smiled for me this morning. It's gonna be a good day.:)

Reminder: shivering burns calories.

Random info for the day - It's a long weekend for me yay!! :D

Yep I'm a nerd. This is my 4th year as an auditor with a public accounting firm. I have broker/dealer clients, manufactures, service companies, a few real estate and construction clients and employee benefit plans. I've just procrastinated getting the CPA exam done and in my firm you can't be promoted (which I would've been oh about 1.5years ago) if you haven't passed. The class is just a review class for the one part that has given me a :devil: of a time (taxes and contracts :barf:)
Anyway I don't see myself doing it until I retire but the job has taught me tons about business, given me some great opportunities and pays well so until I figure out how to hang around the house all day with about 6 dogs and get paid for that it's what I do ;)

What she said.


Ugh apparently the overeating monster was in the air yesterday. I tried to keep my calories low which I did all day. Then after class I had two drinks (which were really more like 4 - sheesh she has a stiff pour) and was starving. Melba crackers are evil.

So today's plan -
coffee, granola and almond milk
appple
stirfry
almonds & pecans
going out with friends for pizza and hooch

Obviously not counting calories and the overage will be from alcohol. Important thing is I won't allow myself to feel crappy - well I will but I'll deal with it - on Saturday and pig out. Back on plan and chugging water.

Anna-Thanks so much for the info. I'm going to use the calculator you linked to when I get home and can look at our mortgage info. I would love to pay ours off early.

Rhonda-Yay for smiling scales! I am seriously proud of you!! You being OP is keeping me OP too!

Jaime-I also love the new pic! You look beautiful! So seriously I want to set up a hike or something for the beginning of summer maybe?

Heather-Yeah night time is my hardest time too, I think I'm going to just keep things the way they are for the most part. If it ain't broke don't fix it right? ;) Glad you bought new workout pants . . . you deserved them!


So OP Day #15 :carrot: I really want to start trying some new things because you guys keep talking about different stuff and I want to break out of my box. I will have to pick up some new and different foods when I'm at the grocery store this week. My second weigh-in with WW is today, I know my loss won't be as much as last time, but I'm still looking forward to it. Any loss is a good thing. (See new mindset) :D