Hey guys & girls. I've got roughly 2 stone to lose until I feel I'd be at my best weight. Obviously if I hit a body composition that I feel happy with before that, I'll stop, but 2 stone is my see-how-it-goes goal.

I'm currently at 10.5st, and I'm 5'4.

My motivation currently sucks. I haven't done any real exercise in around 3 months, so I've been hovering at my current weight since then. I need a good kick in the bum, but I've got nobody around me that can (or will, as the case may be) help with that. However, I'm picking it all back up today - new month, fresh start - and hope to achieve my goals in around 3 months. I'm going to go for P90x, since that's been helpful to me in the past, and add in C25K around the 4th week. If anybody would like to follow along with this, I'd love to motivate and be motivated with you!

I've never followed the nutrition advice (I don't use supplements, though perhaps I should) and instead have opted for using SkinnyTaste recipes & MFP to watch my intake.
The question I have is, for the SkinnyTaste recipes, there are a lot of USA-specific ingredients... does anybody here use Gina's recipes and if so, what do you substitute for things like Sofrito and chipotle powder?

Thanks in advance!

The chipotle powder, I have no idea what it is but I've just googled. There are UK websites that sell it, and apparently Tesco carries it too.

Sofrito I've never heard of either, but from what wikipedia's telling me it's something you could make yourself from scratch. There are recipes online. I also found a reference to it in the Guardian - http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandsty...d-corn-recipes - which makes me think it can't be bought here. If it could, even at the most expensive and posh shop in the country, the Guardian would say "Buy it here, if you can't make your own".

I find the UK Chicks Challenge Chat quite handy for motivation, as we have a spreadsheet and can update our weights every week, and I always want to record a lower one than the previous Sunday. You'd be very welcome to join us there. There are plenty of other challenges around too, you could have a look for some twelve week exercise ones.

Good luck!

Sofrito is the essence of mostly all Puerto Rican food, that is where I am from, there are many many wonderful things you can do with it, but not all of them spo healthy!! It is mostly herbs, spices, onion and garlic, to give essential flavour tpo everything and that tastes real... boricua!!

Welcome Happystick, good luck on your weight loss, I hope we can help you here. The UK forum is the best!
Joselito
xxxxx

Thanks very much for the replies & a nod to the challenges. I might just take you up on those!

Skinnytaste itself has a recipe for sofrito Link.

You can make it ahead of time, and even freeze it into cubes.

I notice that Gina uses chipotles in adobo, but I've never seen her use the powder. At any rate, I usually just sub chili powder and a little bit of cayenne since I don't really care for chipotles that much.

Hello there! I'm on week 4 of C25K, it's starting to get challenging now, with 16 minutes of running per workout! I've heard good things about P90X, and I'm instrigued because I've just started getting serious about lifting.

Drop into the UK challenge thread, it's very friendly and lively!