November

Most people stayed the same this month which is good considering Thanksgiving, weather and all. But Amy G her biggest drop this month! Wahoo! She's been roller blading and taking spinning classes. Congrats!

Weight loss success stories

Here's a link to some success stories. I thought some of them were very inspiring. Enjoy!

http://health.msn.com/dietfitness/weightlosssuccess.aspx?GT1=10412

Summer's over...

Let's get back to business! Some of us had a rough August. Let's use Fall weather to our advantage and burn the calories without overheating!

How's everybody doing?

Just testing this....we had some blog problems earlier today

A Jazzed Up Tuna Salad

My latest thing is that I make up a salad to have as a quick go-to lunch for the week. This week I made a jazzed up tuna salad. I had it for lunch yesterday and today, and I'm holding myself off from eating the last portion with dinner tonight. Gotta make it last! Generally, I'm not too into the tuna salad thing, but it does make for a more filling salad. Since it turned out well, I'm sharing it with you all.

Here's what I did.. this made 3 good sized salads
1 pouch of tuna (the smaller pouch)
1 cup mixed field greens
1 cup ice burg lettuce
1/2 cup alfalfa sprouts (totally optional, I love them so I added them in)
1 large carrot
5 or 6 mushrooms (again optional, but I love them)
1/3 cup grated parmesean cheese
6 small olives
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar (I had chardonnay vinegar, but your favorite is fine)
1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
1 pinch dried tarragon
2 pinches dried dill
1 garlic clove
Salt and Pepper to taste

First chop up your greens (lettuces and sprouts), as finely as desired. This is a good tip I picked up from having 'the original' Cobb Salad from the Brown Derby. Toss and place in each bowl, so you don't overfill. Works out to be about 3/4 cup of greens for each bowl. Dice the carrot and distribute in bowls. Slice mushrooms and distribute.

Next chop very finely 1 clove of garlic. You could roast it first to make it less garlicy... but I dig the full flavor.
Pitt and chop the olives intp bite sized pieces. I had an olive mix, both black and green, that had a very nice marinade.

Next open the tuna and rinse in a mesh colander or bowl. Squeeze dry.
In a bowl mix tuna with vinegar, oil, tarragon, dill, garlic and olive. Mix until all is incorporated well. Taste, add salt and pepper if needed. For me, the olives salted it enough, I did add a few turns of the black pepper.

Distribute the mixture onto salad, top with parmesean cheese. I added a handful of dried cranberries to my salad today, to get the salty-sweet thing going. The tuna flavors the salad, so need for further dressing, though I do like my salads on the dry end.

Give it a try and let me know how you like it!

Miracle Treat Day

I wish I'd found the miracle treat, one with no fat, no calories but tastes like it has tons of both. Instead I found that Dairy Queen is having Miracle Treat Day on Thursday, August 9th. If you buy a blizzard on this day, Dairy Queen will donate 100% of the profits to the Children's Miracle Network. (Who gets the calories?)

Check out www.miracletreatday.com for more information. You can pledge to buy a blizzard for someone else on the site. Maybe pledge one to your skinnest friend, you'll start to look smaller when you're standing next to them.

They Fit!

I'm not doing so well this go around, but I was organizing my basement and decided to try on the jeans I bought right before my wedding (and have since been in that box for 5 years). They Fit! And they had a Twenty in the pocket!

Shiratki Noodle Stir-fry!

A few months back Roey mentioned those Shriataki noodles. They are basically tofu noodles, all protein and 1 pt per bag for WWs.
I finally tried them last night. I used them in a stir-fry, and they were really good. Here's what I did..

Prep the Noodles
Drain 1 bag of Shirataki noodles
Boil them for 2 mins

Stir-fry - I used what I had on hand, you can use your favorites instead.
1/2 green bell pepper
1/2 orange bell pepper
1 cup (left over) corn
1 mini-can sliced water chestnuts
1 mini-can bamboo shoots
2 cloves crushed garlic
2 tblspn low sodium soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon of hoisin sauce
a shake of Asian 5 spice powder
a shake of powdered ginger
a pinch of crushed red pepper
2 spritz of Pam

Stir fry up the veggies in a skillet or wok with the skillet. Add a pinch of salt and pepper and sautee. When the peppers start getting bright and soft, add in the noodles and the sauce. Reduce the heat to medium and stir to combine. Let all simmer for a few mins, to incorporate.

This made 3 large servings - the veggies outnumbered the noodles... probably could've added another bag and made it 6 servings and still been good.

Hi - I'm Jen. I live in Sacramento. Thanks to Christy and Roey for inviting me into the challenge. I totally suck at losing weight so you all should be very safe spending my $25. I blame 20 pounds on my 2 kids - 10 pounds per kid. The remaing 10 that I have a problem with has followed me around on and off since high school / college.

It's late and so that's all I have for an introduction! :-)

Some results

well, three of us are off to a good start. a few of us gained (no need for mention), Anne Marie (my sister!) is new, and i haven't heard from several. let me know if e;mail is better for the results!

cookies

south beach now has cookies and other snackfood in stores. haven't tried yet.

Vacation!

Oh my god...i haven't done cardio since i got here! Connor is going to his grandparents this weekend and i have some serious catching up to do! Plus, i'm allergic to the cats so i'm doped up on antihistamines...so i drink diet dr pepper and eat m&m's all day to stay awake! i'm glad i'm missing out on the July 1st weigh in! it would NOT be good news!

Introducing...

Hi All!
My name is Kate and I live in Orlando...I would really like to thank Amy and Roey for inviting me to this challenge-I passed it up last time but feel much more comfortable now that I have met Roey!
I have really been dealing with my weight for some time....A few years ago I was very sucessful on WW, but 7 years later gained about 3/4 of the weight back. For the past few months I have tried something new (on the advice of my dr) and so far have been successful on South Beach. I am trying to prevent diabetes in the future and this seemed to be the best choice. So far, so good. I have already lost 15lbs and for the first time I don't feel like I'm on a diet. I am really trying to take it slow......and am not beating myself up after that extra glass of wine (or two or three!) or sharing an occasional dessert. I've also been very vigilant about working out, which is never a bad thing!
Most importantly I've learned that diets work differently for everyone!! After years of trying not to eat at night, I now have my dinner pretty early, but always have a snack (woo hoo sugar and fat free pudding!) before bed to keep the metabolism working while I sleep. It also prevents me from snacking too much!
Thanks again and I'm psyched about this!!
My diet tip: I start the day with 2 glasses of water and some V8

January 1st (or 2nd) it is!

Looks like people are up for behaving this holiday season...so let's have final weigh-in on January 2nd (let the alcohol have one more day to evaporate from New Year's Eve!)

Speaking of weigh-ins, I'll be in DisneyLand July 1st. So send me your weights for the 1st, but I'll post results on the 4th once I'm home...sorry in advance for the delay!

Hello!

Hi Everyone
I thought I'd introduce myself, my name is Annette, I'm Amy's sister. A little family rivalry should do well to heat up the challenge! :-) About 4 years ago, I joined WW and was very successful on it. Eventually I got a little bored, and decided to do my own thing. A year after that, I've nearly gained everything I had lost originally! Sooo... I'm using this challenge as extra incentive to get back on track!

A fun site I check every now and then is Hungry Girl http://www.hungry-girl.com/ There's lots of recipes, tips and fun stuff to make living healthy a little bit easier.

I'm going to be traveling all next week for work.. any suggestions on how to stay good while traveling?

When should this end?

Last time we did 5 months. That will put us at November 1st. That sounds good to me because ending it December 1st would just be silly...we'd be weighing the amount of turkey still in our bellies! But, if we did 7 months, it might help us get through the holidays. What do you think?

baby weight be gone...

hi all,

hope all is well. thought i would introduce myself and say hi... my name is simone, my husband is matt, was in the challange last time. just had baby no 2 in january. scarlett is awesome as is her big bro wes, however my belly now looks like a failed souffle (you can imagine the accent over the "e", right, no idea how to do this)! both children made themselves quite cozy in said belly each adding about 70 lbs to me. shed all but 5 or 10 before pregnancy with scarlett, it was easier with 1 -less guilt about taking time for yourself (excuses, excuses), but i am coming back! so far i am down by 45 and hoping 25 lbs will spontaniously drop off during the summer months. i am trying to exercise at least 2x a week at the gym and walking as much as i can around town to burn it up. i am also on the south beach diet phase 2 as i am still nursing scarlett. tried phase 1 and thought i was going to die, i felt so awful, had to stop. so far the south beach frozen dinners have been my god send. eating the same food as my 2 1/2 year old was not doing much for me. it is too easy to pop a breakfast burrito in the oven and inhale it as i walk out the door, unless wes tries to eat it before i get there. really had a good cheat the other day, burger from rouge in philly. mmmmmmmm. right now i live for squares of dark chocolate and diet coke. unfortunately, i am a little too into the diet coke...

ps- this is my blogging debut. was a blog virgin before this post. woo hoo!

simone

And on to the next half...

well, i lost 19 pounds and feel so much better! but now i've got 17 more to lose and they are going to be hard! i already workout 7-8 hours a week and do Weight Watchers!

so i'm so psyched that the rematch is on! i eat less now, but need to eat better. and i need to get more into cardio! pilates is great, but more relaxing than anything.

as soon as all the contestants confirm, i'll make a new results page and add them as authors to this blog.

thanks to everybody who joined! you helped put years back on my life!

Easy dessert reciepe

I'm not a great cook but this was easy and tasted great!

Grapefruit Brulee
From Food Network Kitchens

2 large red grapefruits, at room temperature
8 teaspoons dark rum
2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
2 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon fine salt

Position a rack in the upper third of the oven. Preheat the broiler to high. Halve each grapefruit, then loosen the segments by cutting along the membranes with a paring or grapefruit knife. Drizzle 2 teaspoons of rum evenly over each half.
In a small bowl, combine the butter, sugar, flour, allspice, and salt. Using your fingertips, pinch the ingredients together until the mixture forms soft crumbs. Sprinkle the crumbs evenly over the cut grapefruits.
Place grapefruits on a broiler pan, and broil until the crumbs are lightly browned, bubbling, and shiny, about 7 minutes. Serve immediately or cooled slightly.
Cook's Note: Serve these for dessert at either dinner or brunch.
217 calories 6 grams total fat 4 grams saturated fat 36 grams carbohydrates

result page

no interest, so i guess this will just be the new results page.