Weekly Weigh In

It's Friday! How did y'alls week go? Did y'all do good staying within your points & getting some activity points in? Anyone else besides Steph feeling like they are in a lull & hitting dreaded plateau? Allie told us once that there is no such thing as a plateau, according to our good friend Jillian, if you are burning off more than you take in, you will lose weight!

The one thing I can say is change things up! Someone once said that, "Learning is not learning unless behavior changes." If what you're doing right now has forced you into a plateau lull, it's not working! Change up your exercise, change up your eating habits, don't ever ever ever skip breakfast & plan for the weekends! Steph, I spend most nights of my weekend eating out, because it's what me and my husband do. In order to survive all the restaurant eating, I do NOT skip weekend workouts (new habit I had to get into), I keep my breakfast & lunch points low & keep my portion size to a minimal when dining out.

Losing weight is NOT easy, my friends, BUT I know we can ALL do it & we all WILL do it! Stay strong and keep up the hard work!

Week: -.5
Total: -14.5

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Ryan:

Week: O pounds
Total: 8 pounds

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Allie:

Week + .5
Total -21

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Christina:

Week: +1
Total: -12 pounds

Ice Cold Cocktails

It's going to be HOT this summer and I know a lot of us like to enjoy ice cold beverages. I found this article on Hungry Girl/Weightwatchers.com.

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Want to get together with friends for some cocktails without taking in a gazillion calories? Hungry Girl is here to help with her top eight must-have ingredients to keep on hand. Mixing these with a shot of the alcohol of your choice can keep your drink at around 80 to 110 calories (for a POINTS value of 2). Bottoms up!

1. Sugar-Free Drink Mixes

Keep low-calorie powdered drink mix packets on hand. Adding them to cocktails is a great idea because they're typically calorie-free and they taste great. My favorites are Crystal Light Lemonade and Disney Magic Sugar-Free Drink Mix in Grape.

2. Baja Bob's Martini Mixes

Baja Bob's makes all kinds of low-calorie mixers, but the best are their martini mixes. They come in Sour Apple, Blue Raspberry, Cranberry Cosmo, and Lemon Drop, and each only has only 10 calories per serving. Mai Tai fans should know that Bob makes a rockin' Mai Tai mix as well. Find these at bajabob.com and select stores.

3. Diet Sodas

Diet sodas are another great mixer for alcoholic beverages. The best (in my opinion) are Sprite Zero, Diet 7Up, any diet orange soda and Diet Rite Red Raspberry. Even calorie-free colas like Coke Zero are good for a guilt-free rum & Coke.

4. Light Juices

Juice, while sweet and delicious, often contains a lot of sugar and calories, so it's not ideal to mix with alcohol, which also contains plenty of calories. If you're looking for juice mixer, read labels carefully. There are lots of very low-calorie juice drinks out there—you just need to find them. My favorites are the 5-calorie Diet Ocean Spray drinks (which come in Cranberry and Cranberry Grape), and Tropicana Light 'n Healthy (half the calories of regular OJ).

5. Fresh Fruit

You can't go wrong with keeping fresh lemons, limes, oranges, strawberries, pineapple, etc. on hand for your at-home cocktail gatherings. Fresh fruit not only makes your drinks look more appealing, it's good for you, low in calories and delicious!

6. Club Soda

Club soda is a great mixer, 'cause you get the bubbles without adding extra calories. Pair your favorite alcohol with a few ounces of club soda and a splash of your favorite fruit juice (you can use an ounce or so of regular juice) and your cocktail will be tasty and fairly low in calories. Club soda is also a great way to make your white wine last longer. Remember white wine spritzers? They're back!

7. Torani Sugar-Free Syrups

These are sooooo good and a must-have for your bar. These sweetened-with-Splenda syrups come in a whole slew of flavors (over two dozen!). Not only are they ideal for cocktails; they're also perfect to use in smoothies and other recipes. My favorite flavors are mango, peach, strawberry and black cherry.

8. Good ice, cute glasses and fun straws Don't sell these items short! Never use old ice that doesn't taste fresh; it can ruin a perfectly good drink. And the cuter the straws and glasses are, the better your drinks will taste (it's true!).

Lesli's Work Out

Happy Wednesday, Sister-Friends! First of all... thank you ALL for being too kind to me last week! It kind of scary putting a picture like that out there knowing that there are enemies & ex boyfriends lurking around every corner & for those that aren't pointing and laughing my hope is that I NEVER come across as braggy or arrogant. I like to think of this as a meeting place for us to struggle, survive & live to tell it!

With that thought in mind, last week I received a comment from a Fat Chick Friend...

The GG says:
Wednesday, May 20, 2009, 10:04:54 AM
“WOW you look AWESOME!!!! Dude, you can see the start of your six pack.. NICE!! I just had a baby (4 weeks ago csection) and bought the 30 Day Shred to help me lose the fat!! I think I will also do WW (always worked for me in the past) How often do you do it? How often do you do cardio? Way to go! You look great!

Hi, The GG! Great question!

Before December I NEVER worked out, so we can definitely call me a BEGINNER. Ok that's not entirely true... I would walk around Marshall's for cardio. I started with The 30 Day Shred By Jillian Micheals.

from December to February I did mostly levels 1 & 2 ~ Roughly, 2 months of only the shred. When I got stronger, I would do 2 in a row.

then I added Cardio in to supplement the little bit of cardio in the shred. Typically I would spend 20-30 minutes jogging on the treadmill in addition to doing the shred.

by March I felt ready to start Sculpting, so I added in The Biggest Loser Weight Loss Yoga & The Biggest Loser Power Scuplt & Jillian Michaels' No More Trouble Zones. this was also right around the time where I kicked my workouts up a notch and worked out 1hr in the morning and 1hr in the evening. mostly, I wanted to see what if I could do it, and I found out that I could, but it made me exhausted in my day to day life.

now I stick to an alternating pattern of Running {different mileage throughout the week}, yoga to properly stretch my muscles out & strength training so I can bulk up. I'm kidding. I only lift 3-5lb weights, but I strength train to make my muscles leaner & stronger.

~ My Advice ~

1. Throw out your excuses. There's ALWAYS going to be an excuse to NOT exercise. On any given day I can think of 1,000,000 things to do at my house or at work. Throw them out... you want to be fit & beautiful, right?

2. Make a work out plan that will work for you. My plan works for me now. Where do you have an extra 30 minutes in your schedule? It did not work for me to work out twice a day & carry on a normal life, so I had to scale back.

3. Set Goals & achieve them like it's your job. I have a weekly goal to get at least 6-7 hours of exercise from Sunday - Sunday. When I started treating exercise like it was something I HAD to do, it became a habit and apart of my routine. Remember, back in December I HATED working out and NEVER did it.

4. Enjoy becoming the new you. There is no magic exercise that you can do tonight, and be skinny tomorrow. There, I said it. It's going to take a lot of hard work and your muscles are going to ache and you might hate every minute of it, but trust me on this one... when you're healthy and you start seeing results, you are going to love the new you. And you should, you've worked hard for it!

~~~~~~Let's Come Together ~~~~~~~

Tell me about y'alls work out routines. I want to hear what y'all do ~ what you LOVE, what you HATE, what all of us HAVE to try!

1 Point Soup

The 1 point soup:
1 lb of ground lean turkey
1 LG bottle of V8 juice... low sodium
1 LG bottle of picante sauce
1 pkg of frozen mixed veggies
1 pkg of frozen green beans

ground turkey meat, boil the V8, hot sauce & veggies... mix together.

1 cup = 1 point ...... take out meat & it's 0 points

Weekly Weigh-In REVAMPED!!

Hola FFC Followers! It's Christina G. After some discussion, we decided to change up the whole weekly weigh in posts. Since our losses are smaller amounts of weight at a time now that we have gotten the initial big chunks out of the way, we are each going to take turns posting about how we are doing. Since there are four of us, this will give us 4 weeks to make huge changes, and tell all of you about what our progress has been during the month. We will still post our weigh in amounts each week to keep each other in check and of course our weekly blogs to keep giving you guys tips, and motivation for living a healthy lifestyle. :-)

So I am up first! Well I am very proud to say, I AM BACK IN ACTION!!! No more weepy eyes looking at the scale this week my friends... I am down 3 POUNDS THIS WEEK! I was not lying when I said I wrote down every morsel of food I put in my mouth, (technically i tracked it on my phone with iwatcher) and I exercised 4 times this week by taking dance class, running and some weight training.

Looking at that scale was just the boost of confidence that I needed to kick my self back into gear. I am so glad to be back on track! Even though I still have some work to do to get back to the 15 pounds that I lost, I feel confident that that mark is just a few weeks away! The next time you hear from me on weigh in day, I hope to FAR surpass that!!

Week: -3 pounds
Total: -13 pounds

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Allie: Week 0 pounds Total: 22.5 pounds
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Lesli~
Week: -1
Total: -14
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Ryan

Week: 0 pound

My favorite TV Dinners

Most of us are not huge fans of TV dinners. Usually they are trash and so tiny you finish them in one mouthful. WELL, I’ve been testing lots of them and have found 4 that will satisfy your taste buds and by adding just a little ingredients you will have a delicious fulfilling dinner on your hands!

#1 Pasta Primavera by Smart One’s

This is my favorite; it doesn’t even taste like a frozen meal. The pasta is al dente, and the sauce is delish! I add sautéed garlic, if you don’t have time sprinkle a tiny amount of garlic salt on top. I also add grilled chicken breast. I promise if you stick this in a bowl along with some chicken, no one will ever know it’s from a frozen box!

#2 Smart Ones Santa Fe Style Rice & Beans

I spice it up a bit with my favorite spices (mostly GARLIC)! And top it with ground turkey meat cooked in taco seasonings.

#3 Lean Cuisine’s Pepperoni Pizza

I had my favorite vegi’s and bake! I get my favorite low point spaghetti sauce and use it as a dipping marinara.

#4 Lean Cuisines Three Cheese Stuffed Rigatoni bowl

To make it a hearty meal, add a tiny amount of spaghetti sauce mixed with some ground turkey meat…its yum!

The Sports Bra Shot ~ Revisited

After many requests to revisit the sports bra pic, I decided to give in and give you what you ask for. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING can snap you back into reality like seeing a picture of yourself in a sports bra & tight work out shorts. Haven't done it? I can promise you that it is FAR more motivating than looking at a picture of an unrealistic skinny bitch!


Honestly, I thought about cheating and wearing looser shorts, but because of you guys, there was no cheating and MINIMAL sucking in. This is me in all my glory the minute I walked in from the gym yesterday evening.

Week 1 ~ December 10, 2008: 140lbs

Week 21(ish) ~ May 19, 2009: 127lbs

Total: 13lbs

{sorry, no side shot from week 1!}

Last week I saw some old friends that had last seen me 18lbs ago and didn't know I was losing weight, and all gave me a shocking reaction that was so encouraging and so motivating to me. Sometimes it's easy for me to think 13lbs, big whoop! I see the number changing, I wear a different size, but losing weight is so mental sometimes, and it's nice to actually see progress in a side by side comparison.

I know that I still have a ways to go, especially in the toning department... hello, chunky tummy, but I'm glad that y'all made me do this. Now I have double motivation ~ I can visibly see how far I've come and how far I still have to go.