Mom2M_and_O Member

I made this yesterday and OP is right -- it is SOOOOO good! The only thing I did differently was substitute 4 oz of regular cream cheese for the 8 oz of light/fat-free cream cheese. It was perfect. My recipe (with 28 oz of chicken) made 5 cups and came to 400 calories per 1 cup serving. One cup is definitely filling on its…

Yes, Iost my first 15 pounds without added exercise on a 1500 calorie/day diet (MFP tried to put me on 1300). It was slow -- an average of .75 lb/wk if that. I have since added in exercise 5x/wk in the last 6 weeks and my rate of loss has been higher and more consistent plus it's fun and I feel good doing it. I'm the kind…

Thanks for posting -- will be going on next week's menu!!

I did this on Saturday and it did help tremendously. I had my own music playing -- a challenge at times to stay with her rhythm, but even still that's no big deal since moving is moving. :-)

It does depend on how much you have to lose to begin with. For me, only people who see me every few weeks or months noticed. My mother-in-law, mom, and sister first noticed around 8-10 lbs, but only one woman at work has said that I looked like I had slimmed down. I had just hit the 15 pound mark (my pants were hanging on…

I'm new to Zumba Wii myself, still on the 20 min beginners classes. Never did a real Zumba class before ever. I'm not very coordinated and I'd hate to see a video of my doing it, but after a few workouts, I started to get the hang of it. As long as you keep moving even if you're not perfect at it, you'll definitely work up…

It's a good idea to check your BMR on other sites. I did this myself a few days ago and found that MFP's calculation is 100 calories lower than most others I found. So, I have my caloric goal set 130 calorie or so higher than MFP. Also, calculate your TDEE so you know how much of a deficit you're actually getting between…

This is my experience too. Ever since I started losing weight, I've been more sensitive to my water retention symptoms -- the big one being how tight/loose my rings fit. Today I'm trying to really focus on the water because I had a rather sodium heavy couple of days over the weekend.

If it finds a potential duplicate, I think there is a button at the bottom of the page that says "Nope, this is not a duplicate"? Then you should be able to proceed from there.

Yes, and I will add that you don't HAVE to get the women's model. My husband ordered me the man's Polar FT7 by mistake for Christmas, but after some research we realized the only difference was in the size and color options of the watch. When you set up the monitor, gender is one of the selections. Have fun! I love using…

The fact she calls them vanity pounds because you're body thinks it's already healthy and cites societal pressures to be thinner than necessary tells me that the extreme measures you have to take to drop them can't be very good for you. Even she admits she yo-yo's on them. Like a couple of others, I also wonder if it's…

Like others have said, give it a month before you start worrying. When I first started, I dropped 2 pounds then "gained" it back the next week. I was up and down for three weeks before I started seeing a true downward trend. You just have to stick with it and not let the scale be your only source of encouragement or…

I agree -- figure out what you think is likely healthy for you. I am also 5'3" and was about 117 in high school. I look back at those pictures now and think I look too thin! Besides, I just don't think that our bodies are done maturing in high school, so it wouldn't be right for me to try to go back to than anyway. After I…

This is good to know. On a lark I decided to wear mine to work today mainly to track my heart rate during my various everyday activities -- like siting at my desk, walking to and from the break room, using the stairs, etc. But I did notice that the calorie count for just two hours was extraordinarily high. Is it accurate…

I got a Polar FT7 for Christmas and love it. At the time, it was only a $10 difference from the FT4 so I opted for the more "sophisticated" model, but truthfully I probably won't ever use it to its full extent. I've been using it when I play the Just Dance Wii games. It has been very helpful and has definitely encouraged…

Part of it may be training your taste buds a bit. And it does help to brew your own and spring for good quality coffee if you can. Experiment with different roasts. I've discovered that I love Starbucks Espresso Roast and Italian Roast coffees. They're rich and bold but have a slightly sweet taste to them. I hate the…

It is so easy to fall back into old habits! We had done really well for several months and then took a vacation right before Christmas with big meals and desserts everyday. We walked everywhere on vacation, so the weight didn't come back on, but it broke the good eating habits we'd been forming. Got back in time for…

Yeah, I was about 115 pounds in high school -- almost 20 years ago before it was really popular to be super skinny and back when a size 8 was super tiny. I look back on my prom picture and see my collar bone and shoulder blades sticking out -- I think I was too thin for my particular frame, but being fat or thin never ever…

I do big cleaning (vacuuming/mopping) so rarely :embarassed: and since it's so outside my range of normal daily activities that I most definitely log it!

I can hardly wait for my daughter to get the Just Dance Wii games for Christmas! I'm looking forward to building those into my exercise routine. We played it together some this past weekend when a friend of hers brought it over, and it kicked my tail -- but oh, I had a BLAST with it!

That sounds fabulous -- I may have to do that for my own Christmas dinner this year. Approximately how thick do you cut the individual pieces?

The cranberry sauce + onion soup mix works great on chuck roast in the crock pot, too. Now that I've cut back on sugar in the last few months, I plan to cut the cranberry sauce down, though. It tasted really super sweet to me last time I made it.

Oh, I need to get one of those. What kind do you have? I'm very tempted to get one before Christmas. I came really close to getting one by Timex that got good reviews on Amazon but then I saw in the reviews that it way overestimated calories for women.

Please don't be discouraged! I'm one of those < 1 lb/wk folks, too, and I also am on 1500 calories. I intentionally picked 1500 calories because I knew I'd be hungry/frustrated on the 1200 that MFP recommended. And for me, hunger = no willpower. And consider it this way, the slower it comes off, perhaps the less likely it…

MFP set me at 1200 and that was just too few for comfort. I figured my BMR is at roughly 1400 calories, so I manually changed mine to 1500 and have been fine. My average weight loss since the end of August has been .86 lb/wk. If I exercised more during the week, I could easily get the deficit I need for 1 lb/wk. But I'm…

Thanks for the suggestions. I logged the things I knew I ate plus a full cup of one of the chicken dishes I recognized. Wow -- haven't dropped 800 calories on a single meal in a while -- not at lunch anyway. Next time I'll know to skip the rice and naan -- I know better than to include rice and bread in my meal. Tsk tsk.…

This is the basic technique I've been using for 12 weeks now. It was the first approach to weight loss that made any kind of mathematical sense to me. I figured out my BMR (approx 1400 cals) and decided I wouldn't eat less than that if I could help it -- exercise or no exercise. Also roughly figured out my maintenance…

I've had good luck with fajita skillets/salads with no tortillas or chips. Also, if you go to a restaurant that serves milanesa, that's a very calorie-efficient meal, particularly if you order chicken.

Yep -- I am up a full two pounds just since Monday. The best part of this kind of weight gain, though? It's not real, it just feels like it. LOL

When I started, I made a list of go-to snacks/foods, and you have to abide by their portion sizes. If I'm hungry, that's when I'm most likely to go off plan. So, decide what new foods you'll be substituting for the old ones -- and which old ones you're not willing to give up but might have to cut back on to make them work.…