I love the food!

Mm yum yum haha

I'm a fan of walking too

Keep it up

xx

Thanks for visiting. I hope that everyone is having a good Friday.

Cerella

I always think that if I have walked at least 6 miles in the morning - I KNOW that I am having a good day. Even if I then go on and eat something that I shouldnt - it doesnt seem to stop me thinking that I deserve to be healthy. I hate it when my pedometer messes me about and I dont know that I have done my 6 miles. If I stick to roads that I have measured - I know that I have done it.

It sounds lovely where you live - with the mountains and everything. I must admit that I would be living 300 miles away if it werent for the fact that hubby is from near here. The weather isnt too different where I am from - just a little colder.

Rae

I am still keeping off the raisins. I am eating quite a lot of other fruit including grapes and all in all I am keeping fine. I am hoping that the food plan will bring me a bit of weight loss over the next two weeks. Then things will all seize up again.

Angel

I do better in the challenges with bonus points and things than any based on weight loss alone. My weight loss is so skewed that I have weeks where I am pretty much bound to gain. If there arent any bonus points for me to pick up which others miss - I am pretty certain of elimination in one of my gain weeks. I expect to be knocked out of the Summer Solstice challenge quite quickly.

I need my legs for walking so I am not going to risk them by having a go at the dance. I dont mind cabbage - I actually quite like vegetables. I do not find eating at all difficult.

I have bought my cabbage and will be making a pan of vegetable soup containing 5 cups of cabbage. Hubby doesnt eat soup - so it will be no problem keeping it for me. I plan on having soup as an afternoon snack each day and when it is all gone I will have had my 5 cups.

Kimberly

I should be back to my low weight pretty soon now. That certainly should help my weight losses for this first week. If I dont get pretty decent weight loss over the next two weeks I need to review things because I can be certain of nothing but gains over the following two weeks.

Eldaweesda

Welcome to my diary. I do not anticipate doing too well in the Summer Solstince challenge as my weight loss is very skewed. I have two weeks of losses followed by two weeks of gain. All that I can do is try to lose more in my loss weeks than I will gain back later. I will certainly do my best - but I do expect to be eliminated. Naturally I will be cheering you and other team members on too!

Lally

Food and walking - you are my kind of girl. Together we will get there.

Take care
Love
Margaret

Thursday 06/03/08

General Data:

Morning walk = 6.3 miles
Round the block = 5 times
Extra exercises = none
Weight = 11st 3.4 lbs (i.e. 157.4 pounds)
Steps = 30,253
Distance = 11.69 miles
Remembered to take normal vitamin / supplements
Continued my creaming regime – missed one bio-oil massage.
Continued ankle exercises

My Food / Drink:

Basic eating plan

1 banana
3 weetabix, sweetener, 350 ml skimmed milk
1 large handfuls honey Shreddies
1 large handfuls honey Shreddies
Pork loin steak
1 clementine
1 clementine
1 pear
1 pear
1 apple
40 grapes
2.5 litres of cold water
some diet cola

Chicken breast fillet, fry light, 1 onion, 1 courgette, 1 red pepper, 1 green pepper, 1 tin tomatoes, garlic
1 large handfuls honey Shreddies

im new here... but i was reading your diary and all i can say is wow!!! you are very inspiring!!! keep it up!!! your soo close to your goal!!!

Welcome to my diary Angelica. Thanks for your kind words. Good luck in your weight loss project.

Oh, look at that!! A woman after my own heart! I too am a HUGE fan of vegetables. I'm telling you, if I could eat a bag of Oriental veggies everynight I would. In fact, quite often I do.

Grapes, are a huge favorite of mine too, Marg. Grapes and carrots, I could live off of them if I had too.

I hope you're having a good Friday Marg. I'm hoping the weekend boosts for you a steady weight loss!! Big hugs, honey!

Hi Rae

Fruit and veg - I am convinced that I single-handedly account for a huge proportion of what gets sold in the south east of England. I suppose that it is that dream-team combination of a girl that has a good appetite and likes her food and food that tastes good that she can eat freely without letting go of her weightloss dreams. As we have said before - fruit is so wonderful - you get all the above - and it is sweet too. A saintly way of eating sweets - what more could a girl want (ok - a million pounds in used banknotes would help!)

I hope that the weekend brings for you all that you could desire.

Take care
Love
Margaret

yep same here lol! you probably know with the amounts of times i've said it lol! i wish there was an inch loss chalenge that would be my zone hehe! the bodytransformation would have been good but i don't want to post pics so that was out.

i was actually thinking this when everyone was talking about their knees after the dance but there is no way i am having cabbage ( i sound so spoilt) it just makes me feel sick same with sweetcorn! now spinache i sould handle lol!

lucky you! all of it to yourself. with 7 of us actually 8 on most days at home nothing lasts more than a few hours...whatever it may be lol! you are going to do awsome in this challenge!

x

Hullo there!

Your dinner last night looked yummy. I think I'll make salmon tonight. I got some on sale for $5 a lb yesterday. I was thinking your diet is pretty high carb, but then, with all the walking you do, you probably need a lot of carbs for energy. Do you buy your produce from a supermarket, or a produce shop? If it's a produce shop, I'll bet you're their favourite customer.

Your cabbage soup sounds like a plan. I might make a Korean version of it with some Kimchee (pickled, fermented chinese cabbage). I don't have 5 cups worth of kimchee, but I could add some more cabbage to it.

Thanks for visiting.

Angel

I joined the body transformation challenge but did not post pictures. I kept looking at the details being undecided as to whether I would join in or not. I didnt like the idea of putting the photos out there for all to see. Then they changed the rules so that you could PM the photos to nikegirl and they would never go on public display. Then I decided to join in and I did just that.

It's a shame that you didnt see that rule change because you could have probably coped with doing what I did. You do well with inches. I am useless at that compared to pounds.

I was actually surprised as to how little cabbage filled up fully 5 cups. I have a small mug that is the right size - I sorted all that out in the challenge before Christmas when everyone had to eat 3 cups of veg each day to get the points. I actually chopped up too much cabbage and put about half a cup extra into the pan of soup. It is all made - but it wasnt made in time for me to have it as an afternoon snack today. I have split the pan into 5 servings and that will make an afternoon snack for the next 5 days.

I have found that my taste in vegetables has changed over the years. When I was young I did not like spinach and now we really like it.

The great thing about doing the challenges is that it gives us an extra reason for staying on track - as if making our weight loss dreams come true was not enough. I think that the potential is there for us all to do reasonably well in at least one of the new challenges. At the end of the day - if you strive to pick up all the bonus points - it all boils down to some weight loss luck - and we all know how unpredictable that can be.

Kimberly

Salmon on sale is always good. I am sure that you will enjoy it and it should help the weight head in the right direction. Last night's stir fry was a bit of a bargain too. The courgette was 5 pence and the large red pepper 10 pence. I had the other bits in the house and the chicken in the freezer.

I eat tons of cereal between my morning walk and my afternoon walk. I have my weetabix and then two lots of honey shreddies. It is like a high carb burst and just what I want. There used to be a greengrocers near here but it closed down some years ago. They cannot really cope with the competition from the big supermarket (Tescos). There are a couple of little shops that sell odds and ends which do some fruit - but it never really looks worth having. I get the main of my fruit and veg from Tescos - they are cheap and have a wide selection. If I cannot be bothered to go to Tescos there is a small supermarket that I pass on my walk that has a more limited stock than Tescos for a slightly higher price, or I get from a Marks and Spencers food shop.

The cabbage soup definitely seems like the way to go. I used savoy cabbage for mine. It is put away in containers ready for the next few days. I put a cup of pulses and 4 carrots in and the colours go quite nicely together and it passed the taste test. There are 5 portions so that will sort that out fine. Your soup sounds like it will be expensive with those specialist ingredients.

Take care
Love
Margaret

The Korean soup isn't expensive. It consists of the kimchee (which I already have), sweet potato glass noodles (have those already, too), a can of tuna, onion, garlic and water. The kimchee is very spicy and that flavors the broth.

Your veggies are so cheap! Green peppers usually run about $1.90 p/lb and red peppers $3 p/lb. As they are light, I think a green pepper is still about 3X what you pay. That surprises me. Courgettes are more expensive here, too. In summer I pay 69-99 cents a lb, and off-season $1-1.50 p/lb.

oh i wish i had seen it now. never mind all these challenges will keep me on track. i can't wait to measure tomorrow. i want to move the ticker down and if i go down to 30.3 that's 2 more treats i can give myself. one from before and one for te 4th inch loss. i'm thinking haircut and some heels for the wedding.

oooh i love spinach. i hope i begin to like all the other vegs as well because they are really good. i am more of a meat person. haven't had any for the last 2 days and am having withdrawel symptoms today lol!

haha! couldn't have said it better myself!

x

Thanks for visiting.

Kimberly

I'm pleased that it isnt too expensive. It had a lot of specialist ingredients and you can pay a fortune for things like that.

As far as the courgette and large red pepper goes - I hardly ever buy courgettes in winter because they grow so easily and they charge an arm and a leg for them in the shop. They normally ask for 65 to 70 pence per courgette. When I saw one that was still perfectly ok (if eaten soon) in the bargain basket of stuff going out of date - the decision to buy was pretty immediate. I plant 4 courgette plants in the spring and they keep me in a plentiful supply of courgettes until fairly late in the year when I normally stop eating them until the next spring. Most people would probably be pretty much sorted with the crop from 2 plants. All you do is water the plants and when the boy and girl flowers turn up - help the boys to pollinate the girls.

Angel

I hope that you can bring your ticker down when you measure yourself. A haircut and heels sounds like two great treats to look forward to. We all like to look our best when we go to weddings. Spinach is really easy to grow too. Literally - all you do is plant a few seeds in a propagator, a little bit of watering and move outside and water there too. Just cut off the appropriate amount of leaves when you decide to make the meal.

This is turning into gardeners world.

Take care
Love
Margaret

Friday 07/03/08

General Data:

Morning walk = 6.3 miles
Round the block = 5 times
Extra exercises = keep fit class
Weight = 11st 3.0 lbs (i.e. 157.0 pounds)
Steps = 35,822
Distance = 13.85 miles
Remembered to take normal vitamin / supplements
Continued my creaming regime – missed one bio-oil massage.
Continued ankle exercises

My Food / Drink:

Basic eating plan

1 banana
3 weetabix, sweetener, 350 ml skimmed milk
1 large handfuls honey Shreddies
1 large handfuls honey Shreddies
1 clementine
1 clementine
1 pear
1 pear
1 apple
40 grapes
2.5 litres of cold water
some diet cola

Breaded plaice, tin of baked beans
1 large handfuls honey Shreddies
Orange juice
Few tastes from soup while making it

Parden my ignorance, Marg, but what exactly is a courgette? I understand it's a vegetable, but what is it like?

You and I are the veggie girls, Marg. Just like you, my taste for veggies has changed tremendously since I was younger. I didn't like things like onions, peppers and even celery, but now I enjoy them in pretty much every stir-fry. I really like that I can enjoy eating this way. I know you know what I mean, too.

I hope you're having a good weekend!