Good morning
That chili recipe looks great. I'm thawing some ground turkey right now to try it. I like that it has all the fiber of the beans in it so I'm also soaking a couple of bags (we're trying to stay away from canned food as much as possible).

I found a really good way to check the nutritional values of recipes at Calorie Counter Database - Free Online Diet Program
I've been using it to adjust old recipes to make them low-fat/low-cal. And calorie count is so much faster than plugging everything in one at a time here at fitday. Instead just get the values there and then break the total up into individual serving sizes and plug that info into a custom food.

I am down to 200 pounds this morning!!! I must have lost water weight or something, but who cares, I'm so excited! I'm still in the obese range, still shopping at the large sizes womens clothing departments but who cares, I'm almost out of the 200's! :):D:p:) yipee!! It's a wonderful, wonderful day. Just 1 more pound.

Congrats desertmountain! That is awesome. Being almost out of the 200's is great. I can't wait to be there myself!

Great!
 

Good for you desertmountain! It is wonderful to hit a goal and I'm sure it was a lot of hard work and determination. You have inspired me :)

Way to go Desertmountain...
Tonight I took the turkey chili and put it into red peppers..for stuffed peppers and topped them with a little feta cheese. major yummmm
afterwards I looked at the chili and thought about freezing it but dont like the texture of chili after its been frozen so I looked in my fridge and I had a container of homemade chicken stock sitting there..now Im NOT a soup maker but love soups...and thought well why not? so i emptied the last of the chili in a big pot,,dumped in the chicken stock and added some chopped up carrots .(they were getting soft in the fridge) and voila@@ I made some taco flavoured soup!! its pretty good if I do say so myslef and now have lunch for couple of days this week. Im kinda laughing at myslef here thinking how many ways can you stretch a pot of chile!! Its all good.

I'M BELOW 200! FINALLY! OUT OF THE 200s!
Thank you Speedyfair, Patti, & Ilikechocolate (I love your name). Your words mean so much to me! There's no one in my family that truly gets it or understands so you your support really means a lot to me.
I still have at least 85 pounds to go according to the height/weight ratio. But this is a major goal for me. 35 pounds down, 85 to go.

I've lost 11.5 pounds in 16 days. I haven't had this fast kind of weight loss since before I turned 50, and it didn't come off this fast on South Beach last year when I started to loose weight (went off and gained back most). I checked my food journal here at Fitday and the only thing I did differently was to stop eating red meat. Fish & chicken have been on sale so it's kind of a fluke that I didn't eat much beef. I wonder if that had anything to do with it since the weight came off the fastest on the periods where I went 5 days without beef, have you ever experienced that before? I'm eating within the calories values that Fitday recommends for weight loss and I"m never hungry because I'm eating a lot (not that it's very satisfying taste bud or cravings wise, but I am eating the recommended amount of calories). It's a mystery, but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I'll take it! And be happy! :D

Speedy - I'm making your chili today :) I'm still in phase 1 of South Beach, so it fits perfectly. That soup sounds very interesting, too. I was thinking that I'll a dollop of fat-free Greek yogurt on top to make it special. It tastes like sour cream to me. I love how cooking things that simmer for hours on the stove in winter makes the house so cozy and toasty. Today is great day!

I hope you ladies all have a wonderful and successful week.

How was everyone's weekend?
 

We got snow again here and that didn't help, this weekend was really depressing. I am so looking forward to spring and this new snow didn't help my mood. Seem to want to eat more when I'm stressed, but I had good snacks in the house so I had at least a healthy snack instead of empty calories. You guys always have such positive things to say that it helps when I log in and read the posts. Thanks everyone for sharing their lives, its true that unless you are going through this, it's not easy finding someone to talk to. I also find great tips and new food ideas, it can get very boring eating baby carrots and a sandwich for lunch everyday. LOL

Morning everyone
I hear you on the weather Speedyfair...its been very nice and warm and sunny here and it improves my mood so much!! I feel full of energy lately..I want it to continue!
Desertmountain...yeah..........:cool::cool:on getting out of the 200's!!!!! what will your next goal be!!!!
Today Im sitting at 290.4..Im close close close to the 280's that was my goal for february..so now its for march. Its not a race right?? I will get there!!!

what are you gals doing to keep up the motivation lately?? Ive been looking for more and more ways to incorporate exercise in. Walking to some places that normally I would take the car. It all adds up! Whats your plan?

Good morning.
I started phase 2 of South Beach 2 days ago. I've always had problems with eating grains since it causes water retention and increased hunger. Yet I crave wheat. Excited to eat pizza and reticent to try adding it, I made a whole wheat low fat veggie pizza my first day off phase 1 and have been back in the 200's ever since :rolleyes:. This morning I'm down 1.5 pounds and am at 200 (teetering on the edge LOL). I think its just water weight though. When I first started SB I didn't count the 2 pounds of water weight I lost on the 2nd day and then decided to count it and added that to my total weight loss when I hit the 100's. I realize that I have to count the water weight since I'll be fluctuating up and down depending on what I eat.

Patti, I'm motivated by several things. The most powerful for me right now is watching my thinking. I can change what I dwell on, so when those thoughts that trigger me feeling deprived & frustrated pop up I tell myself to think of the positive things (my goals and accomplishments) that I'm accomplishing instead. The thoughts I don't dwell on are things like: I have so much weight to loose, this is going to take forever, I miss eating (fill in with whatever I'm craving at the moment), I am so fat, etc, etc...and on and on. I'm sure you can relate to similar things along those lines. Anyways, those thoughts are what trigger my feeling bad, which leads to my giving up. So this time I'm putting a lot of effort into watching what I am thinking about. I also remind myself of how easy I gain and how slow it is to take it off every time I'm tempted to eat something I know will set me back (this happens pretty much every day :rolleyes:).

I made the turkey chili and my husband and I wiped it out loving every bite. Very tasty thanks. :) I'll be making that again very soon.

I love making chili. I totally want again to before spring gets here. But spring means more recipes with produce. Hello farmer's market!!!

I got so frustrated when weighing myself this morning. 211 pounds. I mean it is no where near 120, but it is further from 218 where i was a month a few days ago. I starting this little number game I play that is so not helpful. I am so happy for the progress, but in all honestly, when I see progress, I get scared of the change and want to go back to where I am comfy. I want to stop this cycle so badly. Only 11 pounds away from reaching my first goal!

Ilikechocolate, you should try the turkey chili recipe that patti posted last week OMG it is so good! I made my own beans with turkey bacon (we're trying to stay away from canned goods) and it was super low fat & calories! We live in New Mexico & my husband is from Texas so we're picky about our chili. You should try it - it's loaded with fiber from the beans, too.
I also sabotage myself as I get closer to goals although I understand it more now and do it less now since I've had decades of working on this. What do you do to help stop it? Here's what I find that works the best, as soon as I find myself slipping into it I stop whatever I'm doing. Breathe. Relax. And talk to myself, asking myself what I'm really afraid of. The stuff that works for me, is telling myself that in this moment or for this day I will not to be afraid of ____. (what ever came up) And then I spend a few seconds reminding myself of all the positive things that I'm gaining with reaching this goal. The worse possible thing we can do is to start judging ourselves for being this way or for sabotaging ourselves b/c it only leads to more of the same. As long as I'm gentle and reassuring myself I find that I don't do it as much. It used to be completely unconscious, then I sort of knew what was going on, then I started to work on it. I know that a lot of ppl can't understand this, they either don't do it, or they're still unconscious about it. Not our concern. My heart is with you girl! You deserve the best health and body. You do! We ALL do! :) I just remembered that I went to an OA meeting a couple of years ago and someone there was talking about it, too. Maybe you could find some support at a local meeting. Having ppl understand what you're going through always helps.