While she was at it, Jan was fantastic enough to share her 1 Point Fudge (featuring Fiber One, of course) recipe with me.

One day soon, I’m going to tell my Jan story…

ONE POINT FUDGE

POINTS® Value:    1
Servings:  48
Preparation Time:  0 min
Cooking Time:  0 min
Level of Difficulty:  Easy
Course: snacks

Ingredients

2/3 cup(s) fat-free evaporated milk
2 Tbsp reduced-calorie margarine
12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 2/3 cup(s) sugar
1 pound(s) General Mills Fiber One
20 piece(s) Kraft Jet-Puffed Bunnymallows marshmallows
1 tsp table salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

In glass microwave safe bowl, mix sugar, evaporated milk and margarine. Microwave for 10 minutes . ***STOP and STIR every 2.5 minutes.*** Then add bubbling mixture to the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Pour into pan sprayed with Pam.Spread out in pan to cool and cut into 48 equal size squares. ENJOY!!

I don’t know about you, but I spend a L.O.T. of time feeling lethargic.  I have a mile long list of things I just wish I had the energy to be getting done.  I want to walk more.  I want to garden more.  I want to play with my kids more.

Since my weight loss journey began (this time) in July 2009, I’ve lost 26.2 pounds following the Weight Watchers plan.  That’s a large toddler that I’m no longer carrying around!  I do have more energy than when I started, but I still don’t feel like I want to.  I have a LONG way to go on this journey and I know I’m going to need to boost my energy even more to get there.

I’ve rounded up a few great lists of things you can do (from the very frugal to the extravagant) to get yourself energized.

• 11 Ways to Boost Your Energy – How to use nutrition, exercise, and stress relief to refuel your body and energize your mind. (Forbes)
• How to Boost Your Energy – Nine steps for how to boost your mind and increase your body power and energy (Essortment)
• 10 Effective Ways to Increase Your Energy Levels (Dumb little man)
• Top 10 Ways to Boost Your Energy – Experts offer some fatigue-zapping tips that really work (Web MD)
• 10 Fresh Ways to Boost Your Energy Now (CNN Health)
• Boost Your Energy – What to eat, what to do – even what to wear.  50 ways to instantly kick up your energy level to an all time high.
• 50 Ways to Boost Your Energy Without Caffeine (Nursing Online Education Database)

I found a few things on these lists that I can’t wait to try.  Let me know what you do to find your energy when you’re dragging.  Now, let’s get out in that sunshine and MOVE.

Ok ya’all!  Here’s the recipe you have all been waiting for.  I’m sorry it took me so long to get it posted.

Thanks for sharing the recipe, Jan!

jan’s clam chowder

Ingredients

Instructions

Cut up cauliflower into chunks like potatoes. Add as many as you want. Cover the cauliflower with water. Add onions, garlic, salt and cook until tender. Then add the rest of the ingredients. Use the whole can of clams with juice. Do not over heat after milk is added. This chowder tastes even better day 2. Flavor has time to meld. The stove works faster but I use my slow cooker.

I love my e-zine Today’s Diet & Nutrition. They always have such fun and interesting food ideas. This one was shared from Red Light, Green Light, Eat Right as a treat for the kids, but I don’t think the kids should get all the fun! This recipe makes 6 servings (2 cupcakes per serving) and promises to be amazingly fabulous now that the weather is turning hot out there!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup plain fat free yogurt (I modified from low fat to fat free)
• 10 ounces frozen strawberries, thawed
• 1 cup applesauce (no sugar added)

1. Line the cups of a muffin pan with waxed baking liners (the kind used for cupcakes).
2. In a medium bowl, combine all the ingredients.
3. Pour the batter into individual baking liners.
4. Put the muffin pan in the freezer for approximately 2 to 3 hours until the mixture is firm, then serve.

TD&N Nutrient Analysis per 2 cupcakes: Calories: 60; Total Fat: 1 g; Saturated Fat: 0 g; Polyunsaturated Fat: 0 g; Monounsaturated Fat: 0 g; Cholesterol: 2 mg; Sodium: 30 mg; Carbohydrates: 12 g; Fiber: 1 g; Protein: 2 g

Just in time for everyone’s St. Patrick’s Day feasts, I got this week’s Weight Watchers Newsletter.  In it, there was a link to this fantastic Potato Chowder recipe.  This is going to be the best 4 points I’ve used in a while   I may just have to throw in some cornbread too.

POINTS® Value:    4 Servings:  4 Preparation Time:  11 min Cooking Time:  20 min Level of Difficulty:  Easy This tasty chowder gets great flavor from Canadian bacon and scallions. We used frozen peppers and potatoes to slash prep time. Ingredients 1 spray(s) cooking spray 16 oz frozen potatoes o’brien 1 cup(s) green pepper(s), frozen, chopped 1 cup(s) fat-free evaporated milk, divided 1/2 tsp table salt 1/4 tsp black pepper 3/4 cup(s) fat-free skim milk 1/4 cup(s) scallion(s), finely chopped (green part only) 6 oz Canadian-style bacon, diced Instructions Coat a large saucepan with nonstick cooking spray; heat over medium heat. Add potatoes and green pepper and cook, stirring frequently, about 10 minutes; add 1/2 cup of evaporated milk. Remove half of potato mixture to a bowl. Puree remaining potato mixture in saucepan using an immersion blender; stir reserved potato mixture back into saucepan (or puree half of mixture in a blender and then stir back into saucepan). Add remaining 1/2 cup of evaporated milk, salt, black pepper, skim milk, scallion and bacon; stir well. Simmer for 5 minutes to heat through and to allow flavors to blend. Yields about 1 cup per serving.

Have a great week, ya’all!

Sometimes the very hardest thing about making a lifestyle change is remembering to reward yourself for your successes.  Whether you’re cutting your spending, cutting your calories, boosting your exercise, or teaching yourself a new skill, rewarding yourself will help keep you on the path to your goals.

It’s just as crucial to your success to celebrate reaching your goals as it is to have the goals in the first place.  When should you reward yourself?  When you finally get off your tush and set the first goal!  And at each incremental goal.  And when you need an extra incentive to keep you on that path.  And when you achieve your large goals.

It’s easy to say that you should reward yourself, but determining HOW to reward yourself can present more challenges.  If your rewards for a job well done include a nice dinner at your favorite restaurant, a decadent dessert, or  making your grandmother’s 3 meat 5 cheese lasagna recipe, it can be really tough to modify your rewards to reflect your new healthy goals.  This is something I struggle with fairly often.  So, I think it’s high time I came up with a list of non-food related rewards to help us all along the way.

Non-Food Reward Ideas:

• Manicure / Pedicure
• Treat yourself to a magazine or book
• Go for a drive with the windows down
• Bubble bath!
• Take a nap
• Go for a walk
• Window Shopping
• Go dancing
• Sleep late
• Buy an outfit in your new size
• Rent or go see a movie
• Get tickets to a sporting event or a show
• Put cash into a “Final Goal” account for a vacation or motorcycle or whatever it is you’re saving for! (We’re considering $10 for every pound lost and kept off into a Harley Davidson fund… whatcha think??)
• Craft supplies
• Weekend trip to the beach or the mountains or to Vegas… whatever
• Get a new video game
• Go on a picnic
• Spend some quality time in a hammock
• Get a massage
• New mp3s from iTunes
• Buy yourself some flowers
• QUIET TIME!!!
• New fun cookbook
• Go to the zoo or museum
• Start a new herb garden

What would you add to this list?  I can’t wait til I start rewarding myself!  Where to start?  Eenie… Meenie… Minie…

The following is a guest post by Christen, a fellow member of a Livejournal support group I’m a member off called 100 Pounds 2 Lose.  She shared these lessons with us yesterday and I was touched.  I thought perhaps it would touch the rest of you too.

Christen Before

Exactly one year ago I started a new way of life for myself. I wish I could tell you it was easy. I wish I could tell you I never wavered. Both of those things are not true. However, I CAN tell you that it has been the most amazing, most liberating, most fun and absolute best year of my life. A few months ago someone messaged me about my weight loss and asked me what the best lessons I had learned were. I was going to do a video about it, but my camera is officially d-e-d. So, in true writer form, here is a written list:

Things Christen Has Learned (Alternative Title: “Christen, You Are Pretty Much an Idiot, But Sometimes You Get it Right”)

1. Ask for help. Even if you’re shy as hell.

Before this year, I was too timid, scared and proud to admit that I ever needed help with something. I never asked questions, and I took everything anyone told me as unchangeable or unquestionable. It was even so bad that sometimes I was too scared to even ask where the bathroom was in restaurants. However, this year I learned something incredible: people LOVE answering questions. Really. People love to help, if you’ll let them.

The biggest way this lesson came to me was when I finally (finally!) went to the gym for the first time. I got a personal training session from a very nice (and veeeeery attractive) guy named Anthony. And he WANTED to help me. He WANTED to make sure I was doing things right, that I had the right information.

The day after my personal training session I looked at my little workout sheet and realized that I didn’t remember where the next machine I was supposed to use was. I sulked for a second, contemplated leaving and giving up, and then timidly waved over a gym worker. I asked where the machine was (after apologizing a million times for bothering her) and she took me to it, reiterated how to use it, and asked if I had anymore questions. I had an epiphany right next to the lat pull machine. People want to help other people. It makes them feel good.

Ask for help from people, and they will give it. Family, friends, and even strangers. They will help. Ask.

2. Weight lifting is good. So just freaking do it already!

I’ve already mentioned that I started my weight-loss efforts last March. But I didn’t get my butt into the (free! two seconds from my house! full of top-of-the-line equipment! FREE!) gym until last September. Yeah, I’m not proud of myself. However, once I went and got into a routine that I loved, I was absolutely hooked. Weight-lifting especially made me feel amazing.

I am (very, very, very, very, VERY) lucky enough to have all these trainers and awesome pieces of equipment at my disposal, and I use the shit out of them. I can’t believe the muscles I have now. But more than that, I just FEEL better. The muscle ache is almost addictive to me now. Weight-lift. It’s good for you. DO IT.

3. Intention. (Aka Jillian Michaels is a crazy bitch sometimes, but girl sure knows what she’s talking about.)

I know some of you may have issues with Jillian Michaels/The Biggest Loser, but a few months ago (I think it was last season), Jillian said something that absolutely knocked me on my ass. One of the girls was exercising, complaining that she wanted to quit, saying she couldn’t do it. And Jillian said something like this: “You have to have an intention when you exercise. Without intention these moves are just punishment.“

I decided to intend for myself when I exercised. That is, not focus on what other things I could be getting done (like watching “Oprah”) or wishing I didn’t have to exercise, or thinking I can’t do a certain move or another lap or another rep or whatever. I will intend to have a healthy body. I will intend to do good things for myself, to carve out personal time for myself in which to move my body. I will intend to be good to myself. It was no longer punishment. It was love. Thanks, Jillian. Love your biceps!

4. You will change in some ways, but in other ways, you will be exactly the same.

Shit. I will admit this, right here and right now: I thought losing weight was going to solve my every problem, big or small. I really, truly did.

It DON’T.

I have changed. In so many unbelievable ways. I’m 1000% more outgoing now (karaoke with strangers? IT’S ON), more outspoken, and more fun. Much, much, MUCH more fun.

However, the bigger problems, like my inferiority complex, my incessant need to be heard, my whiny-ness, my annoyability: they’re all still here. Alive and kicking. The core parts of your personality don’t always change. The bad parts may still be bad when you lose weight. But the good things, for me at least, were magnified.

I love myself now as I am, even the bad parts. And I’m working on the “bad” stuff. But please don’t think that losing 75 pounds makes you perma-smiley and pooping rainbows. It doesn’t work like that.

5. Live your freaking life.

This is the most important thing I’ve learned this last year. The absolute most important. No matter what the number on the scale says, what size is on the tag of your jeans, no matter how bloated you feel one day, LIVE YOUR LIFE. Live it.

Don’t wait for the scale to say a certain three-digit number before you do something you’ve always wanted to do. Just freaking do it. I skipped so many experiences in my life that I should have had because I thought I was too fat. I didn’t go to a single dance in high school, with the exception of my senior prom (and that was only after sitting in a Dillard’s dressing room the night before, sobbing about my dress looking “bad”). I didn’t go to grad night at Disney World. I didn’t try out for improv groups that I wanted to join in college, or go to club meetings or social gatherings or parties I was invited to. Because I honestly thought that the people there wouldn’t want to like a fat girl.

BULLSHIT.

Live. Your. Life. Don’t wait for the scale to say the right number. This one seems the most obvious, but it’s also the fucking hardest to actually do. I live my life now. I live. I really, truly, fabulously, loudly, annoyingly LIVE. I try my damndest to make every day beautiful, for myself or for others. I try to find something in every day that I would want to tell a story about. I try. I try and try and try to live. Do it. Just live it. It’s beautiful.

Christen 75 Pounds Closer to Goal!

Christen… thank you so much for sharing your lessons with us!

There’s a common misconception that if you’re eating healthier, you have to spend a lot more on groceries.  As an avid couponer, I’ve heard time and time again that “coupons are only for processed junk food”.  That’s absolutely not the case.  You can often find coupons for dairy products, meats, and produce, grains, organics, and just about anything else you can think of.

Our group leader, Sharon, let me know that Publix has a sale this week on Weight Watchers ice creams and Vitalicious Vitamuffin Vitatops.   Not only am I passing on those sale items to you, I wanted to give you the rest of the list of Weight Watchers friendly items on sale this week (through Wednesday).

Understanding the chart below:

• RP = Red Plum Sunday Paper Insert
• SS = Smart Source Sunday Paper Insert
• Dates = Date these inserts were in the Sunday Paper
• BOGO = Buy One Get One Free — Most Publix locations give you the BOGO products at 50% off,  so that you do not have to buy more than one to get the deal.

Am I missing any Weight Watchers Friendly deals from Publix this week?  Leave them in the comments!

One of the best websites for making your favorite guilty pleasures a whole lot less guilty is Hungry Girl.  Every Tuesday, Hungry Girl posts a new recipe swap called Chew The Right Thing.  This week’s swap is the McDonald’s McGriddle sandwich.  If you swing through the drive through for one of these yummy sweet sandwiches, you’ll use up THIRTEEN POINTS!  Use this recipe to make them at home and you’ll have a fabulous breakfast sandwich with no guilt.

This recipe serves 1.

Hungry G’s Sausage, Egg ‘n Cheese ChickGriddle!

Image from Hungry- Girl.com

Ingredients:
1 tsp. light whipped butter or light buttery spread (like Brummel & Brown)
2 1/2 tbsp. sugar-free pancake syrup
1 1/2 tbsp. whole-wheat flour
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1 Morningstar Farms veggie sausage patty (or another low-fat sausage patty with about 80 calories)
1 slice fat-free American cheese
1/4 cup fat-free liquid egg substitute (like Egg Beaters Original)
Optional: additional sugar-free pancake syrup, for dipping

Directions:
To make the pancake batter, place butter in a microwave-safe bowl and nuke for 10 seconds, or until melted. Add syrup, flour, and baking powder, and mix thoroughly.

Bring a skillet sprayed with nonstick spray to medium heat. Add batter to form two small pancakes. Cook for 3 – 4 minutes per side, flipping carefully, until golden brown. Then plate and set aside.

Cook sausage patty according to package instructions, either in the microwave or in a skillet sprayed with nonstick spray. Top one pancake with the cheese slice, followed by the sausage patty. Set aside.

Re-spray the skillet and return to medium heat. Pour in egg substitute and allow it to spread out evenly — do not scramble. Once mostly cooked through, flip and allow it to finish cooking. Gently fold it in half once, and then in half again. Place over the cheese-topped sausage patty, and finish it all off with the remaining pancake. If you like, dunk your ChickGriddle in some syrup. Yum time!

MAKES 1 SERVING

Serving Size: 1 breakfast sandwich (entire recipe)
Calories: 210
Fat: 5g
Sodium: 834mg
Carbs: 20g
Fiber: 2.5g
Sugars: 2g
Protein: 22.5g

POINTS® value 4*

This week’s meeting topic focused on beating boredom in your eating plan.  When you’re counting points, it is so tempting to have the same meals over and over again because you already know exactly how many points they are.  Of course, that makes you bored and far less likely to stay on plan.  After all, who really wants to eat the same food 4 times a week, just because you don’t have to worry about screwing up?  Certainly not me!

Let’s beat our food boredom by being adventurous in our meals!  This week’s challenge was to try 10 new foods.   So, I did a little digging and compiled these 0 Point Foods and Spices to help kick us off.

Zero Points Foods(per serving)

VEGETABLES & FRUITS

CONDIMENTS & SPICES