Friday, September 24, 2010

Outsmart the Supermarket

Here’s the situation: It’s 7pm, you had a long day, you are starving, there’s nothing prepared yet for dinner and you’re out of milk. You stop by the Supermarket on the way home.

The place is crowded; all the quick fixes (roasted chicken for example) have sold out, you went in to get milk, you come out with $75 worth of groceries, some of it (or a lot of it!!) foods that you would normally avoid buying, but today they seemed just too tempting to pass up.

Sounds familiar? Sure does to me!

This week we’ll talk about why those situations happen, and what we can do to avoid them. If you go grocery shopping before we meet again, look around and see if you can identify helpers, and traps within your favorite grocery store. We want to hear all about your discoveries!

Tool of the week

Computer out of reach? Cell phone out of battery? HA AH! A book never goes out of power, now does it?

The Complete Food Companion has a generic list of food and a list of food by brand that helps you find the point value of anything you are eating very quickly!

The Dining Out Companion is the same thing but for restaurants. It has all the main chains in the US and Canada. That one lives in the dashboard of my car!

Let me know if you need the Companion, I will bring some extras!

What’s going on?

The Lose for Good Campaign is still going strong! We are losing it! Literally!!

Keep coming to the meetings and add your weight loss to our super total. Remember that Weight Watchers is giving $1 to Share our Strength for every pound we lose up to 1 MILLION.

You are doing absolutely wonderfully well, keep going!!

Food drives:

For the travelers (JCCSF and Century Club) and the At Work meetings. I will be bringing my super Matrix around all week to carry donations back to the centers this week.

Please make sure not to put in any glass bottles, and if you could use a box if you have more than 2 items, that would be helpful also!

If you can’t bring your goodies to the meetings, stop by a center or donate to your favorite charity. It’s all about sharing the goods!

In the Kitchen

This recipe is from a Weight Watchers cookbook from a few years ago called Simply Bueno. I haven’t made if for a while, but I came across it yesterday and will surely do it again soon. It’s delicious and so easy!

I use plain non-fat yogurt instead of half & half just because fat free half & half sounds spooky to me. If you like it use it!

Here it is:

Spiced-up Pumpkin Soup

6 servings, 2 pts/serving

Ingredients

2 limes

2 tsp olive oil

1 large Spanish onion, chopped

2 tsp ground cumin (roast and grind yourself, so much better!)

½ tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp cayenne (I put more)

5 cup vegetable broth

2 cans (15 oz) solid-pack pumpkin puree (not pie filling!!)

½ cup unsweetened apple sauce

1 TBSP sugar

¾ tsp salt

3 TBSP fat free half & half (I use fat free plain yogurt)

Zest one of the limes, then squeeze enough juice from the limes to equal 2 TBSP. Set zest and juice aside.

Heat the oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring frequently, until golden about 6 minutes. Add cumin, cinnamon, and cayenne; cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Remove the mixture from the heat and let cool about 5 minutes.

Transfer the onion mixture to a food processor and add 1 cup of the broth; puree. Return to the Dutch oven; add the remaining 4 cups of broth, the pumpkin, the apple sauce, sugar and salt. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, about 2 minutes. Stir in the reserved lime juice.

Ladle the soup into 6 bowls. Drizzle each with ½ TBSP half & half (or yogurt) and swirl lightly with the tip of a knife. Sprinkle with the reserved lime zest.

That soup is truly delicious and keeps well for a few days!

At Work corner

Supplies are getting low my friends! If there is anything you need, let me know and I’ll bring it. If you don’t email me, I don’t know you need it.

That’s what we talked about last week, if you don’t ask, you don’t get!! ;o)


Have a successful week!

Never be afraid to email me if you need. I am there for you!

If you can’t make your regular meeting, check out my meeting schedule and stop by somewhere. We have a good Momentum going, keep it going! Together we can do anything!

Melanie Bourgeois

Leader

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plan.”

~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

You don’t know until you ask!

Do you have support from people around you? Or do you feel that your weight loss journey is one that you have to take alone?

It is true that our weight-loss efforts are our own, and that the responsibility of it can not be passed on to someone else. This being said, that doesn’t mean people around you can’t give a helping hand here and there along the way.

Asking for help can be challenging. For one thing, I don’t know about you but for me pride used to get in the way. I used to feel that asking for help was a sign of weakness, a sign that I’m not good enough to figure things out on my own. I know, it’s silly, but still that’s what I thought. I know differently now.

It’s all in “how” and “who” you ask; there are ways to get people around you on board without starting a war within the family or your group of friends. It just takes a little thinking about it.

Tool of the Week

Cookbooks! What can I say? I love them, all of them!

The recipes are delicious, easy, and family friendly. I learned to cook with the Weight Watchers cookbooks (I could not cook eggs when I got married and this is the truth!) and have never found a recipe in them I couldn’t cook.

Make your life easier, and your plate inviting!!!

What’s going on?

Lose for Good:

The campaign is still on!!!

For each lb we lose Weight Watchers is giving $1 to Share Our Strength!

There are Food Drives at the Weight Watchers centers, share what you can. Somebody somewhere needs your help!!

Next week ( Sept. 26th to Oct 2nd) I will be bringing my car close by for my At Works and Travelers so that I can gather food donations. If you are planning to bring a large amount of food, please drop me an email so I can prepare for it. :o)

It would be greatly helpful if you could put your donations in boxes, to make carrying them around easier for me.

The campaign will go on until October 23rd.

In the Kitchen

Ok, usually I go for useful, healthy “meal” recipes. I figure everybody can easily find treats anywhere, right? No need to tempt people. Well, this is different!

This recipe is a mix of a recipe that has been doing the round at Weight Watchers dot com for years, and an idea I saw in Food Network Magazine this week. It’s a little labor intensive, but I think it’s the perfect treat for the Fall!

It is 6 pts, you can save 2 points by skipping the Graham crumbles, or you can turn this into 6 servings. You know, there’s always a way. I think it’s worth the 6 pts!

Pumpkin Mousse Parfaits
Makes 4 parfaits, 6 pts each

15 oz can of pumpkin puree
3 cups cool whip free, divided
1 cup skim milk
2 small boxes of sf/ff vanilla pudding
1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (to taste)

1 cup Graham crumbles (divided in 4)

Mousse:

Beat pumpkin, milk, pudding mix and spice together with a whisk. Fold in 1 cup of the Fat Free Cool whip.

Putting it together:

Brush the bottom of each of your parfait glasses with butter substitute (ICBINB or something like that). Pour in each ¼ of the graham crumbs and pour out whatever doesn’t stick.

Delicately put in 1/8 of the pumpkin mousse, add ¼ cup of Cool whip (try not to mix it up so it looks cute), sprinkle with ½ of what’s left of each ¼ cup (after you coated the bottom of the Parfait glasses) of Graham crumbs, then add 1/8 of the Mousse again.

**I cover and refrigerate at that point for about 1 hour to let it set, and finish it up just before serving so it looks prettier.

Just before serving: Add ¼ cup of the Cool whip again and sprinkle with the rest of your Graham Crumbs. I stick a cinnamon stick in there to make it look fuffier. :o)


At Work Corner

If you need anything, let me know! The best way to get to me is always to drop me an email at willow@seamountains.net I will read everything and answer as soon as I can.

If for any reason you can't make your meeting at work, you are more than welcome to attend a meeting at any center - traveler. You have paid for it already!

You can find meetings close to home or to your vacation site at:

www.weightwatchers.com

Here are my meetings:

http://seamountains.net/mtg.html

Fall is there!

Can you believe it? Summer showed up and in came the fog, the cold, right on June 21st. Now Fall is there and we have a heat wave coming. Ha ha! I love San Francisco!!

Never be afraid to email me, I’m there for you!

See you in the meeting room!

Melanie

“Knowledge is power and enthusiasm pulls the switch.”

Steve Droke

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Somebody stop me!!

The Lose for Good Campaign is on!

Did you find, or solidify, your goal for the remaining weeks of the campaign? What did you do this week to make sure you would show a loss at the scale?

This week we are discussing the importance of apprec

iating all losses, big ones surely, but also small ones. Every step, big or small, will take you toward your goal. It’s important to keep your eyes on the ball because those small losses really do add up!

Think about it, if you lose 0.3 lb, you have lost abo

ut a bar of soap! Who wants a bar of soap hanging off their body? Lost a lb in the last few weeks? Doesn’t seem like much huh? Well you have lost a whole can of Fat free refried beans!

Ain’t that something?

Tool of the Week

This week our tool of the week is a favorite of mine. AGAIN! The member kit is all that you really need to follow the program in one neat package!


The Complete Food companion and the Dinning Out Companion have the point value for pretty much anything you can think of. It’s all in there!

The 3 month journal is a great tool to track your food intake in a format that you can take anywhere, and work your own way! No need to wait for a page to load, you just turn it! How ingenious is that?

There are all sorts of other nifty tools and information (and savings!) in the kit. Ask us about it at the meeting, we’ll show it all to you!

What’s going on?

Oh my, so much!!

Success Stories Live!

Sunday September 19th at 5 pm at the Stonestown center:

Jump start your motivation with a night of inspiration!

Learn from members who have successfully lost weight.


Free Registration, Give-aways, and Door Prizes.

Vendors of WW-friendly food and samples!
Bring a friend and you get a free box of 2 point snack bars plus your name will be entered into a raffle to win $100 worth of Weight Watcher products.

Lose for Good:

The campaign is still on!!!

For each lb we lose Weight Watchers is giving $1 to Share Our Strength!

There are Food Drives at the Weight Watchers centers, share what you can. Somebody somewhere needs your help!!

The campaign will go on until October 23rd.

San Bruno

I’m sure that by now everybody has heard of the disaster in San Bruno. We have both staff and members who live in the neighborhood affected by the explosion. Friday I spend the afternoon in the San Bruno center and the stories I heard were heartbreaking. Yet the strength and resilience of the people of San Bruno is humbling.

I know that many of us want to help out. The Red Cross was saying Friday that they could not accept food and clothing anymore because they didn’t have the resources to deal with the overload of donations. Please keep an eye on the news and the Red Cross website for update on that front.

Here’s what you CAN DO: Donate blood. The word we got Friday was that the best way to help was to donate blood. As I learn more about what can be done, I will share with you in the meeting room.

More than anything though send strength, positive thoughts, anything to the people of San Bruno. It’s a very close knit community; everybody is touched by this tragedy.

In the Kitchen

Ooohhh I was looking for a quick and easy bean-ish salad for lunches and here’s what I found. It’s super simple, but it has the great advantage to being totally adaptable.

You can make it as is, or you can doctor it in thousands of ways! It’s a Rachel Ray recipe. I know not everybody likes her, but I’m not the one who’s going to snob somebody ‘cause she’s a little hyper right? ;op

I found the recipe in a cool little blog I’ve found:

http://cheaphealthygood.blogspot.com

Rachael Ray’s Chickpea Salad
Makes 6 enormous side servings

(I make 8 servings, 3 pts serving (2 pts/serving if you cut the oil down to 2 TBSP))

2 (15-ounce) cans chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 small red onion finely chopped
1 small red bell pepper, finely chopped
A few ribs celery and leafy tops, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced or grated then grinded into a paste with salt
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons rosemary, finely chopped, a few sprigs
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

In a medium bowl, mix vinegar and olive oil. Whisk to combine. Add all other ingredients. Stir to coat. Salt and pepper to taste.

Approximate Calories, Fat, and Price Per Serving *
TOTAL: 1443 calories, 50.5 g fat, $4.27
PER SERVING (TOTAL/6): 240.5 calories, 8.4 g fat, $0.71

* http://cheaphealthygood.blogspot.com


At Work Corner

If you need anything, let me know! The best way to get to me is always to drop me an email at willow@seamountains.net I will read everything and answer as soon as I can.

If for any reason you can't make your meeting at work, you are more than welcome to attend a meeting at any center - traveler. You have paid for it already!

You can find meetings close to home or to your vacation site at:

www.weightwatchers.com

Here are my meetings:

http://seamountains.net/mtg.html


Onward and Downward!

Have a good week! If you need anything please drop me an email. I’ll be more than happy to help you any way I can!

See you in the meeting room!

Melanie


“Knowledge is power and enthusiasm pulls the switch.”

Steve Droke

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Lose for Good is here!



Hello out there! I finally caught up with myself and am up and running!

It’s that time of the year again. For the 3rd year Weight Watchers is launching the Lose for Good Campaign. For the next 7 weeks our weight loss will not only benefit us, but the children in need all across the US.More about that at your meeting this week.
Helping can take many forms, we will see what we can do to help however we can. There will be food drives at all Weight Watchers Centers, where you can bring your donation any week of the campaign.

For the Traveler locations we are still working the details, but I'm thinking of having our food drives on the 4th (Sept 26th to Oct 2nd) and the 7th (Oct 17th to Oct 23rd) week of the campaign. This remains to be confirmed, but if that stands I'll be able to plan on having my super Matrix to carry the donation on those 2 weeks.

Unfortunately, I do not have the ability to carry donations around from my At Work meetings. I’m strongly inviting you to just donate to a charity of your choice or to stop by a center to drop your canned goods in the donation barrels.

Remember that Lose for Good isn’t only about donating food! We can also give by LOSING WEIGHT. How cool is that?? Step by step we can help ourselves by helping others. What a concept! Be there!

Tool of the week:

The food scale!

Ok, have I ever mentioned that I love the Weight watchers food scale? I do!! It does everything but track for you. It’s easy to use, easy to clean and will save you time and energy.



You know what’s even better? It’s on sale! $24.95 instead of $39.95!

If you want to buy one let me know, I’ll carry extras.

P.S. If you would like a demonstration let me know. I know that thing inside out, I use it every day!


What’s going on?

Obviously the Lose for Good Campaign is taking center stage.

I’ve been planning and plotting to organize little get-togethers in my various groups. Keep an eye out for invites, we might just have something planned for you!!

Labor Day marks, for a lot of us, the return of the routine after the summer slow down. Are you ready? How’s your work out routine? Your food planning?

Bring your ideas, discoveries, challenges to your meeting. We want to hear all about it! We’ll be eager to either help you, learn from you, or both!

In the Kitchen

I have a boatload of recipes that I’ve used forever and that I have no idea where they come from. The history student in me always feels very guilty to pass on a recipe without giving the origin of it, but this time I have no idea!

I’ve done this soup (or different versions of it) many many times and we love it a lot. It’s one of my many “I don’t have time to cook!” recipes. Everything in there is cooked already, except the onions, you just throw it in, warm it up, DONE!

I know it’s a little bit early for Pumpkin recipes, but I eat them all year round so there!

Pumpkin Black Bean Soup


Ingredients
1 TBSP olive oil (could use spray)
1 medium onion finely chopped
3 cups canned or packaged vegetable stock
1 can diced tomatoes in juice -- (14.5 oz.)
1 can black beans drained -- (15 oz)
2 cans pumpkin puree -- (15 oz)
1 cup evaporated skim milk
1 TBSP Curry powder
1 ½ tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp Cayenne pepper
Salt to taste

Directions

Heat soup pot over medium heat. Add oil and Sauté onion 5 min.
Add broth, tomatoes, beans, and pumpkin. Stir to combine and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to med. Low and stir in cream and spices.
Simmer 5 min.

How much easier can this get?

At Work Corner

Please please if you need anything, let me know! The best way to get to me is always to drop me an email at willow@seamountains.net I will read everything and answer as soon as I can.

If for any reason you can't make your meeting at work, you are more than welcome to attend a meeting at any center - traveler. You have paid for it already!

You can find meetings close to home or to your vacation site at:
www.weightwatchers.com

Here are my meetings:
http://seamountains.net/mtg.html


Have an awesome week!


Never be afraid to email me at any time. I’m there for you!!

Have a wonderful week! Now that summer is fading all across the North, we are getting ready for ours in the City. How cool is that???

Melanie

P.S. If you want to receive my note by emails let me know at willow@seamountains.net


“Knowledge is power and enthusiasm pulls the switch.”
Steve Droke