Shop Smart

Ever went to the grocery store to get carrots and a pack of skinless/boneless chicken breast and came back with 5 bags full of baked chips, ice cream treats, crackers, 4 different kinds of bread...

You know what I mean? Or at Trader Joes! Love that store, but I always go in for 1 thing, and come back with full hands. Last time one can of blackbeans turned into $120 of all sorts of stuff. The worst part is that the very next day, I realized I had 30 different kinds of snacks, but nothing to cook with!

I really do love to shop for food, but it takes time, and there are some pitfalls to be aware of. So this week we will explore ways to save time at the grocery store, and strategies to avoid the challenges that we come across when we go food shopping.

Don't miss it!

Lose for Good

Lose for Good is finally here! Starting this week, we have a ton of ways to get involved and help others by helping ourselves. How cool is that?

Weekly challenge: This last week we committed to tracking at a minimum 4 days of the week to help add up to our weight loss. How are you doing with that? Can you do 5 days? 6? What else can you do help others by helping yourself?

Losing weight

How cool is that? Weight Watchers will donate 1 dollar for each pound lost up to a million. We want to pass last year's total of 4 million pounds lost. We can so do it!!

Plug in for Lose-A-Palooza

It's happening September 19th. Find information here: loseapalooza.com

Connect with the Lose for Good Community

Look them up for support, inspiration and motivation: weightwatchers.com/loseforgood

There will also be food drives at the centers! It's time to help others by helping ourselves! If you have ideas for weekly challenges please share!

Tool of the week

I like to call my calculator "The little blue dude". It follows me everywhere, and helps me in all sorts of ways, even more at the grocery store.

The little dude calculates the PointsPlus value of any packaged food, tracks your day, give you your daily target, everything!! Over all that, it's a regular calculator too, so at the grocery store, you can calculate PointsPlus values and money.

In the Kitchen

This recipe is simple, quick and gives a lot of taste to simple pork chops. I have used the same recipe on chicken with great results.

The recipe calls for oven baking, but I've done it on the grill too. It's just one of those easy, good for everything recipe!

Cotelettes de porc a la jamaicaine (Jamaican style pork chops)

4 servings, 5P+/serving

Ingredients

4 boneless pork chops (about 1 lb total)

1 TBSP soy sauce

1 TBSP orange juice

1 TBSP olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

3 green onions, minced

1 tsp Jamaican pepper

1 tsp dried thyme

1/4 tsp salt,

1/4 tsp pepper

1/4 tsp ground ginger

1 pinch cayenne pepper

1- Make little cut on the side of each chop of about 1 inch. In a bowl mix all remaining ingredients. Rub the mixture on each pork chops and put in an oven safe dish in one layer.

2- Cook pork chops for 18 minutes or so at 375 F, or until they are golden but still pink inside, turning once.

Source: Coup de Pouce, Au menu ce soir, p. 36

September Events!

It might be the teacher (and daughter of two teachers) in me, but September is filled with positive happy energy!

Recipe club meeting TBD
I'm in the process of putting together the bases to start a recipe club. Keep your eyes peeled for further information. I'm hoping to have it all figured out on time to start in September!

Lose for Good August 28th-October 15th
Help yourself by helping others. Make sure to come to your meeting, we can't let the team down!

Bike A RAMA September 3rd-October 30th
Did you see the bikes in the meeting room? Come to the meetings to learn what this great promotion is all about!

Lifetime member meeting September 4 th - 11:00 Stonestown Center
Lifetime members get together to discuss the challenges of long term motivation and maintenance. How do you keep this lifestyle interesting and fulfilling for a lifetime? We figure it out together :o)

Second Sunday Stair climb September 11th
Fun time with Michael and his fearless walkers! Once a month, a little bit of a challenging walk, but a wonderful discovery of beautiful San Francisco.

Success Stories Live September 18th Stonestown Center
The perfect event to recharge your motivation for the fall. Listen to local success stories and learn how people have overcome hurdles, pushed through plateaus and succeeded!

Facebook

We now have our very own Facebook page for the Weight Watchers members of San Francisco and the Upper peninsula (San Bruno, Pacifica, and surroundings that's you!).

Look it up! Little contests, idea exchanges, all yours! Also a good place to know what's going on in our local Weight Watchers community!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Weight-Watchers-Peninsula/181660318539142?sk=wall

Activity

Some of us are just getting started with our activity routine, but some of us have been at it for a while, and are eager to renew, rev up, and re-energize our work out routine. We talked a little bit about that with the "Get Unstuck" meeting this last week, but maybe it's worth looking at a little more closely.

How do you know if it's time to renew, rev up and re-energize your routine? Hopefully this might help you give it another look:

Renew: Is your activity routine very, well, routine? Do you ever feel like you are in an endless cycle of "Get up, get dressed, hit the machine (pavement, bike, whatever) take a shower, get on with your day"? Has the fun leaked out of your routine?

Rev up: Are your work outs easy? Have you stopped coming home, or going back to work, feeling like "Woah, I really worked it"? Did you have a fitness goal set and now see that you have stopped seeing significant results? When you first started, you improved almost with every workout, now months later you've been at the same distance/intensity/duration/weights for weeks.

Re-energize: Have you sort of forgotten why you are doing this? You are working out because you are working out, but the driving force behind somehow has lessened. You know what to do, how to do it, but you've sort of forgotten why?

OK, now what? If any of these sounds about right to you, that's ok, we've all been there! The solutions really are simple:

Diversify your routine: You don't have to reinvent the wheel every week. Make a list of a few activities that you would like to try and see how you can incorporate them to your routine. If you are a member in a gym, add a class to your week. If your week is very booked up, add a weekend activity; a hike, a bike ride, go kayaking on the bay, go climb the stairs with Michael on the 11th! Bring some friends, you can have fun and burn calories at the same time!

Increase Duration/Intensity: For your work out to be effective, it has to be challenging. That doesn't mean that you have to work until you fall apart, but that you have to come out of it feeling like your muscles are tired.

There's only 2 ways to make your work out challenging: Add time, or boost up the intensity. If the time constrain is a big issue, you want to add weights, add inclination, increase the resistance on the machine so that your body has to work harder to do the same work. If you have a little more time, or if you can't add intensity because of physical issues, then you want to make your work out a little longer. Either ways will add the number of calories burned, and force your body to improve with each workout.

Be wary of over-training! You want to rev up your work outs progressively and listen to your body. If you added weights and your forms are suffering, back up and lower your weights a little, you're lifting too heavy. If you added 2 miles to your run, and your ankle (or knee, or back) are suddenly hurting, take a break and start with a smaller distance, you might have overdone it.

Here's information about over-training: http://www.brianmac.co.uk/overtrn.htm

Find a motivator: This might be the simplest and yet most difficult part of this, figuring out what it is that makes it worth the effort for you. You need to sit down and really think hard about why it is worth it to you to get up in the morning and work out. What are you working for? Are you training for a race? Running away from a medical condition? Looking forward to wearing a sexy pair of jeans or a swimsuit and feeling great in it? Or are you trying to build up the stamina to keep up with the kids?

Whatever the motivator is for you (and it is as personal as it can get) it has to be powerful enough for you to be willing to work for it. Yes working out can be fun, but nobody I have ever met is enthusiastic about working out every time they hit the gym, or go out for a run. Your motivator is what is going to make you go ahead and do it on the mornings (or whenever in he day you work out) when you really don't wanna.

Have a great week

September is a few days away, and we are going to have a great one! Lose for Good is there, we have all sorts of good events coming, and it's time to get on with losing! I don't know about you, but I'm just in a "I'm ready, bring it on!" kind of mood these days. What about you?

If you need me don't be afraid of emailing me. I'm there for you and will do my best to answer any questions or concerns you might have.

It's time to come back home, and to recommit to our goals and ourselves. I will be looking for you in the meeting room!

Melanie

“You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I'm not hungry enough to eat six.”
~ Yogi Berra (sorry, I couldn't resist this one! hehehe)