Taste Like Chicken, 3/30-3/31 last WE in March

Thanks for the start, Liz. I was listening this morning to a webinar with Dr. Michael Roizen at Cleveland Clinic has done research that links stress to weight gain and stress management can lead to weight loss. Made me think about your weight struggles and wondered if there was a relationship for you, given the amount of work stress you're under. How are you feeling today? You seem to get dog food weekly. Are you feeding them one of the fresh foods or something that has a short shelf life? I hope you'll be able to get a bit of rest this weekend and that your aches and pains will subside. Warm weather is good for that. We are currently at 71 and I'm in shorts, short sleeves, and my 1st pair of Birkies with the perfect cut out for my healing feet.

Linda, I hope you had a smooth trip home. Did you get there early enough to pick up your boy? I know, even though you love to travel, you also enjoy getting home.

What did you do with Iggy today, Chele? How soon will you be able to go to your farmers markets?

Kathy, does DM have the travelers staying with her or did they go home already? Does she recover from trips quickly?

Is Scooter wanting to be outside today, Becky? We have wind so I'll bet you had it yesterday. Did you go to HEB/WM today? If not, was the weather nice enough for an outdoor walk?

New way of eating must be working. I lost 1.6 lbs this week. I had some organic russet potatoes that needed to be eaten soon, so I put them cut up on parchment, sprayed them with apple cider vinegar, mixed in garlic and red onion, and sprinkled them with Italian herbs and smoked chiptole and roasted them in the oven. The house smells so good! I had a few for lunch and they also taste good.

Hi, from over Hoove Dam south of Vegas on the way to phoenix. 2.5 hours down. Half hour to go. Dog gets liberated!

Kathy, that's too funny about Bad Wolf. I haven't seen that in any episodes since Tennant left. Or have I just not been paying attention? Good that DM recovers rather quickly. I certainly do not and she's somewhat older than I. I didn't see the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction last night but wish I had. Why was I thinking it was in June? Anyway, I'm glad Stevie made it there on her own this time, especially when Lindsey hasn't. Of course the broadcast would be on HBO, which we no longer get. Curse you AT&T/DirecTV!

You'll be home soon, Linda. Did you get to see the dam or were you too high up?

Becky, that's great that you have something to eat at the diner that you will look forward to. Fried catfish wouldn't do it for me either. I am meeting 3 GFs for lunch on Monday and we are meeting at a homestyle cooking place so I looked at the menu today and I think I will have their house salad without cheese or croutons and will take my own dressing. They have trout on the menu and that was tempting until I realized that it's battered and deep fried. I am doing a vegan plan right now with what they call no SOS (salt, oil, sugar). There is another plan that I have thought about called no SOFAS where you avoid salt, oil, flour, alcohol, and sugar. I do use a very little bit of agave nectar or maple syrup but only occasionally have something with flour, like bread, and don't drink alcohol more than about once a year. As a result, I'm kinda doing that. So you are going back to WW for 3 months? Whatever works is the best thing to do. I didn't like WW primarily because their database was very lame for the kind of foods I eat and I was having to spend so much time entering things to calculate points. The database on MFP works a lot better for me because there must be more vegans than on WW. I think we will be getting your cold front tomorrow as it's supposed to be upper 20s Monday morning.

Kathy, The Day of the Doctor happens to be on the next disc in the Matt Smith collection I've been watching. It's possible that the HBO hall of fame special will be available on YouTube. That's how we have been able to watch John Oliver since we got cut off. I had been on the original WW program way back when you were forced to eat liver once a week. I came back when they introduced Points Plus, which I think was about 2010. PP worked for a couple of months and I was losing about a lb a week and then the losses just stopped. I did give it about 3 more months and nothing was still happening, so I moved on and eventually found MFP. The only issue I have with it is that it lumps all sugars together and, with the amount of fruit I eat, I am always over their calculation on how much sugar I should have. Enjoy your 86 today. We are at 45 right now and have a freeze predicted for tonight and then back into the 70s, like we were yesterday, by the end of the week.

I try to be disciplined, Chele, but sometimes it's not easy. I think the best thing I did for my digestive system was give up dairy. Making sure to eat more fiber rich foods also helped quite a bit and there are some days that I double what MFP calculates as my desired fiber intake for the day. Did you see me turn up my nose when I read "beef tongue" in your post? The zucchini sounds good though. My kitchen may also not smell too good shortly. Dale likes the Mexican yellow rice and back when I was healing a stomach ulcer, it actually used to make me sick to smell it. He usually cooks it when I'm not home but he forgot so I will hold my nose, turn the exhaust fan on high and cook it for him. Beans are in the Instant Pot doing natural release. He also bought a box of cornbread yesterday so I will make that for him as well. I hope Iggy will err on the side of caution with that Indian chili powder. You can always add if it needs a bit more, but you can't take it away once it's in there. Did you have lunch at the Middle Eastern deli or was it just a shopping trip? I had to buy a rather large container of Korean chili powder in order to make the kimchi but haven't tried it on anything yet, but it smells pretty strong. I guess if your sinuses are giving you fits, just open your Indian chili powder and take a whiff. I hope you will be happy with Spectrum and it will be worth the extra you have to pay.

Liz, I hope you had a restful day yesterday after doing your errands.

I'll bet you are sleeping late, Linda. I know Micki was thrilled to see you, even though he seems to enjoy being at "camp". I hope the food switch will go smoothly.

Becky, how cold was it this morning at your house? Given that we have a freeze coming, I would guess it might be pretty cold there right now. You said you had wildflowers but not bluebonnets. What kinds do you have? I have started seeing some wild mustard around here and we had a bunch of dead nettle in the front yard this year, which is new for us. I wish it would squeeze out the Johnson grass that comes later in the year. The dandelions are also starting to pop up and I love them--especially on salads.

Dale went for a run in the mountains so Arya and I will be doing some cooking while he's gone and then I have a washer load of workout clothes to do when he gets home. Dale informed me this morning that he plans to do a trail 50K race in November, which is equivalent to a marathon plus almost a 10K. It's called the Upchuck 50K, so I hope he doesn't. 

Happy Sunday, Chicks!

Linda, hope you had a good trip back home. I'm sure Micki was thrilled to see you and Bob. I think Becky was talking about WW's current program which is called Freestyle or FS for short.

Chele, ewwwww on the beef tongue! My dad used to cook that sometimes and I hated the smell. The stuffed zuchini sounds good and will hopefully cancel out the smell. DM is considering going back to Spectrum which is what she had before AT&T. AT&T did a big push to get people to switch when they added fiber optics here and some people seem happy with it, but others have had issues. I use the American style chili powder and cayenne when I make chili. The cayenne sounds similar to your Indian chili powder since it's a pure and very hot pepper. I use 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of the cayenne vs. 1 or 2 tablespoons of the chili powder to give you an idea of the difference in heat.

Karen, I think you'd find that most of your foods are on WW now. They've really expanded the database since you were last using it. You're doing so well on MFP that I don't think you have any reason to switch. I hope MFP can separate the sugars at some point. That would be a great addition. I wonder what's in the yellow rice that you don't like. Maybe the saffron? I don't remember it having a different smell than regular rice, but haven't had it for awhile. I was impressed that Dale did the marathon, but 50K sounds like it deserves its name!