Slowly updating This

Hi All!
Well you know that Joe started at 356.....He is now down to 297! Yippee! I am at 148. Our weight is coming off at a slower pace but we knew it would not last forever! We feel good! Joe had knee surgery 2 weeks ago and has not been able to get around much so we have not been able to walk our puppy! Franky now goes out in the backyard without a leash! So we are being even lazier!

Been 25 Days

Well this has been the most successful 25 days in our lives when it comes to health. Joe and I are doing great. Got up this morning and weighed. Joe is down to 312 and I am a happy 154. That means Joe has lost 44 pounds already! (12.36 %) That is an average of 1.75 pounds a day! And I have lost 30 pounds (16.30%) and am down 1.2 pounds a day! We have gone out to eat with friends. We have had steak, fish, pork, shrimp, tuna, salmon etc and tonight I am making spaghetti sauce over spaghetti squash (sausage and all). Joe has reduced his diabetic pills in half! I don't epect our weight to keep dropping this fast but I will keep you all posted. We are late night dessert freaks so we have been having Sugar free Jello about every other night. We decided to buy the pre packaged so we would not over eat it. We also have been eating Gen-Soy chips. I buy a bag, and put half of one of their servings in snack bags. That way we know exactly how much is going in our mouthes and we are not tempted to cheat. This is the equivalet of 1 medifast chip bag. I think the soups are ok but I like to spice them up a notch. Basil and hot pepper flakesin the tomato, hot bepper flakes in the wild rice and some fresh ground pepper. As Emeril would say, we like to kick them up a notch. I love adding a couple of drops of peppermint to the chocolate shake. The vanilla shake is marvelous with 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, 1 tablespoon sugar free butterscotch (the pudding is good this way too). Play with the food! Make it yours! Again thank you Lori Portugal.

New Life Begins

Wednesday morning, Jan 28th, our lives will change! We both weighed in. Joe: 355 or 358 depending on when he stepped on scales. Laura: 184. Joe has decided he will be happy when he reaches 235. I want to weigh 135. We have a long slow road ahead of us. Who are we fooling? Us lose weight? Us stick to a diet (oops healthy eating plan)? We both had breakfast of blueberry oatmeal! Not bad! We had to pick what we were taking to eat to work! We both took a bar, a package of soup and a shake. Also several bottles of water! We were off for the day! Joe's first hurdle was the convenience store down the street. He stops there daily for junk food and mocha. He stopped today too but just got a black coffee! I did not stop at Some Bagels for a mocha either! We got home that evening and had a great salad and tilapia! Bedtime we had our 5th meal for the day! It is hard for me to get use to drinking this much water!

The new life begins!

Package Arrives

I made arrangemnts to have the packages delivered to work. Well they arrived! January 23rd! They came quickly! Too quickly! I was scared! What have we gotten into? I forgot to take them home! That was Friday! Lucky for me I had to work Saturday so I could pick them up then! Well Saturday came. I worked and then left for the evening! Had dinner plans in Walla Walla. I forgot it again! I'll get it Monday. Well you can guess, I forgot to take it home Monday too! So Tuesday, Lori asked me if I needed help taking them to my car! What a hint!

I came home and carried them in the house. Joe was home and actually excited to open his box and see what there was. He immediately cleared a pantry cupboard shelf and set up his larder! I asked him when he wanted to start and he said, "In the morning!" I could not believe he was eagar! Me, I was leary, real LEARY! We would start January 28th! Wednesday! Tomorrow!

A New Adventure in Life

Thanks to my boss, Lori Portugal, we started a new life plan for healthy living. We went to our first Take Shape for Life meeting January 8th. Lori has lost over 90 pounds in the past months. She has so much energy. She looks like a kid. She kept asking me when we were going to get healthy. Finally Joe and I gave in! What a difference two hours can make! We were two of about 8 folks there that evening, but we felt as if the meeting was focussed on us! Will this really work? Can we get healthy? Will this help us get off some of the drugs we take? Can Joe lose the weight so that the doctor will do the knee surgery he needs? What will this do to his diabetes? Lori is our health coach. The other health coach that night was Mo from Echo, Oregon. Her husband and her have something in common with us, they are Dutch Oven cooks. She has achieved her weight loss and is in maintenance. She assured me that we can eat health and still cook! Well if they can do it we thought so could we!

That evening we signed up to give it a trial. Joe & I both thought we will give it a shot for a month! What could we lose? Some money? If we were lucky maybe a couple pounds. It is not vey expensive. Like spending the money for a average fast food meal for us every day. About $10 a day a piece. But they said we can eat 6 or 7 times a day! Five meals of their product every 2 1/2 to 3 hours a day and one "Lean and Green" meal. Now if you wnt to know what that meal is, take 2 cups greens plus 1/2 cup of mixed salad veggies for crunch. Add 4-7 ounces of protien, depending on meat. Imagine, you can have 7 ounces of SHRIMP! That is a whole lot of shrimp!

Well now was the wait. It would probably be a week or two for our starting kits to arrive!