It’s a “flatbread” from Provence (and Liguria, where it’s known as farinata) made out of chickpea flour and water.
I lost 6.4 lbs in January… we’ll see how february goes! I’m currently burning about 900 or more calories per day on the eliptical machine on our boat… we’ll see if I lose any weight when I get back on shore when I weigh myself again.
Hi guys,
I have been losing weight since octoberish, I am down to 185 from 212lbs. I feel great, but try as I might I CANNOT break into the 170’s. My body hits little barriers, before I COULD NOT break into the 180’s for about a month, and now I cannot break into the 170’s. I’m going to be doubling down on my eating and excercise this week, hopefully I can get back into the 170’s and that will be a HUGE motivator for me. My goal weight is around 165 (realistic), would really like 160.
I’ve been doing a lot of eliptical because I have bad knees, and at the end of this month I’m starting Brazilian Jiujitsu so hopefully that will spur me on to shed some more pounds. I’ve been reading a lot of posts, good luck everyone!
Steady as she goes - another 1lb down this week. I’m still fighting the last remnants of the cold I caught in early January so I haven’t been back to exercise yet but we leave on vacation Saturday morning so I’m hiking one way or another. I just hope the exercise is enough to counteract my predecided carb increase.
My vacation plan is to not lose weight and not gain weight. That should allow for a couple of shave ice and some macadamia nut icecream.
Consider taking some of the aerobics classes at the gym. They are probably the most efficent thing you can do there to help lose weight. The reason I say this is because you’ll exercise for an hour without getting bored. Most people would have a hard time doing something like the treadmill for an hour because they get bored after 20 minutes. But in a class, you have an instructor guiding you through varied exercises which keeps it more interesting. You can easily burn 600+ calories in a class.
It’s great to work on core muscles with a trainer. You’ll notice lots of fitness benefits. Having a strong core will help your body feel much better. However, you may not notice a big difference in your weight. Usually when I see trainers working with people, they are not working out with a big enough intensity to have a major effect on weight.
So consider supplementing your training with some aerobics classes. With the two combined, you’ll notice some impressive differences in your body.
Hey everyone,
I am a huge plain kefir fan (not! giving! it! up!) but the last couple of times my Lifeway Lowfat Plain Kefir has tasted like ass, so I was looking for different brands at Whole Foods last night. They had one called Green Valley Organics Low Fat (plain flavour) so I grabbed it without thinking too hard because I only had 10 minutes till the store closed.
I looked at it more closely this morning and it turns out that it’s lactose-free with added lactase that apparently has already done the work of breaking down the kefir into “simple, easily digestible sugars like glucose” (this is directly from the bottle).
Basically I’ve switched to this mediterranean/south beach diet to get away from easily digestible sugars-is this product kosher? Also I noticed that for all that it’s lower in calories (90 to 120 for regular low fat kefir for the same serving size), it has significantly fewer grams of protein.
Thoughts? Are lactase-added products ok when you’re attempting to avoid sugar being sent directly to your bloodstream?
PS: I don’t feel like making my own-I’m moving soon and even though it’s supposed to be easy, I consider it too much work. I used to really like Helios (which is owned by Lifeway anyway) but have not been able to find it in ann arbor.
I looove yogurt and I would love to be able to lose weight when eating yogurt, but every time I have tried to incorporate yogurt into my weightloss plan my weight either stays the same or increases, it’s like my body absorbs it as ice cream or something!
Are you eating the flavored varieties? They tend to have a lot of sugar.
I eat it plain-it’s the base for a lot of Indian salads which are usually just cut up vegetables, yoghurt, salt, cilantro and other spices. But I drink the kefir, it’s a good snack.
Hmm, I just don’t know, anu-la. Seems like you’d have to find someone who’s tried it and tested their insulin levels to know for sure since carbs-in-yogurt is already confusing. I Googled a bit and found discussion on kefir but what you’ve read on the container adds an extra “wrinkle” if you will!
I had a weird week, with my aunt dying and then having to be away from home for 2 days for the funeral stuff, then a birthday party then a baby shower. It was hard trying to eat right and eat enough and drink water (and pee!). I carried around a bag with low-carb snacks and that helped. I also missed 2 gym days (so I went 3 instead of 5 days)
My worst transgression all week was eating a bunch of grapes, which was something like 30 carbs. I think life is pretty good if your worst eating transgression is grapes 
The birthday party was at a good friend’s house and she was trying to accommodate gluten-free, and also rice-free (two friends with food allergies). Lucky for me I brought an hors d’oeuvre (low carb stuffed mushrooms) because there was absolutely nothing I could eat otherwise. She doesn’t seem to be interested in accommodating my weird diet because I’m not sick from carbs like the allergic people are. And/or she thinks gluten-free and carb-free are the same (she’s sort of hinted at that).
But all in all it was fine because no one wanted to talk about what I was or was not eating and we all had a grand time and that’s what counts!
Anyway after all that I still lost 1 lb so I am very pleased. Also very pleased to be back home and on my own schedule and eating my own food. Here’s to a good week for all!
I was eating non-flavored Greek yogurt and it didn’t matter, Kefir too. My body has certain foods that can have fine “nutritional facts” but somehow cause me to BLOW UP, I never lose any weight on a day where I eat 2 pieces of fruit. Fruit at all, does not lead to weight loss for me (which is fine, I can live without fruit), and also yogurt…
It sounds like that new kefir is intended for people who are lactose-intolerant, not necessarily those who are trying to lose weight. That said, I don’t know what effect it would have on a South Beach-type of program.
Rogerbox, most yogurt is, indeed, loaded with sugar. I usually look for the non-fat, sugar-free variety, but these days, I’m mostly eating Greek yogurt because it has a LOT more protein. It also has a fair amount of sugar, but it’s a trade-off because the protein more than makes up for the sugar, at least as far as I’m concerned. I tend to eat it with a piece of fruit as a snack because it keeps me happy for quite a while.
I haven’t eaten yogurt for such a long time because of how it conflicts with my weight loss goals so I forgot this part: Yogurt makes me incredibly hungry and unsatisfied to eat, probably because it has a lot of sugar, so it’s possible that I was over-compensating with what ELSE I ate because of not being satisfied with the yogurt.
Either way I definitely would only eat the stuff as a desert or something nowadays, I was trying to use yogurt+fruit as a meal, but that definitely didn’t work for me.
I have had a lot of success lately without counting a single calorie. I just try to have “good days” and string as many good days together as possible, so that if I slip and have a “bad day” it isn’t anything to get stressed over. But since I am forgoing a lot of DELICIOUS but fattening foods in the name of weight loss, it’s been a good motivator for me when faced with something bad for me, because I will think about all the days I ate healthily but not super-satisfyingly, and not want to waste those days. I have a wealthy friend who always insists on treating us to extravagent lunches and dinners, and I’ve resisted TWICE going to one of my favorite Chinese restaurants on his treat the past two weeks… I didn’t even knew I posessed that much strength and willpower. Part of the problem with my weight is that I grew up poor and there were times that there was nothing to eat…crap like half a bag of popcorn for dinner. So it’s VERY hard for me to turn down food when it’s available, and that was a good part of the reason I got so fat in the first place.
Some days I gain a little, but more often than not I lose a little. Last week I told my GF “I feel like giving up” because I’ve been trying to go from 187ish to breaking into the 170lb range for the past month, and I just can’t seem to…but this morning I woke up at 184 and I just want to redouble my efforts, and I imagine feeling this way about breaking into the 160’s, and how much better a problem that would be for my looks, health and self esteem. I’m gonna ignore the scale for a few days and try to get some workouts in, eat more oatmeals and salads and a protein for dinner and just surprise myself.
Thank you for the suggestion. I do plan on supplementing the stability workout with cardio classes. My trainer suggested I also interperse the strength training with short bursts of cardio in an interval fashion, to keep my heart-rate up.
So, I did my first time through the stability routine on Sunday with the Trainer. She doesn’t want me doing kettlebells yet - have to improve my core strength and balance first. My new routine also involves a lot of squatting since I need to strengthen my knees. I am so sore right now. I don’t even want to move. I crawled to the gym today and did some light cardio, but in order to stay on track I have to hit that strength routine again tomorrow. The thought makes me want to cry.
Rogerbox, I hate to belabor the point, but try the Greek yogurt. The protein keeps me much fuller much longer than the might-as-well-be-pudding Yoplait or Dannon does.
Something else you might try as a snack is sugar-free Jello. It’s cheap enough, and it’s pretty filling. It’s got something like 10 calories for the individual serving, so it’s next to nothing. You might also try unsweetened applesauce; I also like this as a snack and it works pretty well for me.
I lost 1.6 lbs. at my weigh-in yesterday for a total of 82.6. I felt so good about this that I got myself a little something at Victoria’s Secret. 
Very, very nice, and congrats! I hit the 50-pounds-lost mark today, which I was sort-of surprised at; I’m having a very rough week, psychologically, and the stress makes it hard for me.
Unfortunately, I seem to’ve hit a dieting plateau. I’m no longer losing as quickly as I’d like. I know the solution is getting back to the Y, but… I just can’t seem to do it. For whatever reason, the topic of exercise comes up, and I just. Can’t. Get. Myself. To. Do. It. It’s amazingly frustrating, as I know at an intellectual level it would help a -lot-. I don’t even know -why- I can’t get myself to do it. Grr.
ArrMatey! do you miss the gym at all? Is your body complaining? Usually when I miss enough gym, I start getting sore after sleeping and/or depressed. Actually last week I was ravenous on Thursday and Friday even though I had plenty of cals - I think it was because I wasn’t exercising!
If my body doesn’t convince me to get back to the gym, I also can get my mind in the right place for it. Basically if I find myself with too much free time I get pissed at myself for being so lazy. I decided a while ago that I need to work, sleep and eat and next important is exercise. If I’m putting anything before that, I suck. (Mind you I am single with no kids so I am not saying this is how everyone should be!)
If your body and your brain aren’t forcing you to go then maybe you need to figure out what your body and brain DO want. Do they want to be outside? Do they want to do videos at home? Do they want a team sport?
Don’t think that the Y is your only opportunity for exercise!
Hope you can figure it out…plateaus SUCK SUCK SUCK!
What finally got me exercising regularly is something Cat Whisperer said in a thread here one day.
Paraphrased Treat exercise like the other things in your life you don’t like but have to do like brushing your teeth. It’s just a part of being an adult and running your life.
After reading that I stopped looking for something I liked and worked out something that I could regularly fit into my schedule. Now I walk/run 4 days a week on the treadmill as my lunch hour. I will probably move outside when the weather is better but for now the treadmill works and everytime I think that I don’t want to do it I remind myself it’s not fun but it has to be done.
Congrats on the 50 lbs! I also hit a plateau at 50 lbs, but I was staying at my parents’ house, and their houseguest, who cooked dinner fairly regularly, was a little more liberal with the butter and olive oil than I would have liked. (Among other things.) Once I got home and back to my usual routine, I was fine.
In terms of exercise, I second Moonlitherial. I started riding a bike because there are few places around town that I actually need to drive to; I can ride, save gas, and get exercise at the same time. It’s not something I have to find time to do, and I don’t have to go somewhere to do it. (Well, yeah, I guess I do have to go somewhere.) It helps if you find something you like that isn’t such a chore that you hate to do it.
Another 0.6 kilos down (1.3 lbs) for a total of 4.2 kilos (9.3 lbs)