parsely tea

Hello! My family are all loosing weight by drinking parsley tea, either hot or cold. Parsley has a lot of good, healthy benefits. If you drink only 6 oz a day you will loose. Parsley is under a dollar to buy. You take the leaves only in a 2qt pan, 3/4 full of water and simmer for 2 hrs. Then strain it twice. You can drink just this way or make ice cubes with it and put them in drinks. You can also get a tea basket and simmer the leave in then drink it hot. Google Parsley Tea and you will see the large list of benefits. call or email me and I can send you the report I have written up on it texhess@sbcglobal.net I just thought I would share a weightloss idea.

Move More? Eat Less?

Move More? Eat Less? is a simple quote I recently read on Cathy Zielske's blog. She's a famous scrapbooking lady who in the past year has overcome, lost lbs. and has had a transformation by using this as her motto. I felt inspired by this simple statement which had me thinking...

What types of exercise do you like? I don't personally like this question so I thought if I changed it and asked: What activities did I participate in this week? It turns the answer is very different. I've walked around parks and Art Museums, went swimming at the pool with my children, helped someone move, hosted a water party for Gracie's Preschool friends, and then finally helped (even if just a little) at an Eagle project. There might be even more that I'm not even aware of but it's nice to think of just moving more rather than in terms of exercise like running etc... I'm not saying that's not important and it should be done too but don't disount sweeping that floor or anything else you may have done to move!

Think about your week and what activities you participated in then share with us what you have done to Move More.

I think you'll discover that you're not as far off the path of this weight loss journey as you think. Remember our old motto: Moving It Along - Let's help each other move!

*Okay, so would anyone like to volunteer to help me mop my floors?* j/k ;)

Class Questions

Can you feel the heat yet? I hope you are keeping yourselves hydrated. That is one way to start small with weight loss by carrying around a water bottle.
Summer is in full swing and so are our WOW classes. Erin has been leading our discussions and here are the questions that she's sent to me. I know so many of you have really liked studying these and have found them helpful so I'll put them on here for you.

Questions for Mosiah 15 – Alma 4


Questions for 2 Nephi 17 - Jacob 5


As soon as I get the questions from this Saturday or any other I'll be sure to share them with you.

How do you like these questions? Have they been helpful to you? Leave a comment about how you like WOW classes this summer.

WOW, we're back!

Hello, Everyone! After a sucessful weight loss with 300 lbs. lost collectively during our last session and an amazingly fun dinner/dance celebration, WOW meetings are back! We have already started again for our summer session. It's not to late to get started either so feel free to ask any of us what it's all about.
I still have many ideas and I'm hoping to get those shared in a blogging class so that more of our authors will feel comfortable in posting their thoughts and we'll get this blog rolling again! Plus, I'll make an effort to be more consistent myself. I still have lots of notes to share from all of our previous classes and I know that there will be more to come.
For this WOW session, we've started a Book of Mormon Summer Reading Event. Melanie is hoping that this will help give us better attitudes and uncover a lot of the personal issues associated with weight, overeating, emotional triggers, and ultimately getting to a point that we have lost and then continue to maintain and be healthy.
I'm putting the handouts on here so that you'll be able to download and print them out as you need to or pass this blog address along and share them with others who desire to lose weight as well. Melanie Johnson has worked very hard on putting all of this information so please be kind and give her the credit as you share. I'm putting on a Creative Commons copyright for this blog as well. It is not to be used for commercial uses, you may alter as long as you share what you have done with us, and you may share within your church, weight-loss groups etc... You may contact Melanie or me for any more information on this. Thank you.

Without further adeiu, here are the latest handouts:

Find them here and let me know if you have any trouble opening them.

I'm looking forward to this next session of WOW!

book of mormon questions

I loved the questions on Saturday! I don't have my own set yet, waiting for an email. But I really think Melanie was inspired when she wrote the questions. I can see this program helping us get to the root of our food addictions and weight gain. Thanks Melanie

The dinner/dance celebration was wonderful. Melanie planned it just right. Being escorted down the run way felt so special. The dinner turned out great and so did the dance. Of course I didn't tell my hubby about that part. Several of us ladies danced together. When ABBA's Dancing Queen came on we all did the right moves and sweeped into the center with our hands swaying above our heads. What a fun song to celebrate the new us.
I am really looking forward to the summer Book Of Mormon program. Miss many of you

Missing Weeks

I just wanted to say how much i missed the last several weeks of wow. Just talking and being with sisters today helped me. I am grateful for the fellowship. Thank you Melanie

The Last 2 Weeks

Jan. 16~

I wasn't able to attend this Sat. morning class because I sustained an injury in my right calf playing basketball on Friday night against the Young Women. I had felt great throughout the game until the last few minutes when I became confused and then stepped wrong. Ouch! I have been taking it easy and resting it so I am doing so much better now. I was so worried about not being able to exercise that I felt despair. I was able to get through this and I am doing much better now because of the encouragement I felt from many of you. Even from those of you who also received injuries as well. I hope you are also doing much better now. I appreciate you. I tried my best to continue diligently with portion control since that was all that was within my power in these last two weeks. I struggled on some days but then on others I succeeded which is the way it truly goes.
Erin taught the lesson this week on The Body is a Blesssing. The link can be found on the sidebar for that talk. Our bodies are amazing and it was our challenge to remember that! Also, Gloria showed an interesting video presentation on the effects that refined sugar has on our bodies. Since not everyone was able to stay to watch that video, Gloria will make arrangements to make sure that you can watch it if you'd like and you can arrange that with her. I also heard that the Y.W. basketball game was a topic of conversation for the importance of exercising and realizing that we need to take baby steps to stay fit.

Jan. 23~

I felt today's meeting was very insightful. Melanie shared lots of positive and encouraging information today. Here are some of the highlights:

• Take care of our bodies to the best of our ability. (1 Nephi 3:7)
• Keep a WOW journal and write down how you resisted food temptations. (like not eating that brownie you really wanted)
• Consider how much energy you use to carry your own body. How else might you spend that energy if you felt healthier?
• Be healthy.
• Reach our goals. We can do this!
• Remember the beautiful dream that Melanie has in mind for each of us. Make our own dreams reality.
• Mormonad: Don't be fooled! Remember the story about the snake.
• "Being in the water won't drown you but staying there will." We don't have to stay where we are at. We have the power within us to change.

Remember: We'll be starting a clothing exchange in the next two weeks. The purpose and hope is that as we lose weight we'll not be in any one size very long and exchanging our clothes amongst each other will help with the expense of buying new clothing.

Other inspirational quotes:

The greatest wealth is health. ~Virgil

Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.
Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend. ~Bruce Lee

Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong. ~Lao-Tzu (600 B.C.)

One starts an action simply because one must do something.
- T. S. Eliot

First Weigh-In of 2010

On Saturday, Jan. 9, was the first WOW meeting for the year. I'm excited to start fresh again. A clean slate. A new day. In my mind, I'm learing that weight loss is not about food. Believe me, I still love food. For me, it's about learning control, training new healthier thoughts into my brain and how to lead a sustainable, healthy lifestyle.

Here is a little run down on what happened at the meeting:

This WOW session will be for 20 weeks. Remember that the aim is a very reasonable 2 lb. loss per week, the hope is to be able to lose 40 pounds (2 dress sizes). If you need to lose less than 40 pounds then you definitely should reach your goal! Some may lose more. Overall, may each of us help everyone reach their healthiest best!

We brought and if you couldn't then you can bring next meeting:

1. A hopeful self to get your before picture taken. (As I took these pictures, I felt inspired to remind you that each of you are beautiful right now. We already are beautiful...like Melanie talked about. Here again, I'm reminded that weight loss isn't about beauty either.)

2. A measuring tape (one provided if you don't have one) to take your measurements. (In truth, this wasn't easy and very telling but I feel it will be important for myself in comparison later on.)

3. A nice outfit you would like to fit into that is two dress sizes smaller. (I'm still looking for the outfit that I want to buy back so it is not too late to get into this game.)
Melanie will be keeping the outfit at her house, but you will have the opportunity as you get healthier to earn WOW bucks, to buy it back! Then on the evening of May 29, a dinner/dance will be held to celebrate our 40 lb losses in our "new" earned outfits!

Remember:

Rule #1: What happens in WOW stays in WOW! (All of your personal info., i.e., weight, measurements and photos are for your records only etc..)

Rule #2: No excuses.

I was also very inspired by the challenge this week which is to strengthen our posture and think UP! I'm still working on this. So, it reminds me of a little Dr. Seuss:

Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the things you can think up if only you try!

I have looked into the mypyramid.gov and sparkpeople.com - the problem I had with sparkpeople is it didn't recognize shredded wheat's. Mypyramid.gov will show every type of shredded wheat along with many other foods.
With mypyramid.gov, you start by going to my pyramid tracker to log in. Then you can add your food or activity. Research the activities, they even have sleeping, reading and computer and many other choices. You want to put as much activities to fill 24hr if you can. It shows the food by measurement, 1 cup, then it allows you to set your servings, 1.5 or 2. Sparkpeople doesn't do that.
The problem I have with mypyramid is after you enter your food intake, it says saves and analyze. The top box says calculate DG comparison, DG means dietary guidlines. Your 2 choices are 1. maintain weight or 2 leads you to gradually loosing and maintaining healthy weight. clicking 2 gives me as warning saying The height and weight you entered in your Personal Profile indicates you need to consult an health care professional about weight-loss strategies prior to starting a weight reduction program. I am 236l.b., 5'6"
I do not know what to do about this development. I will still post my food and activity because I like the reminder of how many servings I have missed so I can do better.