Soo, let’s just say I’ve spent a few minutes here and there looking up diet recipes – I know what I have to do if I want to lose weight.. it’s called Weight Watchers, but I wanted to see if there were any really good natural weight loss supplement that did the trick.

Low and behold, I found a site which posted the results of studies on the Atkins Diet, South Beach Diet, and LOTS of others.. take alook:

Oprah.com – Battle of the Diet Plans

1. It makes you feel full. Drinking lots of water fills up your stomach so you don’t feel hungry or the urge to eat nearly as much. Very critical.

2. It ‘lubes’ up your system. Well, this sounds kind of gross, but it’s true.. it flushes out your system if you drink enough of it and carrying with it lots of crap that’s been bogging up your body! Awesome!

Now I’m not sure about you, but I’m not one to usually go to the faucet and fill up a glass and just go to town. Most times I have a jug filled with water (still just tap water.. but a lot colder) in the fridge, but at work.. to ‘spice’ things up a bit.. I buy those Crystal Light singles and use them in 1 litre of water – it says to add them to 500mL each, but I find they taste just fine with a full 1L. So they taste great.. have no significant calories (yes.. yes… they have Aspartame.. I know..) and I can down a liter of water in the morning and afternoon. Pretty click considering 10 packets generally cost about $2.99 or so.

And that’s all I’ve got to say about that

No.. this isn't me..

it was way back in January when I started the ‘biggest loser’ BellAliant edition at work. I ended up winning going from 202 down to about 182 or so. As impressive as that is, I’m really happy to report that I’ve kept that off for almost the entire year (even though it’s not over yet!!).

There is no question that I learned a hell of a lot this year in regards to what it takes to lose weight, feel good, and what not to put into your body (sorry about that McDonalds).

During the course of the year, I used fat burner pills, went to Weight Watchers, tried a cleansing product (Isagenix) and I can honestly say that nothing works better than eating properly.. it really comes down to the calories you’re putting into your system. With the hockey I play as well as being smart about the foods and especially the snacks you chomp down on every day.. losing weight really isn’t that difficult.

It feels good that I have a belt currently at the leather shoe guy at Superstore putting in 3 sets of notches smaller than the lowest setting, I should take a picture of it actually.. it’s quite inspirational to me as it shows it warn on each level..

I get a kick out of the folks that keep telling me “you don’t need to lose weight”, I really do appreciate it as they are giving me a compliment, however it has nothing to do with ‘need’. To me, it’s a matter of ‘want’… I want to get to my goal weight, and I know I can do it..we’ll see what the new year brings.

Yep, that’s right.. on both counts.

I’m proud to say that as of this morning I am down 9.2 lbs, and Liz was down 10.4 lbs as of this morning as well. How awesome is that eh? Pretty darn awesome if you ask me It’s all about what you eat.. as I’ve posted before.. I do a little bit of exercise in the way of goaltending now, but it isn’t exercise that makes you drop weight, it’s the foot you eat.

So I’m almost 1/2 way to my goal.. Liz is as well.. we’ve calculated that we’ve been on Weight Watchers since August 18th or so, so what’s that.. a month and a half? Awesome! So ya.. now we quit.

Ok, we didn’t really quit we actually just decided that we’d stop paying WW $15 a week to go in and get ‘weighed in’. It really didn’t make sense to me after the first week we did it, however as long as Liz was going and motivated, I was willing to do it. Last week however, Liz emailed me and told me that we should keep doing the program, but instead of paying the money, just keep track ourselves as we do have a digital scale at home.

I couldn’t agree more, I think it’s important to start, as well as to get the information and program.. however once you start and get used to it.. you really don’t need to keep going to and paying etc.. Between the two of us, we were spending $120 a month ($15 x 4 x 2) and we could spend that on groceries or something else. Heck with it.

The biggest thing continues to be self control and attitude... this cannot be understated. If you want to lose weight and are determined, you will do it. If you just expect it to happen without changing anything… it won’t. It’s the same with everything, if you want to retire early in life.. you have to save money and invest wisely.. if you don’t do anything.. you won’t..

Personally, I want to go on orlando vacations and more NHL hockey games when I retire.. as well as many, many other things.. so I’m starting early and trying to stay focused on that. So I’ll keep losing weight until I reach my goal then start working out at the gym.. (yes.. I could do both and I realize this.. but hell with that.. I’m busy enough!!) and I’m going to continue to try to invest wisely and keep glancing back at the compound interest calculator that is just an amazing piece of information.

Anyhow, me and Liz keep on trucking with the Weight Watchers program. I really like it, the biggest difference I find besides eating habits is that I’m really enjoying cooking good foods every night for dinner. Last night, for example.. we had steak sandwich wraps, bruschetta made with our own homemade salsa, and some tomato/cucumber with balsamic vinegar. It was delicious! And for the most part, very healthy!

I’m happy to report that I’m down.. hmm.. 6 lbs as of today, and Liz is down 10 lbs I think. Considering I admittedly am not trying very hard as I’m waiting for hockey to start.. I think this is quite an achievement. We aren’t really exercising all that much (although hockey for me is starting soon), and the only thing we’ve really changed is our eating habits. I guess my article on weight loss not working through exercise is true eh?

Tonight I’m making another soup (same one as before) but I’m going to be posting step-by-step pictures/instructions on how to do it.. so stay tuned!

Oh, and if you aven’t already.. subscribe to the RSS feed to keep updated on all the new articles without having to visit the site! Don’t know how to use RSS feeds? Don’t worry.. post coming up which will teach you all about it

Yep.. that's my burnt pot

So since this is my busiest night (and likely day tomorrow).. I figure I’d round up some of my favorite posts for you

Welcome Lifehacker readers.. here you go:

• Tim Hortons/Robins Donuts Coffee – For Weight Watchers
• If you make the bride cry.. is that a good thing?
• Tim Alerts Review – the good and the bad
• Hate mosquitos? Do I have an awesome solution for you! (I still can’t believe this works)

Anyhow that’s about it.. enjoy the site Lifehacker readers Feel free to comment.

Did you know that the Egg McMuffin is 7 Weight Watchers Points? Hmm.. that really isn’t HORRIBLE since it’s fast food and McDonalds (the root of all things unhealthy).

Found that information at Health Discovery Weight Watchers Support Network along with all the other points values on McDonalds menu.

This is actually what it looks like.. unreal!

Found a ‘recipe’ for Banana Ice Cream last night and it was so stupid and simple I had to give it a go.. check this out. Weight Watchers will like this one too since a Banana is only 1 point.. A pretty big difference then the 14 point Blizzard I had the other day.. yikes!

The instructions are as follows:

1. Freeze some banana’s.. (I already had one frozen)
2. Put it in a blender…. and then (are you ready for this.. )
3. Blend it

As it says in the 1-ingredient ice cream Instructable, “At first, the fruit may seem to resist the transformation, but persevere with your powered blades, and soon you’ll have a nice alternative to heavier frozen desserts”.

I concur with this assessment as at first it didn’t look like anything special…so I added just a touch of milk to stop it from sticking to the sides, and voila.. it was AWESOME! Of course, I used to buy Banana Ice Cream when I was younger so I’m a big fan anyhow, but this was a real eye opener.

Delicious, and healthy! How often does that come about? Unfortunately not often enough. And when you think that bananas range from .59 to .89 a pound (and one banana was a nice treat for me).. that’s a pretty cheap ice cream treat!

Get pretzel sticks instead and save points!

Well, besides the coffee post which I thought was really helpful for Weight Watchers fans, during our first week of Weight Watchers, I also made some really interesting discoveries thanks to my little calculator for my Blackberry which is extremely helpful (especially at the grocery store yesterday).

I hate to admit it, but myself and Liz indulged in a Blizzard yesterday.. likely THE WORST frozen treat ever consumed by man… but OH MY GOD it was good. Want to know the scary facts behind mine? Well, my favorite Blizzard treat is the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Blizzard, and it is sporting a whopping 44 grams of fat.. and a huge 14 points on the Weight Watchers scale (this is for a medium). Thankfully, I have 32 to spend a day and I had a big dinner of 3 corn on the cobs which ended up only 5 points… truthfully I was well under (by at the end of the day thanks to a much needed sleep in till about 11 AM.

Another great discovery we made yesterday at the Superstore was that of my old elementary-school-favorite cheese and crackers are 2 or 3 points a package.. however if you get the pretzel stick ones.. it’s only 1 point! Needless to say I bought 3 5-packs

Let’s see what else, there were some rice cakes which Liz bought which were 0 points (and 0 flavor to go with it), rice krispy squares are generally about 2 points each, oh, and my favorite Kraft Dinner is not exactly ‘healthy’.. I figured it out to be about 9-11 points for 1/2 a box! (I used to be able to eat the whole box!)

So, we do have to go in and get ‘officially’ weighed tomorrow.. but after a week, I can safely say I’m down about 3-4 lbs, and I believe Liz is almost down 6! Incredible.. the best part about it now, is that it’s starting to feel second nature.. it’s really quite easy to do after you get used to it.

I am nowhere near 124.1

Yep.. first meeting last night.. or at least we thought it was.. ended up just getting there early enough to sign up before they closed.. (whoops).

Pretty excited about it actually, it’ll be a LOT easier for both of us to lose some weight and keep it off if we both do it at the same time. Our goals are different and if you’re familiar with the WW plans, the ‘points’ we get to spend each day is pretty radically different (I have a full 10 more than Liz every day), but that’s ok.. as I just finished off a 7 point breakfast of course

So here we go.. I’ll be posting my progress every week to see how it’s going, thankfully I’ve been able to keep off over 1/2 of the 20lbs that I lost when I won the ‘biggest loser competition‘ back in Jan – March.. Since that time, actually just more in the last month to be honest.. I’ve kind of gotten in the ‘bad eating’ habit.. junk food, too many beers, etc..etc.. (hell it’s the summer.. I need my Coors Light!) But I have another goal in mind.. and I would be ecstatic if I was to get to it.. I know Liz is the same. Now to go find out how many points are in my coffee every morning.

As an added bonus.. the activities I do can count towards adding points.. so hockey tonight.. yep.. that’s an additional 7 pts.. or what I like to call.. 3 beer

We’ll see how long I hold out … the good part about Weight Watchers.. is that it’s more of a lifestyle change.. and truthfully.. the portions seems great (5 cups of popcorn for 1 point!? I’m in!)