<p>A baked potato tip: Do not wrap in foil and cook at 450 degrees. After 20 minutes, prick with a fork on top to let steam out. Bake for at least an hour depending on size. You’ll get a very fluffy potato with very crisp skin that will taste good with just a little salt.</p>
<p>Congratulations on all the good work!</p>
<p>Great job, everyone! A really good substitute for sour cream, IMO, is plain lowfat yogurt. I love that stuff on my baked potato! And here is a delicious substitute for the potato itself: a sweet potato! Needs no yogurt or cream - just add a tiny bit of brown sugar on top, let it melt a little… Share with your significant other!</p>
<p>Congrats, Melsmom, do not loose those mucsles though.</p>
<p>My advice for potato, use sweet potato instead, taste so much better, I like everything sweet! I have a lot of it almost every day with tons of olive oil, onion, garlic and italian seasonning.</p>
<p>TheAnalyst - Wow - 6am dreadmill. I was still tucked in my warm bed. That is dedication, for sure! Way to go.</p>
<p>Melsmom - Three pounds - that is great!</p>
<p>FallGirl - Finally showing off some of that hard work. 2 1/2 pounds gone forever!</p>
<p>Hubby and I are going to the Y tonight. I will be on that dreadmill. For my fellow clumsy peeps - I’ve been walking on the dreadmill for almost 3 weeks, and still hold on to the sides. Lightly - but still there. I try to let go, but always touch it again. And I have to slow it down to take a drink of my water. I told my girlfriend that I was the YMCA Bozo. But I don’t mind.</p>
<p>I THINK this is a positive way, but this week I cajoled my H into joining my return to the gym. We had been paying for months but never using, very ridiculous. I met him at his workplace with a healthy dinner, ate together and went to personal workouts. To get his company, I have to fit in flexibly to his workschedule which is all over the map, but I’m insistent. He knows a lot of other people there, so I had to reroute him from shmoozing a few times. Isn’t that bad gym etiquette anyway?</p>
<p>Schmoozing is a big part of our gym, it’s why we keep going back, because it’s fun. Much more fun than exercising at home, which keeps us at it. I was a good girl today - 2 hours at the gym and then I had to go look at a job where I’m doing drawings for typical stairs in a townhouse/condo complex. It was huge and very hilly!</p>
<p>mathmom, it’s great that you can get some exercise in as part of your job. My work is 100% sedentary and often engrossing, so it’s common for the day to get away from me. I blink and it’s time to start on dinner. I need to go to the gym first thing before I get anywhere near my computer, but my computer calls to me in a way the gym doesn’t. Definitely a dilemma. H is out doing an 18-mile run this morning and here I sit!</p>
<p>My success this week was limiting myself to one glass of wine last night instead of my customary two glasses.</p>
<p>Three weeks - 11 pounds lost. (I don’t know why I started on a Saturday - most diets I’ve started are on Monday.)</p>
<p>11 pounds lost in 3 weeks? Hooray! </p>
<p>That is so encouraging! Seeing those kind of results makes it easier to “stick with the program”. Good job! : )</p>
<p>One more baked potato idea - top with lowfat cottage cheese and salt and pepper - still has the creamy texture and dairy taste of sour cream, but has some substance to it.</p>
<p>Try Fage greek yogurt on your potato - it is so creamy yet is only 2% fat and 130 calories per 7-oz container!</p>
<p>H and I went for our run last night, and will do so today. I’ve used Google maps to map out a new 3-mile course through our neighborhoods because the old one has a killer hill! Too bad Google maps does not show if there are any vicious dogs on the loose along that route 
I once had to arm myself with a fallen tree branch because a barking creature followed me too close!</p>
<p>BunsenBurner - When I walk in the neighborhood, I DO carry a stick. It’s an old broom stick cut to the right length for me. I was bitten by a dog once while walking and chased by another big dog. Actually that one had a little child at the other end of the leash, but the child was no match for the strength of the dog.</p>
<p>Went to my third personal training session this morning. The trainer had me leg press 215 pounds - I couldn’t believe I had it in me…(Now if I could only control my snacking…)</p>
<p>The training sessions are from a gift certificate that’s quite a few years old. I procrastinated so long that I didn’t even get the full value of the original certificate.</p>
<p>I took my first walk since getting the flu and pneumonia. A pretty pathetic 15 minute walk but half of it was up a fairly steep hill behind my house. Could feel it in the lungs but it felt good to be out of the house and feel the sunshine. I will try to add a bit more on each day.</p>
<p>Good for you, mom60. I’m glad you are feeling better.</p>
<p>eddie- 11 pounds. Wow that’s great!</p>
<p>Eddie - we all now have pound envy!!!</p>
<p>BB and eddieodessa, when DH runs (and he goes all over) he ALWAYS carries a small can of pepper spray clipped to his waistband, just in case of aggressive dogs. He’s used it once or twice…but usually, for some reason, most dogs back off when he just points it.</p>
<p>(we are VERY MUCH dog people…actual spraying is done as the LAST, LAST, LAST resort)</p>
<p>Well, this just popped up on Yahoo. I am such a soup fanatic. I feel so healthy when I make my soups…</p>
<p>[Soup</a> Therapy: Detoxify, Lose Weight, and Boost Immunity on Yahoo! Health](<a href=“Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos”>Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos)</p>
<p>Congratulations to those of you seeing results.</p>
<p>Slow weight lose is frustrating but healthier. If you are not seeing results immediately, keep at it, it will happen.</p>
<p>MOST importantly, you must maintain whatever you are doing to become more healthy or lose weight, for ever! If you go off, you will regain the weight.</p>
<p>If you go off your diet, you will go back to your original weight. If you are changing your whole approach to food and exercise for life, you will probably maintain and be healthier.</p>
<p>In other words, give up McDonalds, cheese cake desserts and beef, consider them gone forever or on very rare special occasions. Do not just diet, change your life forever.</p>
<p>worknprogress - Sorry I won’t eat black bean brownies - or soup made with seaweed. I did made a veggie/beef soup last week and we loved it.</p>