Movies, Kickstart and Products.....

First allow me to update my horror movie watching:

Phantasm: an oldie and after this watch I realized, despite being a cult classic, isn't really that good.

Sinister: whenever someone asks me to recommend a horror movie - this tops my list.  It's dark, it's creepy and it's got a lawn mower scene that'll jump you out of your skin (even at rewatches and you're expecting it).

The Dark and the Wicked:  this one is creepy and has some great scenes that will keep you guessing; but.....the ending ruins it.  So sad for a movie that had so much potential.

Vicious: this is a new one out on Paramount+ and it's pretty good.  There is a scene that is very hard to watch and you kind of know how it will end; but you don't care that it ends that way.

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Shapa has had me back and forth between teal and green; and I'm okay with that.  I haven't been perfect with all my commitments; but Kickstart isn't about perfection; it's about working to set healthy habits.  So I do feel good with my Kickstart progress so far.

A while back I did a product review on Protein Pastry by Legendary that resembles a pop-tart.  I wasn't fond of them and expressing that view gave me comments on posts such as:

Well you need to heat them up before eating them.  I did.

It says it's a pastry not a pop-tart; you shouldn't be expecting that.  Well then it shouldn't look like a pop-tart; and pop-tarts are pastries as well, it says so on the box.

I just didn't like them and felt the cost doesn't make them worth it.  This week I was in a local grocery store and they had the following marked down on clearance for $4.99 which is half the normal cost:

Only this particular flavor was on clearance but at that price I thought I'd give them a try.  If I had had a choice, I definitely would of chosen a different flavor; but this gave me an opportunity to give them a try.  I've been pleasantly surprised.  This one comes in at 5 pts. but definitely hits that sweet craving spot.  I want to try the other flavors.  (I see from their website that the chocolate above is being replaced with another chocoate, that explains the clearance price).

So the pop-tart like ones were a fail for me, but the sweet rolls are a winner!

Kickstart Fall 2025 Edition - Week 1

Almost one week has passed since the start of Kickstart.  I've been doing pretty well and in case you are wondering; I am using the WW app.  What I am learning though is that points is so far away from calories (I did kind of know that but not to the extent it is), I don't understand why WW is bothering with them anymore.  I find myself just staying within the calories, protein and fiber levels and some days I'm way over in points and others I have a lot left over.

Yes I know there are other nutritional values I can follow, but those are the ones I've chosen for right now.

After being in Dark Gray/Light Gray for so long with my Shapa Scale.  In a span of one week, I got this:

I'm hoping to see Blue this week!  Though because of this, I don't think I'll get on a scale other than my Shapa this week.  As much as I want to see the number...I know if it isn't what I hope to see, it will derail me - and I don't want that to happen.  So I'm going to hold off on the actual scale for now - maybe next week.

For inspiration, I dug out one of my WW wins this week.  You remember WW wins: you earned points for tracking, going to meetings, weighing in and you could use those points to get stupid little things from WW.  One of mine was this keychain:

And then I went to Etsy and bought these:

My own weight loss charms.  I'll add them to the keychain as I progress or take them off if I'm moving backwards!  I only bought to 25 as I would be happy with that; right now though, I'm moving 5 lbs at a time.

Other than that; I've pretty much stuck to all my commitments.  I'm getting in more water; I'm walking daily (besides my normal everyday steps), I'm having breakfast daily, my lunch and dinner choices have been in check, and I've been listening to some WW audio clips on the app.  I'm keeping up with my day planner as far as marking everything down and I've been reading.  I started this book:

I got this at the Living Dead Weekend back in June.  The author was there and I bought 3 of her books.  They are available on Amazon and I think they are mostly for Kindle; the books were special for the event.  Alice is just a young adult and very sweet - so give her some support!

Kickstart Fall 2025 Starts September 22!!

Kickstart is due to start Monday; go HERE to sign up.  It's totally FREE!!!

I've been eating like crazy all this week, so I'm looking forward to Kickstart.  As I've mentioned before there are Official Kickstart Journals available at a cost but you don't need them to participate.  Any type of journal will do or you don't need one at all!  I've recommended This Journal as a good cheaper option; it's available at Wal-Mart for about $11.00.

This time around though, I changed to this one:

It's actually pretty much a plain old Day Planner.  I wanted something that showed me the whole month and then the week with plenty of writing room.  Planners like this are pretty much available everywhere.  The one I bought has some months that have passed in it; but I'm going to tear them out and start with September full calendar with the week of the 22nd following behind.  The planner will take me through 2026.  I got it at Marshall's for $9.99.

I'm still debating on whether or not to use the WW app, Healthi or Lose-It.  I really like that WW now gives you item goals (for instance, I also track calories with points so it now gives me the calorie area to aim for), but I also am not sure I want to continue with WW once it runs out in December.  With Lose-It, I find that I pretty much eat anything (healthy or not) with my calories.  So I'm leaning towards Healthi for a WW plan that I actually like plus the Healthi checks (the old WW good health guidelines).  I'll have it figured out by Monday!

I need to work on my 10 commitments too.  I'll use some of the ones from last time but not all.  I'm so in the habit to use my Shapa Scale daily that I don't need to make that a commitment anymore!  That's the only one I've formed into a habit though!  Need to work on the others.

14 Years Ago Today.....

 14 Years Ago Today - I Made Lifetime Status With Weight Watchers.

I remember being so proud of all my charms that led up to that.

That was quite a while ago.  I only remember this date because it popped up on my FB memories.  That weight loss is long gone - it came back.

Weight loss is hard, maintaining is harder.  I've had many other keychains and charms through WW, but none were even close to the success I had back then.

Sunday

 Sundays are sort of my lazy day, to an extent.

Years ago, Sundays were my family day.  I'd go to my parents house, Mom always made a big Sunday dinner.  She did that for as long as she could.  Eventually my parents went to live with my one sister and Sunday dinners became only birthdays and holidays.  Both my parents passed last year; but even prior to that, Sunday dinner hadn't happened in a long time.

So Sundays became my lazy day.

I've started the day with 1 slice of 647 bread, 1 egg and a banana.  Shapa has had me in Teal for the past two days, which means I'm losing weight.  Official weigh-in tomorrow.

I'm thinking of making my breakfasts for this work week.  Maybe 3 baked oats and 2 french toast bakes from Dish With Dee. The recipe calls for a Laughing Cow cheese wedge, but I have never used that in it; you could also leave out the pudding mix if you don't have it on hand. Also, you can use any type of fruit you have on hand.  I'll probably end up using up what's left of my blueberries.

I'm also making chicken, potatoes and bows for today and I'll have it for lunch a day or two:

Pretty easy to make and makes a lot.  Sometimes I'll use pot pie squares or even egg noodles but I like the bows best.

I can also use the fish sticks and fries for lunch as well.  So I think I'm pretty set for breakfast and lunch this week.  Dinners will be on a day to day basis.

Still doing Kickstart and getting my commitments in and definitely loving the Lose-It app.  So happy to be away from points!

Later......

Hubby stopped at a take out seafood place on his way home from dog sitting and picked us up crabcakes.  They were very good.  I paired them with some crinkle cut fries!  That made a nice dinner.

I just realized that Lose It is giving me more calories on the weekends, which is great.  I kind of do remember that being a question when setting the app up.  Somedays, I'm not even hitting the regular goal.  We'll see how I did on the first week with Lose-it tomorrow!

Saturday!

 I like Saturdays because I'm off work....I hate Saturdays because I normally overeat!

CC is in Niagra Falls with her hubby, son and his partner this weekend so I'm kind of on my own.  We would normally be at yard sales and eating out.  I could yard sale myself but it's so hot & humid out and well, yard sales are just more fun with her!  However, I will have a little more control over my eating since I won't be eating out today! Not blaming CC, I'm totally responsible for what goes in my mouth!

Hubby is still dog sitting as well.

This morning I opted for a Big A** Waffle from the Mudhustler website.  I've made this before but haven't in quite a long time.  It was okay, I mean they are good, it just wasn't quite what I wanted though!

It does make a good waffle though.  The above picture is an older photo, I didn't have the banana on top this morning (and forgot to take a picture). And it is filling, banana or not!

I haven't decided on lunch or dinner yet.  It's Saturday and I kind of don't want to cook!

Later.....

I've decided on Gorton's Haddock Fish Sticks, Crinkle Cut Fries and Watermelon for lunch. Some comfort food seemed to be in order: 4 sticks, 20 fries and 1/2 cup watermelon comes to 459 calories; and though that may be higher in the carb department.....I'm only looking at calories at this point.  My breakfast was only 281 calories and I still have 801 to use for dinner and snacks.  I'm thinking that dinner will be bbq chicken tenders with 1/2 cup baked beans.

Rotisserie Chicken

 May seem like a weird topic, but rotisserie chicken became a huge discussion on one of the FB groups.

A person posted they had called Weight Watchers wondering how to count skinned rotisserie chicken they were going to buy at Costco.  The answer?  Throw that away, Weight Watchers doesn't want you eating that - make your own. (not exact words, but very close)

I really find it hard to believe that a WW rep responded that way; and even with the wrong information!

However.....you couldn't tell this person that because "I'm paying for WW and they are the experts and this is what I was told by an expert."

Yeah, you read that right.  I was able to go right to the WW website and find a snippet about rotiesserie chicken.  With the exception of the wing, any part of the chicken, as long as you remove the skin, is zero points.  Now I realize the person was asking about skinned chicken, which would have points; but the person didn't want to hear about it in any way.  We were all doing it wrong; and she was trying to pass on the expert information.

All she had to do was call again, ask the same question and she'd find out she'd get an entirely different answer.  So they really aren't trained well, nor are they experts.

The snippet from the website didn't matter, others called or chatted online and got different information - but that didn't matter.  Only her so called expert was correct.

After awhile I was thinking we were dealing with a spammer; mostly because she started with Costco, then Sam's, then chicken breasts that weren't even rotisserie.  The influencer had to shut the conversation down.

For one; I buy a rotisserie chicken weekly and eat off of it all week.  Sometimes with rice or make soup or make pot pie or just pull it off and eat it as a snack.  Rotisserie chicken from the store is not the reason I'm fat - potato chips are!

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Meal Prep - I can't do a whole week of meal prep; but yesterday, I did prepare for today!

Breakfast was baked oatmeal.  I use a very basic recipe for this and it makes one serving:  1/3 cup oatmeal, 1/4 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk, 1 egg, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1 pack sweetener and 1 tsp baking powder.  I then throw in any fruit I want, in this case it was blueberries.  Bake for 30 minutes at 375 degrees.  I'll eat this with a side of strawberries all for 0 pts.

For lunch I chose a throw together:

This one comes to 7 pts. due to the crackers, babybel cheese and green olives; but that's okay! It will still be yummy!

I'll probably have the same thing for breakfast and lunch on Tuesday with the exception of the shrimp - I'll replace that with that rotiesserie chicken that caused so much conversation, lol!

Dinner this evening will be steak and corn on the cob.  Tuesday probably pork chop and corn on the cob!

And I want to get my walks started again and some other type of exercise!

A Great Weekend

 I had the best time last weekend at The Living Dead Weekend in Monroeville, PA!  It was an extremely busy weekend though.

Friday I did the 3 hour drive to Monroeville arriving way before I needed to.  Standing in line I was able to get this:

That's Greg Nicotero and Tom Savini!  I just love Greg Nicotero!  He is so very nice.  You can read about last year's event here:  2024 Continues.  After everything opened and Greg finally showed up at his table I took my stuffed Greg Nicotero from The Cuddle Cult to have him sign:

He told me a story of how he gave one of these in a Christmas gift exchange at work and that the guy who got it, put it on his Christmas tree!  I also bought a large coin he designed with his 13 favorite horror movies on it (I've yet to identify all of them).  We did a selfie - for some reason he has to do the selfies - anyway he took my phone and then told me he couldn't get it to open; I rattled off the code to him and he said "You do realize you just gave me your phone code."  I told him all that that would get him is about 600 photos of Duran Duran.  He shook his head and said "You and my wife....."   LOL!!  Totally made my weekend!  Though I did get more photos of him from a distance; I didn't get the opportunity to talk to him again.  It was very crowded and he had people around all the time, even at the VIP event on Saturday evening.  And though being a fangirl, I didn't want to come across as stalkish either.

Friday evening I saw the original b/w version of Night of the Living Dead on the big screen finally!  Some of the cast was there to watch it with us.  It was great!  It was in line waiting to get into the theater that I met Dave.  Dave is a school teacher from New York; he's married with a 6 year old son.  He was also at the event by himself.  We would run into each other several times during the weekend - the Dawn of the Dead mall tour, various discussion panels and the Day of the Dead brunch.  The majority of the people at the event were very nice.

I also met Alice B. Sullivan, an author of apocalyptic novels.  I had downloaded one of her books but never read it due to the dog on the cover.  She assured me the dog doesn't die in her books - LOL!!  I bought some books from her - go check her out!

From the hotel to the event - everything was great!  I think they are planning another one in October.  Walmart has bought the mall and it is expected that it will probably be torn down and replaced with a Walmart; because that's the crap that Walmart does!  So they are trying to get another one in.  Will I go?  Not sure, it takes a lot of money for that!  But we will see.

The worst part of the weekend was the drive home in all the rain and fog; but it was worth it.

Not A Weight Post

 Sorry that my posts have been few.  Kickstart kind of has gone to the side as I'm dealing with a dog with a neck injury and it's just been way too stressful.

But with this post, I want to discuss the Bay City Rollers.  Yeah, you heard that correctly, the band from the 1970's famous for the song Saturday Night and causing young girls to run around in plaid and scream their heads off.

I was one of those girls:

Yep, that's me in my Roller Gear too many years ago! 😁 Eric was my favorite.

When I first got the internet, the Rollers were something I looked up.  There were many fan sites and I was able to reconnect with a few penpals.  When FB rolled around, I found some more, connected with new ones and rehashed my Roller days.

I became a fan during what is known as the "classic" line-up:  Eric, Les, Woody, Alan & Derek.  I am very much aware that Les replaced the original lead singer Nobby Clark and that fans in the U.K. are very familiar with him.  Though Nobby was with the band since the start and recorded songs with them, he left before the really big break and the worldwide Rollermania (I'm not saying there wasn't any when he was in the band, but the classic line-up is what most remember).  Nobby sometimes comes to fan fests held throughout the world and it is my understanding that some of the early recordings are actually his voice and not Les' as there wasn't time to dub them over.  I don't know if that's true or not.  What I do know is that Nobby wrote a book, Nobby comes to fanfests and Nobby, in my opinion, has never gotten over not being part of the big break.  He's a little quieter these days but it was there for a long time.

The fan pages these days, for some reason, are in competition with each other.  Keep in mind this is a band from the 70's that hasn't been together in quite a long time.  Of the classic line-up only Eric, Woody and Derek are still alive.  Both Alan & Les passed a few years back as well as Ian (who replaced Alan for a short period).  I must mention Ian as he and his wife Wendy were always very nice to fans on FB.  Wendy still shares pictures (and stories) from her private collection.

Anyhow, there's bullying, there's threats, there's accusations......and I can't help but wonder; why?  Why is it so important for one group of people to try to be named "The Only True Bay City Roller Fans"?  And these groups join with the band member's wives/significant others/children, who apparently don't really get along that well with each other.  So it's a divided group.  There doesn't seem to be any middle ground and for some reason I can't enjoy my band from my childhood because of it.  I can't understand why grown women behave like that!!  I can't really understand why anyone would behave like that over anything.

Grow Up People!

Kickstart Is Starting Soon!

Loving the new stove!!  Still learning the ends and outs but everything has been great so far!

KICKSTART starts on Monday, April 28th!  It's FREE, so come join us!  If you want to purchase the Kickstart journal it is available in book form or PDF; however, it is not necessary to have the journal to follow along - a regular old notebook will work!  I've purchased the journal in the past and it does have a lot of useful and helpful information in it AND they keep improving on it; but I found I kind of stopped using it less than halfway through.  Why? I have an app to track my food, I have a picture of my 10 Commitments on my phone and I can add notes and such on the Healthi app but I do find journals useful so I'm going to use this journal this time around.  By all means though - YOU DO YOU!  Find your nitch and go with it!

I am going to do the current Weight Watcher program on the Healthi app though.  I started that way last time and it went well; then I went back to the WW app and it threw me all off course.  Check my post HERE on how I do the current program on Healthi.  It won't be exact; but it will be close.

I am trying to come up with some easy meals to get me through at least the first week.  For breakfast I'm thinking Baked Oatmeal and a Protein Shake.

My stand by recipe for baked oatmeal is: 

1/3 cup uncooked oatmeal  (regular or instant works; but not steel cut)

1/4 cup unsweetened almond milk (or milk of choice, count points if necessary)

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

Sweetener of choice to taste

Then any fruit you happen to have on hand (frozen or fresh)

For lunch I'm thinking of doing a turkey, ham, provolone, bacon sandwich with mayo, lettuce and tomato.  I'll toast the bread and use light bread, thin sliced provolone cheese (or reduced fat), the Oscar Mayer fully cooked bacon and light mayo.  I'll have a pickle and  fruit on the side.

Just trying to think ahead!

A Quick Update

Today I got a new stove!

That may seem like such a small thing to most; but it's a big deal to me.

Many years ago, when the 2 oven stove came out, I purchased a Maytag Gemini. I LOVED that stove and had it for many many years.  When we did a cheap upgrade in the kitchen, I wanted stainless steel appliances.  We got a refrigerator and dishwasher and I held out on the stove, because I loved mine so much. Eventually though, I broke down and got a stainless steel one - just one oven - in a price range I could afford.  It worked, but it just wasn't what I wanted.

***I was unaware that there a people that can wrap appliances to the color you want. Had I known that, that's what I would have done with my Gemini."

Anyway....I finally bought a new two oven (they no longer make the Gemini).  It's a Samsung this time.  It has an air fryer mode and actually connects to wifi and my phone.

Rather than pay Lowe's to take away the old one, we sold it on FB.  I kid you not - the person that bought it was pulling away as Lowe's delivery was pulling in!!  Perfect timing!

I haven't used it yet, but obviously I will.

My Shapa has had me in the light gray for a while and now has me in green, which is good. I did get a walk in today, the weather was so beautiful!