The UltraSimple diet has a basic meal plan of lemon in hot water, green tea and a smoothie for breakfast, rice and veggies for lunch, rice and veggies with chicken or fish for dinner and vegetable broth throughout the day.  I am going to keep up the broth as I do feel it makes me eat less, but add in some ‘normal’ foods (like potatoes) and use some gluten free recipes for wheat-free meals, because life without bread…

Which brings me to my dinner – yes, it has yeast etc which was not allowed but I need something that is a long term plan so… At the grocery store today, they had several gluten free companies doing taste tests, I needed that cookie!  But there was a pizza kit on special offer.  4 pizza bases and 4 packets of sauce by O’Doughs for around $7.    It tasted really good, not at all my idea of what frozen gluten free products taste like, lots of sauce (although two of the sauce packets were hiding between other pizza bases so I originally thought they had to be shared between 2 bases), topped with a little mozza, turkey breast and mushrooms and served with a salad, it was very filling.

So the new basic plan is to include dairy and nightshades (potatoes, tomatoes and peppers etc – I am having a hard time living without them) but include the broth and lemon water and do 2 low carb days a week.

First follow the rules of the sites you are posting on.  If you don’t, you will be treated as a spammer and people are even less likely to use your link because it is perceived as a dangerous link.

Post content people are interested in and in areas where people will see your posts.  For example, on SmartCanucks, posting a flyer will get lots of views and so you are more likely to get a new referral there than if you are posting in the thread about that site.

Remember that many people will already be a member of a site, and those who are not have already seen hundreds of those links.  Some people will never be interested in earning sites.

Be patient, build a rapport on the site, people are more likely to look at the signature/posts of people they know and like.

Don’t expect referrals from the thread about that site, 99% of people reading it are already members of the site you are trying to refer people to, you need to target people not looking at that thread.

The premise of LikeNet is very simple, you get paid for Liking on facebook, as well as tweeting about companies, clicking the Google + button etc.  They also have surveys you can answer for more points!

Each day, you can click the bonus button (found at the bottom of the games section) for a bonus.  Each point is worth 1 cent and minimum cashout (available by cheque or paypal currently) is $35.00.  I know that sounds like a lot but I joined just two weeks ago and am at $21 already, the daily bonus, coupled with special codes they give out bump up your total really quickly and they have new opportunities all the time!

Even better, it is open to residents of Quebec – no longer are you sidelined!

Life really has calmed down now and I want to get back on track, a friend did a modified version of the UltraSimple diet to get back on track, she is staying on it for some time, something I don’t think I can do given how much it limits but as a cleanse, detox and back on track tool, it seems like a good idea – help me go cold turkey on all the things that have crept back into my diet.  It recommends starting it when you have no evening requirements which is not the next week or so, but I am going to start cutting down / cutting out stuff that I should not be eating to get read for starting it a week Saturday.

In other news, it appears some nasty hacker hijacked my blog so I am blacklisted on Google, so much updating this morning before I could post.

Week 1 : down 4.5lbs (this makes up for a gain over Christmas so not nearly as impressive as it sounds)

week 2: down 0.4lbs

So, what do you eat on weight watchers? well anything you want!  You get a set number of points per day plus a weekly point allowance for treats.   Obviously it makes sense to make the most of your points.  Lots of fruits and vegetables are zero points so load up on them.  Small changes can make a huge difference too – like using egg whites instead of whole eggs.  They show ‘good’ foods with a green triangle to indicate they are filling and good for you.

For example, a breakfast:

Copyright Weight Watchers Canada

Add two slices of Weight Watchers toast if needed, and you are up to 8 Points Plus with eggs and bacon – the same as the croissant, but likely not hungry for much longer.

A favourite weekend breakfast for me is a Monte Cristo Sandwich:

Monte Cristo

Typically, I would have made this with 2 slices bread, 1 egg, splash milk, 3 slices bacon or ham, 1oz cheese, 2 oz turkey, and mustard for a total of 16 points.

On weight watchers, I use 2 slices WW bread (2), liquid egg white with splash milk (1), 3 slices shaved ham (1.5), 3 slices shaved turkey (1.5) and 1oz low fat cheese (1) with mustard (0) = total 7 points.   Some minor changes save 9 points. and it still tastes amazing.  Add an orange or apple at 0 points and you are full until lunch.

This week, I also tried House Foods Tofu Shirataki Noodles, a pasta substitute that has less than 1 point per bag (the same amount of my regular pasta would have about 9 points).  They are a little more rubbery than regular pasta, but still very edible.  Hungry-Girl.com has some tips and recipes that I will try out before making up my mind about them, I suspect that they would be greatly improved by drying them before cooking like she mentions.

While I am mentioning Hungry-Girl, I should mention my new favourite website, SkinnyTaste, a recipe website that is both Weight Watcher Friendly (and points are posted with each recipe) and delicious!

I joined weight watchers in September have have lost 17.5lbs (if it is a resolution of yours to lose weight and you are also thinking about joining, join through Great Canadian Rebates for a $15 rebate by paypal (plus $2 just for signing up) as well as weight watchers waiving the join fee, so under $22 a month.

I am hoping tracking about my experiences on weight watchers will help keep me on track and accountable as I slacked a little over the last few weeks.  I have to recommend skinnytaste here too, her recipes are amazing and you would never guess that they are healthier versions when tasting them.

I just hit 250 referrals on swagbucks today, so a huge achievement!  I am now earning $50ish a month without spending too much time on it, I have given up doing a lot of the time consuming things like offers and surveys.  Unfortunately we are now going back down to less SBTV wins so that will cut some of my earnings so YAY for the people who signed up under me over the last few weeks.

So… back on track for 2012

One of the tasks (for an amazing 3 points each which will get you a $5 Gift Card) is to tell your tale of tech woe and tech love, so here are my stories.

My Tech Woe story is a horrible one, and one that always reminds me when travelling to use a converter – yes, I plugged a US computer in when I was in the UK without changing over the power supply to 240v and fried the computer (sparks, smoke the lot – I am not sure who was more upset, me at frying the computer or my mum at me making the place smell like smoke LOL).  At least it was just a spare I was taking to leave there for her to email me .  I must say it did remind me of my science kit days when I enjoyed blowing stuff up.  That green stain from my first science kit lasted through 3 coats of white paint on my ceiling.

I have so much tech love, it is hard to choose, but my favourite would probably be my Fuji camera, I am hoping to upgrade to a dSLR but the Fuji takes amazing pictures and I used it to take photos of shelter animals and so often someone would come into the shelter and say ‘I saw Mitten’s (or whoever) picture and I must have her’ so it is probably more special than any of the other electronics I have.  That being said, I couldn’t live without all the others either.

Having just moved to a new city, I have had some ‘interesting’ experiences as I find new stores, new cashiers etc including several complaints to Shoppers Drug Mart about the customer service here and finding not one coupon since I moved a month ago – not even an expired one!

• Many coupons that never stated a size limit now do – coincidence that people are posting about buying trial sizes at Walmart to get overage? I doubt it.  Unfortunately, the size limits are often the biggest of that product and not even the ‘regular’ size we usually bought and often on sale.
• Printable coupons now moving to use Websaver.ca – the most obvious being Right@Home by SC Johnson who without a doubt experienced the largest levels of fraudulent coupons when scanned copies of the Ziploc coupon appeared all over the internet.
• Stores being even harder on couponers – I have always had fairly good staff at my local stores, however lately they are very hard on coupon use and seem to take forever reading them and check many with managers to ensure they are accepting correct ones.  understandable given the fact I know people are using fraudulent ones but it makes it so much more difficult on everyone else.

I realise that there are many great couponers out there and many are members of the same sites and networks as me, but I also know many of those people are also experiencing the same feelings as me when it comes to the networks.

It is sad that it is being ruined by a few, but such is life.

After reading several other bzzagent reports of the mashed potato recipe not being amazing, I decided to go with a seasoned roast potato from them.  I picked up a bag of White Purely Potatoes at Food Basics on sale for $1.99 using the coupon supplied by bzzagent, but there was $0.75 coupons on the freezer for them, so at $1.24, they are much more reasonable and I grabbed a second bag too.

Steamed Purely Potatoes

After steaming the potatoes in the bag (I love roasted potatoes that are precooked, they are so fluffy) I was a little worried, the 11 minutes recommended left them very soft and some potatoes had black spots, which mine probably do but I don’t realise since I don’t peel them.  However, once cooked they were barely noticeable so not a huge deal.  Although, I would still probably remove them with a knife if I were peeling myself.

Paprika Roasted Potatoes

Once steamed, I tossed them with some chopped red onion in a little olive oil and sprinkled with salt, pepper, paprika and mixed herbs and a tablespoon of sugar to caramelise over them and baked in the oven at 350F for 15-20 minutes, they were delicious.  While I do not think they save that much time for mashed potatoes, the time and preparation saving for roast potatoes is much greater and they definitely tasted comparable to cooking them from start.  I am definitely happy I picked up that second bag on sale, and will be buying them again for my fave roast potato recipe.