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.

• Simply Food Burgers $6.99
• Simply Food Chicken Strips $5.99 x 2 (they did not have Jane’s)
• Simply Food Mixed Veggies $3.29 x3
• Simply Food Fries $2.49 x 2
• Classico Sauces $1.99 x 10
• Tasters Choice Coffee $4.99 x 4 (minus 4 $2 coupons)
• Baby Powder $4.99 – $1 coupon
• Tetley Tea Bags $4.99
• Gain Detergent $3.99 x 2 – $3
• Hockey Magazine $15 (ouch! but it keeps him quiet)
• Gillette Shave Foam $1 clearance x 2
• Gillette Blades $18.99 (minus $5 wub3)
• Etival Cleanser Kit $30
• Frizz Ease Kit (Shampoo / Conditioner and Treatment) $10.59
• Bath Retreat Foam $8.89
• Bounce w/Febreeze $7.99 (I know but they are free)
• Mrs Fields Cookies $1.99 x 2
• Kraft Dinner 4/$5
• Dempsters Bread 2/$3 – $1 wub2
• Misc make up and bath puff to make up to $200

So for all of that, I redeemed $200, received Esso gift cards and spent under $20 in taxes and still have just under $30 left in points to spend!

It feels great to get the stuff I would be paying for free

I LOVE LOVE LOVE these vitamins, they promise to relieve exhaustion and stress and I have really noticed a difference in my energy level since taking them, even more so after I took a break from taking them during and after a nasty case of food poisoning.  At first I thought it was the residual effects from being so sick but within days of starting to take them again I noticed an increase in energy, something I never noticed with my previous multivitamin.

Their other claims are:

Unlike other multivitamins that just provide vitamins nutrients, Multibionta promises it can:

• Strengthens the immune system
• Optimizes digestive and intestinal health
• Reduces the duration of colds
• Reduces the severity of cold and flu symptoms
• Reduces stress and exhaustion
• and has a special coating to ensure that the probiotics are not damaged before they get where they need to!

and since they lived up the promise of reducing exhaustion, I am pretty sure they are accurate on the other claims although I have not had a cold or flu to tell (and generally don’t get colds so I can’t tell).  I don’t know how much they could have helped my immune system deal with food poisoning , but if they helped I am extremely grateful because I felt like I was dying but since I feel much much better now and have not come down with the bug going around at work, I would say it does have some effect on your immune system.

The friends who were lucky enough to get coupons for a free bottle or $15 off the 60 caplet bottles have all bought more since, so while I do not have reviews to share from them yet, they obviously feel that they work for them since they bought more.  For those who did not get a coupon, you can get a $5 printable one from their website or sign up for their 30 day challenge, and they will email you a coupon for $10 off.  They cost $15.49 or less at stores so $5 is a great deal for vitamins and they have been on sale every 2-3 weeks recently so you can probably use that coupon to get them very cheap to try.  You are also entered to win one of four iPads if you sign up so it is well worth signing up even if you have already tried them.

Also, I noticed my nails have been growing really nicely lately and upon reading reviews by other multibionta reviewers, they have noticed the same thing – definitely a nice side effect!

As I had mentioned earlier, I was sent Dove Ultimate Visibly Smooth through bzzagent.com to review and a second to share with a friend.

My friend and I both found the same experiences using Dove Ultimate Visibly Smooth over the past few weeks.  My friend did not like the wild rose scent at all so chose the nature fresh scent leaving me with the wild rose.  I am not a girly girl so it would not be my first choice but it seems to not work well with body chemistry and smells even stronger when applied.

Neither of us found that it provided all day protection, I would imagine the clinical strength would be much better at this but by late afternoon, you could have pretty much not have used anything that day.  If anything the scent of it just got worse over the day.  As far as the pro epil complex making it appear less hairy, it failed again, neither of us noticed any change there, although it does seem to have some moisturising effects and left the skin softer.   It is also not completely clear so not great to wear with a black shirt, it leaves a white stain and really needs to be scrubbed off both your clothes and skin.

I don’t think either of us will be switching to this, its a pity because usually I find Dove products to live up to their claims.

Ready for some spam? This weekend expect several overdue product reviews and random ramblings as well as the fruits of my Shoppers Drug Mart redemption this weekend