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Just a reminder, if you are interested in doing the best life diet along with biggest loser 5, the thread is here http://bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/t32501

Quote: Originally Posted by Janet I TiVoed it -- hopefully will find time to watch soon. The good news is I've been to the gym 7 days in a row! wow, so you started before the new year. I was really working hard during BL4. It ended before thanksgiving & I started slacking off then. I wasn't terrible, but not as dedicated as I had been. I was so busy trying to get christmas presents finished that i spent too many nights sitting at the computer. Then when I go home for the holidays I'm never very active & don't eat as good as I do when I'm here. I was able to avoid totally falling off the wagon, but I'm ready to get back to what I was doing before thanksgiving. I really like the feeling of a new year and all the motivation it brings.

Phase 3: Happily Ever After Welcome to the rest of your life! You don't have to incorporate all the recommendations of this phase at once, but do the best you can. Consider the way you eat and exercise as a work in progress. Maintain the changes you achieved in Phases 1 and 2, but add some "anything goes" calories—the chance to have foods you still hanker for. Everything you eliminated in Phase 2 is now allowable. Put "anything goes" calories toward "luxury foods" that are indulgent but still have something to offer, such as dark chocolate, full-fat cheese and yogurt, pizza with whole grain crust, or a glass of wine. The number of calories you get per day depends on your activity level: Level 0: none Level 1: 100 Level 2: 150 Level 3: 210 Level 4: 280 Level 5: 300 Try to eat vegetables more than any other food group. Go easy on potatoes, corn and peas because they're as starchy (and about as caloric) as grains. Try to get beans into your diet a couple times a week—they are superfoods in terms of nutrition. At least two servings of fruit are recommended a day. Also, continue to replace refined grains with whole ones. Ideally, 75 percent of the grains in your diet will be whole. As for sweets, eat fruit anytime. Otherwise, look at the packaging: All desserts and snacks containing more than 8 grams of sugar (2 teaspoons) per serving count as "anything goes" calories. Getting to indulge in a few more of these extra calories may be one incentive to increase your activity level, which you should do again when you enter this phase. Exercise will help you maintain the weight loss you've achieved and allow you to eat more food without regaining. It will also help slow down the aging process. Weigh yourself no more than once a week and no less than once a

Phase 2: The Switch The pounds will really drop off in this phase, which should last a minimum of four weeks. Now is the time to eliminate a few foods from your diet and replace them with less fattening foods that will curb your appetite. Find out the six foods to cut today. In this phase, weigh yourself once a week. If the number goes up, don't be hard on yourself. Just look over the changes you've made and see where you may need to fine-tune your efforts. Also, think about increasing your level on the activity scale. This is optional, but exercise can provide some of the comfort you might otherwise find from eating, thanks to endorphins. Reevaluate at the end of four weeks. If you've met your goal weight, move on. If you're 20 pounds or less from your goal and still losing, you have two options: Stay in Phase 2 until you reach your goal; or go to Phase 3, where you'll continue to lose at a slower rate. If you have more than 20 pounds to lose and are consistently dropping, stay in Phase 2. If you've stopped losing and still have 20 or more pounds to go, don't be discouraged. Make sure you're following the first two phases and haven't let extra calories slip back in your diet. Keeping a food diary can help you get a good picture of what's really going on. If you've been true to the program, try cutting your calories or increasing your exercise another notch. You may have hit a plateau, and this will help jump-start your progress.

and more info from oprah.com. these are the best life diet phases, incase you want to participate, but don't have the book Best Life Diet: The Phases Phase 1: The Rev-Up In the first four weeks, focus on moving more and changing your eating patterns. To start, step on the scale to get your starting weight. Then, put it away! The first step is to get moving! Activity burns calories and revs up your metabolism beyond its normal capacity, allowing you to eat more food while losing weight. The hardest part is getting started. Determine where you are on the activity scale. If you are already exercising regularly, move up one level. If you're at level zero, go up two levels and start formal workouts right away after checking with your physician. Your body will adapt, and it will be easier to increase how much you move. Also, start eating three meals and one snack daily. Plan to get 25 to 30 percent of your total calories from each meal, with the rest from your snack. And don't forget breakfast! It gives your metabolism a jolt and will keep you satisfied until lunch. If you wake up without an appetite, give it an hour to develop. If you're still not hungry, eat anyway. There are a few other rules at this stage: Eliminate alcohol (you can add it back in later). Have a glass of water at every meal. Take a multivitamin, an omega-3 supplement and a calcium supplement if you're not getting enough from your diet. Stop eating at least two hours before you go to bed. Weigh yourself after four weeks. If you dropped a pound or more per week, consider staying in this phase two or three more weeks. If you didn't lose much weight, you're right where you should be. Your body is now prepared for the aggressive weight loss that's coming in the next stage of the program.

The "homework" from this episode was to answer 5 questions. you don't need to post them here, but can if you want 1. What are you really hungry for? 2. Why are you overweight? 3. Why have you been unable to maintain weight loss in the past? 4. What in your life is not working? 5. Why do you want to lose weight?

Quote: Originally Posted by Morgan there is a recipe section in the book. I made several this weekend & they were great. There is also a recipe book coming out on the 30th Amazon.com: The Best Life Diet Cookbook: More than 175 Delicious, Convenient, Family-Friendly Recipes: Bob Greene: Books I will definitly get a copy I bought the cookbook last weekend. I haven't had time to try any recipes, but it looks really good. Bob Greene was on Oprah today. I thought he was going to be on every day this week, but there are other people each day. There will be a free Best LIfe Diet webcast next monday. You have to sign up for it Monday Jan 12th 9pm eastern Oprah's Best Life Series I'm about to sign up!

Quote: Originally Posted by Ayita OK got it thanks ! I guess the prices are not the same than when you ordered them prices on vistaprint are always higher than what i pay. google vistaprint coupon or use a link like vistaprint.com/minicatalog you always have to get a special with vistaprint.

Quote: Originally Posted by Ayita Morgan, what is the product to select in vistaprint in order to get the tri-fold brochure ? I could not find it... thanks !! Ayita i think it's under promotional -> brochures

glad you found out before too. It would be so sad to have a bunch of dead butterflies at your wedding.

i haven't had the chance to try. i'm home for the holidays now. maybe I'll borrow my MIL's curlers & try today. we are just being lazy around the house today.

we went to a public cenote but had no problem. there were not a lot of other people there. we went at 1:00-4:00 on a friday. the time was fine. we couldn't be picky because it was a tour we planned for our guests. something like 5:00 would be better light.

Quote: Originally Posted by mandalaybay3071 Here it is - instead of him I'm putting "them" Dear Lord please clear a spot for him: he should have the perfect view. His little girl's a Bride today, and I am counting on you. Let me feel his presence; as I journey down the isle. But let me notice his abscence; if only for a while. Let me stop to think of him; As I am given away. And know that if he could; he would be here with me today. Dear Lord please clear a spot for him; he should have the perfect view. And if he should get sad today; Dear Lord I count on you. a quick spell check- change this to aisle

the butterflies are often immediately eaten by birds. not a pretty site. it's also damaging to the ecosystem. from what i've read a dove release is fine, because they return to their owner. But, if you care about animals and the environment a butterfly release is not for you.

Quote: Originally Posted by kate.com Awesome job Morgan! I wanted to scan some pictures too... what kind of scanner did you use? I think I need to buy one! my scanner is not fancy. its a printer scanner combo we bought 4 years ago. hp1315xi the quality isn't awesome. I should have tried to change settings to get a better resolution. i didn't plan on doing this & I had such a short amount of time so I just go started. The plan was to mail them off to a company to have them scanned. Then I found out the company outsources to india & it would take to long to get them back by christmas. I also got worried about sending these priceless pictures so far. so instead i sent less priceless pictures- my snapshots from college. if they quality is good, i might have these rescanned professionally. I won't be so worried now because they are backed up. I copied a cd of these images for me, my brother & my mom. They are also uploaded to snapfish. that way they will not be lost or destoyed. I always think it's so sad when people lose all their pictures in a fire so I try to keep my favorite pictures backed up in several ways. you can't just have one copy of them in the same location as the computer. and definitly never just leave them on your harddrive. harddrives fail.

my tip is to decide what you really care about and spend money on those things. Then go really cheap on everything else, or just don't do it at all. Our wedding budget was $5000. we went over at the end, but just because we had been given cash gifts by that point so I adding things on like a videographer. For me, being cheap made me creative. I'd see something I wanted, but it was more than i wanted to spend. so i'd think of a way to make it myself & in the end i liked my DIY version better and it was personal. Also, I felt like the most important parts of a wedding are free. We personalized our ceremony script so it really suited us. We put together music that also reflected who we are. I've seen people spend so much time & money on centerpieces and run out of time when it comes to the ceremony. Take the time to make it personal. one of my favorite moments of our wedding was sitting on the ceremony spot 2 days prior & writting our vows. it was a wonderful moment. after we wrote them we read them to each other and i cried. We could have spent a bunch of money taking a romantic boat ride to a private dinner (the lomas guy kept trying to sell this to us) but i don't think it would have beat just sitting on the sand together reading vows. just like with life, the best things are often free. my other tip is, don't plan the wedding feeling guilt that you have to spend money because your guests will expect it. if you really do care about your guests having a great trip, it will show. We didn't spend a lot of money on each guest, but i did a lot of things to show them I appreciated them coming. before the ceremony, we had each couple's song playing over the system. I put together travel guides & things to do brochures. anything I could do to help them have an amazing vacation. almost everyone said it was their favorite vacation ever.

Quote: Originally Posted by lauren morgan they are adorable and hilarious at the same time! i love the shorts in the one where you're practicing your smiles your mom will love it - it's a great gift! thanks The shorts were part of that matching outfit. we wore those outfits all the time. Chase the Arrow was a race horse that my uncle worked with. My grandma had those outfits made for us to wear to a race.

I mentioned before that I was taking on the task of scanning my mom's favorite pictures. Well, I'm done & the prints are made. I can not wait to give it to her in a few days!!! I ordered a set of black & white and a set of colored prints from all 250 scans. The black & whites will be put in collage frames to hang on the wall. I made an album for the colored prints. Scanning wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I got most of them done while waiting to pick a friend up at the airport. Her flight was deleyed 3 hours so I just scanned until she called. anyway, here is the album & some favorite pictures Morgan Henderson Photography Blog: Why I love pictures...

I just ordered a CD stomper & a set of labels. Do I need a certain kind of cd to use with the labels? Like the kind that are just silver on both sides?

There is in cabo, but it's only jan-march. I'm planning a trip to cabo & hoping we can make it during whale season. Sorry, I don't know about PV, but I just wanted to let you know it's seasonal.

don't forget to pick up the book if you want to get started jan 7th!!!

Your blog is so much fun!

i just ordered a BM dress from chrissy O's. The beat Lee Philip by 6% & their shipping was less. Both Chrissy O's & Lee Philip had excellent customer service.

Quote: Originally Posted by Cattie Ok So what do you girls think about these 2. The reviews seem to be pretty good. Amazon.com: Canon PowerShot SD790IS 10MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom: Camera & Photo Amazon.com: Canon PowerShot SD1100IS 8MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Blue): Camera & Photo Thanks for all the advice! I really want something that I can take some really nice pics on our wedding cruise. Along with holidays and such. i don't think you can go wrong with either. canon really has a great line of small point & shoot cameras.

Quote: Originally Posted by Bianca I love Canons!!! We have like 5 different ones in our family! If you go to a store you will be spending more than $200 on one. They pop up frequently online for under $200. If you are not in a rush, I would keep an eye out on WWW.SLICKDEALS.COM and see what comes up. Here is one from yesterday. It's sold out... but just to give you an idea of whats out there. Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS 8MP 3x Zoom Digital Camera $103 W/ Paypal + Epson Stylus R280 Inkjet Printer Free After $100MIR - SlickDeals.net Forums As far as us... We have the S400(old school), SD400, SD450, SD600, SD850is and RebelxT. We love them all. i love slickdeals. i bought my canon sd600 from a slickdeal a few years ago. the night time blur is due to having too slow of a shutter speed. learning more about how a camera functions can help you with this issue. try increasing your ISO (sensitivity to light). my canon sd600 has an option to pick "high ISO." turn it back down in the daytime. also, if the subject is over 10 feet away, turn off you flash. it won't help & it actually makes it harder to shoot at night. The other thing to with a low shutter speed is to keep the camera really steady. you can use a tripod or place it on something. but, if the subject is moving, you will still get blur. you have limits with every camera, especially with low light. also, while shopping don't worry about megapixels. you don't need so many. it's just a marketing tool to keep increasing them with each model. I was recently helping my brother shop for a point & shoot. I scanned through all of the current canon point & shoots & they all looked good. He went with the canon A590. it was a little over $100 from newegg.com. It's not as small as the SD line, but will take pictures just the same. Also, you can control your settings more (aperture & shutter speed). Usually you just see these options in more expensive cameras. You do have to learn a little about photography to take advantage of these features, but just learning the basics though will go along way. also, switch your camera settings. there is one for nighttime portrait, action, etc. I never took my point & shoot out of auto before I started learning how to work my SLR camera. often people buy the most expensive point & shoot they can to try to get better pictures. There isn't a big difference between the $100 p&s and the $400 one. learning how to take the picture will have a much bigger impact.