November 2016 Newsletter

Good Morning
Today is November 15th, a beautiful day here in Casa Grande.  The weather is really nice, it's the mid 80's.  Let's get walking, hiking and some outdoor activities.

I'd like to start out with October's Awards:

Biggest Losers of the month

Judy Miller with a 10.4 lb loss
Mary Kramme with a loss of 3.2 lbs.
Great job ladies!  Keep up the good work.

YoYo Award goes to......

Ina Johnson
Let's do better next month Ina.

9 year Anniversary

Becky Frey

2 year Anniversary

Kay Faulstick

On to New Business

We have received a letter from our landlord's that December 31st is the end of our renting our room at the church.  So we are looking for a new place to hold our meetings.  We have a couple of places that we are looking at but would like to have any other suggestions to consider.  If you have any ideas, please contact myself or Val.  Thanks for your help.

Fall Rally 2016
Hit a Home Run with TOPS

November 5th, 14 of us went to the Fall Rally in Phoenix.  It was a really nice rally.  This was the 3rd rally that I attended and I think this was the nicest. 

Mary Kramme with a 19.2 lb loss (3rd Place) and Frankie Marquart with an 18 lb loss were awarded with Certificates for their weight loss during the Summer Challenge. Congratulations Ladies!

We had 4 ladies who "Achieved My Goal" and are now in KOPS.  They will have their induction ceremony at the 2017 ARD.  

Kathy Domke

Mary Kramme

Frankie Marquart

Valerie Hardison

Congratulations Ladies! They received Certificates and Pins.

Kay Faulstick who also is a KOPS received an award for 12 weigh-ins, staying in leeway and staying in the black during the summer.  Great job Kay!

Below are KOPS goals.  This was taken from the TOPS 2016 Rules

A KOPS® goal must be maintained within the following leeway: three pounds above goal weight through seven pounds below goal weight. Example: A member with goal weight of 135 pounds may not exceed 138 pounds or go lower than 128 pounds. a. If this leeway is exceeded, a two-week grace period is granted. A KOPS® must be back in leeway during this two week grace period. Absences, excused or otherwise, do not change the grace period of two weeks. Failure to record an in leeway weight at the chapter by the second week will result in loss of KOPS® status.

Onto other awards.
Each year Fall Rally has each TOPS chapter pick a "Chapter Angel".  This year the Chapter Angel was recognized as MVP to go with the motto...Hit a Home Run with TOPS.
Our MVP we chose as a chapter was Frankie Marquart.
Frankie has high energy, a great motivator.  She helps with our clubs contests and other functions that we have going at the time.  Frankie is a great asset to our club.  Congratulations Frankie.  Thanks for the hard work.

2016 Christmas Party

This years Christmas party will be held on December 13th.  Judy Miller (that's me. lol) is in charge of the party.  

Ina Johnson is coordinating the food.  Ina will have a sign up sheet for those that are bringing food.  

Debbie Zawada is helping me with games.

Now I just need some volunteers for the decorations.

September 2016 News

Good Morning
Today is October 17th, a beautiful day here in Casa Grande.  The weather is nice now to get out to do some walking or go and do some outdoor activities.

I'd like to start out with September's Awards:

Biggest Losers  

Phyllis Tipton with a loss of 5.4 lbs
Mary Anne Melby with a loss of 4.4 lbs.
Great job ladies!  Keep up the good work.

6 Weeks In A Row Loss

Mary Kramme

Frankie Marquart

Congratulations Ladies!  Great Job!

YoYo Award

Becky Frey and Judy Miller

2 year Anniversary

Marian Lewis

1 year Anniversary

Kathy Domke

Key to weight loss success

Judy Miller presented Frankie Marquart a "Key" to weight loss success.

Judy was presented with her key from Kay Faulstick when Kay became a KOPS member, so in turn Judy passed on the "Key" symbol to Frankie.  Good Luck Frankie.  

Frankie later in the month made KOPS.  That's the Key To Weight Loss Success. 

KOPS

We had 4 ladies who "Achieved My Goal" and are now in KOPS.  They will have their induction ceremony at the 2017 ARD.  

Kathy Domke

Mary Kramme

Frankie Marquart

Valerie Hardison

Congratulations Ladies!  

Joyce Hilton

Joyce passed away on September 28th.  Joyce was a beautiful and caring lady.  She always had a smile on her face.  She was a strong lady fighting cancer for 6 long years.  She will be missed by all of us.  Our thoughts and prayers go out to her family.  You can read her obituary here.

Fall Rally

TOPS Fall Rally is November 5th in Phoenix, AZ.  at the Embassy Suites by Hilton. 4415 E. Paradise Village Pkwy South.  from 9:30 am to 3:00 pm.  The theme is "Hit A Home Run with TOPS".  We're going to create a name tag with this theme in mind and entering it into the "Name Tag Contest" at the rally.  There are about 11 of us registered to go to Fall Rally.  I'll post our name tag here when we vote on it.

Chapter MVP (Chapter Angel) will be presented at the Fall Rally.  Entries are due by October 21st.  Also, the Rally to Rally challenge is due by October 21st.

2016 Christmas Party

This years Christmas party will be held on December 13th.  Judy Miller (that's me. lol) is in charge of the party.  

Ina Johnson is coordinating the food.  Ina will have a sign up sheet for those that are bringing food.  We would like to have healthy food please (healthy recipes), (per Val) hmmmm.?

Debbie Zawada is the game coordinator.

Now I just need some volunteers for the decorations.

TOPS Recipe of the Month:

Southwestern Sweet Potato Rounds

It's September Already

Hello Everyone
Gosh!  I can't believe it!  It's September already, that means Tuesday is the first meeting of the month and that means awards.  I know everyone did good this past month and we'll see who's outstanding.

A brief overview of the past few meetings.

August 16th

Biggest loser was Lana Tahtinen with a loss of 4.6 lbs.  Great Job Lana!
The Runner Up was Ladonna Sampson with a loss of 4.4 lbs.  Great Job Ladonna!
The week before Ladonna asked how to get rid of water retention.  Suggestions were eating asparagus and also drinking parsley tea.  You can find other home remedies here.  So Ladonna ate asparagus twice a week and she said that has helped her.

The program was on eating an apple a day.  Could an apple a day keep the extra pounds away?  According to a recent study in Food Chemistry, yes, because apples contain non-digestible compounds that promote the growth of good bacteria in your gut associated with weight loss.  You can read more here...

Also talked about "What is Sugar Alcohol".
Sugar alcohols are used in the food industry to thicken or sweeten foods without adding calories.  It has many names and contains no alcohol, so exactly what is "Sugar Alcohol?".  You can read about it here...

August 23rd

We have a new member Debby Zawada today.  Welcome Debby!

Biggest Loser this week was Ladonna Sampson with a loss of 3.2 lbs.

The runner up was Frankie, Rachel & Judy each with a loss of 2 lbs.

Great Job Girls!

The contest winners were Team #1 Skinny Girls.  Congratulations!

This meeting we went around the room and everyone shared their short term goals and how they are doing up to now.

This Week's Recipe:  Cheeseburger Pie

TOPS Recipe of the Month: Flavorful Portobello Mushrooms

Trivia Question:  

Which of these three nutrients has the most calories per gram:  protein, carbohydrate or fat?

Answer:  Fat.  Fat has 9 calories per gram, while both protein and carbohydrates have 4 calories per gram.

Thank you for visiting.  See you "Lighter".

Tuesday, August 9th Meeting

Good Morning Everyone,
We had a great meeting Tuesday morning.
Val is on vacation until the end of August and I am leading our meetings.  Boy was I nervous, but it went well and we had a lot of fun.
Our Survivor Contest continues and Team #2 (Kathy, Dee, Becky, LaDonna, Patti and Susan) was the losing team this week.  They had to sing a song,  it was much better than last week.  hahaha.  We all are doing great.  So keep up the good ladies and let's see who has to sing a song next week.


Our Biggest loser this week was Mary Kramme with a 1.8 lb. loss and the runners up were Rachel and Dee with a 1.0 lb loss.  Great work ladies.  
Rachel's name was picked from the "Sorry Box".  Stay on track Rachel so we can see your prize.
Our "No No" food for this week is white bread.  So remember ladies no white bread eaten this week or you'll have to pay for each day you do eat it.

Good / Bad Carbs

The program I presented this week was on Good / Bad Carbs and The Right Way to Eat Fruits.  I am following a low carb diet, which has really worked for me, and a few other ladies in our club are doing the same with great success.  I have been asked "What are Good Carbs and Bad Carbs?"  So this is what I found.
Basically, Good Carbs are carbohydrates that are full of fiber.  These carbs get absorbed slowly into our systems, avoiding spikes in blood sugar levels.  Examples:  Whole Grains, Vegetables, Fruits and Beans, Natural Foods.  And Bad Carbs are carbohydrates that are refined and processed.  These foods are stripped from their beneficial fiber.  Examples:  White Bread and White Rice, Processed Foods (Boxed foods).  Avoid excess "Added Sugars".

Use the Nutrition Label to Track your Carbohydrates.  "Total Carbohydrate: on the label is the total amount of carbohydrate in the food, per serving.
"Sugars" tells you the total amount of carbohydrate from sugar in the food, from all sources --natural sources like lactose and fructose as well as added sugars like high-fructose corn syrup.  It's important to distinguish between natural sugars and added sugars.  So check your product labels.  Ingredients are listed in order of quantity, so the bulk of most food is made up of the first 3 or 4 ingredients.
You can read more on carbohydrates here:
Good Carbs Bad Carbs
Good vs. Bad Carbohydrates

Now onto Eating Fruit:  The Major Rule for Eating Fruit

There's no doubt that eating fruit is important to our overall health and wellbeing. Fruit is healthy for you, we all know that, but, it's good to know that eating it should follow some general guidelines to fully benefit our health. 

Fruit should be eaten alone or with other fruit on an empty stomach.

This is because when fruit is eaten, the digestive process works very quickly and our body uses different enzymes to digest the fruit. The simple sugars contained in fruit need time to be completely absorbed by your body. When fruits are eaten alone, your stomach can more easily process all of the nutrients, fibre and the simple sugars contained in the fruit. This is the optimal 'proper way' to benefit from the fruit you eat. The best time to eat a bounty of fruit is either first thing in the morning on an empty stomach, or as a mid-morning snack - in between breakfast and lunch.

You can read more on this topic at The Major Rule for Eating Fruit.

This Week's Recipe:

Chicken Lettuce Wraps

TOPS Recipe of the Month:Brocolli Slaw

Trivia Question:

Which of these three nutrients has the most calories per gram:  protein, carbohydrate or fat?

Answer will be in next weeks post.

Thank you for visiting.  See you "Lighter".

Catch Up

Good Morning everyone!
This post is going to be a little catch up of what has been happening in our club for the month of July.  So, this will be sort of a long post.  I'll be posting and updating more regularly now that I have most of the layout of our blog put together.  There are still a few more things to get on here but most is done.  Also please input your email address on the upper right corner so you will get an email of when new posts are entered.

Now onto what's been going on the past month.
The last week of June we started our Survivor contest and it was really fun.
The ladies were broken up into 3 teams,  Green Vegie Girls, Boozy Blues Sisters, and Pink Ladies.  We had leis we had to wear each meeting and we had a list of things we had to do for the week to get points.
2 pts.     Lose or stay in leeway
1 pt.      Turtle 
1 pt.      Wear your lei
2 pts.    Journal
1 pt.      Exercise
1 pt.      Drink 64 ozs. of water everyday
2 pts.    Stay for the meeting
1 pt.     Weigh in only ( if you don't stay for the meeting)
 So you can can get a total of 9 points for the week if you did everything.

1st week:  Pink ladies won.
2nd Place: Green Vegie Girls
3rd Place: Boozy Blues Sisters
Green Vegie Girls did a cheer and the Boozy Blues Sisters had to wear mustache's for the whole meeting.  Oh what fun! 

Green Vegie Girls

Patty
Val
Donna
Judy
Marianna
Carol

Boozy Blues Ladies - 3rd Place  

Ladonna
Francene
Paula
Dee
Frankie




2nd Week:  Green Vegie Girls Won
2nd Place: Pink Ladies  -   Carry a flag wand and sing a patriotic song
3rd Place:  Boozy Blues Sisters - Wear a silly hat the whole meeting

Pink Ladies

Mary
Kathy
Nancy
Susan
Lana
Phyllis

Frankie, Maryanne, Francene, Billie, Ladonna

3rd Week:  Pink Ladies Won

2nd Place:  Green Vegie Girls - Blow a kiss to another member (not your team)

3rd Place:  Boozy Blues Sisters - Did a cheer

4th Week:  Boozy Blues Sisters Won!!!!  Yeah! for them!  LOL.

2nd Place:  Pink Ladies - Wore a silly hat for the whole meeting

3rd Place:  Green Vegie Girls - had to sing a TOPS song.  Oh boy,  that's all I can say.  LOL

The 5th week was the final week and our Overall Winner was the Pink Ladies.  Congratulations ladies.  They all received some really nice wind chimes for their hard work.

The losing team was the Boozy Blues Sisters and they had to come up with another contest to start.  So this week - week of August 1st, we are doing another Survivor contest but with different twists.  I'll let you know what they are.

On to other things.  Lana Tahtinen brought in a wonderful low carb and low calorie blueberry dessert. It was delicious!  I have the recipe in our Recipe pages that I've started.  I'll be putting in recipes from TOPS and from other members.

Tuesday, August 1st is our Awards day.  Club members don't forget to bring your fruit for the Biggest Loser Fruit Bowl.  And remember to wear your sashes.

TOPS recipe of the month is Broccoli Slaw.  You can get the recipe here.

Don't forget to put your email in the upper right corner so you will get blog updates.

Thanks

From Our Leader

From our Leader - Valerie Hardison

As my last year as leader approaches, I just want to say how happy I am to have been a part of this wonderful group.  Everyone in this club has been super supportive of each other and that's something every leader hopes for.  I am also very proud of all the things we have accomplished;
Two new KOPS, four (or more) within 10 pounds of their goal, all of our consecutive losses and our recent Big losses.  I am always proud of our representation at Fall Rally and SRD.  It shows what a great club we have.  
So in conclusion, I would just like to say keep up the good work and remember the theme of next years SRD, "Get Lean in 17".

Val

Here is the division winners for 2015 (total lbs lost):

Div 2    Judy Miller         36.2

Div 3    Becky Frey          20.6

Div 4    Kay Faulstick       30.6

Congratulations ladies.  Great job!

Welcome

Welcome.  We are TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly) Chapter #0069 in Casa Grande, AZ.  
Located at :
Christian Church of Casa Grande
1510 N Casa Grande Ave, Room 3
Casa Grande, AZ 85122-2630
Weigh in Time:  9:00 - 10:00 AM
Meeting Time:  10:00 - 11:00 AM
Email:  tops0069@gmail.com

TOPS is an international, nonprofit, noncommercial network of weight loss support groups and wellness education organization.  TOPS offers tools and programs for healthy living and weight management with exceptional group fellowship and recognition.

What you'll be seeing on our blog

• What's going on in our chapter
• Contests
• Biggest Losers
• Recipes
• Inspiration
• Tips
• And much more.

So come back weekly to see what's going on in our Casa Grande, AZ chapter of TOPS!

Thanks for visiting.