Since my layoff 18 months ago, my grocery shopping motto has been, "If it's cheap, consider it. If it's cheap and nutritious, it goes in the cart."

But breakfast can be a tough one. BOGO cereals tend toward the sugary, and making a plate of eggs every day gets real tedious, real quick.

My breakfast on a dime solution is peanut butter. I buy all-natural peanut butter with no sugar added (Publix sells an inexpensive generic brand that fits my budget). Then, a good wheat bread with extra fiber and protein (my fave is Nature's Own Double Fiber Wheat Bread, which runs $3.09 at my Publix but is now available at my Dollar General store for .... $1. With kids in the house, it's easy to devour a loaf that's closer to expiring than the loaves at the grocery store.

That's a deal for a good start to the day.

It's the new PointsPlus calculator. I got mine for $6 at the Weight Watchers center.

I'm posting this a day early because it's like Christmas morning for the millions of people who follow Weight Watchers. The program has tweaked its Points system and today begins the PointsPlus era.

Over on the other side of the pond, they're now following ProPoints (any way you call it, it's still PP!).

I recently signed up for Weight Watchers Online, something I had never done before. I had been going to meetings for decades (yes, decades). I went to my first Weight Watchers meeting at age 10, back in the boiled tomato juice and liver days.

The new plan kicks in online on Monday but I couldn't wait, so before I went to my first-ever BodyPump class, I hit the Weight Watchers center to buy a PointsPlus calculator and the dining out and food companions.

Those in hand, I busted my hump in the BodyPump class and headed home to check out the WW goodies. I grabbed a Sharpie and started calculating Points for stuff in my pantry. Carby things like oatmeal and cereal are higher than they used to be; other things are pretty much the same. A cup of plain Almond Breeze is still a Point, but my Me & Goji custom hot cereal blend is now 5 Points. Not really bad considering that my daily Points allowance shot up 6 Points and I now have 49 weekly extra Points.

The new plan will be a real kick in the head to people who grab for snacks that are "only 1 Point." A lot of those foods have doubled or tripled in Points. Weight Watchers yogurt is now 2 Points and their Giant Fudge Bars are now (shudder) 3 Points!

The Lean Cuisine I grabbed out of the freezer for lunch is now 2 Points higher than it was yesterday. So I'll be eating fewer of those "crutch" foods.

But y'know what? It's a good thing. It'll make me rethink every Point I choose to eat in the course of a day, especially since fresh fruit and non-starchy vegetables are now zero Points.

And with all the Thanksgiving leftovers gone, I can make a clean start at the grocery store today. First stop: Produce section!

Clean, lean and green (and fewer Lean Cuisine) -- that's my new motto.

And Laughing Cow Light wedges are still 1 Point!

Check out Shrinking Sisters Reviews for my latest post for The Daily Dose of Well-Being sponsored by The Laughing Cow and BlogHer. I'm part of a dozen bloggers who are writing every month on the foibles of living a healthy life. Also, visit The Daily Dose of Well-Being hub to read helpful content each day and for weekly chances to win $100 at the “Play For Laughs” game. If you share a really great tip, they may even use it in The Daily Dose.

Did not lose an ounce this week, even with the 200 minutes of exercise and logging my food. I blame those hormones. Those special girl hormones.

But am I giving up? Hellz no!

My scale has really been getting on my nerves, hence no photo today. The number has been blipping worse than a Biggest Loser weigh-in. Boop, boop, boop, boop, bleep! Oh, c'mon, how can I gain 2 pounds after going to the bathroom? So the scale and I are not speaking to each other this week.

What's the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? That's what it's been feeling like the past month.

So I'm trying something different. I found a closeout copy of the book The Big Breakfast Diet by Dr. Daniela Jakubowicz. Her theory is to load up with a big buffet of a breakfast, then taper down to a little dinner and eventually your body's rhythms will normalize and you won't roam the kitchen at night standing in front of the fridge eating chocolate sauce with a spoon.

I've been trying that theory the past couple days and today I felt it kick in. I haven't had the giant-sized waffle-and-egg filled feast that she suggests but I've been eating more and adding something sweet. By eating sweets in the morning, you're supposed to trick your "fat brain" and break your addiction to carbs for comfort. Today, for example, I had two A+ Cinnamon Whole Grain Sweet Potato pancakes (those things are awesome!), a strawberry cereal bar, coffee and some marinated gigante beans.

Weird combination, I know, but I was stuffed until 3 p.m. when I got back from the gym and had the suggested lunch of a big salad with grilled chicken.

By front-loading your calories and carbs early in the day, you'll be better able to curb your evening munchies. That's the theory, at least. And since she's an endocrinologist I figure she has science on her side.

And what about Thanksgiving? Why should any family meal centered around a big, lean hunk of protein be considered a problem?

Oh yeah, the side dishes. Also not a problem. The green beans will be unadorned, the stuffing will be healthy and the cranberry relish will be one from my lean and clean collection. I've been clipping Thanksgiving recipes from Cooking Light, Weight Watchers and other magazines for decades so I have a huge stash of really tasty low-fat and low-calorie side dishes. Not to mention by the time dinner rolls around I'm so sick of looking at food that I barely eat.

What I'm looking forward to most is the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Seriously, I'm a sucker for a good parade.

Check out Shrinking Sisters Reviews for my latest post for The Daily Dose of Well-Being sponsored by The Laughing Cow and BlogHer. I'm part of a dozen bloggers who are writing every month on the foibles of living a healthy life. Also, visit The Daily Dose of Well-Being hub to read helpful content each day and for weekly chances to win $100 at the “Play For Laughs” game. If you share a really great tip, they may even use it in The Daily Dose.

NBC photo

I've been a bit busy the past week, working on some extra stuff and trying to keep on top of the housework so I skipped a couple days of exercise.

But I'm not freaking out about it because so far this week I've logged 150 minutes of exercise and there's still the weekend.

I signed up for a 9 a.m. Sunday Bodypump class so that'll be sure to incinerate a ton of calories plus build muscle.

Like I've mentioned before, I tend to make things more difficult than they need to be. I overthink things, read too many scientific studies, get too many diet books, too many DVDs. All I need to do is DO IT!

That was reinforced this week with a post on Roni's Weigh. Roni posted a link to a radio interview with weight-loss blogger Sean Anderson who has lost 275 pounds. The radio interview is really worth a listen. Aside from the fact that Sean works in radio and has a great communicating style, he talks about how he finally found success after he decided to simplify the process.

He also had a tendency to make things more difficult than they needed to be so he devised a Calorie Bank & Trust. He gives himself 1,500 calories a day and can choose to use those calories however he wants -- nothing's off limits. He also keeps his exercise simple -- he started out walking and now completes 5ks and 10ks.

My simple plan today was to lace up my sneaks and simply take a walk around the neighborhood for an hour. No heart-rate monitor, no pedometer -- just me, my iPod and my shades.

On the way back, my "victory lap" song was Past My Shades by B.o.B. I did some running during my walk, so I was feeling particularly bad-ass. So here's your Funky Friday jam with the proviso to keep it simple (and keep it funky):

Said my son: "Why are the marshmallows there?" Me: "Exactly."

So I said I was going to make one change this week -- no eating after dinner -- and I pretty much stuck to that. If I did venture into the kitchen I had a piece of fruit.

And I made a plan for exercise: Monday, Wednesday and Friday is cardio; Tuesday and Thursday is resistance. I stuck to it and got in 275 minutes of exercise last week.

And the result?

I lost 1.8 pounds! (That's huge for me.)

I'm continuing that one change of not eating at night and continuing the workout plan because both of those are definitely working for me. I'm also adding on one other change: Eat loads of vegetables. I have no problem eating plenty of fruit but sometimes I can get a little skimpy on the veggies. Here was Saturday night's dinner:

A beef stir-fry with approximately eleventy-billion servings of vegetables per serving. The beef had more of a "guest-star" role than the vegetables.

Another little reminder: I'm holding my left wrist hostage until I get to 230 pounds, which will be 5 pounds below pre-baby weight. Awhile back I got one of the Just 10 bracelets promoted on The Dr. Oz Show. I lost 10 pounds over the summer and need to work on the next 10. So it's staying on -- through exercise, sleep, showers, everything -- until I get there.

And instead of me doing a video, here's one from over the weekend -- a spoof of Paula Deen's booder and awl-lovin' cookin' on SNL:

And more fun!

Check out Shrinking Sisters Reviews for my latest post for The Daily Dose of Well-Being sponsored by The Laughing Cow and BlogHer. I'm part of a dozen bloggers who are writing every month on the foibles of living a healthy life. Also, visit The Daily Dose of Well-Being hub to read helpful content each day and for weekly chances to win $100 at the “Play For Laughs” game. If you share a really great tip, they may even use it in The Daily Dose.

Our old logo (and yeah, I repurposed my tag line).

Back in 2006, I thought it'd be a good idea to start a weight-loss blog at the newspaper where I worked as a features copy editor. I enlisted the aid of my pod-mate Laura and we got to work writing sample posts, mission statements, titles and taglines and designing logos.

For some reason I'll never understand, we ran into resistance from a senior editor who said we were making light of a serious subject -- weight loss. She wanted more gravitas in our blog posts.

To which I thumbed my nose and made raspberry noises.

She stalled and stalled, we pushed and pushed, and finally, in September 2007, we were able to give birth to our blog, which we called The Skinny. Here's a little of wnat we originally wrote:

From Laura: "...Let’s share our experiences and adapt what we learn here to our ongoing efforts to get fit and eat right. Failures too, because they count as lessons learned ... and sometimes they are inadvertantly hilarious."

From me: "I can make sure my dog eats exactly 2 cups of puppy food a day. I can tell my son to eat apple slices instead of doughnuts. Both my puppy and my son are exactly the weight they should be. So what about me? Why do I weigh as much as a Miami Dolphins linebacker? When you hit your 40s, losing weight can be one of the hardest things you'll ever do, but as my doctor said to me recently "it can be done." And why not do it in front of everyone?"

The blog became an immediate hit, and with less than a year's worth of content we won second place in the 2008 Florida Society of Newspaper Editors Awards for Best Blog/Online Commentary.

Then in July 2008 I got laid off and Laura took a buyout a few months after that, and The Skinny stood frozen in cyberspace. The Sun Sentinel kept it floating in the ether because even without us writing it was one of the most popular blogs at the paper.

After an attempt to restart The Skinny with a writer who frankly turned it into a fail blog, it is now back with three very good writers, who I hope will carry the torch that Laura and I first ignited.

You should check them out.

Matt and Suzy Hoover, season 2 contestants on The Biggest Loser, asked a great question on their Facebook page yesterday:

"What is one change you can make today to get you to your goal?"

Here's what I replied: "I love that it sounds as simple as making one change. OK, here's mine: My one change will be no eating after dinner. That's it -- that one change is going to make a huge difference this week."

I have been flipping PISSED at my results on the scale for the past month. Either I'm staying the same or gaining a pound. My exercise has been good but I've been OUTTA CONTROL at night. Last night, for example, I ate four corn tortillas and a bunch of salsa while watching TV.

Four? Why not one and call it a night?

Because I dragged the bag and the jar of salsa out of the fridge and into the living room where I tore and dipped, tore and dipped, tore and dipped until the tortillas were gone.

I'm a completeist that way.  Everything's a single-serve container to me.

So I'm going to make that one change: Nothing after dinner. Sounds harsh -- why not a piece of fruit or a frozen yogurt bar or something?

Because I need to get out of the habit of heading to the kitchen after dinner. I need to SHUT. IT. DOWN.

And the notion of "one simple change" sounds completely do-able.

Because I know that one thing will make a big difference on the scale.

I started last night and we'll see what happens on the scale Monday morning.

Check out Shrinking Sisters Reviews for my latest post for The Daily Dose of Well-Being sponsored by The Laughing Cow and BlogHer. I'm part of a dozen bloggers who are writing every month on the foibles of living a healthy life. Also, visit The Daily Dose of Well-Being hub to read helpful content each day and for weekly chances to win $100 at the “Play For Laughs” game. If you share a really great tip, they may even use it in The Daily Dose.