Members learn how to curb cravings

This Monday, Salllisaw TOPS had nine ladies weigh. Annette had the best weight loss for the week with 2.6 pounds. The Two Bit Bowl name drawn was Willene. This week’s challenge will be the 10-10-10 Challenge, which is to concentrate on moving in exercise or work for 10 minutes before 10 a.m. for 10 days. More often than not, you’ll end up continuing your walk or workout longer than 10 minutes. After 10 days, you may discover moving every day makes you feel so good that you won’t want to stop. With warmer weather finally here, we can get out and enjoy the fresh air and beautiful sunshine.

We had four ribbons taken off the surprise box. We are getting closer to a winner for the box. We will start our Losers Lotto contest in June. We try to have fun with assorted contests and surprise boxes to encourage and challenge our members.

“Curb Your Cravings” was the title of our program today. Imagine the following: you’ve just finished a healthy dinner and are about to cozy up to your favorite show. An ad for pizza — in all its cheesy deliciousness — plays before your show starts. You weren’t even thinking about pizza… and now it is all you can think about. Cravings can come from out of nowhere and may or may not have anything to do with actual physical hunger. Everything from your surroundings to hormone levels and even the amount of sleep you got last night can trigger a craving. When it comes to cravings, there is good and not so good news. The not so good news is that you may never be able to totally eliminate cravings, but the good news is that the more you know about where your cravings come from, the better you can manage them. Each member was given a questionnaire on braving your cravings. Question one is how are you feeling when you get the sudden urge to snack? Most of us agreed that boredom was our reason. Strategy is to pack healthy snacks like dried or fresh fruit to have on hand during the day. Question two is what situations tend to trigger cravings? Having a long day at work, watching or reading something stressful or a food commercial were examples of craving triggers. Strategy for this trigger is to save room in meal plan for air-popped popcorn sprinkled with Parmesan cheese. Be prepared.

We closed our meeting with the TOPS Pledge.

EVERYONE is invited to visit. The first visit is FREE. It cost $49 a year to join TOPS Club INC. We meet at First Christian Church, 706 N Wheeler, Sallisaw, Monday at 10:30 a.m.-noon. We begin weighing at 10:30 a.m., and the meeting starts at 11 a.m. and ends at noon. For more info, call Billie at 918-413-1383. We look forward to meeting you.