‘Cookies and Crackers and Chips, Oh My’

TOPS Chapter 9319 El Dorado Springs met in The Firefly Services building 700 E. Hospital Rd, on Thursday, Sept. 17,  for their regular weigh-in and meeting.

Warren called the meeting to order

Phyllis led us in singing “To TOPS Club We Will Go.”

Warren led us in our TOPS and KOPS pledges, then in roll call.

Fifteen members weighed in and we had a gain of 1.8 and a loss of 14 pounds, giving us a net loss of 14 pounds. There were several good losses:

Jan lost 2 pounds, Pam lost 1.2, Jo lost 1.6 and Phyllis lost 5.6 over a two-week period giving her an average of 2.8 pounds per week. Our best looser for the week was Pat with a 3-pound loss. Congratulations Pat and to all of our Losers.

Linda C had the program today. She spoke on an article she found in the Reader’s Digest titled “Cookies and Crackers and Chips, Oh My! The problems with ultra-processed foods.

Ultra processed foods can be extremely unhealthy and can be found in many of the packaged items we all see wherever we turn. They are found in cereals, crackers, sweet and salty snacks, and frozen entrees. They are also paired with the presence of excess sugar or salt in addition to additives that we often know very little about or that we do know are actually harmful.

Some easy-to-understand descriptions of ultra processed food include:

Food your grandparents wouldn’t recognize as food

Food that’s far from its natural form

Food with lots of added chemicals

Food is produced using industrial techniques such as extrusion or dehydration.

Think of it like this; The closer a food is to its basic state the healthier it is.

Try to use fresh food when you can. Focus on “Farm to table” as much as possible.

Thank you, Linda C, for a great program.

Marble Game: There is $36.50 in the pot and only 10 marbles left. Sue won the right to draw but did not get the winning one.

Contest: Pat reminded there is one week left in the contest.

Warren said to not forget the “Fall Rally” coming up a week from Saturday, September the 26th in Springfield.

We sang Happy Birthday to Linda H.

Steve reported on a non-scale victory. A few months ago, his doctor advised him to lose some weight. He set his mind to it and reports his A1C has dropped from 7.8 to 6.0. Congratulations Steve, keep up the good work.

With no other business we closed with our motto “IF IT IS TO BE IT IS UP TO ME”

TOPS #MO 9319 meets each Thursday morning in the Firefly Services building at 700 E. Hospital Rd, El Dorado Springs. Weigh-in starts at 7:45 a.m. the meeting begins at 8:45 a.m. and is over by 10 a.m. For more information, call Linda at 417-876-7404. Come and join us.

TOPS toll-free number 1 800-932-8677 or you can find us on the web at www.tops.org.