I'm at it again!!!

Aloha.

I just started, no, joined a group of 40 ladies to do a Biggest Loser contest with. My fabulous friend Elise started it and is tracking everyone's progress including her own. She is a superstar.

Anyway, I am excited. The deal is we all threw $25 into the pot and if we lose 8% of our own body weight, we get our money back. If we don't, we don't. Whomever loses the largest percentage without succumbing to craziness or drastic measures, wins what's left in the pot.It's a 12 week contest.

I find this is much easier when I do this with you. So here's my weigh-in.

January 11th: 146.6 lbs. (Umm, the most I've weighed in my life aside from being pregnant.)
Body Fat: 22.9%

My goal: 134.9 lbs.

I'm doing measurements tonight...look forward to that. These are my before photos I had to send in. I forgot my own advice about "standing slug vs.body builder pro" photos. Ahh, well. Maybe you'll get one tomorrow. :)

starting over

I have been trying to found a scrap of motivation and it has been really tough to do so. Last year after finishing Base Camp and only PART of the Strength For Life Transformation, we fizzled out in March.

 Well, around May, I found a diet by Pierre Dukan, The Dukan Diet. Very similar to the Atkins diet, but revised in healthier ways. I gave that a whirl and got down to 127 lbs. I was floored. I followed it to the letter and saw amazing results and swore to never do anything different. But it worried Clay with how much protein intake is required. But I have not seen my body like that in 10 years. It had not weighed that in 10 years. After the 2 weight loss stages, you move into a phase to maintain that low weight. I don't know why, because I did it right, but everything just consistently kept going back to the way it was. My body weight just kept climbing up, up, up.

So, after 3 months of putting my heart & soul into it and doing my very best for 4 straight months without fail, I was angry. So very angry & devastated that it wasn't going to stay. Typical me rebelled entirely against it and fully embraced everything I wasn't allowed to have.

And the holidays came.

And the clouds rolled in and haven't rolled back out for quite some time now. I miss sunshine and I feel depression taking over and food is like my friend, but not.

The clothes I bought after losing a bunch of weight are tight again & of course I don't want to buy more at this point.

I feel like my ambition has been totally zapped.

Clay wants to start Base Camp again just to reset ourselves. I know it will make me feel better, I just am seriously struggling to get a grip on myself, or even wanting to get a grip, you know?

So I read through the Base Camp section of this blog for ideas and honestly, it's helping. I'm remembering that I CAN do that & that it made me feel phenomenal. So here goes...I'll keep you posted.

Week 7-Day 2

Oh my good glory blazes! It's week 7?! What have I been doing??? It's been this crazy on again off again hulabaloo and I only have 5 weeks left! BAH!!

GET A GRIP!!
 Well, this week has been better. There has been exercising and there has been water. Oh, there has been water. Let me just tell you, last night's dinner was a-freakin-mazing.  What made the difference? I went swimsuit shopping earlier in the week. Need I say more? Summer is coming people. You've been warned.

There is no way I would have taken the time to take a picture of the food we ate last night. It looked and tasted THAT good. You want recipes? Here you are....

I was looking for a recipe for shrimp. Shrimp Scampi has always intrigued me b/c I like how the name sounds, but I have never had it. I looked it up on this website and found a truly funny post. This woman can cook. And she is hilarious. I wanted to keep reading her blog rather than cook dinner because she was making me giggle. I loved her post on Shrimp Scampi but didn't end up making it. 

I made her Oven-Roasted Asparagus instead and just cooked my shrimp with garlic, olive oil, lemon and salt & pepper. YUM!  We also had a green salad with diced avocados, tomatoes, and topped with a spoonful of cottage cheese. And I busted out a side of roasted garlic new potatoes.

I can't even express to you how good that meal was.......mmmmmmm.

I'll weigh in tomorrow.

Week 5-part 2

I must be in a blogging mood...2 days in a row-what is going on?!

So I made breakfast this morning and then before taking a bite, I remembered that you & I talked about me weighing myself this morning. So off I went to the bathroom to strip down with fingers crossed. Ta-da!

Weight: 136.4 lbs
Hydration Level:60.8%
Body Fat: 19.5%

MUCH different than I anticipated! What a nice surprise!

So, I returned to my breakfast of multi-grain whole wheat toast topped with 1 egg/1egg white and, what else, an avocado. Delicious.

I've been on top of the water and it makes me feel fabulous! I went to the gym as early as possible and ran my little heart out for two 10 minute miles. Whew! And during said run I thought of a recent post of London's (my friend with a fitness blog I showed you, remember?) where she talks about getting through a bunch of little battles all day. That run was a battle for me and I slaughtered it. SO violent.....please, calm down.

Yesterday I did weights for my lower body. I've told you before about that workout sucking your energy dry. Well, I topped it off with a run (just under 2 miles) and succumbed to a nap in the afternoon. Who can blame me? I seriously felt like I COULD NOT move!

But as soon as I hopped up on the treadmill today my legs felt stronger and ready to go. It felt different, and it felt GOOD.

So far today I've eaten the breakfast we discussed. I also had a chocolate protein shake & a banana after my run. Just now I finished off this.

Leftovers from the Turkey Burgers I grilled up last night & served alongside some Sweet Potato Fries. Except last night we had buns & cilantro and a pickle and hummus. After taking this picture, I added some Tabasco sauce.

Now that was tasty.

I plan to eat some rice/seed crackers with cottage cheese/avocado when my kids get home from school. I also bought stuff to make shrimp (never cooked it before) stir fry with my healthy version of fried rice for dinner. I'm going to go to parent teacher conferences tonight smelling just wonderful. :) You get what you get people. I'll let you know how it goes....

Week 5

Forefront on my mind this week (thus far) has been the fact that nutrition counts for 80% of weight loss. My last free day easily turned into a free weekend and Clay asked if we were even doing this anymore. The answer is yes. Yesterday I was incredible with my eating. Do I just need to take it a day at a time? Or even one meal at a time? Maybe. I am easily overwhelmed.

Last night I made a pretty fantastic dinner amidst pure chaos. My husband was absent, the baby was screaming his demands, and while trying to focus on the recipe I was reading, I was also shouting out spelling words to quiz Brooklyn on.  But we made it through. I have never cooked with tofu before.  I think it was my kid's first time trying it possibly? They loved it. It was called Coconut Red Curry Sauce & Noodles. I saw it on Worst Cooks in America and it sounded downright delightful.

Oh-here's the recipe. Thank you Bobby Flay. There are no pictures. If you're wondering why, see previous paragraph. Maybe I'll take one of my lunch of leftovers today. Sure. Look forward to that.

Well, lucky you, you didn't have to wait for that very long at all!

Sidenote: Soy is pretty amazing. And think of all those different forms it comes in! I drink Silk, eat edamame, and tofu. Dramatically different.

Another tasty thing to try that I polished off before grabbing my camera, is cottage cheese with a mashed up avocado in it. Just eat away at a bowl of that with your rice/seed crackers. Pretty good. I eat an avocado every day.

For breakfast I had the usual, but the eggs were scrambled and we were out of raisins for the oatmeal.

My water intake is up and tomorrow I'll weigh in. Quite honestly, after my weekend of throwing caution to the wind, I haven't been all that anxious to remember to jump on the scale.

I did not exercise yesterday, but I'm on my way today.

Dinner tonight is yet to be determined....

Funny little tidbit. I felt a lump in my right leg above my knee while driving and pointed it out to Clay that evening. He felt it and said, "That's a muscle Lindsay." So things are happening I suppose. I was great on the gym last week & not so hot with eating. But things are going on! Maybe this week I can get a handle on myself and combine it all???? Won't that be lovely?

Another fitness blog

A great friend of mine is also keeping a fitness blog while she does a contest. You can read it here. Go London!!!

Week 4

Well, that was quite a lull we had there. Heh, heh.

Let me break down the past 2 weeks for you, if I may.

Week 2 was filled to the brim with a sick baby who wanted nothing but me. And when my life is in such a state, I grab anything I can to eat as fast as possible and don't really care what it is. And that sick week drove me to the peanut M&M's. Yes, it did.


Week 3 Clay was out of town and I fully intended to get myself back on plan. I went shopping for the week and picked up a large bag of those cheese sticks from Costco. I did not buy them for me, I bought them for my kids and kids who come to my house. But I ate them. I ate so very many of them. And I ate more peanut m&m's. And I made no bake cookies. Twice. And I ate a lot of them. And I only exercised twice.  And I felt completely dehydrated all week long since I wasn't on top of my water. My body felt terrible. And I missed Clay.

And now here we are at week 4.

At the beginning of week 2 I felt frustrated. It turns out I'm an impatient person and I'm interested in seeing results pronto. But, that's not exactly how it works. And I let it get me down. I kept thinking to myself as I looked in the mirror, is it ever really REALLY going to change? Do I just write myself & my body off at 30 years and look ahead to being a plump grandmother with a comfy lap and heavy snuggly arms?

Basically I needed a serious butt kicking.

I watched FatChef again and the girl on it was feeling the same exact way. Then she said, "Well, like they say, Rome wasn't built in a day, and I guess neither was my [butt]."

True. 

So, I ask you, why should I expect it to snap back to my 20 year old state when this body I'm rockin' has been 10 years in the making? Is that even logical?

Um, sidenote: I really wish SOMEONE would have warned me of the phenomenon that is the "Freshman 15." I had never even heard of that until about 3 years PAST my freshman year, and a nice 15 lbs. later, thank you very much.

Clay got back, and I ditched him to go watch a movie with a handful of girlfriends. The popcorn smelled delightful and everyone got a soda. But honestly, my body was like, "WATER!!! GET ME SOME FREAKIN' WATER!!!!" So I'm happy to say, I listened, and was happy I did.

And this week has gone rather well, if I do say so myself. And I do. I have a different outlook this week. I read more in the book. He explains there are two types of motivation, outward & inward. I have been focusing on the outward. That's where my frustration lies. The outward motivation focuses on a FUTURE reward whereas the inward motivation focuses more on changing things RIGHT NOW and enjoying the changes as we go and thus benefitting with the results of those changes later on.

If that made no sense to you, read about it in the book. He does a much better job explaining it. I'm now trying to focus on changing my lifestyle because I really want to rather than because it is the way a plan says to do things.

I've also been thinking about a conversation which my grandma had with my dad about his decision to finish college. He expressed that if he started out at that point, "I won't be finished until I'm 30!!" And she responded, "You'll be 30 anyway."

So, yes, this may be 12 weeks long. But the 12 weeks will come and go regardless of what I choose to do with them. So I may as well get at it and have something to look back on to be proud of, and a lifestyle change to move forward with, right?

So here are my weigh-in's for the past 3 days.

Monday
Weight: 141.4 lbs.
Hydration: 59.7%
Body Fat: 20.9%

Tuesday
Weight: 138.4 lbs.
Hydration: 60.4%
Body Fat: 20.0%


Wednesday
Weight: 137.6 lbs.
Hydration: 60.5%
Body Fat: 19.9%

I'm feeling better. And thus far, I have exercised every day this week.