Food, Fitness, & Fun in All 50 States

I know, I know – it’s Monday AND I haven’t written in forever again. I have got to get back to writing daily again. I have been slacking for like a year now…lame! The dumb thing is that I love writing on here, I just don’t tend to find time for it when our schedule gets busy. And it doesn’t help that we are living in a hotel this time. My writing time has generally been in the evenings after Skyler goes to sleep. But because of our close quarters I have been going to bed when he does. Anyway…blah, blah, blah I’m here today.

Weight Loss ~ It is going good still thank God! This little competition I created is absolutely amazing. The exact motivation I/we needed! This week was our half way point in the competition and as a group of 21 we have lost a total of 193.2 pounds!!! Pretty incredible if you ask me! My weight isn’t coming off as fast as I had hoped, but I have been steadily losing, which I will take and be happy about. I have lost a total of 20 pounds so far (including the week before the competition started when I lost a few). 20 pounds in 7 weeks isn’t too shabby. I am still really hoping for a kick ass week at some point, but my body doesn’t seem to care what I am hoping for. It is quite comfortable with 1-2 pounds a week.

In all fairness, I did ease up on myself a little too much for a couple of weeks. I was drinking a few nights a week, eating too many carbs, and junk food too often. I believe I mentioned this before but I will reiterate that I am not looking at this as a “diet,” therefore I am not giving anything up per se. I am the type of person that if I say to myself “I cannot eat cookies or chips at all for the next X days/weeks,” then that’s all I can think about. So, knowing this about myself I have decided to tell myself to curb all of those unhealthy foods/beverages big time, but if I really think I need to have it, I do. So I have had chips few times, and cookies, and booze, and starchy carbs, etc.; but I am limiting it and playing a little give and take with myself. So if I really want a couple of cookies after dinner (our hotel makes awesome cookies 3 nights a week), I choose to have the salad for dinner. It’s all just a balancing act that I’m trying to get better at as I go. So like I said, the balance started swaying a little more toward the lenient side for a couple of weeks so I have been pulling the reins back in again the past several days.

I am obsessed with Pinterest so most of my meals come from there. It’s been nice trying new ‘healthy’ recipes and it keeps things from getting boring! I even created my own recipe this week: Quinoa & Turkey Sausage Stuffed Sweet Peppers with Corn, Black beans, Chile Peppers, Cilantro, Mushrooms, Onions, and topped with Cheese. They were delicious and super healthy! I also made some delicious Chicken Taco Cole Slaw with Cabbage, Corn, Black Beans, Cilantro, Onions, Bell Peppers, Tomatoes, Seasoned Chicken, Avocado, & Ranch Dressing made with part Greek Yogurt. This was really awesome, and the leftovers have been great too! Sorry I don’t have any pictures to share, I will get better at that too.

Like I said, I’m not 100% restricting anything (although I am trying to give up alcohol for a while…again), but I am trying to steer clear of ‘bad’ carbs like white potatoes, white rice, pasta, bread, etc. I have had each of these things during this process already, but much, much, much less than I would have before. I am eating a ton of fruits and veggies now and quite a bit of lean protein and limited whole grain carbs (brown rice, quinoa, etc.).

Regarding exercise, I kind of slacked off on it lately too. But I have been back at it this week. Besides snow skiing which has been a super fun way to exercise, I have been following Jamie Eason’s Live Fit Routine on Bodybuilding.com in addition to some form of cardio. I am trying to get an hour of strength training and an hour of cardio in most days. I have been doing the elliptical so far for my cardio because I’m just not in good enough shape to run yet and the treadmill was killing my knee already. But I think I’m going to start doing some pool workouts too starting today. Hopefully that will help keep it interesting and fun.

I’m starting to notice a slight difference in my appearance, but sadly not a whole lot yet. And my clothes aren’t really fitting much different. But I know all of that will come in due time. I will take my measurements again this weekend, so hopefully I will see some noticeable changes there. So, there is my progress to date. I am happy with it but I do want to hold myself to a higher standard moving forward. Wish me luck!!!