Week 4 of 7 in Weight Contest

This week was a hard one, both Jason and I had treats. I felt like I dipped in a little too often.

Here are the results:

Jason stayed the same

Michelle lost 1 pound

Weight totals so far Jason weighs 199 and has total loss of 2 pounds
Michelle weighs 137 and has a total loss of 7 pounds

Here we go again for another week, wish us luck!!!!!

Week 3 of 7 in Weight Contest

Here we are at week 3 out of 7 weeks. This contest goes until the Monday before Dave Clark's wedding.

Week 3 results

Jason lost 2 pounds
Michelle lost 1 pound

Weight totals so far
Jason weighs 199 and has total loss of 2 pounds
Michelle weighs 138 and has a total loss of 6 pounds

So once again Michelle is the winner. Ohhhhhh I like the sound of that. I hear a bubble bath filling up.

When I win...

So, here's what I have decided will be my thing if I win the contest. I want one Saturday without any responsibilities. I want one day to do whatever I want. Maybe I'll go for a long bike ride or go for a hike, or go sailing, or just browse B&N for a new book.

So far Michelle is kicking my rear but I always come on strong at the end. I weighed myself last night after I taught Body Attack and was 199.5. That's the first time I have been under 200 pounds in about 15 years. Let's hope I can hold on to the loss. We'll see at the official weigh in on Monday.

Week 2 of Weight Contest

We both weighed in today. I had a fabulous week and not sure how, but I'm excited to be ahead in the contest.

Jason weighed in at 201 (where he started so he lost a pound)
I weighed in at 139, so I lost 3 pounds this last week.

Total loss for both

Jason is the same

Michelle down by 5 pounds

Hoping this week continues wonderfully. I'm trying hard to exercise a little more each week and I'm eating super healthy, except for tonight at my Pampered Chef meeting, I did have a chocolate mint double stacked cookie thing that was awesome!! Basically I'm trying super hard to eat balanced calories throughout the day and have 5-6 meals a day. When I'm on the run I have either granola bars or dried fruit with me to get some type of calories in me every 3 hours.

Wish us both luck for another week.

Oh one more thing, I feel so great. I have so much more energy than ever before and I just feel awesome. Maybe totally healthy eating is the way to go.

1 week into the weight contest

Jason and I both weighed in and here are the results for Week 1

Jason gained a pound, and I lost 2 pounds.

So the weight totals are: Jason 202 Michelle 142

The challenge will remain for 6 more weeks!!

A Weight Contest

Tonight Jason and I entered into a weight contest. I've never done this before and the challenge is something I'm looking foward to.

Basically it's this:

We both decided that we have around 10 pounds each we could loose. For my height, according to several charts on several websites I checked out, they all say I could be as much as 25 pounds less to still be in healthy range. Well I don't agree that I need to loose 25 pounds, but I definately agree that I could loose 10. I'm not happy with my current weight of 144 so I'm on a mission to eat better and get fitter.

Jason also decided that he has a good 10 pounds to loose.

We both understand it's not about the number, but we also both realize that lately we have been dipping into the treats a little too often and not using all healthy habits.

For these reasons and more we are in a contest. For the next 7 weeks (from now until he goes to his brother's wedding in Utah)we will both cut way down on the treats, not eat out and up our exercise. We will use these healthier habits to see if we can loose at least 10 pounds in 7 weeks.

Whoever looses the most by our goal date of October 20th, the Monday before the wedding will win the item of their choice. My item is silly. For me, if I win, I want Jason to clean the tub, super clean, fill it with wonderful bubble bath stuff, I will then get a long quiet bubble bath and afterwards get a pedicure done by him complete with him painting my toenails.

Jason has not picked his item of choice yet. Stay tuned to find out what he picks, but it won't really matter since I'm going to win!

Body Attack

Tonight we are launching a whole new set of songs for Body Attack ( http://www.lesmillsusa.com ). We get new music from the company every three months. This gives us an opportunity to introduce new things to the members of our gym. Launches are always fun and there is a ton of energy in the room. I have found that group exercise is the most effective way for me to get and stay in shape. It is rare to find the individual that has the self discipline needed to stick to an exercise program by themselves. That is one reason that so many marathon runners and trialthletes have training partners. If you are trying to do it by yourself, it is too easy to keep hitting the snooze button, too easy to tell yourself that you will get that run in after work, etc... Being in a group setting encourages you to not only show up to work out but you will also get motivated to work harder by the other participants and the instructor.

I love teaching the three classes I have. I look forward to them. I still have weight to lose - my goal is 185. I weighed myself last Friday and tipped the scales at 203. Much better than the 240 that I used to be but not quite where I need to be yet.

Having said that, I think it is also important to keep in mind that I will probably never have that finely chiseled abs I did in high school or the sharp jawline I had before I had children. Even so, it is more important to gauge your health by how you feel rather than what the scale says. It is probably a better idea to use your blood work as an indicator of general health (i.e. cholesterol - particularly LDLs, and triglycerides) rather than the scale. A while back I read an article that said that it is better to be overwieght and in shape than it is to look great but not able to make it up the stairs. Personally, I would like to look great and be in shape but if that is not going to be possible, at least I will be in shape.

What do I eat in a normal day?

People come up to me all the time after I'm teaching a class and ask:

What do you eat for meals? They want examples.

Here are a few of my normal days. I do want to loose a little bit more, but I'm not crazy about it so I haven't done anything drastic. I have however been the same weight of 138-142 for 2 years and would like to be more like 132-135 but that again is just a number and I need to remember that it is all about how you feel in your pants, not the number on the scale.

Here are some examples: ( have seperated it to No time breakfasts, 5-10 min. breakfasts, and full out have an hour to prepare breakfasts)

Breakfast:

No Time: A power bar, or a granola bar, or an apple with the middle cut out and peanut butter stuck inside the middle, or a piece of toast toasted with peanut butter and jam.

5-10 minute breakfasts: a bowl of oatmeal. My favorite is a new kind that has some cranberry bits in it or apple cinnamon. Or a quick scrambled egg or a protein drink.

lots of time to prepare breakfast: I would make an omelette for sure. Usually a 1 or 2 egg omelette with some cheese on the inside and sometimes chopped up ham or fake bacon bits. And of coarse spices.

If I have a day that I seriously don't care about the calories breakfast: Then it's definately bacon and/or sausage and blueberry pancakes. Or my all time favorite waffles. And I also love this recipe called Ham and Cheese Omelette Roll. It's a Pampered Chef recipe that I always make for company.


Snacks are usually a granola bar of some type, piece of fruit, yogart, cheese and crackers, handful of dried fruit or nuts, or something very tiny.

Lunches are similar to snacks. I would prefer wraps daily of some type since I love chicken, tomoatoes and fresh spinach wrapped up in a wheat or spinach tortilla with a little ranch dressing. Or a Salad with lots of tomatoes and Vidalla Onion dressing.

Dinners are anything that I'm fixing for everyone, just in very small amounts. If they are having something I really shouldn't eat or don't desire, then I will just have my normal lunch thing or resort to a granola bar.

Always with all these meals or snacks I have either a class of water or two, Or a glass of milk. Skim milk is great. About once every day I mix in my protein stuff with my milk to get added protein. I rarely drink juice unless it's a smoothie that I make or buy. I love the brand Naked juice. Great for you in lots of varieties and also Bolthouse juice is good too. I also really love V-8


So there you have it, a typical day.

Yes I do have sweets. I love things with bad calories. I just eat really small amounts. For instance. If I buy an Almond Joy candy bar, I will eat half. Or like last night we had chocolate cake for my son's birthday. I had a sliver of it, and no ice cream. But then today when it was snack time I had a very tiny bowl of the cookies and cream ice cream. About a half cup and I'm loving it.

I know if I cut out the sweets altogether I'd loose that last 10 pounds my body hangs on to, but I see it this way, if I do that I might loose it one day and binge out on an entire package of Oreos.

I like food, but...

I have realized that I really can't practically fit more exercise into my life. Well, I probably could but I need to get at least a few hours of sleep at night. So, I have had to ask myself what I else I can do to lose more weight. Obviously it would be to modify my diet. That is a hard one. I like to eat. I love pie, pizza, cookies, you know, all the "bad" stuff. I have never been a big fan of veggies until fairly recently. I still can't stand cooked spinich, brussel sprouts, beets, or turnips amoung a few others but I have learned to really enjoy broccoli and asperagus. The key for me has been to learn that there are more ways to cook vegetables than to simply steam them and put salt and butter on them (nothing like taking a good-for-you food and making it a not-so-good-for-you food). Learning to use the spices in my cupboard has gone a long way to making greens taste good. As I have written in our cooking blog, I love asian food. Real asian food is stuffed with vegetables that are stir-fried or steamed in the presence of different flavors. Steamed broccoli with a splash of teriaki sauce is very good for example. Eating more vegetables not only helps me to lose weight but I get more fiber and vitamins and minerals than I would eating a hamburger and fries (which I still enjoy occasionally).

Another trick I am finding that helps is to cut out fat where I don't need it. For example, we switched to skim milk a number of years ago. Also, we try to purchase reduced fat products (sour cream, yogurt, miracle whip, etc...) instead of their full flavored siblings. Every little bit helps.

The hardest thing for me is controlling my portion size. Michelle is very good about taking just enough but I like my food. I am slowly learning that there will be more food later on and that I don't need to stuff myself just in case. Of course that might change in the next year or two as the number of teenage boys in my house swells. There are no short cuts to good health. Desire and discipline are the keys.

Sweat and calories

I was talking to someone at the gym awhile ago about maximizing our time in the gym. The conversation got around to taking a spin class. I've taken spin a few times and never really enjoyed it. Although I love riding my bike, I have a tough time just spinning in place. I enjoy the exercise but I always over heat. That has always been one of the problems I have had since high school. My face turns beet red and I look like I am about to pop. I feel fine - just hot. Putting these two thoughts together, I realized that one of the reasons I didn't enjoy spin was that the room was too hot. While talking to a couple of the spin instructors about the need for fans in the room, they mentioned that they had tried that but that the class complained. They wanted it hot. Apparently, they felt that if there wasn't a lake of sweat on the floor at the end of class, they weren't getting a good workout. That is simply false. A lot of sweat simply means that your body is overly hot. You will be able to work harder and therefore burn more calories if you are cooler. That's why most runners prefer to run outside when the temperature is in the 60's and 70's. Just remember that the correlation between the amount of sweat you produce and your caloric expenditure is not direct.