Week Two - The Grand Ole Opry Challenge

If you remember from last week, my challenge for week two was all about the exercise.

On day one I decided to go walking on my mom's treadmill. Because of timing with the kids and their school schedules I was only able to get 30 minutes in. So when I got back home I did 20 minutes of a muscle strengthening video. This was also the night of the kickoff meeting for Biggest Losers of West Jordan, and also my personal night out. The kickoff meeting was short, so I decided to swim laps for 30 minutes at the Kearns Oquirrh Park Fitness Center before I treated myself to a movie. I definitely slept well that night.

I wasn't quite so gung-ho the rest of the week, but I did manage to get my 30 minutes for six of the days, which was my goal. I didn't have a routine established yet, so everyday I had to try and figure out what, when, and how I was going to get my exercise in. This challenge felt very high maintenance this week. My default exercise when I didn't have time or a sitter for the kids was to play Just Dance on the Wii. It's fun and if I pick the right songs is a good work out for me. It's also a great way to save myself from a week of Country Music watching if I accidentally go over my calories. (Can we say snack size Oreo McFlurry? - oops).

I also did a ton of walking, mostly on my mom's treadmill, and once I took a couple of kids to the high school track. My ankle objected when I tried to transition to a jog, so I decided not to push it and stuck with the walking.

To make life easier this next week I'm trying to set up an exercise schedule ahead of time. I started three of my kids in swimming lessons, so MWF I'm going to swim laps while they are at their lessons. Tues and Thurs I will do a water aerobics class. Saturday I will either walk or do something fun. I used to play racquetball for fun in college and was thinking I might like to try that again.

As far as food goes, it was easier than week one, but I still struggled. The challenge is still working for me. There were a couple of times I almost gave in to the call of a good binge. I told myself I didn't care, but who was I kidding? I absolutely did care about losing my precious money to the country music industry. I had to force myself to stop eating several times. If I ate any more there would be no way to recover and I absolutely had to stop. This for me is why this challenge is working. Before there was nothing compelling enough to pull me out of my eating.

On to the highlights..

Week Two total weight loss: 3.4 pounds

Total Challenge weight loss: 6.4 pounds

Favorite Foods of the week:

• Bolthouse Farm's Raspberry Merlot dressing - 30 calories for 2 Tbsp.
  This dressing is made from mostly fruit juice and a little oil and vinegar. It's fairly sweet though if you're turned off by that.
• My mock version of Wendy's Apple Pecan salad.
  - I mix some romaine lettuce and spinach for a base.
  - Throw on some roasted almonds or pecans
  - Add some blue cheese
  - Handful of dried cranberries
  - A few apple slices
  - Dressing. I use either the Raspberry Merlot or one of the packets of Pomegranate dressing I save from Wendys. (They always give me two and I save one for later).
  -If I want it for a meal I add some pre-cooked fajita grilled chicken strips.
• Burger King's Tendergrill Sandwich. I get it without mayo for 360 calories. So juicy and tastes like summer grilling. Yum!

High Points: It felt good to do so much exercising this week. I liked being able to eat more and felt better overall. I was especially proud of myself for swimming laps. The last time I swam laps was before Autumn was born and I just remember it being so hard. I definitely took it slow and easy this time, but it was satisfying to swim for a full 30 minutes.

The Grand Ole Opry Challenge - Week One

I survived week one! Barely. The good news is the challenge is working. There were so many times I wanted to stop counting calories or didn't care if I went over my daily amount, but the mental image of opening that boxed set of country music legends set me straight. It would have been so easy to cheat and not record everything I ate, but I decided at the beginning of this thing that it would be better to fail than cheat. I made a promise to the big wide internet that I would record everything I ate, and I have and I will.

Here are some highlights of my week:

Week One total Weight Loss: 3 pounds

Favorite Foods of the week:

• Nutella Banana English Muffin. (1 Tbsp Nutella and 1/2 banana sliced on a toasted English muffin) -273 calories
• Blue Diamond's Oven Roasted Almonds - Butter Toffee Flavor - 160 calories for 24 almonds.
• Skinny Cow's Chocolate waffle cones - 150 calories
• Avena - Healthy Oatmeal Shake - 124 calories/serving (I always have a tall glass with two servings when I eat it for breakfast)

Exercises:

• I walked/jogged a total of 3 miles. I had not jogged for months, due to a seriously nasty sprain I got walking down the stairs on my front porch. I hadn't planned on jogging on Friday either, but when I got to the top of the hill and turned to come down I couldn't stop myself from starting into a jog. It made me realize how much I missed jogging (downhill). I had an amazing time.

Struggles:

I was having a hard time staying motivated. There was a lot of "What have I done?" thinking. I was definitely having some crazy blog promising regret. Usually when I start a diet the first week I'm excited and full of motivation. This time I felt like I was going through the motions, but was completely miserable most of the time. To make matters worse, even though I stayed in my calorie range, the last two days of the week I gained almost a pound and a half. At my lowest I was down 4.5 pounds. It was frustrating to see weight come back, even though I'm completely aware of how normal this is.

I also had a hard time getting exercise in. I only exercised once this week. I think that was part of the reason I was having such a hard time. Exercise always helps make me feel less hungry, gives me more calories to eat, and overall makes me feel better. So this coming week I'm giving myself a challenge. I want to exercise at least 6 days of the week for 30 minutes or more. This is just a challenge for fun, no negatives if I don't succeed. But of course I need a reward if I do succeed. I plan to celebrate with a nice long hot bubble bath.

High Points:

I saved up some extra calories and enjoyed a "Splurge Day" at the Desert Star Theater. I also successfully planned for and stayed within my calories at my husband's work party.

For the first time in the challenge I'm starting to feel a little excited about what I'm doing. I can see the potential of good things to come! I'm seeing already that week two is going to be a ton better. I'll be sure to come back and report.

My metaphorical $5,000 donation

I was listening to a Radiolab podcast the other day called You v. You. They were talking about addictions and how people had overcome them. They started with a story of a woman, Zelda Gamson, who after 30 years was finally able to give up smoking. She accomplished this by telling her really good friend that if she ever smoked again, even once, her friend had to take $5,000 of this woman's money and donate it to the Ku Klux Klan. As a avid supporter of human rights, that was an organization she would fight hard to keep her money away from. It worked. She never smoked again.

I had heard stories like this before, about donating to a cause you despised if you didn't get something done, but the explanation why it works gave me an aha moment. When you are in your greatest primal need for whatever your addiction is, you need to have a strong consequence staring you in the face making you choose between your addiction or something really bad. If you smoke, even once, $5,000 is going to the freakin' KKK. No wiggle room. No mercy. No excuses.

The light totally went on for me. I realized that if I really want to do well at my weight loss plan I need to get really serious about it and stop cutting myself so much slack. Something bad has to happen if I leave my plan even once. Once I start making excuses or thinking it doesn't matter if I eat such-and-such I'm hopping back on the yo-yo train heading in the wrong direction.

So I started thinking. What should my metaphorical $5,000 donation be? After much stewing I came up with the perfect solution for me.

A boxed set of "the biggest names in country music from the 50s, 60s, and 70s, performing their biggest hits LIVE." Eight discs, seven and a half hours of straight country music. Pure hell. For me.

So this is the deal that I have worked out for myself. I have just signed up for West Jordan's Biggest Loser contest. It starts a week from today, January 17th, with a final weigh-in on April 24th. I want to do well at this contest. So from today until the final weigh-in on April 24th I am going to log in everything that I eat on loseit.com. I will be completely accountable for everything I put in my mouth. If I go over my alloted calories any day during this time, even just one day, I have to use my own personal Christmas money to buy this boxed DVD set of country music. Even typing this is making me start to freak out. But I'm going to do it. I promise here and now that if I slip up, pretty much every cent of my Christmas money will be used to buy something that irritates the vomit out of me. And not only do I have to buy the darn thing, I have to watch it. All seven and 1/2 hours of it within a week of it arriving at my house. But if I succeed, not only will I get to keep my Christmas money that I truly love more than almost anything, I will also be rewarded with a board game of my choice. I'm thinking this one:

So at any point when I feel like giving up, or not caring, or "cheating". I have a choice. If I choose too many calories I'm going to be broke and watching country songs. If I choose to be strong I get a new game and to keep my money. Simple as that.

I'm not planning to set myself up for failure. Notice I am not saying anything about how much weight I want to lose. The amount of weight I lose is out of my control. But I can control my food intake and exercise. I'm only going to restrict myself to the calories loseit recommends for losing weight gradually. In addition, I plan to go under 150 calories every day so that one day a week I can have a "splurge" day and use up to 1000 extra calories. I'm going to want a piece of cake on my son's birthday, and this way I can. I have successfully lost weight counting calories and exercising, and I know that this is completely do-able.

So that's my plan. I would love some positive peer pressure to go along with this. If you are willing to stop by my blog from time to time during the next couple of months and check up on me, would you please comment on this post or like it post on Facebook? You don't have to post comments or do anything. It just helps to know that you are watching. I plan to update this blog with my progress, and if I have to buy that awful DVD set, you will hear about it here. You can also add me as a friend on loseit if you want and watch my daily progress.

I'm a little nervous committing to this, but I think it will turn out to be a really good thing for me. Wish me luck!