Losing It - Week 1

Well, I survived.  I didn't starve to death, nor did I really have to adjust too terribly much, and the scale moved in the right direction!  I told you in my last post that this contest was going to be hard for me, but let me elaborate.

I give you Exhibit A:

Yes, this arrived on my doorstep about three days before our church-wide biggest loser contest started.  Talk about bad luck!  My first thought?  Eat every last cookie before the contest began... it would be a win-win: I'd get to eat tons of deliciousness and my initial weigh-in would be higher, giving me more weight to lose!  But somehow, I have held out and only managed to clean off a cookie box (or two).  The rest are tucked safely in the back of the freezer, not to come out over these next eight weeks.  So how did my week go?  Here's a recap:

Saturday - Initially weighed in to find that I weigh less than I thought I did (yay!).  This is probably due to my family's biggest loser contest that we did through March.  This just goes to show that weight loss does not come easy and progress sometimes is not seen until weeks later.  This is the delayed result of my hard work at the beginning of the year, so I'm glad I'm doing this again before it all creeps back on.  Saturday was a major fail.  I went to a birthday party and since I made the cake, figured that I should get to eat it.  That's only fair, right?  Still don't think so?  Okay fine then, but don't pass judgement until you check out my handy-work via crappy cell-phone picture:

Cake decorating is just a hobby of mine, and it generally includes a lot of experimentation (and prayer that I don't ruin it in the process).  This was the product of hours of my life, so yes, I deserved a piece.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  I did manage to only eat fruit and two mini-sandwiches at the party, so the cake was basically my lunch.  And then I was so close to being good at dinnertime until Josh ran some errands and I got a craving for a burrito.  I fought the craving and the burrito won.  Chipotle - 1, Kim - 0.  On the upside, I only ate half and wrapped up the other half for the next day.  On the downside, this means that I ate a super fattening (half) burrito two days in a row.

Sunday - Discovered my newest true love:

Frosted Mini Wheats are going to be my secret weapon through this.  They are surprisingly not too terrible for you, especially when paired with skim milk.  I am a full-fat milk kind of gal, but these goodies work in skim... score one for me!  Plus, it keeps you... uh... regular.  Yeah, TMI... moving on.  I did eat the other half of my burrito on Sunday, but had second bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats for dinner, so I feel like it kind of balanced out.  And my major mistake?  Running out the door without my morning cup of coffee.  I did not realize that I'm addicted to caffeine until I spent the day with a headache.  Sounds like it's time to cut back.

Monday - Realized that cutting back on coffee would be more difficult than I thought.  Let me introduce you to true love #2:

To the makers of International Delight coffee creamer, I would kiss the ground you walk on.  Coffee, chocolate, and coconut?  Ummm... yes, please!  That's like the trifecta of perfection.  I have decided that the 60 calories in 2 tablespoons of this goodness is worth it and I can cut out 60 calories elsewhere.  Monday was day one of meal planning, which I'm doing in an effort to eat healthier and save money on groceries, so we enjoyed a delicious and fairly healthy dinner of almond-crusted pork chops, rice, and black eyed peas.  A little starchy, but not bad.  But I do have to admit, four Thin Mints snuck their way into my diet that day, too.  Oops.

Tuesday - Coffee?  Check.  Two cups... 120 calories.  Frosted mini wheats?  Check.  I'm officially obsessed.  And then I kind of snacked all day.  I had purchased a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store though, and grazed on that and crackers.  Not terrible and I stayed under my daily allotment.  Plus, this gal got a very short workout in.  I have a half marathon coming up next weekend (the first since having kids- yikes!) and I have fallen off of the training wagon since our Keeneland race a few weeks ago.  I'm not thinking that this race will break any records.

Wednesday - Same ol' start to my day, but for lunch I made a salad.  Yay for me!  I love restaurant salads, but never feel like they are as good at home. This one was fairly decent, but I was hungry about an hour later.  Guess I need to work on that.  The major fail of the day?  Eating dinner at 9:30 PM... such is the life of a church planter and his wife... ministry calls sometimes!

Thursday (yesterday) - I did great all day and ate the usual for breakfast and a leftover taco for lunch.  A tortilla, sauteed taco chicken, salsa, and a sprinkle of cheese keep it pretty light.  In the past, I must admit, I would have eaten two of three, but one satisfied me just fine.  We met up with our connect group last night and the group ended up heading to Chick-Fil-A.  Uh-oh.  My mind was telling me to order a salad, but oh that #1 with buffalo sauce is so very hard to resist!  So yes, friends, I gave in to the EAT MOR CHIKIN craving.  And French fries.  And a Cherry Coke.  And, sadly, half of an ice cream cone.  I didn't feel all that bad about it until I entered all of the food into my phone to check the calories.  Yeah, I was under for the week until this.  *Sigh*

So with week one behind me here is what I've learned: losing weight does not have to take drastic changes in your current diet.  What it does take (for me) is some pretty serious changes in your portion sizes.  Our cereal bowls were created for giants, and so I've been pouring my cereal into a smaller-sized bowl, and sharing bites with Jake, which helps.  I had half of my burrito instead of gorging myself on the whole thing, and I probably felt better than I would have if I had stuffed myself.  Plus, the other half was just as tasty the next day.  And one taco instead of three (and four Thin Mints instead of the whole row) made some serious differences in my weekly calorie intake.  Easy peasy changes for week one that I'm going to stick with.  So what's the goal to add for week 2?  I'm going to drink only water.  Yep, no more soft drinks for this chick.  I actually gave them up a long time ago and then Lilly came along... and she made her mama crave some Coca-Cola like it was nobody's business!  The craving has since stuck around, so we'll see how this goes.  So water it is.  Oh, and coffee of course... let's not get TOO crazy here, I just said "cut back," not live in a non-caffeinated world... who do you think I am??

For those of you participating I hope your week one went well also.  So far I have collected about 8 or 9 weigh-in's and everyone's scale moved in the right direction... way to go!  Week 2 here we come!