My Weight Loss - Day 6 and 7

Hello!

I missed yesterday, so I'm combining two days into this one post.

I was good with my food yesterday, came in under my calorie limit. I had my normal prepared breakfasts (hard boiled egg, grapes, clementine, I added strawberries this time, string cheese). For lunch I had one of those Barilla microwavable penne and marinara... probably not the best thing I could've eaten, but not the worst either. And then last night we had a ground turkey, spiral noodle, broccoli and carrot dish that came in around 400 calories for my meal. Wednesday nights are tough because we have to rush to be home from work, cook a meal and get the kids to swimming lessons. We need to work better on pre-planning some good, easy, healthier meals for those days.

Yesterday I decided to forego the workout in place for 30 minutes of shoveling. I burned about 289 calories pushing that heavy, wet slop around.

Today -- the day before our weigh in -- I have the day off and I just finished a 50 minute Zumba workout. It was fantastic. Here is a link to the new class I found: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDgbBdS9W54 (I love their accents and I love the dances. Congo is probably my favorite)

Once I shower, I am going to grab something to eat... But I didn't really plan for a day home at lunch. All of my planned lunches are at work. D'oh. I may just make some steamed veggies and have a string cheese.

Then I have to plan tonight's meal. We don't have anything to rush for. Any suggestions? What are your typical meals through the week? Do you eat differently than your kids because of your diet, or do you plan something you all can eat?

Tomorrow I will report the results of the weigh-in, and then I begin my mini-vacation weekend with my husband and no kids! It's going to be super tough to maintain a good diet when Jeff and I usually drink and eat like pigs when we head out. I'll report on how it goes either Sunday night or Monday.

Until tomorrow...

Gonna lose some weight!

 In an effort to become healthier, hopefully lose 50 lbs and be accountable for all of my actions - good and bad - I am going to blog here about how it goes. I am going to try to be as open and candid as possible about everything I try in order to hopefully attain my goals and maybe help out a few of you too.

This last Friday, I weighed in for the first time for our Biggest Loser contest at work. Last year, when we did this contest, I didn't take it seriously probably only succeeded at bringing my team down. This year, I'm feeling gung-ho! My weight at weigh-in was 208.5... but in the days leading up to weigh-in, I actively tried to "bulk-up" in hopes that this next Friday I will have dropped a lot of weight. Yesterday my scale said 201. I have yet to see if the scale at home is the same as we use at work.

Yesterday (Saturday) I did 40 minutes of Zumba using this link - click on the "play all" button so they play one after another: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5079A893E559DA3B

Using an online calculator, I burned 476 calories!

I am using the My Fitness Pal app on my iPhone to track my calories and exercise. My base amount of calories each day is 1200. The app gives you credit for the calories you burned, so I was given 1676 for the day. At the end of the day, I had 128 left... and that's only because I drank a few glasses of red wine (which is a lot of calories). Something I am going to start working hard at is curbing the amount of wine I drink... cuz I really love red wine. :)

I also bought the Nike FuelBand. It tracks the calories you burn through the day, the steps you take and gives you an overall score. My current goal is 3000 points per day. I started at 2000, but that didn't challenge me enough. At 3000, I find myself walking extra sets of stairs or walking in place just to bump my score up. The FuelBand syncs with your smartphone and/or your computer to keep track of how you've been doing. Since I bought the FuelBand, I also came across the FitBit which is less expensive than the FuelBand and works in conjunction with My Fitness Pal. I may decide to sell the FuelBand and try the Fit Bit out at some point.