Do you smell that?  No?  Wait… wait for it… Yep!  You guessed it. 

The smell of fresh cut grass.  Maybe.

Okay, so I lost Week 2, folks.  Apparently burning 50 gazillion calories during my 5k run wasn’t enough to push me past Hubby’s 2.2 pounds of weight lost this week.  Yeah, you read it right. 

Official numbers are as follows:  Hubby lost a total of 2.2 pounds this past week.  And I lost a total of .4 of a pound. 

I’m not discouraged though!!  Oh no, my friends, I have the heart of a fighter (poor Hubby, I know) and I am not going to give up!  Plus I suspect there are reasons for the small number this week.  I have a feeling that I retained a lot of water from the run on Saturday.  (I had been weighing less all week long until Sunday.)  And there are also feminine reasons that need no further explanation.  (Never in my life did I imagine that I would be blogging about that!!!)

This momentary setback only furthers my determination to win this Weight War!  GRRRRRR!!!!  (Can you tell I’m getting all pumped up?)  Help me stay motivated!!!  I don’t want to be that lady in the picture!!!  And I sure as heck wouldn’t be smiling!!!

What do you do to get all pumped up?!  How do you keep up your momentum and motivation?  And seriously, I need help with this one because summer and ice cream are synonymous in my mind… what are you eating instead of ice cream in the summer?!

So Week 1 of Domestic Weight Wars (that’s what I’m calling the battle of the bulge between me and my hubby now) is officially over!  After a week of hard work, exercise, and sweating our brains out in our North Carolina heatwave… this week’s Biggest Loser is…

ME!  YAAAAY!!!!  GO MEEEE!!!! 
(I hope hubby doesn’t tune in and see how badly I am gloating in this post.. or maybe I DO!!!)

So the official numbers are as follows:  Hubby lost a total of 2.8 pounds for the week and I lost a whopping 3.6 pounds!!!

I’m thinking my super massive huge 3.6 pounds is partly from the fact that I didn’t eat so well the two days prior to the challenge starting so some of that is probably fake weight.  But NOT ALL OF IT BABY!!!!

Yeah, I’m stoked to see that my weight losing abilities are back and that I am finally making progress again!!  My first 5k is coming up this Saturday so I am looking forward to another nice, healthy week of running and healthy eating.

Thanks for all the support!  You guys have been awesome in helping me stay motivated and focused! 

This week’s Useful Website is one I just discovered yesterday and am already finding it to be tremendously valuable.  Maria’s Last Diet was created by a husband and wife team that specialize in the psychological aspects of losing weight and keeping it off.  They have put together a large database of articles concerning the typical weight loss issues but the advice given in the articles is anything but typical.  The focus is centered on the mental aspects of losing weight and answering those questions relating to our struggles with food and weight.

The About page on Maria’s Last Diet describes the website as the following:

Members of the Maria’s Last Diet community share one thing: a true desire to lose weight and keep it off.

Maria’s Last Diet is here to help women diet successfully. It is not a diet in the usual sense. There is no one particular food plan. Our mission is to help you stay on whatever diet you choose. Sticking to your diet is the key to your weight loss success.

The right diet and weight loss tools, information and support will enable you to reach your weight loss goal. Maria’s Last Diet applies psychological principles, tried and tested in research and clinical practice, to the universal problems that women have with sticking to their diets.

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Right now it seems as though my path to weight loss has a big, fat, red brick wall sitting across it.  I’m working really hard in my workouts (harder than ever, in fact) and eating the minimum amount of calories that I should be, and yet, the numbers are not moving.  This keeps happening and I’m not sure why, but I have a couple of theories. 

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Each week I allow myself one splurge.  I call it my “treat”.  My diet has always included a treat because I feel it is very important to still act like a human being while on a diet.  Seriously, I think that sometimes people cut out so much so fast and they lose it all so quickly that they forget that it’s not just a diet that we are on, but that it’s a lifestyle change.  I’m not knocking their strategies for losing weight but this is how I have to look at my own journey.  I found this article that helps explain this theory and why it’s important not to cut everything out completely.  It also provides tips on successful splurging.

I’m not just in this to lose weight so I can wear the clothes I like and look cute.  Don’t get me wrong, that is a huge reward, but it’s not my motivation.  My goal is to be a healthy person and make my older years a little easier than they might have otherwise been.  I don’t want to learn how to cut out all my favorite foods only to never have them again; I want to learn moderation.  My other goal is to teach my daughter how to live a healthy lifestyle through mine and my husband’s actions, not just our words.  I want her to grow up eating healthy foods and being active, and our hope is that with a solid foundation, she would continue that on her own. 

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The website I have chosen as the Useful Website of the Week is one that I have found to be incredibly informative and, well, useful!  The website for iVillage’s Healthy Living Program is what I am referring to.  This program is the most comprehensive online weight loss program I have found and the part that surprised me the most is that it’s FREE. 

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One of the thing that really helped kick my weight loss into high gear this time around has been smoothies.  Everyday for lunch I now have a protein/fruit packed smoothie and that has seemed to make a very big difference overall.  My favorite smoothie is here.    The only change that I made was to use a whole banana instead of just a half.  And I must say, this is a delicious way to have a 350 calorie lunch!  I have a major sweet tooth and I used to crave something sweet everyday after lunch (probably because for years I had a Starbucks white mocha everyday after lunch!).  This smoothie has enough sweetness to wipe out any desire for something more after. 

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Those are words that used to make me cringe!  I’ve been high and low more times on the scale than Oprah… maybe.  I was always on the chubby side growing up and I could give a very detailed tale of each way I would lose weight and the reasons I would put it back on. 

Let me just put it like this:  I never lived a healthy lifestyle that included owning my body and being responsible for my choices. 

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