And to think it all started with a simple challenge. 

Well, the challenge ended yesterday with some surprising twists and turns.  As it turns out, on Saturday our daughter went to stay with her grandparents for a week, leaving Hubby and I with some much needed free/alone time!  We decided to take advantage of this time by heading out to the beach.  WOOHOO!  Talk about relaxing… it was wonderful!

So, as I’ve documented in the past, I have a very hard time maintaining my diet while I am out of my routine here at home.  There is this part of me that begins justifying poor eating and making all kinds of excuses for blowing up my healthy lifestyle.  In a word, Self-sabotage.  This is something I am going to be looking into over the next few weeks/months as it seems to be something that I really need to address.  As you can guess, I began to eat poorly just as soon as we were out the door.  And so did Hubby. 

This changed things for the Weight War because we both let our defenses down and allowed the chips to fall where they may.  Self-sabotage.  We ate hamburgers at the beach, homemade ice cream walking around near our hotel, chocolate turtle chex mix was the snack of choice on the beach, and of course Mellow Mushroom pizza to top it all off.  Self-sabotage.  My excuse was that I was already going to lose the challenge so hey, why not?  Self-sabotage. 

And let me just say that it is very hard to admit that after everything I have learned on my weight loss journey, I am still capable of caving like this.  I don’t want to just gloss over it because it is an indicator that I still have so much to learn.  I think I will always be a student of the healthy lifestyle.

As many of you out there doing the weight-loss thing know, eating poorly like this can just blow the scale up for a few days and even if no actual pounds end up being gained, it takes awhile for the scale to adjust.  All that being said, here are the final results of June’s Domestic Weight Wars Challenge:

Week 4 #’s
Hubby lost: 0.2 pound
Julie gained: 0.2 pound

And the final results for the month:

Hubby lost a total of 8.4 pounds!!! 
And I lost a total of 6.2 pounds!!!

So by all means of the agreement we made at the outset of the challenge, Hubby won the challenge!  Huge congratulations to him for sticking with  it and making big changes to his diet!!  And I am thrilled to announce that he is going to continue on this path of healthy eating and exercising! 

If you are interested in the percentages, they finished as follows:

Julie lost 4.07%
Hubby lost 3.99%

Ouch, says me.  But we already know what I learned about percentages!

So, being the me that I am, I wanted to get this whole mowing thing underway and not give Hubby all month to tease me about it.  So once we tallied up the numbers yesterday morning, we got busy right away with Lawn Mower Training!    And then there was the Weed Eater (also known as PURE EVIL) and learning to use that sucker was a whole new experience in and of itself.  Let’s just say that next time I will be wearing pants, sleeves, shin guards, elbow pads, and a helmet when I weed-eat.

So here I am mowing my little heart out. I soon discovered that mowing is very similar to vacuuming!

And showing a little sass for the camera.

Dude. Weed. Eating. Sucks.

Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.

And the final results of all my efforts! Not too mention burning 320 calories in the process!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
What are the lessons I learned through this month-long challenge?
1) Seriously, I need to not be cocky. Go with percentages next time.
2) Healthy competition can be great for a relationship.
3) Healthy competition can be incredibly motivating.
4) I still have a lot to learn about my eating habits and triggers. Self-sabotage is something I will be tackling.
5) The readers of my blog are AWESOME!! The support and encouragement meant the world to me!!

And did you think that this would be the end of the Domestic Weight Wars? Not a chance. Look for upcoming challenges real soon. I’ve got a comeback to pull off!!!

Tune in tomorrow for the results of the Domestic Weight Wars!  Today is the final weigh in day and tomorrow all the results will be posted along with pictures and video.  Don’t miss tomorrow’s blog post for all the details! (Incidentally, Hubby and I are “kid-less” right now and using every second of our time doing fun “stuff”!)

Until then, have a fabulous day!

I’ve learned a new skill recently that has empowered me and given me an apetite to learn more.  I suppose I should give a little background to help put this into context. 

I do not like to cook.  I’ve tried changing that.  Hubby and I took a cooking class together.  I watch cooking shows with him.  I absolutely love Top Chef.  And of course, I love food.  But interested in the process that the food goes through before sitting on my plate?  Not a bit.

Well, being a stay-at-home mom and not liking to cook don’t really go hand in hand.  Regardless of how I feel, meals do need to be prepared and in the interest of having a family dinner with nutritious food, I try to make this happen.  I try to avoid handling raw meat because it’s gross, and since I love baking, I try to do casseroles and stuff like that.  But there aren’t very many healthy casseroles so… you get the drift. It’s an ongoing battle in the kitchen.

Read the rest of this entry »

So check this out!  Lisa from Iowa Avenue wrote a wonderful article about the relationship between weight gain and marriage.  The article dives into the trend of newly married couples gaining weight together in their first 5 years of marriage and according to her research, at an average rate of 24 pounds for women and 30 for men!  Those are astonishing numbers to me because I really thought Hubby and I were the exception, not the rule.  Of course being the overachievers that we are, we went above and beyond the average weight gained by newlyweds. 

So yeah, hop on over to Lisa’s blog if you want to check out the post.  You might even find a mention of the Domestic Weight Wars in it! 

Well folks, there’s something I’ve realized as the Domestic Weight Wars challenge has continued on… I am too cocky for my own good sometimes.  Did I make a mistake in challenging my Hubby?  No way!  Did I make a mistake in making the challenge stakes pretty high?  Heck no!  So where did I make the critical, crucial, game-changing error?  <sigh> 

In insisting that we NOT use percentages!!  UGH!!!

My cockiness led me to believe that I could wipe the floor with my Hubby in this challenge by the mere pound to pound weight loss comparison!  When drawing up the details of this challenge, I felt no need to use the percentages, after all, I was going to win no matter what!  And that, my friends, was my fatal flaw and a lesson I am going to spend the whole month of July learning. 

The fact of the matter is that I am winning in percentages and losing in pounds.

Read the rest of this entry »

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!