Weight Loss Wednesday Friday {Day 30}

So Wednesday was the last day in my 30 Day Shred Challenge. As you may have noticed, I didn't update you on my progress last week. That's because I didn't have much progress last week. Actually, I didn't have any progress at all! I lost 0 pounds and gained 0 pounds. I'm not all that surprised though. As you read in Chris' post, these past couple weeks have been crazy---with lots of runs to Jimmy Johns and very few runs to the basement to workout.

I didn't make my goal of losing 20 pounds in 30 days, but I did lose 8 pounds and that's better than none! I know I could have lost a lot more had I put more effort into it these last two weeks, and that's why I'm going to give it another round. On Monday, I will be starting my second 30 Day Shred!

For those of you who we're joining me in this weight loss journey, I'd love to hear how you did!

Weight Loss Wednesday {Day 16}

Well, I've reached the half way point in my 30 Day Shred and I'm down 8 pounds. The Challenge was to lose 20 pounds in 30 days. So I should be down 10 pounds to be on target. I guess I will just have to make up for it next week!

Chris bought me a new pair of jeans tonight because my old jeans, ahem, no longer fit. Chris so delicately told me that I needed new jeans because I had "droopy drawers" and someone might think I had "poop in my pants." Oh, the things that come out of my husband's mouth. Love, love, love that man.

We've ate some good food this week. Maybe that's why I only lost 2 pounds ...
We had Chili on Monday, Sirloin Stir Fry with brown rice on Tuesday, and Bruschetta Stuffed Chicken Breasts today. The Stuffed Chicken was so delicious, it would be wrong of me to not share the recipe. Not only is it good tasting, but it's actually good for you! There are only 280 calories in one stuffed chicken breast! If you're a calorie counter, you know that's not bad at all. Here's the recipe ...

Mix tomatoes, 1/2 cup cheese, basil and stuffing mix in medium bowl.


Place chicken breasts in large ziploc bags. Pound with a meat mallet or if like me, you don't own a meat mallet, you can use the side of a heavy can. Remove from bag; Repeat with remaining chicken. Spread mixture onto chicken.


Starting at the narrow end, tightly roll up each breast. Place seam-sides down in a 13x9-inch baking dish. Drizzle with dressing.


BAKE at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until chicken is done.


Sprinkle with remaining cheese and bake for 5 more minutes.


Pull it out of the oven, and eat up! Just look at the goodness ...


Ingredients
1 can (14-1/2 oz.) Italian-style diced tomatoes, undrained
1-1/4 cups Shredded Low-Moisture Part-Skim Mozzarella Cheese, divided
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
1 pkg.6 oz.) Stuffing Mix for Chicken
4 boneless skinless chicken breast
1/3 cup Kraft Roasted Red Pepper Italian with Parmesan Dressing

Weight Loss Wednesday (day 9)

I'm very excited to tell you I lost 4.5 pounds this week! In total, I've lost 6 pounds in 9 days, thankyouverymuch.

I do have a confession to make. We had a very stressful week, and there were a couple nights this week I just couldn't bring myself to walk down to the basement to work out. So, I'm sure I would have lost more had I worked out every night. Still, I'm very pleased with losing 4.5 pounds this week!

Here are some things I've been doing to cut calories and lose weight ...

-Eating healthy. For breakfast we've been having a banana or a fruit smoothie. On days when we're not running late and Lincoln is in a pleasant mood (yes, it's a rarity), we have Spinach Scramble. For lunch and dinner we've been eating lots of Sun Dried Tomato Couscous, Corn and Bean Salad, Pita Bread, Salmon, and fresh veggies. On Sundays, we have dinner at my parent's house, and we eat whatever delicious dish my mom serves. It's definitely our favorite meal of the week!

-We treat ourselves. Chris and I used to be regulars at Coffee Crossing. We'd pull up to the Coffee Crossing drive thru, and before we could finish our order the cashier would usually stop us and ask, "Is this Chris and Megan? Do you want the usual?" Yea. It was that bad. When we started trying to lose weight, we realized we needed to cut down on the frozen mochas but we knew we couldn't give coffee up completely. So instead of having several frozen mochas from Coffee Crossing throughout the week, we now have several cups of coffee sweetened with splenda from Megan's Kitchen throughout the week. By doing that we've cut some MAJOR calories and saved some MAJOR bucks, and are still able to treat ourselves.

-We still snack. Instead of eating unhealthy snacks, we've been snacking on things like fruit, veggies, and Hummus with pita chips.

-Exercising. I've been doing the Shred video every day (minus the couple times I mentioned earlier).

-Drinking lots of water. Well, we drink a lot of water disguised as Crystal Light. We really like the natural lemonade and it has hardly any calories.

I'm not perfect. I still have an occasional frozen mocha or coke. Sometimes I even dip turtle pecan biscotti into my low-cal coffee. {Gasp} But I'm doing what works best for me. I simply don't do well on diets that require me to starve myself, and expect me to never treat myself. Honestly, who can do that forever?

Well, I've rambled on long enough. I'd love to hear your tips on weight loss, and I'd love even more to hear how you treat yourself! Also---If you're joining me on this weight loss journey, I'd love to hear how it's going for you!

Weight Loss Wednesday

I'm sorry this post is coming so late. In my defense, it's 10:27 p.m. and it's still Wednesday! I had plans of writing this post early this morning, but things don't always go according to plan, do they? Remember my viral laryngitis? I warned Chris to stay away but he simply couldn't keep his hands off me ;) In all seriousness, we thought I just had really bad allergies the first two days I was sick, and we weren't as careful with the germs as we should have been. Needless to say, Chris got sick. So my sweet sickly husband stayed home from work today.

Up till last night, we thought Lincoln had avoided the sickness but then his nose started to run. He woke up this morning sick as a dog. Sick as a dog. What does that even mean? Sick with an uncontrollable desire to chase squirrels? I digress. Lincoln woke up feeling very sick. I took him to see Dr. C and they tested him for strep throat and A H1N1 (swine flu). But as we suspected, he doesn't have either of those. He has viral laryngitits. Poor baby. All we can do is give him Tylenol drops every four hours and pray for it to go away quickly. Dr. C predicts 5 days. Yikes.

As you can see, I was far too busy taking care of my two sweeties to write this post this morning. On to my weight loss progress---so far, so good. I started Monday morning and I've lost 1.5 pounds. It might not seem like a lot, but I think 1.5 pounds in 2 days is pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. That's as much of an update as I'm going to give tonight, because my honey is waiting on me to join him in watching our latest library movie rental, The Cosby Show Season 1. hee hee, snort More on that later ...

Megan

The Challenge

Becoming pregnant while I wasn't in perfect shape was not exactly what I had planned. But of course, becoming pregnant after less than a month of marriage was not exactly what I had planned either.

I loved everything about being pregnant. Well, everything except for the excessive swelling, broken tailbone, and 50+ pounds I gained. Yes, you read that correctly. 50+ pounds. How do you gain 50 pounds during pregnancy, you might ask? Well, let me break it down for you ...

Blood---3 lbs
Breasts---2 lbs
Womb---2 lbs
Baby---7.5 lbs 9.3 lbs, Lincoln was a chunker
Placenta---2 lbs
Amniotic Fluid---2 lbs
Fat, protein, and other nutrients---7 lbs
Retained water---5 lbs ... although I'm pretty sure my water retention was something more like 10 lbs :)
Shoveling food down my throat like an uncontrollable pig---17 lbs

It's been about five and a half months since I gave birth to Lincoln. I've lost a little over forty pounds, and now it's time for damage control. It's time for me to lose the last bit of my "baby weight".

I've heard that being accountable with someone while trying to lose weight is a key factor in having success. And in my experience, I've known that to be true. So I'm going to get accountable ... with everyone in blogworld. You will be expecting big changes, and I will be motivated to deliver.

I'm sure many of you have heard of the Jillian Michael's Shred workout video. The actual workout is about twenty minutes long, but it's very intense. Jillian Michael's claims that if you do her Shred video every day and eat healthy, you can lose 20 pounds in 30 days. So that's the challenge---I'm going to do her video and eat healthy for 30 days and see what happens.

You are more than welcome to join me in this weight loss challenge. I will be updating you on my progress every Wednesday.

By the way---as I was writing this blog post, Chris informed me that I was fat ... p-h-a-t fat. PrettyHotAndTempting. Wow ... :)