Weight Loss Challenge: Week Two

We had a mini challenge this week (most pounds lost) and the winner received a $30 gift card to Amazon. I worked really hard (well I only worked out twice but I stuck to my diet) and was excited to see how I did. I weighed myself in the morning on my scale and was excited to see that I had lost 4.6 pounds. As I checked the blog through out the day and saw every one's entries start to trickle in I got excited because I had lost the most but because we are supposed to weigh in on the same scale each week I didn't want to post my weight until I had driven down to Lara and Dan's to weigh in on their scale (it is a long story but that is the scale that I started the contest on). I decided to bring my scale with me so that I could see if there was any difference between the two scales so that I wouldn't have to go through this each Wednesday. Anyway, I finally got down there around 9:45pm and was really happy to find out that their scale is actually a half pound lighter than mine, so I actually lost 5.1 pounds for the week. I had won the mini challenge and I was really excited. Well then I got home and went to post my information around 11pm and when I logged on it said that all entries had to be posted by 10pm mountain time to qualify. I was way bummed but posted my entry anyway. When it posted, I was surprised to see it time stamped at 9:57pm and was all excited again because I thought that I would be okay. Well to make a long story short, I guess the blog time was set to Pacific so they didn't count my entry. On the upside, the person who won really deserves it and has been working her butt off so I can't be too mad.

So even though I didn't win (those damn technicalities) I am really proud of my weight loss so far. We are in week two of the competition and I have lost a total of 9.1 pounds. Paul has been doing it with me (even though he isn't in the competition) and lost 8 pounds just last week. The best thing is that we have been eating really well and much to Paul's delight I have learned to cook and am really liking it. We are doing the South Beach Diet and there are a lot of great recipes. I have felt a real sense of accomplishment with all I have learned about meal preparation and diet. For those of you who don't know, prior to last week I had only cooked dinner about 30 times (that's probably being liberal) during our nearly six years of marriage and that is counting mac and cheese and pb&j. I had just always felt that cooking was hard and I hated it, besides Paul is a good cook so I just let him do it when he had time...problem was he didn't have time very often and we ate out a ton and spent way too much money and gained a lot of weight. So this whole weight loss challenge has been really awesome for our health and our budget.

The challenge is three months so we are just beginning but I am excited about all the life changes it has already brought. I highly recommend founding a weight loss challenge of your own if you feel you need it and know some friends or family who would want to participate. It has been great motivation both because I am competitive and want to do well and because I had to put in $100 to compete.