30 day challenge

As you can tell from the date on my last post, my plan kind of went sideways...again. I did, however, manage to make it through the winter without gaining any weight, so that was good.

Then came June. School got out and I had a goal to lose 30 pounds before school started. Not a bad goal. It ended up working out to be about 10 pounds per month. I ended up losing 80 pounds! WooHoo! Unfortunately, it was the same 10 pounds...eight times. BooHoo!

I feel like I worked really hard, too. I added exercise and watched what I was eating. Could I have done better? Heck yeah! But, I thought I was at least doing something and I figured the weight should come off slowly. I lost the first 10 pounds by the end of June. I was ecstatic!! What I was doing seemed to be working. Or so I thought. By the next week I had gained all 10 pounds back. WTF??!!

This cycle continued all summer long. By August, I was so frustrated that I just wanted to give up. And I pretty much did. When school started I was back to where I was when school got out.

The Brick Softball Team

That's me on the far right. I played all summer on a softball team, two nights a week. I had so much fun!!

On Facebook, a few friends follow a local personal trainer. I joined her page and started reading her posts. She was in the process of starting up one of her 30 day challenges, so I checked out some of the before and afters. What appealed to me was that she had everything planned out. Weekly menus, daily workouts, how much, how long...everything. So I signed up.

The weekly menu came yesterday. Everything is prepped at the beginning of the week, so all you have to do is grab and go. I love that part! You eat every 2 1/2 - 3 hours, so I can eat right in my classroom if I need to. So I made my shopping list this morning and headed to the grocery store.

(I did get one last latte from Starbucks...lattes are definitely NOT on the menu for the next 30 days.)

Since I am not used to shopping for a week at a time, the bill was a bit of a shock! The food total was about $125, but that also included things like spices and condiments that I didn't have that will last me for more than just this one week.

Here is an estimate of what I am currently spending:

Lattes and scones: $37.50
School lunches: $17.50
Eating out: $60.00
(these amounts are minimums)

So really, the $125 doesn't seem so bad.

When I got home, I started working right away. The first thing I did was start the Apple Pie Quinoa in the slow cooker. I ended up making a double batch, because there is one meal at the end of the day that we can fill in with any of the other meals. Then I made the lunches. Did I mention how much I love the idea of grab and go lunches??!! Nothing to think about in the morning, other than to remember to pack everything.

Food Prep

You can see that I have three things going! On the left and in the frying pan are the turkey meatballs, ready to cook. In the middle are the roasted veggies that just came out of the oven and on the right is the quinoa in the slow cooker. After I finished the meatballs, I made up the chicken salad.

Here is a close up of the veggies. I think I could have eaten the whole tray, they are so yummy!!

Roasted Veggies

From l-r: butternut squash, broccoli, zucchini, red onion, red pepper, cremini mushrooms

It took several hours, but I managed to get everything done except the dinners. For dinner, I figured I'd make each one fresh each night and then put up the leftovers for the remainder of the week. Since there should be plenty of food, I am actually going to make the first dinner tonight instead of waiting until tomorrow.

Ready to Go Meals!!

With the food done, I decided to take my measurements.

Day 1
Waist: 48"
Hips: 53"
Thigh: 31"
Chest: 52"

Since there is not much difference between these and the ones in January, I think I will just use the same pics from the earlier post.

I will weigh myself in the morning.

I am so glad this is starting tomorrow since it is a holiday and I don't have work. I feel like it will get me off to a really good start.