And so it begins.....

The official start of the weight loss contest was yesterday!

The initial weigh in's and "kick off party" were last Wednesday so my strict diet started Thursday. As much as I HATE sharing this, I will:

My starting stats are:
Height: 5' 4.5" (I'm SHRINKING 😭)
Weight: 222
Body Fat %: 42.2%

Ugh. Those are some ugly stats. I had gotten down to 210 in 2017 (all the way back in May), so gaining back 12 of those pounds does not make me happy. However, I also know that a lot of that gain is bloat and water weight from overeating the last 2 weeks of the year. I had been maintaining around 216 for a while so I'm pretty confident that one week of better eating will drop a pretty significant amount of that weight.

So Wednesday morning I weighed myself at home and my scale said 221.4 (which was the same as what my scale had said on Monday morning). When I weighed in at the gym that evening (after having eaten LOTS of food that day) fully clothed (like in jeans - not even workout clothes), their scale said 222; so I'm pretty positive my scale is on the heavy side. That's OK with me actually. When I report my weekly weight loss on my blog, I will be keeping track based on what my home scale says every MONDAY. But my official contest finishing stats will be from how they measure/weigh me at the gym (on Sunday 3/11/18, which if you recall is also my birthday!!).

A typical dinner - taco stuffed zucchini boats. 

So I weighed myself yesterday morning before my first workout class at Living Lean. I will call that the end of my first week, even though the contest didn't officially start til yesterday.

Week 1 - down 3.2 pounds

I have LOFTY goals for this contest. I want to win. But, I want to win because that means I will have lost a bunch of weight. The prize will be great, but, really, I keep envisioning not only being the winning TEAM, but the single person who lost the most amount of weight (there is no separate prize for that - just recognition). I'm hoping that if I continue to envision that goal every day it'll keep me on track when I want to eat or drink.

There are 59 days between last Thursday and my birthday. The longest I have ever stuck to a program with NO cheats was when I did the Whole 30 in 2014 with my family. I did the program pretty close to perfect for 30 days. In those 30 days I lost over 16 pounds! I was heavier so I don't expect quite the same kind of weight loss, but the plan is to stick to my "program" for the full 59 days. I am not doing the Whole30 again, but I am eating pretty similarly to that program. The biggest difference is I am eating dairy and I am still using artificial sweeteners (like Stevia).

A pretty typical lunch - bacon, avocado, cheese & turkey roll ups with some kind of veggie.

5 days down, 54 to go! Besides the eating, I will be working out at Living Lean  at least 4 days per week. I hesitate to put numbers on my goals because I really don't know what is realistic. I don't want to sell myself short, but I also don't want to pick such lofty goals that I couldn't possibly meet them. Of course I  have a weight number in mind, but I'm not ready to share it here yet because I'm not totally confident that it's a realistic goal. So my goal is to lose as much weight and body fat as possible in the next 8 weeks. Wish me luck!