Turn your knowledge into Power Challenge

Gain for me this week 152.2 (up 1.0) but I'm retaining water.. my rings are usually in danger of falling off and are stuck to my finger this morning, so I'm not worried about it. On the other hand, I am doing fabulous on my weight lifting goals.. look at these numbers:

Exercise/ Start of Challenge/Now

Bicep Curls/ 30 pounds/35 pounds
Bench Press/ 30 lbs./55 pounds
Military Press/30 lbs./40 lbs.
Triceps Dips/15 pounds/25 lbs.
Hammer Curls/30 pounds/40 pounds
Squats/ 30 lbs./ 70 lbs.
Lunges/ 30 lbs./40 lbs.
Calf Raises/ 15 lbs./50 lbs.

Dorothy, I agree as well about always seeming to play around with the same pounds. For me, it tends to be about 3-4 weeks I bounce around, then I'll finally get down to the next low point and then bounce around there for a while as well. I think that it may be because I'm not super strict in my eating, but I figure it does no good to give up things I love for a while, then risk gaining it back when I add those things back into my diet. I prefer to eat the way I like to eat, the way I can continue to eat forever, then let my weight do what it's gonna do and not stress about it (of course, that's easier to do when you are in a healthy BMI, and I wasn't always this relaxed about it.. for a while in the early going I was the weight loss Attila the Hun! I'm sure I'm much easier to live with now, LOL). Anyways, hope ya'll have a great weekend, and talk at ya on Monday!

~~Veronica

Good afternoon ladies ~~

I am at 323.5 today which is 4.7 down from last Friday, but only down 2.3 from when we started this challenge. It is frustrating with the 5-6 pounds I keep fluctuating. I wish Mr. Scale would just keep going downward!

As for inches I am at:

neck 14.5 loss of .5
chest 43 loss of 1
waist 45.5 loss of 1.5
hips 67 loss of 2
right arm 14.5 loss of .5
thigh 31.5 gain of .5

Hey everyone!

My recipe is for crustless quiche, which I enjoy as a breakfast food more often than not. One of my goals is to get adequate protein and this recipe is really great for that.

Crustless Quiche
Number of servings 8
Per Serving: 159 kcals 18 grams protein

Ingredients:

Generic - Large Egg, 8 large egg
Cottage cheese - Lowfat, 1% milkfat, 1 cup (not packed)
Ziggy's - Blackforest Ham - Deli 17% Protein, 10 slices (55g)
Zuchinni - grated, 1.5 cup
Red pepper- chopped, 1 large

Mushrooms - chopped and sauted, 1 cup
Green onions - chopped, 3 greens and bulb
Butter - (Salted), 4 tsp. 5mgs

Just whip up the eggs, stir cottage cheese, ham and really any chopped soft vegetables that you like in a bowl. In the 10 inch pie-like ceramic dish I throw in the butter, mushrooms and onions - and melt and saute at the same time in the microwave for about a minute. Kind of spread the mushrooms around the bottom of the dish, pour the egg mixture on top. Bake at 425 for 15 minutes and 325 for about 30 minutes. I love this one because it is so high in protein and I love it because my kids love it - and don't complain about the vegetables they are eating either! As a variation you can add crushed stone ground crackers to the butter mixture, to form a cracker crust before you pour the eggs in. This is also very tasty and a little bit more filling.


Weight update: 228.2 today. Which is 4.8 down from the beginning of this challenge. This week I was in excess of my calorie goal by 2576…so I predict next week's weigh-in to be a gain. As well, last week was - not very active and very long! I did try the intervals when I was swimming - it sure tired me out quicker - so I think that means that I was working harder.

Fri – biking, leisurely pace X 50 min
Sat – swim, intervals X 40 min
Sun -0
Mon - Water Jogging X 15min + Mowing lawn X 3o min + strength training – pushups, sit ups, squats
Tues – 0
Wed – 25 JJ
Thur – walk with infant X 30min, 25 JJ
Total min = 2 hours 45 min.
I didn't reach my goal of getting 3 strength sessions in, again I only managed one. However, my NSV for this week is a bit of a funny one. As a motivator for my 3 year old to try new foods and to eat nutritious things at dinner we ask to feel her muscles to see if the foods are making her stronger. So quite often everyone gets in on it and we are feeling each others biceps, mommy's included. So usually my 10 yo son just chuckles and says 'squishy' for mine - which in fairness has been quite accurate. However, this time I flexed my bicept and could actually SEE some definition. Sure enough my son couldn't resist feeling my swishy arm, but instead he said, "getting better mom." Hee hee, what a proud moment for the record books!

I was browsing the other posts for this challenge and wondered, are the power challenges supposed to be cumulative? I mean are we to be aiming to do the 1 mile walks, the jumping jax, the strength training, the interval training, and the extra hour too?! Are you all doing that? Uhm, I'm not!

I felt like my week was a blur partly because of lack of sleep. But this is a new week and my goals are to continue to drink my 9 glasses/d, track food, and revise my stregth training to be a more manageable baby step of 2 strength training sessions, and to get to sleep before midnight…wow look at the time, I’m a bit late already…nighty night everyone! Hope you week has started out great!

Knowledge Challenge

The topic that I struggle with is eating vegetables. It seems like it should be an easy thing, there are so many to choose from, there are a wide variety of ways to cook them, and they are very convenient. But, I don't like them. I know they are good for me, I know they are low calorie and very filling, but I can't make myself eat them.

I do eat a lot of fruit! I eat fruit with 2 out of 3 meals a day, and 1 of my snacks each day includes a fruit. I love them all; fresh, frozen, and canned. I love the versatility of fruit.

I guess I have a two-part question. The first is if I REALLY need veggies, if I eat a wide variety of fruit, and take a multi-vitamin, and the second part is if I do need veggies, any suggestion on how to learn to like them?

Dorothy, I know you love fruits (I do too) but they don't give you everything you get from veggies. Not to mention that fruits are much higher in calories, so veggies are a more efficient source of nutrients! I think you really need to find a way to enjoy veggies. Most days, I have a salad with lunch that lets me start getting some veggies in.. I like to do half romaine lettuce and half spinach, then add on any raw veggies I have. For dinner, we mostly have cooked veggies. What I like to do is make the veggies an integral part of the meal (fajitas with lots of peppers/onions, or shrimp ratatouille (mostly veggies, with the shrimp like an accent), or spaghetti squash casserole where the squash takes the place of noodles). Roasted veggies are also high on our list- cauliflower is SO yummy roasted, or roasted cabbage is something we love too. Experiment and play around with your veggies, look for new recipes to try. If you need it, don't be afraid to give them a good drizzle of olive oil, or top them with a little low fat cheese (a lot of veggies have fat soluble vitamins in them, so having them with a little fat actually helps to get more nutrients (I also don't get fat free dressing, I use light versions instead). If you like casseroles, adding spinach to them hardly alters the taste at all, so it's a good way to sneak in some veggies (I chop up fresh spinach and add it into my chili, I also have added it into a saucy chicken enchilada dish I make, and I add it to burrito filling, smoothies (you can add spinach to a smoothy made with berries and you'll only taste the berries, I promise! although it will be green, haha). Hope some of this helps.

My power challenge:
Friday- Took 2 minutes off my time on our 2.8 mile jog. I used intervals and even though it didn't feel great, it did REALLY speed me up. I'm gonna be working more with interval training and see if I can pick up the pace even more.
Sat. we were supposed to go cut wood, but it was pouring rain, so no exercise at all, boo
Sun.
Mon: 20 pushups, Hubby didn't feel good today, so we just did a quick 30 minute walk with the dog
Tues: 20 pushups, 30 min. lower body weight workout- this felt really hard, it had been almost 5 days since our last leg workout and I could tell, ugh.
Wed: 20 pushups, run planned, we'll see if it happens and we really need to do an upper body weight workout tonight!!

~~Veronica

Weigh in today - 158.7 - a little gain I think, but I had woken up in the night starving and I mindlessly ate a banana. Among other reasons - I'm okay with it though because I've spent this wee impressing myself with my muscles. I can see muscles in my thighs and am so impressed. I've done a few of my older workout videos this week have found them much easier than ever before. They still work me out, but I don't have to modify any moves and I'm able to work hard to get a sweat. I can almost do real push ups too!! I don't know if I met the power challenge of adding another hour. I logged 4 hours. I did some dancing and running with kids that I didn't log in

Hi folks! A day late, but my weight was the same yesterday, so here goes:

CW - 153
Waist = 36 (down 1 inch from last time)
Bust - 38 (down 1 inch)
Hips - 40 (down .5 in)
Neck - 14 ? Who cares, really. lol

Seem to be flat lining for a week or two at this level, but holding is not necessarily a bad thing. I skipped two days of workout last week, but tried to keep on the straight and narrow. Had cocktails last night but a healthy appetizer. Will hit the gym again hard today and add some weights. Need to tone up the stomach area, so that will be my goal this week.
Travel coming up, so will take workout clothes and figure out an early morning or evening workout routine each day. Wish me luck!

I was thinking the same thing - anyone else out there?
so my husband did my measurements both times and this is what we got -

SW 162 today - 158.5
neck 14 13.5 (didn't think i had any to lose there)
bust 36 1/2 37.5 (hahaha maby different bra?)
hips 38 hips 40 ????
waist 34 1/2
thigh 23
arm 11

that last post didn't show the spaces i put between them it was supposed to look like columns. sorry about all typos - i am one handed right now due to an injury to my left hand.