New Year, New...Husband?

Just like everyone else in the world, B and I decided to have healthier ambitions for the new year.  We started out super strong.  Not cheating on food, working out everyday, and what not.  Then the first week was over and we needed to restock our fridge from Costco.  Now if you know my husband personally, you know that he is OBSESSED with Costco.  He loves the samples.  If there is a sample of something he knows I won't like, he makes me go get it to give to him.  I'm a terrible liar/actress so I'm sure my face is beet red as I fumble through an unnecessarily long story about how much I love the sample that is being dished and pray they won't see me hand it to B around the corner.  Sometimes I put my foot down and refuse to do this.  I feel like it's cheating the sweet old sample ladies in some way.  He even jokes about bringing different disguises so he can go back repeatedly for the best samples.  For this goodie-goodie girl, it's humiliating!  But I digress...Yes, the samples are wonderful and B plans the best times for our grocery shopping to ensure the most samples.  But then there's the Costco food court.  I grew up splitting a chicken bake with my brother-from-another-mother after church on Sundays.  Yeah, the food court was good but it wasn't something I lived for.  My husband goes absolutely bananas over the $1.50 polish dog and soda.  From a budget stand point, you can't beat that.  From a healthy stand point, I want to throw up thinking about it (and the nasty polish burps that fill the car on the way home).  So this was our first downfall for the new year.

Then came football with the Seahawks in post-season play offs.  Neither my husband nor I are particularly fans of the Seahawks, but B is from the Seattle area so he feels a sense of pride when they do well.  Downfall number two:  pizza on game day for both of us and beer for B.  Even though these "downfalls" didn't occur on a daily basis, I started to worry that we wouldn't see results that I wanted to see.  B can sometimes work 80 hours a week which translates into zero time to work out. As the end of the month approached, I was scared to do our weight and measurement checks...

Yesterday I decided we would go ahead and check B's weight and measurements.  I was amazed by his results!!!  Not only did he lose 10 pounds in 28 days which is awesome if you are not on The Biggest Loser, but he lost a total of 11.5 inches!  AMAZING!  I wish I had remembered to reset my body fat percentage caliper when I did his BMI the first time because that would have been really interesting to see how much body fat he lost. If you're wondering about me, I lost three pounds which I was pretty stoked about because I was going more for muscle gain than pounds lost. 

The point in me telling you this is not only to brag about my amazing husband losing 10 POUNDS and 11.5 INCHES, but to let you know that you don't have to be perfect to see results.  Life happens.  Football games come on tv.  Sometimes you really are too tired to go to a gym or even walk around the block.  If you have more on days than off, you will see results.  More importantly, you will FEEL results.  You'll have more energy.  Your knees will hurt less.  It will be easier to play with your kids or grand kids.  You can get the results you want, but it is up to you.  Only you can determine how hard you work for it.  Good luck and YOU CAN DO IT!  Below is a sample of what a day looked like as far as meals went.

Breakfast:  2 scrambled eggs with salt-free Mrs. Dash and a serving of fresh fruit (sometimes I threw spinach in my eggs or had sliced veggies too because you can never have too many veggies!)

Snack 1:  A serving of fresh fruit and a healthy fat like half an avocado or a handful of nuts

Lunch:  A bowlful of mixed salad greens with chicken or tuna.  A lot of times I used the other half of my avocado for something creamy so I wouldn't be tempted to use bad-for-me dressing.

Snack 2:  A serving of fresh fruit and a low-sodium rice cake with natural peanut butter

Dinner:  Grilled chicken or salmon and steamed green veggies like asparagus and broccoli.  Sometimes we would have brown rice or quinoa as a side.

*If we were ever hungry in between meals, we would snack on hard-boiled eggs, veggies, or nuts.  Veggies are free in my book, meaning you can eat as many as you want, but portion control your eggs and nuts.

We would drink a cup of green tea with meals and lots of water in between.

This is just an example of a typical day, there were some variations.