Weight Update

So, it's been awhile since I've updated about our weight situation. I know you have all been sitting on the edge of your seats and you are probably thinking, with all those Reese's cups, has she gained all her weight back?? Have her fat rolls become one with the couch? Well, I am here to tell you that I have officially and FINALLY surpassed the 20 lb. mark!! I have been so close for about a month, like .4 away for a month. I was about ready to throw out our scale cause I didn't think it went below a certain number. So, that is 20 lbs since we started this weight loss journey, 40 lbs lost since the last time I weighed myself while I was pregnant, and I am 6 lbs under my pre-pregnancy weight. I still have 3 lbs to go to get to my goal and I think if I start working out again (I haven't worked out in probably 2 months) I could probably get there and I won't be lying on my license anymore.

I can only attribute this success to Slim Fast. I have had one of these almost every night for supper for the past couple of months. I haven't been able to really cook, so this was the best solution for me. But, who knows, Oreos might be the trick too! I think I will be taking a sugar break for the next week cause I am on overload. Scott was at a point where he had lost 30 lbs but has since gained back about 10 because of tax season. He is still doing very well though!

I will update when I lose my remaining 3 lbs. Wish me luck!

Topic: Supreme 90 Day

I'm sure most of you have had your nights where you stay up late and watch infomercials only to wake up with your head on the keyboard and a message on the computer saying "Thank you for your order!". Ok, well maybe just the first part. I love infomercials and I get sucked in like a turtle's head.  One of these said informercials is P90x stating that you will go from flab to muscle man in just 90 days.  Does it work?  Are those really the results?  Those people said that they did it, so it should work for me too right?  Only 17 small payments of 29.95?  Oh that doesn't seem bad.  Oh wait...until you realize that those 17 small payments  could probably go towards something else you need, like ya know, living.

Enter in a trip to Dollar General's As Seen on TV section and seeing Supreme 90 Day. What is this you say?  Compared to P90x? Only $20? Well, what do we have here...  I leave Dollar General empty handed as this seems too good to be true.  I go home and do what I do with everything I buy- look at reviews. And if you don't believe that I literally look at reviews for everything, just ask me what some of the reviews for Charmin Basic Toilet paper said.  They are hilarious.  Charmin Basic, by the way, is super cheap and very good toilet paper!  Just saying.

ANYWAYS, the reviews of Supreme 90 Day were so awesome!  People said they got better results quicker than they did with P90x and for only $20, what is there to lose?  We even used a $5 off coupon at Bed Bath and Beyond and it was only $15!  Seriously!  You get 10 DVD's, a chart on which days to do what workout, eating plan, etc.  You only need dumbells and a stability ball, unlike P90x where you would also need an over the door pull up bar...which I would never trust.  I'm not gonna spend more money replacing my broken door frame.  No thanks.

We have done 2 weeks so far of the Supreme 90 Day (you have 6 days on and 1 day of rest) and I would say the results are great!  It's all about muscle confusion and challenging your muscles so you will get great results.  A lot of the reviews state that this isn't your weight loss ticket, but more of a strengthening program which I would say to be very accurate.  We already lost a good amount of weight with Nutrisystem, so the way to sustain the weight loss and now build up those muscles is a program like this.  I would definitely say that we have gotten stronger.  Day one, I could barely do one push up with my knees on the ground and we are at the beginning of the 3rd week and I can do about 20 regular pushups in a row.  Not a lot, but a definite improvement!  Scott and are I seeing muscles in our arms and legs start to form like when were in high school when we were both in sports.  And Nolan feels lighter too! That's a HUGE plus!  Especially when he is teething and the only thing he wants in the world is to be held.

So, so far, I am seeing my weight loss start to slow down a bit, but it's still dropping, so I'm ok with that. Another good thing about this program is that you stretch really good at the end of each workout.  According to my Turbo Jam instructor, we should be doing stretches 7 days a week to keep blood circulation and flexibility in a good state.

So, in all, I'm really excited about this. You have to be committed though. You will be so sore and not want to do it the next night, but you have to push yourself. Thankfully I have Scott doing this with me so we can push each other. 

Photo courtesy of here.

Topic Nutrisystem- Should be done, but we aren't! ;)

So, today should have ended the Nutrisystem era at this time in our life, but low and behold, we still have a ton of food left.  I am officially out of breakfasts, so I at least had one of those everyday like a good girl.  We got an extra week of food in there so that adds to the amount and Scott went a whole week without the food, so there lies the excess.

Things are still going quite well- Scott was losing so much weight he didn't think it was healthy anymore, so he has started eating two entrees at each meal to kind of catchup with me on what I have left.  Also, I am officially under my pre-pregnancy weight! Woohoo!!!

This week, we started a new workout routine called Supreme 90 Day and it is going great so far!  I will do a different post about that later!

Now, for the weight loss results after 8 weeks:
Scott:  -22 lbs              2 lbs ABOVE weight loss goal
Jessica: -14.8 lbs         8.2 lbs away from weight loss goal

Topic: Nutrisystem- 6 weeks down

Now, I didn't say 6 weeks down, 2 to go cause I actually have no idea how many weeks we really have left.  We ended up getting an additional week of free food and Scott went a whole week without the food, so we probably have at least 3 more weeks of this food left, which is okay in my book!

Scott spent an entire week in Chicago this week with buffets and Giordano's pizza so I was anxious to see what his total weight loss would be for these two weeks. In addition, I may or may not have taken Thursday night off this week to possibly eat a Cheesy and a Crisp Pinto from Amigos followed by a chocolate chip cookie from The Cookie Company.  Hey, I was in Lincoln and my family MADE me eat these things while we were at the mall. FORCED me to.  Okay, not really, but in my head they did.  But, I haven't had Amigos in forever.  I was also anxious to see what my weight loss would be as I spent three days in Lincoln and didn't weigh myself once. Self-control!

As I see our stock pile of food dwindle down very slowly, I am excited and nervous at the same time.  Most of the suppers are the same type of food and taste the same with the exception of the title on the box and the breakfasts are always a bit "chewy" if you get a scone or muffin of the sort.  I am looking forward to real food again, but nervous about the choices we are going to make, so we will really need to push each other. We didn't spend all this money and work so hard to lose all this weight just to gain it all back.  I will not stand for it!  So we got to stick to the portion sizes, still eat dairy, protein, fruit, and veggies at the same time every day and I think we will be fine.  We might even feel healthier as some of this food has a lot of preservatives.

So, here we go.  Our weight loss after 6 weeks:

Scott: -18 lbs          2 lbs away from weight loss goal
Jessica: -12 lbs       11 lbs away from weight loss goal

If you remember correctly, I had reported that Scott had passed the 20 lb. mark last week, but enter in buffets and Giordano's pizza all week and there is your answer for gaining back the two pounds. I didn't quite lose the five pounds I was hoping to, but it was close! So, we will just keep trucking along.  My goal for these next two weeks is to pass the weight I was before pregnancy and I don't even care if it's by 0.1!  I am not quite on track for where I was hoping to be at this point, but it doesn't mean I'm going to stop once we are done with this food. We are just beginning this healthy new journey!

Topic: Nutrisystem- Halfway Done!

We are officially halfway through our Nutrisystem plan and things are still going good!  Scott had been doing so great that he felt comfortable going off the plan a little bit as he had lunches for work he had to attend to.  He has also had a juicy burger from Red Robin and I got a salad there.  You gotta have a meal or two outside the system or you might go crazy.  Just make sure what you are eating is healthy or the same portion as what would be in your Nutrisystem meal. I have only had two meals the entire time outside the plan. One was supper for my mom's bday and that salad from Red Robin.

It takes about a third of the time it normally does to go to the grocery store, which has been nice.  You look for vegetables, dairy, and fruits, and you are basically done.  Hy-vee had an amazing sale on their yogurt ($.29) so I got a month's worth of them.  When you get a deal, go for it!

I was going to start writing every week after the last post, but both Scott and I were sick last week, so neither of us worked out the entire week.  I was so disappointed in my weight loss that I didn't want to write about it.  I was just banking on getting better and back on track this week, which I did!  It was no additional 6 lbs, but it was something. You can't expect perfection all the time, but you can at least try to be better than you were the day before. At least that is what I tell myself. The fact that I didn't lose much weight last week really just tells you how important exercise is to your weight loss goals. So get off that couch!

I am still going to the class on Tuesday nights at our church unless Scott has to work late, which happens more than we would both like.  We had been doing mainly Turbo Jam workouts, but the teacher has strayed and we have been doing some workouts that she created, which have been just as effective. One of the things that the creator of Turbo Jam always says is that you might not feel like working out, but just think about how good you feel when you are done.  That should get you motivated!

Even though I didn't get a chance to work out at all last week, I am still happy with my progress because that is weight that probably would still be there if it weren't for our new eating habits.  I haven't really had any cravings for much food outside the system so it has made it easy. The only thing I have wanted was Death By Garlic. I could seriously eat that every day.

So here we are at the end of month one, and we are sitting pretty good!  My goal weight loss after one month was 10 lbs. and I probably could have gotten there with a few more workouts last week, but that just means that I need to work even harder this next month. I'm up for the challenge!

Total weight loss after one month on Nutrisystem:
Scott: -16 lbs                    4 lbs away from weight loss goal
Jessica: -8.6 lbs              14.4 lbs away from weight loss goal

I was so close to that 10 lb. mark and I can not wait to get there!  We will be getting an extra week of food because my food didn't end up shipping correctly so I have had to eat Scott's food (which is exactly the same). They wanted to make sure that I was able to supplement Scott's food from what I took, so they are sending a free week which we will share!

I will be reporting back in two weeks regarding our results and my goal is to get past that 10 lb. weight mark.  And, if I lose about another 5 lbs, I will be at my pre-pregnancy weight!  Scott's goal is to also lose another 5 lbs.  So here is to shedding another 5 lbs each in two weeks- and we WILL do it!

Topic: Nutrisystem Men's Plan

One of the great things about doing Nutrisystem is the fact that Scott and I are able to do it together. Neither of us have any self control when it comes to food so if only one of us was on the plan and the other was eating like we regularly do, the one on the plan would have "cheated", oh on say, day two.  That is why we needed to do this and do this together.

I was reading something yesterday (can't remember where now) that really struck me.   The message was that there is a huge difference between going on a diet and eating healthy.  When a person goes on a diet, it means at some point they will get off of that diet and return to their regular habits.  This is where it goes downhill again.  That person will live with a vicious cycle of dieting>> losing weight >> going back to regular habits >> gaining weight >>dieting, and so on.  We need to be able to figure out what is healthy and stick to it so you aren't doing that to your body.  I think Nutrisystem is really teaching us a lot about what we should put in our bodies, the amounts we should put, and the times of day we should be eating.

I had posted the Women's Plan earlier, so here is what Scott gets to eat everyday:

Nutrisystem Men's Plan:

Breakfast
Nutrisystem Breakfast Entree
Dairy or Protein
Fruit
Carbohydrate

Morning Snack
Dairy or Protein
Fruit

Lunch
Nutrisystem Lunch Entree
Vegetable
Vegetable

Afternoon Snack
Nutrisystem Snack/Dessert Entree

Dinner
Nutrisystem Dinner Entree
Fruit of Vegetable
Vegetable
Vegetable
Carbohydrate
Fat

Dessert
Nutrisystem Dessert Entree

You will notice the main differences between the two are that Scott gets a morning snack and gets to add two carbohydrates to his day.   So, they get to eat more AND lose twice as much weight.   Uggghhh men.

Topic: Nutrisystem Women's Plan

So, as I had mentioned before, women and men have two different plans suited to what will help them lose weight the best. Scott gets one additional Nutrisystem snack/dessert and gets to add carbohydrates to his day.  The only times I am allowed a piece of bread is with the Turkey Hot Dogs, which are one of my favorites, or with either the Chicken or Tuna Salad.  So after all is said and done with this, I am really going to cut back on my bread intake because I really don't need it.  Here is the women's plan laid out for the day:

Breakfast                                                              What I might have
Nutrisystem Breakfast Entree                           Blueberry Pancakes
Dairy or Protein                                                  1 Fried Egg
Fruit                                                                     1/2 cup of 100% Cranberry juice

Lunch
Nutrisystem Lunch Entree                                   Fettuccini Alfredo
Vegetable                                                             1 cup of Romaine lettuce
Vegetable                                                             1/2 cup of asparagus
Dairy or Protein                                                   1/4 cup of cottage cheese


Afternoon Snack
Dairy or Protein                                                    1 container of lowfat yogurt
Fruit                                                                         15 grapes

Dinner
Nutrisystem Dinner Entree                                 Cheese and Spinach Ravioli
Vegetable                                                              1/2 cup of cucumbers
Vegetable                                                              1/2 cup of green beans
Vegetable or Fruit                                                 Half a medium banana
Fat                                                                         Small spoonful of peanut butter

Dessert
Nutrisystem Dessert Entree                    Chocolate Peanut Butter Bar


So there ya go.  The packet of information given to you gives portion sizes for each veggie, fruit, dairy or protein so you don't have to worry about eating too much of something that could ruin your diet. You can see though that I basically have an entire plateful of food so it's not so bad!  Sometimes we get lazy and only do one vegetable cause it is a lot to supplement and prepare all the time. You can also add 2 tbsp of fat free dressing to any salad that you make and salad could be the vegetable for any of your meals. Scott and I both have the Nutrisystem apps on our phones where we are able to keep track of all this as well. And yes, just like they say in the ads, I do have chocolate every single day!  Their desserts are amazing!

Topic: Nutrisystem- 2 Weeks Down, 6 To Go

Well, we have officially completed two full weeks on Nutrisystem and to say it has been a success so far would be an understatement.  I was unable to write after one week because we were out of town and we weren't able to weigh in.  Now, there is a huge difference between men and women when it comes to weight loss. Scott basically smells the food and loses 5 lbs. Well, me being a woman, I've had to work my butt off. But, it is paying off and I haven't felt this good and healthy since we got married almost 3 1/2 years ago which is saying something.  We made the mistake of sort of pigging out before going on it as we knew it would be our last ice cream, pizza, etc. for the next two months so I ended up gaining a few more pounds in the few weeks working up to it. My bad. I just have to work harder and I have a new weight loss goal of 23 lbs. I would love to get back to my wedding weight, so that is the plan!  Yes, marriage makes you gain weight cause you are so relieved you don't have to fit in that wedding dress anymore and having a baby doesn't help the matter.

We have been very impressed with the food so far except for a couple items.  Scott was not a fan of the supper- Orange Chicken and I was not a fan of the breakfast- Scrambled Eggs with Vegetables. I'm pretty sure there were pieces of sausage or something in there and there definitely wasn't supposed to be. The fact that I'm not sure what they actually were makes it even worse. Thankfully, we have liked most of the food so it has made it bearable! We have wanted to order a pizza or just get a big juicy burger countless times but when we start something and have made a commitment to it (and have spent all the money haha) we aren't gonna mess it up!  The main theme of Nutrisystem is portion sizes and small meals throughout the day.  Along with your Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and Dessert (Scott gets another Nutrisystem snack during the day in addition), you also have to supplement with vegetables, fruit, dairy, and protein (Scott also gets to add carbohydrates on his plan). They give you a great guide that gives you ideas of what you can have so it takes the guess work out of it.  I have never eaten so many vegetables in my life!

I have kept the same workout regimen as I did prior to starting Nutrisystem as I thought it was a good one. I do the elliptical 3-4 times a week for 30-45 min (doing a different workout on it every time) burning anywhere from 400-500 calories in addition to Tuesday night workouts at our church that are actually very intense and make me sore for days.  It is good to mix things up a bit.  Scott basically just breathes and mows.  He has gone on the treadmill once, but I think he wants to get more into a routine here soon.

The results after two weeks are as follows:

Scott: -11              9 lbs til weight loss goal
Jessica: -6           17 lbs til weight loss goal

I would definitely say we are on track for our 20-23 lb goal- Scott definitely is, that's for sure! We are still doing it for the full two months so we have two weeks down, six to go!

Topic: Nutrisystem

Scott and I have decided to make a drastic change in our eating habits which requires me to stay away from just about everything in the kitchen except for the microwave.  Blasphemy, I know.  For the next two months, we will be going on Nutrisystem.  We decided two months as we think it will be the perfect amount of time for us to get used to good portion sizes for the future and lose the 20 lbs we each want to lose.  I had been working out really hard about 4-5 times a week and seeing no results or any weight loss whatsoever, so we decided this was going to be the road we needed to take. Our family members that went on it had much success, so we will too!  I hope...

I have decided to chronicle our success with this so hopefully we will have a lot to share!  The first day was a bit hard as I found myself wandering over to the pantry as I do everyday for a snack and I was punched in the face with this sight:

It's gonna be interesting.

Topic: End of the Cleanse

So I finished up the cleanse, and I have to say I enjoyed it!  It didn't taste the greatest at the beginning, but it gradually tasted better as the week went on.  I only lost a couple lbs., but to me, that was great considering it was only a week.  I feel like it made me feel better and made me select better food choices. I didn't find myself telling Scott to go through a drive-thru on his way home, which is unusual.  I didn't want that ice cream as you had read about earlier. So overall, it was a success!  I feel like it will help me make better choices for the future and was a good jump start to losing weight and getting in shape.  Scott said that he might do it as well so he must have seen the good effect it had on me! Although, Scott could blink and lose 10 lbs....men. I would encourage everyone to try it and to contact Sarah to buy it! (Sarah, you can pay me for the advertising later.)

Topic: Arbonne 7-Day Body Cleanse

As I had mentioned before, we have been eating like absolute crap, and I have been wanting to start eating healthier and start exercising.  I was reading one of the many magazines that get passed through my sisters and I and one girl mentioned doing a cleanse any time she started a diet or wanted to just get healthier.  I thought that this might be the ticket!  Sarah has been selling Arbonne for awhile and both her and Kim have done their 7-Day Cleanse where they lose anywhere from 4-8 lbs in a week.  This cleanse rids your body of all the toxins and cleanses your system.  It also states that it supports liver health, GI health, and internal antioxidant activity. You are still able to eat whatever you want, but mentally it makes you want to eat healthier and you SHOULD eat healthier while doing it.  Sarah said that by the end of one of her cleanses, it made her completely turned off from Amigos- a place she frequented quite often.  We went there at least once a week in college!!  Mmmmm cheese enchilada platter...cheesys....FOCUS.

The thing about cleanses though, is that you will gain all the weight back if you go back to your regular lifestyle after it is over.  You need to eat healthier and maintain a good exercise regimen to keep the pounds off.

So, I contacted Sarah and told her I wanted to do the cleanse, and Scott and I finally made it to the store after 3 weeks of not going. Now I can finally plan out some meals for us and getting this blog a'going! I am going to document how the cleanse goes as well as the meals that we will be eating during it.  Hopefully it will be a success!