Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween, everyone! Are you ready for all the little trick-or-treaters to come knocking on your door tonight? Do you have plenty of treats so you don't get tricked? I hope that I have plenty although I won't be here tonight as I'll be driving my son around to his favorite stops. Hubby and daughter will be manning the doorbell tonight. Good luck to them!


Update on the daughter: She is feeling fine now. Must have just been a 24 hour thing. She went to bed Sunday afternoon and said she woke up at 2:30AM, feeling wonderful and wide awake! She was able to fall back to sleep, thankfully, and got up Monday morning raring to go.


Update on Weight Loss Challenge: It ended Sunday (the challenge, not the diet) and hubby won, but we all figured he would. He lost a total of 5.6% of his weight, I came in second by losing 3.9%, daughter lost 3.4% and son lost 3.1%. We're all moving right along though. No challenges set for November. We figure with the holidays coming up that will be enough of a challenge in and of itself to deal with.

Again, I hope everyone has a fun and safe Halloween. TRICK OR TREAT!!!!!

More sad news and illness too

More sad news has hit the family. Our neighbor passed away Saturday from a massive heart attack. Good grief when is this going to end. I can't handle anymore bad news.

Daughter is also now sick. I don't' know if she has the flu or what, but she's been vomiting all day today. No fever or aches/pains or chills, but it could still be the nasty flu. Son was sick last week, but felt better after a few hours of staying in bed. This thing with my daughter is a bit worse then what he had. Hopefully she won't pass it on to anybody else.

Sad news

Sorry I didn't post last week. Things have been hectic around here. There was an accident last weekend that was pretty upsetting to my daughter. She was so worried that a couple of her friends were involved in it, but thankfully they weren't. Still, it led to a LOT of phone calls, emails, and what ifs. Then on Monday, we found out that a friend of hers had committed suicide over the weekend. Talk about another punch in the gut. She cried pretty much all day. She's doing better now, but has the funeral to deal with tomorrow. She wants to go, but then again doesn't. I don't blame her. It's hard enough when someone has lived a full life and passes on, but this boy was only 19 and had just begun to live. How do you say goodbye to someone that young?

Another week

Another week has passed in our family weight loss challenge. I lost one pound this week. Not as much as I'd have liked, but at least it was a loss. My daughter also lost 1 pound. Hubby actually weighed yesterday too and in two weeks he has lost twenty pounds. It's a big chunk and I know it is mostly from starving himself, but he won't listen and I get tired of arguing with him so haven't been saying anything to him about it anymore. My son also weighed to a two pound loss this week. So, we're all doing really well. It's nice to be doing this as a family. I must admit it has made it so much easier to pass up the junk with the whole family passing it by.

We went out over the weekend two different times and just knowing that everyone else were passing on their favorites made it easy for me to do the same. We ate pizza Friday evening and normally we would order the large with everything plus bread sticks or garlic bread. We ended up ordering the salad bar and a medium pizza instead. Then yesterday we went bowling and didn't order nachos or anything else fattening from the snack bar, just some diet sodas. Afterwards we went to Applebee's and all of us ordered weight watchers selections although I really wanted something from the new Tyler Florence entrees. After eating, we went to the mall and walked and walked and walked. Then on to Sam's Club and walked some more. I'd say we easily burnt off the majority of the calories we took in. Then on to the furniture store where we looked at couches. We ended up buying a very nice one with recliners at each end. We were in my car though so had to make a trip back home to get our truck to pick it up. Anyway, our Sunday was very nice and fun.

Today, however, I'm fighting a major sinus headache. Or maybe it is allergies, I don't know. I just know that I feel terrible (upset stomach, stuffy nose, stiff neck, achy muscles, and sneezing, sneezing and more sneezing) Ugh! I hope to feel better as the day progresses, but right now I just want to curl up in bed and go to sleep, which is exactly what I think I'll do.

Weigh In

Sorry I didn't log on yesterday to post our weigh in results. We left early and I completely forgot about doing it last night.

I am happy to announce that I lost 7 lbs. this past week:) My daughter lost 4 lbs:) The guys are being secretive and not telling us how they did. They both said they are going to wait until the end of the month and reveal all then. The sneaks!:)

The weekend went well. We were all able to stick to the plan and eat well both nights that we went out to restaurants. Now if we can just keep doing that, we should be fine.

Onward and downward we go!

Now comes the hard part

All has been going good, so far, but now we are coming to the dreaded weekend and that is where I have the most problems sticking with a diet. We ALWAYS go out on the weekends and that inevitably includes eating at a fast food restaurant. Not good. I have such a hard time choosing the healthier foods, not that there are a lot to choose from anyway. I've done well today though and am hoping that the good habits carry into the weekend.

Better news. I hopped on the scale this morning just to see if my healthier eating habits have shown any results and it actually looks like it has gone down a few pounds. yay! My official weigh-in will be Sunday so I'll be back then to let you know how that goes.

And this is better?

ARGH!!! What is it with my hubby and his way of thinking? I thought after the argument we had Monday evening about his not eating during the day that he MIGHT do better yesterday and actually try. Nope.

Yesterday's menu was a granola bar for breakfast, a pack of beef jerky for lunch and a 200 calorie microwave meal for dinner. That's it. No more. So again, we had another disagreement. He thinks if he cuts 3500 calories a DAY from his meals that he'll consistently lose 7 lbs. a week. When I tried to explain to him that it isn't healthy to do that, you could see his eyes gloss over and you could just tell he wasn't listening anymore.

How do I get through to him that I just want him to be healthy? I know that he wants to lose it fast. Heck, so do I. I guess i've just tried to do this so many times that I have finally realized that there is only one way to lose weight and that is slowly. I hope that he realizes this soon. I don't want to write about anymore arguments between us. You'll all think that I'm a real nag to be around:)

Round 1

So, in my last post I told you how the whole family is having a competition to see who can lose the biggest percentage of weight by the end of this month, right? Well, the weekend was great. We all ate healthy and got in some exercise. Yesterday, I did well and got in my exercise. The kids ate well and also got in their exercise. My hubby, however, made me super duper mad. When he came home from work, he announced that he was ready for dinner because he was starving. I figured it was just because he had cut down his portions and was still getting used to that, but nope, it was because the only thing he'd had to eat ALL DAY LONG was a measley little granola bar at 5am!!!! WHAT?!?!?! Wasn't one of the rules of this healthier lifestyle that nobody would starve themselves? Yes, I believe it was.

So, of course, I asked him why he hadn't eaten anything all day and here was his reply. "You know that I work hard all day, I leave the house early and don't have time to fix breakfast in the morning. I am filthy by the time lunch rolls around and I don't feel comfortable eating anything in the truck (it's filthy too) and I don't have time to stop, clean up and eat in a restaurant" MY REPLY: "Ok, hmm, why not fix your breakfast the night before along with a lunch that you can take with you (no stopping), lunch could be a portable sandwich that you can keep wrapped in the plastic wrap while you eat so your dirty hands don't touch it. Even a Slim Fast shake would be better then nothing. Or better yet, STOP! Take a break! It won't kill you to take 20 minutes to stop for lunch. As a matter of fact, it would probably do you a world of good to get away from it all for a little while. I know we run our own business and you want to make it profitable, but it doesn't mean you have to kill yourself to do it." Needless to say, he didn't like my answers and actually got mad at me for even suggesting them so I just quietly read my magazine and let him go about his business. At least he walked on the treadmill. And he didn't really go overboard for dinner, but still. I would guess that he only ate about 500-600 calories total yesterday. Not good.

Round one goes to the kids (in my opinion) who were able to spend the entire day at school and still eat healthy then come home and get their exercise in. Yay Kids!

And the competition begins.........

This is what is going on here in my household. Over the weekend, the entire family decided to change our unhealthy lifestyle. We tossed all the junk food from the pantry and freezer, stocked up on healthy foods, fresh fruits and veggies and got to moving.

In order to keep our momentum going and not poop out after a week, my daughter came up with the idea to make this a bit of a competition. So, each month we are going to have a challenge. This month we are going to see who can lose the biggest percentage of weight. Kind of like The Biggest Loser, if anyone watches that show. She had originally said whoever lost the most weight in a month, but we changed that since everyone knows men lose weight faster then women and the heavier you are, the more you tend to lose when you start out. She didn't want to give her dad any type of advantage:)

We are all pretty much watching what we eat, but I am also following the weight watchers plan. I have been half-heartedly following it for two weeks already, but not faithfully. Now, I'm going to stick with it 100%. Anyway, since I do the cooking around here I'll be trying out some new recipes and putting the ww spin on them. Hopefully it'll help everyone out in the long run.

So, I will post here every week to let you see my progress and also see how the rest of the family is doing. Wish us luck! (Preferably send the extra luck my way so I can win that challenge! LOL)