Week Four Recap with Weight and Measurement Update

Yesterday (10/16/16) completed week four which means it's time for weigh in and measurements.
Before I get to that, let me update my eating for the week.  I was really sick with a head cold/allergies on Monday.  It's really hard to concentrate on eating well or cooking anything when it takes all the strength you can muster just to get out of bed.  Somehow I did it though.  I ate well and even got my work out in.  It was really important to me to eat well Monday because I knew we were going out of town Tuesday for an over night trip and I wouldn't have complete control over my food options while we were gone.
Jeremy had a meeting up North on Tuesday so we decided to turn it into a little get-a-way with the kids since they were on Fall Break.  I did pretty good with the meals we ate out for (4 meals plus snacks).  Our continental breakfast at the hotel even had egg omelets with cheese and lots of fruit so that worked great.  We had to stop at Walmart before we went fishing so I was sure to load up on healthy snacks.  We had carrots, pistachios and string cheese.  Drew wanted certain nuts and beef jerky and I told him he could get them if they didn't have sugar.  He was pretty mad that they all had sugar.  He had a little glimpse into my world.  =)
I had a couple little cheats while we were on vacation.  I took the kids to a movie while Jeremy was in his meeting and I had a couple bites of Rori's popcorn.  I had a little dressing on my McDonald's grilled chicken southwest salad.  We ate dinner at a steak house and I had a small cocktail and a bite of JJ's dinner roll and Saturday I had one of the small pumpkin chocolate chip bars from my mom that are still in  my freezer.  Seriously, this is so weird to be listing these small things, but I really look back at this and am amazed by my self control.  The old me would've eaten JUNK when on road trips, I would've eaten JUNK at the movie theatres, I would've eaten dessert out at nice restaurants (and more than one cocktail), and would've eaten cereal for dinner on nights Jeremy and Drew are on church campouts (they were gone Friday and Saturday night this week).  And I'm probably missing soooo much that the old me used to eat in just one week.
OK, back to my progress.  The ChaLEAN Extreme program is broken into 3 phases: Burn, Push and Lean.  I just completed the first phase which is Burn.  This phase focuses on breaking down the fat reserves in my body using moderate weight training workouts.
So, you've followed my eating these 4 weeks, but now we're at the fun part - the weight and measurements.

I am down 6.8 pounds and 4 inches. My body fat average is 28 (I have one app that has me use the calipers and one app that has me enter in my measurements and they come out pretty different (the one with measurements comes out much lower than the caliper calculation).  Last time, the average was 30 and this time it's 28.  I wrote down each number this time, along with the average, and will continue to do that for my next 2 measurements.
Here is a side by side comparison of my photos:

I can't really see much difference in the pictures, but I am definitely happy with the numbers from the scale and the measurements.  My clothes are fitting more comfortably and that's a great feeling, too!  I'll do better with future pictures.  I'll take them with the pose from day one.  

So, in summary - eating better has been worth it so far!!  

Actually, it was already worth it before I even took my weight and measurements.  As I've mentioned before, I have been feeling really good, I've been sleeping better, I've been more focused during the day, and I have been much more patient, nice, and happy each day.  

As I began eating well, I knew I would need accountability in this journey.  Just telling Jeremy my plan wasn't going to cut it.  That alone hasn't made a lasting change in the past and I knew it wouldn't do the trick this time either.  So I decided to do a few things to hold myself accountable:

• Blog about it.
• Tell people about my blog (ha - that took 3 weeks to prepare it and be brave enough to actually announce it!  Now here I am posting pics!!  Eeeekkkk!).
• Become a health coach for Beachbody (my coach is really great and I've been following her journey as a coach for about a year and a half.  She has lead her team to be top 40 in all of Beachbody).
• Join a 5:00 am work out community where we video in to a Zoom meeting group in our specific time zone and say good morning, mute our videos and do our workouts.
• Help others get healthy and fit by hosting challenge groups each month (more information will come on that very soon).

So many of you have left me nice comments, or sent text messages with encouraging words and told me in person that you read my blog and were looking forward to more.  Thank you for making me feel loved!!  I really appreciate your support.