Battle of the Bulge – The Final Weigh-In

It’s over! Did you survive it?? 😛

That’s right, October is over and that means that we’ve completed our October weight-loss challenge.

My hope now is that you and I have gained some new healthy habits to continue us on our journey to a healthier, skinnier me/you. Did you? What were some of the things you learned? Or added? Or did?

Let me give you a few things I learned about myself this month:

1.) I’m really lazy. No, really! I won’t get up early to fit in some exercise – which is probably the only time I COULD fit in some exercise… I’m going to have to keep working on that.

2.) You can fit other forms of exercise into your day with a small amount of thought and effort (really convenient considering #1.)

• Hop up and do some jumping jacks, run in place, a set of pushups or crunches during commercial breaks. OR – if you know some yoga poses – you could stand up and hold some yoga poses WHILE you watch your show. It’s the best of both worlds. 😛
• Speed up your cleaning – when vacuuming, sweeping, washing windows, or anything with wide long movements, speed it up and exaggerate your movements to get a workout at the same time. For example, instead of bending over to pick up a penny so that it doesn’t get vacuumed, do a squat instead. When running the vacuum cleaner, extend your whole arm, involve your whole body, and switch arms frequently. You get the idea.
• Dance like nobody is watching. One of my favorite exercise additions is dancing while cooking or unloading the dishwasher. Throw on some music and dance your way across the kitchen to put away that plate. No I’ve never taken dance lessons – does that matter? 😛
• Anytime throughout the day, when you think about not wanting to gain more weight, or wanting to lose more weight – spontaneously do a set of lunges, pushups or situps. Not only does that add a dash of activity to that moment, but I think it’s add to good mental health, too. Instead of wishfully thinking I’d lose more weight and then going on about my business – I’m going to stop right then and take three minutes to do something about it. Now, excuse me a moment while I go do a set of lunges.

3.) I have a bad habit of eating the food my kids don’t eat. Ok, I’ve known that for a while, and I thought I had stopped doing it. But when I’m not paying attention, I still do it. And some of that is due to #4.

4.) I have a bad habit of continuing to eat food that tastes really good, long after I’m not hungry anymore. I have come to realize that even though I wasn’t eating heaping plates of food, I was eating more than my stomach really needed for almost all of our evening meals. I say this, because I was consistently feeling too full and bloated and lazy for hours after eating supper. I didn’t want to get up and clean up after the meal or wash the dishes or anything. But when eat smaller portions, I feel full but not out of commission for the rest of the evening.

5.) Most importantly – I CAN control the foods I eat and their portions, and I CAN add more activity and exercise to my day… I just need to make the effort. I’m not going to sit by and “let” myself get lazier and heavier. If anything is going to change, it’s not going to happen all by itself and it’s not going to happen overnight.

Doing this challenge was really good for me. It kept me accountable because I knew I was going to tell y’all all about my week. It was exciting and fun because I knew that I’d get to share my successes and happy moments. This challenge is over, but I still have a long way towards my goal. Making it for one month was an important first step, but if I don’t keep it up, I’ll be back to square one in no time. Why is it that you can gain weight so much faster than you can lose it? That is so unfair! 🙂

I am considering creating a new banner (or maybe using my old one I used for a past new year’s resolution) and continuing to post little updates on Monday’s. I still need the accountability, I still need the fun and excitement.

Well, for my final weigh-in, I’m a little disappointed to say that I haven’t lost any weight between last week and this week. HOWEVER, since I did reach my goal last week, and since I felt like I’d gain ten pounds last week, I’ll take it. Just so long as I keep losing next week. 😉 Besides, I’m pretty sure the Halloween candy, the enchiladas and guacamole we ate when my family was here, and the Halloween candy (oh did I say that already?) was worth the indulgence.

So how about you? What have you learned? Where do you go from here? If you’re going to keep posting about your eating/exercise/weight loss habits, let me know, I’ll make sure you’re in my Google reader. 🙂

I know I haven’t done a good job of adding links the last couple weeks (though they’re in the comment sections) but I’m going to make sure that I do that this time. Honest – I swear! So if you have a final post and want me to link to it, let me know that, too!

Visit these other Battle The Bulge Participants:

1.) Kelly

2.) Karina

3.) Charity

4.) You’re next!