The Biggest Loser & Meal Planning

Good Sunday evening readers!  I hope everyone has had an enjoyable weekend and if you've experienced some rough weather lately, or will be, that you stay(ed) safe.


I have two really exciting things to tell you about; 1. The Biggest Loser competition at work 2. Meal Planning.

1.  My employer is hosting a Biggest Loser competition for the second time now.

The point of the program is to obviously be a motivator for weight loss for the employees at the company.  But it also part of the Wellness program so completion, with some success, of the competition means those on the insurance through the company earn so many wellness points towards their reduced rate (I think?).  I don't really pay attention to that part of it as I am still being insured under my mom's plan so I don't need the wellness points.

I did not participate in the competition the first time it was offered but decided to after my mom mentioned it to me Wednesday night last week.  I was pretty excited about the program because not only would it give me accountability with weekly weigh ins but it would also serve as motivation because of the great opportunity for prizes.

I'm talking weekly Target gift cards for $100!

The grand prize is AN ALL EXPENSE PAID TRIP FOR 2 TO THE HARD ROCK HOTEL IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC!

How absolutely freaking awesome is that right?!

Well, sadly my excitement for the program dwindled when I got the rules for the program.

Thanks to my part-time employee status at work I am not eligible to win the weekly prizes or the grand prize for being The Biggest Loser.  I was pretty fired up about that when I heard the news from my mom.  I thought about emailing the director of benefits in HR (who's been organizing the competition) because it doesn't seem fair that just because I'm part-time that the weight I lose should deserve any less of a reward.  So far I haven't gone through with the email though.  I haven't even really begun to type it up, only thought about it in my head.  I doubt I will write and send one but it still makes me pretty fired up that now this program will serve as no real motivation for me, other than what I'm already motivated to do.

Moving on though...

2. Meal Planning

I forgot to mention my mom decided to sign up for The Biggest Loser through work as well.  This seemed like the perfect opportunity for me to bring up meal planning and actually measuring the servings we are going to eat.

I printed off two SparkPeople articles I thought would be helpful to us and let her read them.  Friday night we sat down and planned out what we would eat for the whole week.  Saturday we went to the grocery store and stuck to the list I had prepared the night before other than a few things for my dad and brother who are not watching what they eat as closely as my mom and I are.

So far so good!  We have the plan and today we stuck to the plan for the most part.  We ran into trouble at dinner when I found we didn't have broccoli in the freezer like we had thought and we decided to not have potatoes.  But other than that today was pretty awesome as far as sticking to the plan.

Now, the trick for tomorrow is for me to wake up when my alarm goes off (no snoozing) so I can prepare and eat my breakfast along with grabbing my lunch for at work.  My mom and I made Beef Noodle Soup today to serve as some of our lunches for the rest of the week.  I have never tried it before so I really hope I like it!

Because of the meal plan, and wanting to know how much I'm really eating, I've been pretty involved in the cooking process today which is awesome.  Definitely need to gain some skills in the kitchen so I can handle cooking completely for myself when I'm no longer in mom and dad's house and am on my own.

It makes me feel pretty darn good to finally be planning and measuring my meals!


I'm off to do some homework I have been avoiding all weekend.  Wish me luck!

More Fragile Than You Think

This evening I got a text from my friend Chelsea that read, "Someone called me unattractive at work tonight. Ik he was giving me grief but now I feel disgusting."  This girl is absolutely beautiful and doesn't need to be concerned about her weight but the fact that someone said this to her even jokingly obviously affected her negatively.  She's one tough cookie so don't think this is a girl who constantly worries about what other people think, or that she is always upset about things people say about her.

Chelsea :)

I just wanted to share this to remind everyone that even though someone may know you're joking with them saying something negative about them can affect them negatively.  It breaks my heart that someone as beautiful as she is would feel that way about herself after a comment like that.

We're all more fragile than we like to think we are so remember when you want to jokingly say something negative about someone that it may hurt them and don't do it.  This person who told Chelsea that she is unattractive tonight will probably never know that their joke made her doubt herself.

Stress, Car Trouble (Again), and a Bridesmaid Dress

Hello readers!  Things have been going relatively well for me since my last post over a week ago.  While I'm not stress free my stress level has definitely lowered which is a good thing.


School is my main cause of stress.  Spring break ended and I jumped back into classes and started new 8-week hybrid courses.  Lots and lots of work to be done.  But on the bright side while I have not finalized my internship things are definitely moving in the direction they need to so that I can get things finalized.  I've been meeting with the necessary people and discovering what my options are.  Hopefully I can move things along soon so I can take my stress level down another notch because I have this finalized.


Unfortunately my car gave me more grief.  This time being more than a $20 part and fix at home deal.  I broke the left rear spring in my car.  Thankfully I didn't drive my car when I thought something was wrong because if I had I would have blown a tire.  My dad was able to come to my rescue and make my car drive-able so it could be taken to the shop.  They were able to find used parts for it and get everything all taken care of for me.  This happened Friday and today was the first day I was able to drive my own car.  You don't realize how much you miss the comfort of your own car until it's taken away from you.


I was sized for my bridesmaid's dress this last Thursday.  I wasn't looking forward to it because I know I haven't been losing the weight I should.  I ended up ordering a size 16.  Not horrible but definitely not what I would have liked.  While over spring break I slacked on working out because no one was around to hold me accountable (Chelsea was in Arizona) I easily jumped back on that wagon.  Working out seems to be the easy part to me.  It's the nutrition I need to really focus on making changes to if I want to see results.  I don't want to do any special diets.  I just want to focus on making healthier choices, and enjoying not so healthy things in moderation.  Even the healthy foods I need to watch portion sizes to make sure I'm not eating more than I should.  My mom bought a Weight Watchers food scale that will weigh food along with providing the Weight Watchers Points for items so this will be perfect for the two of us to use.  Definitely need to get to using it so I start learning what a healthy serving looks like.


I've been doing some baking  recently which I hope to be sharing the recipe(s) with you soon!  One recipe was a success and definitely received two-thumbs-up from everyone who tried it and the other recipe wasn't exactly my favorite but I was told it wasn't bad.  I may be trying that one again, we'll see.


I'm off to bed now.  I work at 8 tomorrow morning and I've been struggling to get up on time since I'm used to sleeping until 7-7:30 lately due to starting work at 9 more often so I need my beauty sleep!


How's your week been going?  If you're in college are you ready for the semester to be over like I am?