Time to shred

So a couple weeks ago, my honey, my sister, her boyfriend, and I decided that we were going to book a cruise to South America!  Yup, heat, sun, and very little clothing on a ship or beach or jungle for 7 days....sounds like fun right?  Well, it's definitely a little intimidating when you have gained a ton of weight.  The challenge is helping a ton and the cruise is a great motivator for me now that it's booked rather than being a reward IF I can lose weight.

I've been doing relatively well.  I'm following a modified Paleo type lifestyle (about 80/20 right now) and have started moving a lot more not that the weather isn't beastly hot!  In fact, the kids and I played on bikes and running up and down the skate ramps in town on Sunday for a good hour and played at the park yesterday for over an hour.  Tonight we have appointments and such, but before that we'll take a picnic dinner to my "secret spot" in town where I'm planning a couple photo shoots to spend some time together before we go to our appointment.  On my lunch, my intention is the new 30 Day Shred DVD I got in the mail yesterday!  CAN NOT WAIT to do something new and right here in my living room to break up my work day.  I'm hoping to get a good workout and have it be some good stress relief from the day as well.

I'm fairly happy with where I am in the competition right now.  More so, I'm happy that my energy levels are through the roof, my stomach issues have settled down, and I'm starting to feel "normal" again....well as normal as *I* can be anyway....What IS normal anyway?  Oh forget it. That's a topic for another day.

That's all for now folks....here's a recipe I shared with my fellow competitors that I whipped up last week and the whole family loved!

Inside Out Pizza Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

6 HUGE servings - 269 calories per serving

4 sweet potatoes lightly sautéed
1 large yellow onion - sautéed
One package of sliced mushrooms - sautéed
1 lb ground sweet Italian sausage
3 cans of diced tomatoes seasoned with salt free Italian seasoning and garlic
1 cup of shredded Parmesan.

All in a glass baking dish and baked for about 30 minutes!

This little invention came from the fact that we LOVED pizza stuffed sweet potatoes, but they were a little cumbersome to eat and took some time to prepare, so throwing them in a pan and baking was a lot easier on both ends! :)

Blogger Fail

Well, my blogging took a serious dump....here we are starting a new challenge and I haven't blogged for MONTHS!

Anywho, this challenge has a new set of people and I'm anxious to see how everything goes.

As for me, my life has been tough to say the least the last couple months.  I took an $1100 per month decrease in budget, so I had to accommodate that.  One thing that I knew I COULD give up was the healthy food I spent several hundred dollars a month to eat.  I KNEW the change was only temporary and I just had to get the kids and I by for a couple months, so I'm swallowing my pride to say that we were frequent shoppers at two different local food pantries.  Now don't feel sorry for me, because it worked...we made it through and we're always stronger after these struggles.  That being said, my waist line suffered.  The cute jeans my honey bought me last summer don't fit anymore and I'm at a higher weight than I've been in MANY years.  I've been struggling with some digestion/stomach issues as well.  I'm convinced it was the major shock to my system from making such a drastic food consumption change, but the guys with the PhDs don't think that has anything to do with it, yet they can't give me an answer for the pain.  Colonoscopy is the next fun thing on my agenda...BLECH!

Anywho, I'm bag on the proverbial track now and headed in the right direction.  That being said, there are a couple motivators that are laid out in front of me.  Not just the money from the challenge, because money is not a huge motivator to me (weird right?), but there's a chance I may be able to photograph a wedding in Hawaii in a couple years and my sister, her boyfriend, me and my honey are hopefully planning an all inclusive Mexican getaway and who wants to feel muy gordo laying among the palm trees and swim up bars?  NOT ME!  So I'm attempting to channel my excitement for these potential adventures in to motivation to get in shape.  It's worked before right? (see My Story from the Home Page).

So let's get this party started!  Challengers ready? GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!