15 Week Challenge - Week 1 review

I am always up for a good competition - heck, I never really understand why the guy next to me on the treadmill never realizes that it IS actually a race! So, I really thought I was pumped for Amy's 15 Week Challenge.

Well, let's just say, with one week down, I am doing myself NO favours!

In most competitions, tipping the scales in your favour is a good tactic to win...except when you are TRYING to lighten the scales. Yep, remember my lament about the pesky one pound I keep loosing and gaining - and then finally after 6 weeks, I lost 2 pounds???

Well, today, in my weekly challenge update email, I had to admit to gaining 2 friggin' pounds this week. Oh ya! I sure to win the competition with this great start!

Errrrrrrrrrr!

I am happy to report that I did complete Amy's Wednesday Workout. It was great - sure made me miss my boot camp course. In fact, I ended up doing this great ab workout on Wednesday and Friday and again today!!!!! Yah for me!!!!!

I am also happy to report I successfully completed the weekly challenge. We had to recreate one of our favorite sinful recipes to make it figure friendly.

OK. I started with a family favorite - Salisbury Steak - Without going into too much of the fattening detail, just think TABLESPOONS of BUTTER, and OIL, and a can of CREAM OF MUSHROOM SOUP, WHITE BREAD CRUMBS, and MASHED POTATOES...oh ya, just picture 9 billion comfort food calories on a plate!

So, here is what I did to make it very tasty, and a bit more healthily!

Ingredients:
Ground Turkey
Chopped up spinach, onion, red pepper & garlic
Shredded carrots and zucchini
Ground up mixture of All Bran and Oatmeal
Black pepper, oregano, basil and chili flakes
3 tablespoons no-fat cottage cheese
Ground flax seed

Mix all of this together and form your patties.

Spray your pan and then lightly sear the patties.

In a bowl mix in 1 cup broth, shredded onion and garlic and a little bit of spelt flour. Whisk and then once both sides of the patties are brown, add to pan.

Simmer till sauce thickens and the patties are cooked.

As the side dish, I omitted the regular mountain of butter-rich mashed potatoes and instead had a mountain of long green beans and one half a boiled potato.

Ok....DELISH! I think the secret ingredient was the ground up oatmeal and All Bran mixture - it gave the patty a wonderful texture since not off the pieces were ground up - and the taste with the sauce was very good! I am very pleased with how this old-time family favorite was tweaked to be more figure friendly!

Well, that is it for my week one update! I am looking forward to week 2 - and I am hoping the scale will show my hard work and all my running this week! Today, in fact, I ran 13.8KM...people, that is the longest run I have EVER done!!! I am so proud! In fact, I am even starting to feel confident that with sticking to my training schedule, the half marathon in September will be a very realistic goal!!!

Have a great week!