Weekly Challenge Success

Amy's 15 Week Challenge has been keeping me motivated. After an initial weight gain the first week, I am happy to announce that I am down for the second straight week. At my last WW weigh in I was -0.5 pounds! Yippeeee!!!

The weekly challenges this week were pretty easy.

First, we had to fit in 20 minutes of running. Well, training for my half marathon allowed me to easily meet this requirement. Actually, Wednesday I participated in the 20 minute challenge at The Running Room. It was great fun and I got a cool running hat too!!!

The healthy eating challenge was also easy. Why? Well, just look at the recent shots of my gardens!!!!! The challenge was to eat "clean". As few processed foods as possible.

This is my second year gardening. I have 5 little plot that each measure about 5 feet by 8 feet. I cannot wait till all the plants are ready to harvest.

For breakfast I used fresh raspberries from my "fruity" garden to make an amazing purple-green monster! YUMMY!


Then I harvested fresh lettuce and spinach and swiss chard from my "greens" garden.

I made simply delish tossed salad. I added a some cottage cheese and left-over ham to make it really yummy good!

For dinner I decided to make a shrimp stir fry. I raided my "climber" garden for snow peas, green peas and a few beans.

Combined with fresh herbs from my "flavour" garden" I made a very tasty dinner!

Yes, it was a very lovely, clean diet all day! For my morning snack I ate an assortment of radishes from the garden and in the afternoon I used spinach from the garden to make another green monster.

This challenge really got me thinking. And I am now committed to decrease my consumption of processed foods and enjoy fresh fruits and veggies.

Thanks Amy!

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!

ME to WIN

Have you signed up yet for

Amy's 15 week Challenge????

NO???!!!!????

What the heck are you waiting for?????

Crap, if you sign up, then YOU could WIN

some of the awesome PRIZES

she has lined up...and well,

you are not ME, and well, um,

I want ME to WIN!

Pesky Plateau and 15 weeks

Ok - have a quick look over to the right side of my blog, the one listing my weekly weigh ins.


Notice anything?


Yep. For the last 6 weeks I have been gaining and loosing the same flippn' pound!

I have been struggling with my food plan and food choices. BLTs are killing me! Cheating, losing motivation and starting to get discouraged was my daily struggle.

After 41 weeks and 80 pounds loss, I was about to throw in the towel and go drown my sorrow in junk food. When, low and behold Amy, over at Amy's Quest to Skinny introduced a 15 week challenge!

(Amy friggn' rocks - you gotta read her story. She is an inspiration to me!)

This 15 week challenge promises to be challenging, motivating, fun and way cool!

Workout Wednesdays, Century Club Workout, Weekend Warrior Challenges, OH MY!

And, each week, there will be a Weekly Challenge. This challenge will vary in what is required but will always be related to healthy living. Participants will receive points for completing the task, and can earn additional points for photographing their challenge!

I could not sign up fast enough! This is sooooo going to help me get back on track!

Hey, how about you? You up for a challenge? Up to getting healthier, fitter and just feeling better? Go sign up today! Seriously - GO!

Come on! Let's join this challenge together and really support and help each other.

OK you pesky little plateau - WATCH OUT! I want you gone, and gone you will be!!!!!!!