Week 29

Time for another fresh start, well not a complete fresh start, but something new.

Last week I decided to try following Weight Watchers Simply Filling plan, the first few days went well, then it got a bit out of hand. The idea behind it is you eat the 'simply filling foods' as much as you want until you are full. For me that wasn't great, as I never seem to get full, things like fat free cheddar, which I found in a local store and purchased two blocks of, well that was classed as simply filling, so i ate all of it in one go! Yes I was the freak who ate from the block of cheese and didn't even cut it!!. So by mid week I kind of gave up and didn't do any kind of tracking :( I did workout last week though, I went swimming three times and went to the actual gym for a workout with the trainer which went really well.

As a result this week's weigh in was a gain of 1lb. Which is rightly deserved and really should have been a lot more.

Time to move forward, I have heard a lot of friends talk about eating clean, so I have been doing some research and it makes sense. So as of today I am going to attempt to eat clean and will be using my fitness pal to track my calories and exercise. I do have a lot of food leftover in my cupboards which is considered less clean and some is 'dirty', but I don't want to throw it out and waste it, so I know I won't be 100% clean this week, but hope to try and be at least 75% clean, and focus on sticking within my calorie allowance.

I have been wearing my fitbit everyday, but now I'm working out at the gym I'm focusing less on the number of steps (47647 steps last week, but then I didn't wear it when working out). I am thinking about buying a HRM to properly calculate my calories burned, but think for now I will focus on the exercise part. Today I did just over 20 mins on the cross trainer, it was hard work, I took a photo of the report at the end of my workout so now I have something to work towards beating this week, I want to work on bringing my heart rate down and also speeding up and doing a further distance in my 20 mins. I put my weight in at the start, so am hoping the calories burned is reasonably accurate. After a few weeks I will try increasing my time to 25 and then 30 mins. I am also do strength training whilst at the gym. I plan to go to the gym M,W,F and swim T and T, although this week I have plans on Thursday, so might have to do something else that day instead.

Last week Melissa (@TheDailyMel) mentioned the Healthy Wage challenge, you basically get together a team of 5 people and you all pay $60, although we paid $50 as we signed up through Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans. Each week you weigh in, the challenge is for 3 months, and at the end of the 3 months the team that is the biggest loser % wise wins $10,000, the second team wins $5000, and the third team wins $3000. There are various challenges on the website so go check it out, and you might make some money. So I'm using this challenge as a great way to motivate me to a: lose weight, b: maybe win some money, c: work in a team, and not let the others down. If you are interested in following our progress you can like our facebook team page Healthinauts.

Have a great week everyone

Sarah xxx