#31Days Challenge with Lean Cuisine and Skinny Cow

Before: Me in summer of 2010

I'm not exactly sure how it happened. When I was losing weight two years ago I was very precise about everything I did. Everything was planned out, every day. From food/calorie intake to how much I was planning on working out that day to knowing what day of the week (yes, I said DAY) I was going to take off and do nothing. I lost 60 lbs being precise. It was easy. I remember saying, "why didn't I just do this years ago? I can't believe how easy it's been for me". I was fitting into size 14 jeans (a nightmare to some of you, a dream come true for me) and I had found my long absent collar bones. Then the wall showed up, in the form of 'the Holiday Season'. I decided to just take it off and get back to work right after the holidays. Well, that was two years ago. It is after the holidays, again. So, even though I'm two years, and 70 lbs late, I'm getting back to work NOW!

Thanks to Lean Cuisine and Skinny Cow, I'm hoping to get a good kick start. I went to Walmart yesterday and was very surprised to see how many different kinds of meals they had there. I had never looked for Skinny Cow ice cream before either so was surprised to see the different varieties of that as well. I picked up a few of each for myself to get going.

My family is a very unhealthy one. Half of us are overweight. Of course, the younger boys (19, 16, 11) are all thin and in good shape...heck, just because they're young males. My daughter, who is 20, me (I'm 42) and my husband (who is also 42) are all in bad physical shape. My husband is the worst though, being over 400 lbs (gasp!) and a 2 shot a day diabetic. He's always been large but it's gotten out of control. After much talk, yelling, crying and talking again he finally agreed that he also needed to do something so we decided, as a family to get healthy. His goal, right now, is to lose 100 lbs. That is also my goal right now. I'm hoping that by the time we both reach our goals we'll want to go farther and lose more. My daughter, well, she can get away with losing only (only...lol) about 40 lbs and she'll be good. It's a large undertaking, I know, but if we all pull together and agree, as a family, to do this, nothing can stop us.

I will be logging my nutritional information and fitness goals at SparkPeople.com (my user name is jchllm). Sometimes, actually most of the time, just marking things down and having them in front of us, makes us think differently about what we're doing and it's not mindless anymore.

I will be blogging, making videos which I will post here, whrrls, facebook posts, tweets and so on. I will hashtag everything with #31Days so check that out if you want to keep up. Right now I have a whrrl planned for later today, or tomorrow, and a video planned for the same time frame so be sure to check back.

So, here we go. A New Year. A new challenge. A new beginning.
Yesterday my husband and I walked a mile, without stopping and without smoking (he smokes). Today I am going to do a video and likely go for a walk as well. I have Biggest Loser DVD's (6 I think) and they helped me last time so I'll get Bob and Jillian yelling at me too (yikes!).

I have not posted my weight, etc here, but if you are interested you can go to my SparkPeople info.I will be making daily posts of some kind to come back and take a look.

Make sure you check out what the other 11 Lean bloggers are doing during the challenge period:

1. Zippy Sandler http://www.champagneliving.net/
2. Nicole Brady http://www.sahmreviews.com/
3. Wendy Hammond http://www.thelocalcook.com
4. Naomi Shapiro http://superdumbsupervillain.blogspot.com/
5. Tara Altier http://thismilitarymama.com/
6. Shelby & Steve Barone http://www.feltstories.com/
7. Elizabeth Ferree http://www.homemom3.com
8. Brandi Jeter http://www.mamaknowsitall.com/
9. Mel Lockuff http://www.mamabzz.com/
10. Ellen Christian http:/www.confessionsofanoverworkedmom.blogspot.com/

I started a weight loss blog a while back and I will likely put this post on there as well. It is http://etxsaverandloser.blogspot.com 

I am being compensated by Lean Cuisine, Skinny Cow and Collective Bias for this but the opinions and words are solely my own.