biggest loser

In other news, the Ott family and friends have started & finished the biggest loser competition. Each person put in $25 and the winner takes all the $20's and second place takes the $5's. It gave me the motivation and encouragement to really get back to where I was in Portland. I'm sure most people are thinking "you didn't need to loose weight" and they're partly right. Most people would be surprised that I gained about 20 - 25 lbs from a month or two before I left Portland up until we started the biggest loser. I'm just smart and can hide it very well in my clothes :) So I definitely didn't need to lose a lot of weight, but joining was mainly for the motivation. I ended up getting second place and losing a total of 20.5 lbs in 9 weeks and not to mention winning the $75!

What I did to lose weight:
- counting calories: sometimes you really just have no clue how many calories something has in it until you look it up. or when you look at the calories and then realize the serving size is a pea. With calorie counting, you definitely re-evaluate what food is "important". I'd rather use my calories for food that will fill me up instead of that candy I was thinking about eating! Before counting calories, I was consuming about 2000 calories a day because I just has no clue. This was extremely eye opening for me.

- working out: About 4 days a week, I went to this ice skating rink that has a track above it and I ran/walked/ran the stairs. This is what I mainly did for a work out. On Friday, a couple girls and I go to open gym volleyball which surprisingly burns a lot of calories. On Wednesday, I have league volleyball so that also helps burn calories. On Saturday, I try to do one of my work out videos. I'm always looking to switch up my work out with different kind of videos. Since I do so much cardio during the week, I mainly do some strength/toning type of videos. I'm loving the Brooke Burke toning video's I bought. One video is a little easier so it was a good starting point for me. Then on Sunday, if the weather permits, Erich and I would go snowshoeing along his trap line. Again, its something that's fun, but you burn a ton of calories while doing it! I definitely tried to have a day or two off to relax and let my body rest though. I believe that is important. The main point is be active!!

-eating: aside from counting calories, I'm just trying to eat better overall. I didn't eat fast food except once (not that I don't want a Carls Jr. burger haha) or any other real junk food. I do cheat though. I'm not the type of person that can deprive myself of the food I want or else I binge. So I occasionally had a donut at work on Friday's or ate a piece of pizza (or two!). I just knew that I needed to watch what I eat for the rest of the day and tomorrow. Some people that were doing the biggest loser strictly changed their eating & this worked for them. I know just changing my diet would not have worked for me since I already eat pretty healthy and balanced.

-Scale: I weighed my food (not all of the time) because I tend to underestimate how much of an item I'm actually eating. I was used to eating huge portions of food and then thinking I ate only the serving size. So I started weighing out my food to make sure I'm eating around the serving size. This has helped me accurately calorie count and it helped me guesstimate serving sizes of my food that wasn't weighed. I know it sounds really crazy to weigh your food, but I would weigh a bunch of things ahead of time and mark my sandwich baggie with the ounces. This helped me just grab and go in the mornings when I would pack my lunch for work.

I know it kind of sounds like a lot, but I swear it wasn't some crazy life changing thing for me. I ate pretty healthy before, but rarely worked out during the winter at least. So the key for me was working out with addition to keeping up on eating healthy and being consistent!

I've done a fair share of research these past 9 weeks, so if anyone wants some low calories foods or any other tips like shocking your body, just let me know!