Healthy Challenge

A few months ago my sister talked me in to doing this healthy living challenge thing.  I'm not really into healthy, but it actually turned out to be a good experience.  My sister is diabetic and tries to be fairly healthy anyway, but after months and months of working with a personal trainer and changing her eating habits, she still wasn't dropping any weight.  I, on the other hand, have slowly gained weight over the course of my adult life, but slowly is exactly what it has been, slow.  I tend to be just active enough to maintain my terrible diet.

She needed a "buddy" to check in with every day and because she is still my tell-me-what-to-do older sister (even though we really do get along great), I just did it.  I was at the bottom of the competition every week until the end, when I finally moved ahead of two others, finishing third from the bottom.   My sister finished a very disappointing non-first, though she was very close to the top of the list and I thought she did great.

Here are my thoughts after completing the challenge:

• I ate more fruits and vegetables than I ever have in my life.  This was probably the hardest part for me.  After trying a few new vegetables at the beginning, I actually had a student tell me that "you just have to find the right vegetables."  He was right and I ended up eating a lot of salad.  I still just don't really like vegetables that much.  I also added fruit smoothies to my diet.  At my sister's suggestion, it is much easier to drink your fruit than eat it.  Plus, my kids both really like this new habit.
• Water.  I wasn't opposed to water before the challenge and drank a fair amount, but I was pretty inconsistent.  The challenge required 64 ounces a day.  This wasn't particularly hard for me to do, but by doing it, I realized that I didn't crave crap as much.  I think that when I am thirsty, I tend to eat instead of drink.
• Coke.  I'm about 90% done with drinking Coke.  I used to have a can a day, but because of the no sugar part of the challenge as well as keeping my calorie intake in check, Coke went away.  I've never been able to stand the taste of Diet Coke so for a while I was drinking Diet Dr. Pepper and then I just decided that if I couldn't have the real stuff I wasn't going to have it at all.  I had headaches for a while and then I just started having more energy and feeling better.  It could have had something to do with the fruits and vegetables, but I think this was one of the biggest changes to my lifestyle.  In the last few weeks I have still had a real Coke, but not very often, probably about 1 every 10 days.  Yes, they are still delicious.  No, I'm not getting headaches from them anymore.  No, I don't think I'll ever pick up the one a day habit again.
• Myfitnesspal App.  I believe that this could have single-handedly changed my lifestyle, but because part of the challenge was to keep a food journal, I downloaded this app and kept track of everything I ate.  Oh my!  When you honestly tally the calories of every piece of crap that goes in your mouth, it can be quite shocking.  I set a weight goal and it gave me a calorie number.  Even on days I failed the no sugar rule, I still tried to stay within my calorie goal and that helped me a ton!

Overall, it was a good experience.  My sister continued to accuse me of cheating the whole time because I would admit to failing at the no sugar points.  I didn't cheat.  I wasn't winning, but I wasn't cheating.  I came in 3rd to the bottom for heaven's sake.  What I did do though was find some extra energy that I didn't think I had and I actually lost about 8 pounds over the course of the 12 weeks (all together I lost 10, but then I gained a couple back).

I am taking this week off.  I've eaten crap and not kept track of it and I've had an extra Coke.  My sister and I are going to talk about how we want to modify the challenge and then we want to start it up again in a week or so.  

Anybody want to join us?