Valentine's Day Challenge

I've taken to reading a lot of weight loss journey blogs and a constant thread in all of them is goal setting. I've never been a goal setter, why is that? For one, I'm not usually organized enough. I have the motivation and the strength to achieve things I want but I usually do what I want on the whim in an instant. For example, after living with my parents while just married I decided one day that it was time for an apartment. I went out the next day and signed a lease after looking at 5 different places. I wanted to get a bigger car... looked at my dealership online, picked it out and went and traded in my car the same day. See?

But, on the other hand, when we host challenges on the Jenny Craig forums I jump at the excitement I get from setting a goal and then seeing how close I get to it or how much I can surpass it. I've been thinking about setting monthly goals but I'm still deciding if I'll be making a whole post about those goals or not. For now, I'll share my goals and progress from our V-Day challenge.

Goals:
- Weigh in at 192 on challenge end date 2/14 (I'll be weighing in on the 15th... my NEW weigh in days
   will be Saturdays)
- Go to rec center 3x week
- Get to week 6 in C25K app
- Complete weekly meal plan at the beginning of the week (this was Wednesday for me as it
   commenced my new week starting from weigh in date)
- Stick to the meals on my own that I pick
- Add in more veggies
- STAY in onederland

**These days I rarely weigh in daily. At the beginning of my weight loss journey I was definitely scale obsessed. That can either hinder or help you. Luckily for me it helped me but I wasn't immune to letting the scale get me down certain days. During the challenge I do try to weigh in near to the same time but sometimes I forget because:

Start date/weight: 12-26-13 -- 202.4 lbs
12/27 -- 199.6
12/28 -- 201
12/29 -- 199.8
12/30 -- 200.4
12/31 -- 199.2
01/01 -- 199.8  Total of 9 inches lost in the month of December
01/07 -- 198.8
01/08 -- 200.6
01/14 -- 198.2
01/15 -- 198.4
01/16 -- 197.8
01/22 -- 199.4
01/23 -- 197.6
01/26 -- 195.6
01/28 -- 198.4
01/29 -- 196.6
01/31 -- 194.4

There's 12 days left to lose weight in this challenge so where am I at on my goals so far?

As you can see scale wise I'm getting close to my challenge goal of 192 but there's some things that I need to control better in order to get there. Primarily, stress eating. This past week being short staffed at work has caused my stress level through the roof and I've gone a little overboard with my old friend, chinese food. Now, you REALLY CAN eat anything in life... but only when it's controlled. I went with a coworker to a buffet and ate too much. Granted, not as much as I have in the past but it was still too much.

That threw off my workout plans. I've left my c25k training (which takes place at the indoor track at the rec center) this week and opted for more hip hop. Don't get me wrong I LOVE HIP HOP but I can't turn to it to try and rectify overeating. So my goal of going to the rec center 3x week didn't happen this week but it did the previous weeks. But, I did go to hip hop FIVE times this week... including two in a row yesterday.

This week has also been the first of the challenge where I haven't successfully written out my weekly meal plan. But I also have the advantage of having more Jenny Craig food this week so it takes less planning when I can scan in my main meals and then just add in veggies/fruit/snack/dairy as needed.

I've done great at adding in more veggies. I made some deliciously spicy rutabaga fries and bought some turnips to make fries out of as well. Lots of green beans and just YUM:

Most importantly I have STAYED in onederland!!! I'd say I'm about 85% complete on my challenge goals. More on this later as this post IS LONG.

Thanks for anyone out there reading and leave a girl a comment on things you want to know more about or any advice you might have. You can also email me at p3jessca5@aol.com