Fighting Fit Update

If you remember my post from a couple of months ago, you'll know we were doing a Biggest Loser competition at work.  Well the competition has ended and I WON!! I won £620, but even more exciting I lost 6.5% of my body weight, which is a little more than half of my total goal!  I think I could have done even better if I hadn't spent almost 3 weeks in Texas eating Mexican food during part of the competition!  The three biggest contributors to my success were my boxing, my Lose It app on my iPhone and the fact that I didn't "diet". 

I absolutely LOVE my boxing gym! I finally found a work out that I can stick with.  I love how competitive it is and the small "family" feel of the gym keeps me going back 3 times a week.  I will admit, the morning of the final weigh in, I went to the gym for a 7 am work out with Mick and he made me wear a trash bag under my shirt so I would sweat more.  I little gross, but I lost almost 2 lbs (probably just water weight) that morning right before the weigh in!  Oh, and they are also trying to convince me to fight in a real fight at a White Collar Boxing event in September....eek!!!

I am obsessed with the Lose It! app on the iPhone!  It is so easy to track your calories and your goals.  The only bummer is that is is all American restaurants, so I usually just have to find something similar, but it is still really helpful.  One of my biggest problems before, I think, was that I was so confused as to why I had put on weight.  I really didn't think that I ate that bad or that much, but once I started tracking it I was shocked at how badly I was actually eating. It was nice to put it in perspective!  Plus I LOVE adding exercise each day and getting more calories. I have found that I have been walking everywhere a lot more lately just so I can press the add exercise button and get a few extra calories!

As for dieting, I decided not to do it this time.  In the past I have used both Weight Watchers and Atkins to lose weight.  While I was successful in the end goal, I found that neither were sustainable for long periods of time and as soon as I went off of the diet I went right for all of the things I have been deprived of.  This time I just went for reduced calories and exercise.  I didn't deprive myself of anything.  If I wanted a candy bar I had one, I just made sure I exercised that day enough to work it off.  I did cut out drinking during the week, but with this year as one of the best British summers...I couldn't manage to cut myself off on the weekends :) I also started cooking for myself again.  When I moved to my new flat I started eating almost every meal out, since I don't have much in the way of a kitchen.  But really I was just being lazy.  So I am back to cooking my meals for the week on Sundays. 

Everyone asked what I am going to do with my winnings, but since I owed a lot of money to the IRS this year, my macbook got stolen and I JUST smashed my iPhone screen (yesterday, ugh!!) I think the funds are already allocated :/