Happy Earth Day!

I feel like we've done our small part...we've switched to reusable canvas bags when we go grocery shopping, recycling, changing out our high energy sucking light bulbs for "green" lights (even Rico hates them because they buzz), at least one of our cars is great on gas mileage (over 30mpg - Go Malibu!), and we've made a concerted effort to switch from bottled water to using tap water and just refilling our regular (refillable) water bottles that we take to gym.  I know there's more we could be doing but just listing those off makes me feel better! (But then again... I'm not that crunchy to begin with!)

I have one week to go until our BFL weigh in at Emerald Downs.  I won't reveal numbers yet because at least one of my competitors follows the blog ::waves to Holly::.  We weigh in next Friday.  I'm the largest competitor so I have more to lose in order to catch up with those Skinny Minnies in the contest.

But contest aside, overall the diet is going really well.  I did the same diet back in high school with Mom and it worked then and I lost 32lbs and got down to an astonishing 128!  I'm hoping for even better results this time (definitely not lower than that # but the ability to lose more to get back to a healthy weight).  Rico and I have dramatically cut down on going out to eat -- which is extremely good for our waist lines and our wallets. I'm working out 3-4 times a week with about an hour of cardio when I go to the gym.  I don't know what clicked this time, but I'm actually starting to like going to the gym.  I've heard people say it before and I didn't believe it would come out of my mouth but...the gym can be addicting! ::gasp in horror::  No, really, I feel much better after having worked out and I'm definitely seeing the results on the scale, as well as in clothes.  I keep to my diet on Spark People, which is a free support forum/website that has a ton of healthy recipe ideas, your charts so you can keep track of weight, what foods you eat and how much of each nutrient is in each food.  My goal is to lower my sodium and fat intake, up my protein and stick to around 1200 calories a day.  Spark People made it very easy to do that, along with keeping track of how many glasses of water a day I drink and how many servings of fruits and veggies I have.

Rico begins his Biggest Loser contest with work next Thursday, but his runs for 12 weeks so that should give me the extra boost to stick with this change in eating habits.  An unfortunate side effect of my being in the BFL is that Rico has lost 5lbs already...without exercising!  I say that like it's a bad thing- it's really not! But that means he has 5lbs less to lose during his competition.  His incentive though is pretty sweet...$500 cash!  

I didn't mean for this to turn into a novel about the new diet but that is the major thing going on in our lives right now.  I finished up my 3rd and final Photoshop class at Green River last week.  I got some helpful hints and am starting to understand what an amazing program it is.  I still have a long way to go but another cool thing I've discovered is called "Actions" which are like preset "maneuvers" that you can do to your photos, kind of like shortcuts!  I am loving those!  But I kind of feel like I'm cheating because I'm not really learning how to do those individual steps, but whatever, its the same end result, right??