Challenge Complete!

The My Fit Foods 21-Day Challenge is over.  Not a day too soon.  I stuck to it 100%--the meals, all the water, my 2 earned cheat meals, nothing but MFF for 3 weeks.  I lost 3 pounds total.  Disappointing because average is 6-15.  Of course I consider myself above average, so I thought for sure I would blow through the minimum 6 pounds.  I am trying to stay focused on the good that came from the program--clean and healthy food, small portion sizes, lots of water, and probably most important, the discipline to follow through 3 weeks on an eating plan.

Not sure where I will go from here.  I want to continue to eat as clean as possible, and plan on adding more fruits and veggies to my diet.  While the MFF plan had fruits and veggies, it was very heavily weighted on protein.  I want to add some whole grains.  I think for dinner tonight I will have the tomato sandwich I've been craving--really the only thing I've craved since starting the MFF plan.  Tom's growing tomatoes in the backyard and I will bake some whole wheat bread.  Mmmmm...good.

I also recognize that I need to step up my exercise plan.  Light exercise for 3 hrs/week just doesn't cut it for me.  I am not eager to get back in the gym, and my knees/feet are not yet ready to run again.  I CAN lift some weights and swimming would be a good option (other than the swimsuit part...).

Thanks for following along on my MFF experience!

Day 21

This is it.  My last day of the My Fit Foods 21-Day Challenge.  I started off with a Mix N Mash breakfast--scrambled eggs, rice, yellow and orange bell peppers, and some cheese.  It was already mixed up so I didn't need to go through that step.  It didn't taste too bad this morning.  The cheese was a nice touch.  My snack this morning was a pack of trail mix.  Also, not too bad.  I could make a better trail mix myself...but the plus to the MFF trail mix is that it is pre-portioned.  I have a hard time stopping once I start eating that stuff.

Lunch is BBQ chicken, which, if I remember right, resembles BBQ more in appearance than flavor.  It's served with a scoop of sweet potatoes and probably some veggies underneath.  Snack is Fit 2 Go, which is the one with the hard-boiled egg, celery, apple, and peanut butter.  Dinner tonight is a repeat of the chili I've had once before.

Tomorrow is the big weigh in.  My expectations have been dramatically altered from Day 1.  At my last weigh in, after 2 weeks on the program, I had lost 3 pounds total.  I have long since given up on double digits!  Ha!  At this point I'm hoping to make the minimum on their 6-15 pound average weight loss.

Day 20 is Over

New snack and new dinner :)  MFF has been holding out on me!  Snack was so-so...and I forgot to take a picture.  It was another snack in a round bowl.  It was hummus, carrots, celery, grape tomatoes...and chicken, again.  I may not eat chicken for awhile...or salmon.

Dinner was pretty good.  It was a steak jalapeno salad.  Lots of spinach (gallon-sized ziploc half full) with steak, 2 slices of jalapeno, and 3 tubs of stuff to add on--pico de gallo, corn & black bean salsa, and a green limey dressing.  Too much spinach for the toppings, but it was good.  I could have used a LOT more pico.  A nice salad though and so nice to have something cool for a meal and with no chicken or salmon!  (Are you catching the theme here???)

Went for a walk with Tom & the dogs this afternoon.  We did some off-road walking on the trails leading out from our neighborhood.  Our plan was to get to the creek, but the trail was a little muddy due to the rain we've had so we cut it short.  The high wire electric lines run along that area.  We let Bella run loose.  When we got back to the road and Tom tried to attach Bella's leash, one or both of them were electricized!  They both kept getting shocked everytime they touched!  Very weird.  I'm glad my house isn't by those wires.  That can't be good.

Day 20

Wow--hard to believe I've come this far.  I'm ready for it to be over...but in spite of the measly weight loss, three weeks of willpower is a very good exercise.

I was given the wrong breakfast for this morning.  No worries because they all taste the same.  Not true, but there is a similarily in taste that seems to run through many of the meals.  Snack was cherry greek yogurt.  Lunch was chicken on green beans and mashed sweet potatoes with THREE walnut chunks!  I've had this lunch twice before and both of the other times there was one walnut chunk hidden in the sweet potatoes.  I don't know if they're trying to pull out all the stops to get me to continue, or if the extra walnuts are just a reward for good behavior.  My guess is it was just chance.

Actually I have been surprised that there hasn't been much of a follow up from MFF.  They sent an automated email after 2 weeks...and accidentally (I'm assuming) sent the 3 week email.  It was a generic "congrats, send us your weight loss, and come see us for more options/variety with your future MFF meals".  I would have thought my nutrition counselor would have wanted to meet with me when I picked up my last batch of food to encourage me to stick with it.  It wouldn't have worked, but would have been a smart thing for MFF to do.

Stopped at the grocery store on the way home from church today to pick up lots of fruits and veggies.  That may be all I eat come Tuesday.

Day 19

Lunch was salmon on rice with broccoli.  Nothing special.  I am getting sick of salmon...and rice...and broccoli...and any food in a black plastic container.  Snack was a protein drink and a whole, big, juicy, delicious Fuji apple :)  And for dinner?  Something new, Gumbo!  It's not bad.  Pretty hot.  Chicken, shrimp, and lots of okra.  I prefer my okra fried (who doesn't?!), but this is good.  It makes the broth kinda "snotty" but I'm trying not to look at that.  Honest, it looks better than the picture.

This concludes Day 19.  I can't believe just 2 more days to go.

Day 19

I didn't finish writing up my review of Day 18.  It was unspectacular.  Snack of chicken/walnuts/fruit (more fruit please!!!), and dinner was salmon on veggies.  Ate both too early so I was plenty hungry at bedtime.  Extra tough because I KNEW there were oatmeal raisin cookies in the freezer that I had made earlier in the day for TJ to take to the pool.  They are still there.  I might have taken a good whiff of them, but I did not so much as lick my fingers when I finished making them.

Today is a new day!  Breakfast was the Rise & Shine which is scrambled eggs, cinnamon coated sweet potatoes, and turkey sausage.  Mixed it all up and put it in a bowl.  The theory was that maybe it would taste better if it wasn't in the black MFF container.  Nope.  Left a spoonful in the bowl and called it quits.  The good news for this morning is that I swapped today's trail mix snack for yesterday's Picnic Time, so I have that to look forward to at 11 :)

Of course I did not even THINK about weighing this morning.  I plan on staying away from the scale until Tues morning.

Morning Day 18

This morning I am enjoying the fact that someone prepared my breakfast for me.  It's breakfast tacos, one of MFF's finest breakfasts.  Next week it will probably be oatmeal...and I will have to slave over a hot stove to fix it!

Decided to check my progress on the scale this morning.  Almost 3 weeks of around 1200 quality calories a day with no sugar, artificial sweeteners, bad fats, heavily processed, fast food, etc., should be worth something wouldn'tcha think?  Three pounds.  Yup, that's it.  I was pretty sure I'd at least hit the minimum 6 in their range of average weight loss.  Unless my body has some serious plans for the next 4 days, I'm not even going to make that.  I WILL see it through--have come to far not to--but I'm disappointed.  I will use these next 4 days to evaluate where I want to go from here.  More fruits and veggies for sure.

Snack this morning is my favorite Picnic Time.  Because I will be out with friends, I think I'll swap it for tomorrow's Trail Mix because it travels better.  I sure hope that doesn't mess up my weight loss!  :)