Biggest Loser - Week 1

You stuck with me as I battled contractors and now you will have the pleasure of reading about my latest battle...with the bulge. The week 1 weigh-in for our Biggest Loser competition is tomorrow and I am feeling very confident. I worked out 6 of the last 7 days! And I tell ya, if it weren't for this competition, I would have hit snooze and skipped the work out this morning. A big shout out to all my competitiors! Thanks for giving me a litte extra incentive to get my booty out of bed.


Jeff and I gave up our gym memberships a couple years ago due to lack of use. Instead, I've been enjoying the wonderful world of workout dvd's. I knew I needed to invest in some new videos when the covers of my existing collection all proudly displayed women in thongs...on the outside of their spandex pants. Ahhhhh, the good ole days. I quickly jumped on Amazon and stocked up. For all you other non-gym types, I'll give you my personal review of each using my own patened 5 sweat buckets rating system. Just like a good workout, 1 sweat bucket is the worst and 5 is the best.

• Day 1: "Paula Abdul's Get Up and Dance!" - A classic that probably would have been better off remaining in retirement. The exclamation point at the end of the title should have been a give away. Anytime you have to add punctuation to sell a product, it's a cry for help. Anyhoo, I have taken more dance lessons than I care to admit and still found this choreography to be challenging. I just ran in place when I couldn't keep up and still got a good workout. I'd give this video 2 sweat buckets.
• Day 2: "The Biggest Loser Workout: Cardio Max" - Gotta give some props to the show that inspired the contest! This has 3 different workouts and being a novice, I started on level 1. Holy moly Bob kicked my booty...in a good way. 5 sweat buckets
• Day 3: "Dancing with the Stars: Cardio Dance" - I love a good dance workout. In fact, the best workout is the one in which I forget that I'm working out. Sadly I knew I was working out the entire time I watched this video. There is a reason the dance pro's don't talk much on the show. Too bad the same can't be said of the video. 2 sweat buckets
• Day 4: Dance Step class at the hotel gym in Bend. I forgot how uncoordinated I am when trying to do step aerobics. I was determined to outlast my predominately grey-haired classmates.
• Day 5: Turbo Kickboxing class at the hotel gym in Bend. Fun, fun, fun. I'm a force to be reckoned with.
• Day 6: Travel back to Portland, no workout.
• Day 7: "The Biggest Loser Workout: Power Sculpt" - I wasn't in the mood to workout but I was determined to do something. After my great experience with the Cardio Max tape, I had high hopes for this one. My biggest learning? Weights are an important part of a sculpt workout. Only moderate sweating going on but I probably could have paused it to get the weights from the other end of the house or added another 10 minutes for level 2. Again, I wasn't really in the mood. I should probably give this one another shot before rating it.

All in all, I still hate to work out but I'm doing it anyway! I have also confirmed that I am in fact a stress-eater. Shocking, I know. Upon incurring some elevated stress levels this weekend, I was positively drooling as we were passing Cold Stone and Abby's Pizza on our way to dinner. But I held firm and ate a filling, healthy meal. Travelling is tough on the diet but I'm managing. Hopefully my dedication shows on the scale. Scratch that. Hopefully my dedication shows with looser fitting clothes!

PS - On a non-weight-loss related subject, I got my new car! A beautiful silver 2008 Highlander Hybrid. Happy New Year to me. The highlight of this auto purchase thus far occured this weekend when a guy got out of his BMW SUV to do a 360 admiring stroll around my Toyota.