Last week I made a small diet change which resulted in my single biggest weight-loss in the past 23 weeks — 1KG.

I’m not going to reveal what diet tweak I did, but I will say it was as simple as cutting “something” out. Until I have a clearer picture about this change, I’m going to keep it under wraps for now.

12 Week Goal: 75 KGs (165 lbs)
Need to Loose: 3.5 KGs (8.36 lbs)
Week 1 (Apr 7): 78.80 KGs (173.36 lbs)
Week 2 (Apr 14): no weigh-in
Week 3 (Apr 21): no weigh-in
Week 4 (Apr 28): 78.00 KGs (171.60 lbs)
Week 5 (May 5): 78.40 KGs (172.48 lbs)
Week 6 (May 12): 78.00 KGs (171.60 lbs)
Week 7 (May 19): 77.80 KGs (171.16 lbs)
Week 8 (May 26): 77.20 KGs (169.84 lbs)
Week 9 (May 30): no weigh-in
Week 10 (Jun 9): 77.80 KGs (171.16 lbs)
Week 11 (Jun 15): 76.80 KGs (168.96 lbs)

Total Weight Loss To Date: 4.6 KGs (10.12 lbs)

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Prevention.com recently posted an article called The Best and Worst Diet Foods including information about how frozen meals can help with weight loss:

“A 2004 University of Illinois study found that women who followed a 1,365-calorie diet in which they ate two packaged frozen entrées a day shed about 5 pounds more in 8 weeks than those who were instructed to follow a diet (with the same number of calories) based on the food pyramid.”

Frozen foods are very convenient but you have to watch out because many of them have a heavy calorie and/or fat price tag. I have tried a lot of varieties of “diet frozen meals” like Lean Cuisine, Healthy Choice and Weight Watchers and have found that many of them are bland or just plain bad. I have found a few winners along the way though.

1. Michael Angelo’s Frozen Dinners - These are some of be best tasting frozen meals I’ve ever tried! This brand is not a “diet food” label but most of the meals are between 250 and 400 calories. All of them are Italian and my favorites are manicotti, vegetable lasagna and cheese lasagna.
2. Lean Cuisine / Stouffers Panini sandwiches taste great!
3. Frozen vegetables - It’s almost pointless for me to buy fresh veggies as half the time they go to waste. But frozen veggies are always crisp and taste better than canned.
4. Sante Fe Rice - Weight Watchers and Lean Cuisine both have a Spanish rice entree that is good.
5. Macaroni & Cheese - Stouffers has the best taste and is not that much higher in fat/calories than a diet brand.

So those are a few of my favorite frozen diet foods. How about you?

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I increased from 77.2KGs to 77.8KGs on Friday. So after around 21 weeks of gym 4-5 times/week (mostly), I’ve managed to loose a whole freakin’ 3.6KGs (7.92 Ibs). That sucks!

If by December I don’t look like an Olympic athlete then I’m heading straight down to McDonalds

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… that I made progress last week. The scale is not budging. I was away from home all week and dining out at every meal. I did make some good food choices, like a small omelet and fruit for breakfast and skipping desserts. As usual my downfall was Mexican food. On the way home from the airport I stopped at Chipotle for a vegetarian burrito. Oh it was so tasty. I loved every bite! However according to DietFacts.com it was about 1000 calories. Okay, so maybe now I’m not so surprised that I didn’t have any weight loss this week!

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This week I’ve included some interval training into my cardio (on the x-trainer) workout. Here is what you do…

1. 30 seconds run like Dr Death is chasing you
2. 30 seconds rest (slow right down)
3. Repeat for a long as you can

I tested the method out with my little 20 minutes and 300 calories benchmark test just to see how fast you do burn calories.

I’m told if you can do this method for 10 minutes then you’re pretty fit. I tried 20 minutes

I selected Level-9 on the x-trainer (which still enables me to get up to a fast sprint) and went for it.

My 30 seconds sprints got the speed rating up to 20+ (not sure if that represents is 20KM/h). I dropped the speed to around 7 for the 30 second rests.

After a few minutes the 30 second rest intervals really don’t seem all that sufficient. It was eventually taking about 20 seconds for my heart rate just to start to lower… leaving just 10 seconds for me to drop 15 heart beats per minute. Phew!

Anyway…

Managed to burn 305 calories in 20 minutes. It was hard going, that is for sure, but I can certainly see how someone can become *extremely* fit doing this method of training as part of their weekly workout schedule.

Fitness is really the measure of how quickly you can lower your heart rate. In other words, if you get you heart rate up to say 170bpm — fitness is how quickly you can get it back down say 122 (differs with age group, of course).

If it takes you 2 minutes to go from 170bpm to 122bpm, then that is a measure of your fitness level.

Now try a few weeks later and see if you can get from 170bpm to 122bpm is less time, like 1 minute. That means you’re getting fitter. LOL!

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My knee isn’t fully healed but I decided that I could at least do some weight training.  So I hit the gym today for an upper body and abs workout for 30 minutes.  When I got home I worked in the yard for an hour which has to count for something! As far as my weekly weigh in - it’s about the same as when I started the challenge.  But I’m not discouraged I know all of the healthy changes I’ve made are paying off.

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Okay so I’m standing in the checkout line at the grocery store today and while absentmindely scanning through the racks see this US magazine. I’m not usually one to be too interested in celeb gossip mags, but the Janet Jackson weight loss story caught my eye. So I actually bought this magazine just out of curiosity.

So what are Janet Jackson’s weight loss secrets? Diet and excercise. Oh, and a personal trainer. Brilliant … very original.

But her diet and exercise had to be really intense to lose 60 pounds in just 4 months. She worked out 6 days a week for at least an hour. Her trainer said that she does 45 minutes of cardio because you don’t start burning fat until after 20 minutes. Her diet was a balance of protein, veggies and high fiber carbs of just 1,110 to 1,450 calories a day.

That is pretty extreme and I can see why it worked, especially if she was very strict. But for four months - it would be really difficult to stay so strict for that long…well at least for a real person.

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Do you ever feel hungry but nothing sounds good?   Today has been a day like that though I have no idea why.  Breakfast was a glass of iced tea (unsweet) and a few chips and hot sauce.  Now I’m staring at the pantry and frig and while there’s food there (thank heavens) nothing sounds appealing.  Hmmm… maybe I’ll go to to the local deli and get a sandwich.  Of course then I’d have to get off my hiney and drive over there.  Boy I’m lazy today!

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Saturday I went shopping and found some great new summer outfits. I even got some jean capris in a size 8! (I was in a 14 at the beginning of the year.) Of course sizes do vary a lot and there were some other pants in a 10 that I couldn’t squeeze into. But it was still a great encouragement. Now I have to stick to my body challenge so I can keep wearing those jeans!

Last week I really did well on my diet. I did have some freebies this weekend - a cheeseburger on Saturday and some desserts on Sunday. But other than that I did great. As far as that stubborn scale, it’s still saying 142 (the same as when BC2 began) but I am still feeling very encouraged.

My knee is feeling better but I probably won’t be able to exercise for another week. So I will have to be extra careful on my diet again this week!

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I am still losing but much slower than I would like. Have stepped up the exercise and am doing Fat Burning For Dummies on DVD and also Shape Up with Weights or Dummies. My weight is 85 kg today and am aiming for 84 by next week.

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