Roll Out the Red Carpet...

For The King AND Queen of Super in Six.

That's right friends, out of a field of 25 players, The Johnsons finished 1st and 2nd!!!

I was positive that Seth would win the whole thing because he seriously KILLED everyone on weight loss and I was pretty sure I would come in second but I didn't want to count my chickens before they hatched.

So here is how you got points each day....

Up to 10 points for eating foods on "good" list (one for each food)
10 points for eating 5 fruits/veggies a day
5 points for drinking water (amount increased as weeks went on)
5 points for not eating ANYTHING after 8PM 
15-20 points for exercising (depending on length of workout, with Sundays off)
5 points for praying
5 points for reading your scriptures
-2 points for eating foods on "bad" list (one free bad food allowed per week)

So that leaves you with 400 points available every week and then you get 10 points for every pound lost each week as well.

Seth had 4 weeks at a perfect 400, one at 398, and one at 391. He never missed a single workout (even though he sometimes got home late and had to get on the treadmill at 11PM). He just had a couple of food cheats and one day he lost his no food after 8 points because his flight landed at 8. And his weight loss was....drumroll please......

23 flippin' pounds!!! 

So his final score was 2619 points!

I was the only, yes ONLY player to score a perfect 400 every single week. And yes I am bragging shamelessly because those points were out there for anyone who wanted them. I decided to take them. I didn't go in to it planning to get a 400 every week, but you know me, I am all or nothing, and I couldn't rest until all the points were safely recorded on the tally sheet each day. And my weight loss?

9 pounds! So my total points were 2490!

Now every player did get 10 bonus points for every week they were at 400, and I also got 60 more for being the only one with a perfect 2400 pre-weight loss points BUT I will not add them because Seth thought they were unfair because we didn't know about them up front. Besides, the bonus points do not change anything and we would have been 1st and 2nd even without them, thank you very much.

And remember that this was a team contest as well and my team cleaned the floor with the other teams. We won every single week! The second place team was the one made up of all of our spouses but when the final scores were tallied we beat them by 587 points!!! And now we are making the hubbies take us all out to celebrate our win.

I am really glad we did this! I had not stepped on a scale since a couple years ago when Seth and I had a contest to see who could get to our wedding weight first. I weighed 118 when I got married. I worked out and starved to try to get back there but my body stopped at 122. I was miserable and hungry and then one day I took an honest look at myself and said...you are a mid-30's, 5 foot 7 inch, mother of 3 and 122 pounds is not good enough for you? That was it. I put the scale away and decided that weight is just a number. I was even afraid to weigh in for this one because I did not want to get obsessed with that stupid number again.

But, I LOVE the way this program is set up. I was so busy collecting points that I never thought about calories, ever! And then I would weigh in and weight was gone. I couldn't starve myself either, because I had to eat to get points, so I focused on health and not size, for the FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE. Incidentally, I am now once again just 4 pounds from my wedding weight but I am shelving the scale now and just worrying about making the best choices for my body.

I learned that the dinners I cook are actually pretty healthy. We ate the same dinners we always have. We had to make a few changes, brown rice, wheat noodles,wheat tortillas...but other than that most of the stuff we already ate was good. Our snacking habits needed more work but my kids never complained once and they actually loved all the fresh produce that was in the house. They would ask for steamed broccoli for dessert because something is very wrong with them and we all enjoyed lots and lots of fruit and fruit smoothies. We even learned to bake healthy...no sugar, no white flour, no butter...Splenda is approved but I used it once and then vowed never to eat that nasty bag of chemicals again, BLAH.

There were hard moments, but not as many as I thought there would be. The after 8 thing was tough, especially since a few nights a week we leave for TKD/Skating at 5 and get home at 8, and it would be too late for a snack. I also used to eat for the first time each day at about 2PM and eat until midnight so this was a huge change for me. It was also tough to stuff Easter baskets and not be able to pop one single piece of candy in my mouth, but we survived all the yuck moments and kicked this contest in the butt.

I am even just barely starting to see a change in my body. My belly went flat in week 1 but my belly has never been a problem child. Don't throw stuff at me. You have your problem areas, and believe me I have mine. My butt and legs are a real challenge to slim down but I am just starting to see some muscle above me knee and my boots zipped up easily on Easter. I have had to turn down many pairs of boots because they would not zip over my calves which is so frustrating because I am not big, so how do I have calves so much larger than average calves that boots won't fit over them? But they do now! Even Seth noticed and leaned over at church to tell me I could fit a gun in my boot now. Such a redneck. And then there is my booty. Before you say I don't have a big butt, ask my husband or my sisters who have had to go in to dressing rooms with me and watch me go up two sizes from my waist measurement to find pants that will go over my butt. I don't mind the butt, because it is the only curvy part of me, BUT gravity is starting to do to my butt what it does to other people's chests. I have reduced it some, but now it is time to forget about slimming down and work on shaping up. Our work here is not done.

So you will still find us working out, and strangely enough, now that I CAN have treats, I am no longer tempted to. I have yet to sneak even a single piece of Easter candy. I am sure I will at some point but I have learned to eat with purpose, and not mindlessly and I hope that at least some of what I have learned will stick.

Alright, well that turned in to a really long post, but there is still one more thing to share.

In six more weeks, Seth and I are going to Cancun! Alone! And it has been my goal for the past 15 years to wear a bathing suit bottom without shorts over it, so I see more squats and lunges in my immediate future. Don't get me wrong though. I am not at all disappointed with where I am at right now. I am super happy with the strides we have made so if swimming trunks come with me to Cancun, so be it.