I have joined a 21-Day Weight Loss Chal­lenge for blog­gers.  It is a com­plete pro­gram designed by Dustin Maher, author of Fit Moms for Life.  Even though I have a strong back­ground in health and well­ness, I have plateaued over the last few months and really wanted to push myself to meet my goals for the New Year.

The first day was great.  I took the pic­tures, mea­sure­ments, and pre­pared all the records so I can keep track of my progress.  I have worked out every day since the chal­lenge started on Feb­ru­ary 1.  My mus­cles are sore but I feel very moti­vated to keep doing the work­outs.  Dustin’s work­out plans are intense and really get the heart pump­ing even when just doing the strength training.

The big change in my food has been elim­i­nat­ing white flour, sugar, rice, and pota­toes.  Basi­cally all the processed foods are out.  Every Mon­day I will post the pre­vi­ous week’s menu.  I’m not great at plan­ning a whole week out so we will have to do ret­ro­spec­tives to show what foods I am getting.

The best part of all of this is my love affair with water has been rekin­dled. Before this chal­lenge I would remem­ber, usu­ally too late, to start get­ting my daily water.  It was becom­ing a bit of a strug­gle.  Prior to the black hole of sleep depri­va­tion that comes from rais­ing twins, I was drink­ing upwards of 100 ounces of water a day.  I am back to that level or higher now.  It feels wonderful.

So I promised to share my pho­tos and mea­sure­ments with you so here it goes. In the inter­est of com­plete hon­esty, as a per­son who works in the health indus­try it is hard to admit that I got off track.  I think the impor­tant thing it to real­ize I am work­ing to make change and that is all I can ever ask of myself or my clients.  So here goes:

(I am hav­ing some tech­ni­cal issues with my cam­era.  I will get the pho­tos posted as soon as I can get them loaded to the com­puter.  Might have to retake them with another cam­era — Check back).

In the mean­time, here are my measurements:

Arms 12.5″

Chest 34.5″

Waist 36″

Belly 37″

Butt 42″

Thigh 23.5″

Calf 16″

I will mea­sure myself and take after pic­tures on Feb­ru­ary 21st and share my progress.  Until then check back for reg­u­lar updates.  If you are a blog­ger, inter­ested in Dustin’s Blog­ger Chal­lenge he wants to do a new one every month and help 5,000 blog­gers.  Con­tact me for details if you want to be involved.

Wish me luck!  I’m off to win some points, make a shop­ping list and find a gym class for the day.