Battle of the Heavyweights

I've been meaning to blog about this for months, but somehow I just keep forgetting.  Oh yes, the Ash vs. Emily great weight loss challenge of the past five months. 

Once I was able to exercise fully after having baby #2, we both decided to race each other to lose 20 pounds.  Ash had a bit of a head start on me...I think he had already lost eight pounds or so, but he cut me some slack since I was nursing and wasn't able to diet hardcore.  Unfortunately, I am not one of those people who lose all of my baby weight in the first two months postpartum.  Even if I'm nursing.  Which, honestly, just makes you hungrier.  Sorry to disappoint those of you who have yet to go experience the joy that is pregnancy and breastfeeding. ;)
Now a lot of people have said..."But you guys don't have 20 pounds to lose!"  Oh yes we do.  I promise.  Ash has orders from his doctor.  I have aspirations to not gain five to ten pounds with each pregnancy.  Anyway, besides the stern words from his doctor, Ash decided the only thing that would really motivate him to change his diet and go from zero to sixty with his exercise program would be a cash prize. I like cash too.  Especially when part of the deal is that we can do whatever we want to with said cash. The actual cash and our notebook tracking our weight have been hanging in our bathroom since August.

Ash's plan is basically this:  ride his bike a lot, drink tons of water and stop eating meat for lunch.  I followed suit, but instead of bike riding I ran a 5K in November and tried to do a lot of yoga.  And secretly hoped nursing would give me an edge.  It didn't.  And the holidays didn't do us any favors either.

Sidenote:  I'm really proud of Ash for not eating meat at lunch.  He almost always goes out to eat with his big brawny construction coworkers and was eating ribs, steak, you name it for lunch...a lot.  So switching to eating at his desk or ordering a salad with those guys was a big change. :)  And it's a big change for me to not eat every 2 hours because I'm physically nourishing someone else.  Eating all day long is so fun!!

So, here we are, in January, and we've hit a few plateaus since August.  Winter sucks for exercising, I think, but I'm confident we'll hit our goal very soon.  I think we both have seven pounds to go....so, the final countdown is on.  I'm also taking ideas of what to do with my pile of cash once it's in my hands. :)

-Emily :)