SSSDC - Week 3 and details for Week 4

Hello everyone!

SOOOOOO sorry for the delay on getting the link posted for the challenge. Pam at Empty Nest was quite thoughtful to check in yesterday and ask if the delay in posting the link was because of a fun thing, and nothing bad. Thankfully yes, it was because of something good! No tragedies to speak of  - just a "sun emergency" if you will. I actually took a rather impromptu trip to the beach with my friend that is visiting from Colorado, her 2 kids and my niece. But I was sorry to have missed the opportunity to get the blog post and link up yesterday because I know you were all just chomping at the bit to share your challenge news (or at least I hope you were - LOL).
 
I'll be the first to admit that last week I was rather sucky with the blog posts -  although I did try to get around and visit most, if not all of you, to see how your week was trucking along.  The reason for MY lack of posts was due to a sizeable party we threw on Friday with about 15 adults, 5 kids and 2 infants. I was cleaning my house for what felt like an eternity, washing curtains, cleaning baseboards, and vacuuming, vacuuming, vacuuming - because let's face it, when you have three dogs, you can NEVER, EVER, EVER stop vacuuming - party or no party. I felt like I had little opportunity to sit for any chunk of time and get my fingers tapping around the keyboard. After I posted about doing the kettlebell workout (which took me DAYS to recover from, BTW - let's just say taking the stairs was a real treat - NOT), I went into Operation Clean and Cook and never looked back.

So, how did I do last week? Here's my recap:

My goals for last week were as follows:

• Lose 2 lbs - DONE! I actually weighed in at 224 on Friday (my weigh day) so I beat my goal by three quarters of a pound! My starting weight at the beginning of the challenge was 232, so my total so far is 8 lbs down! In three weeks??? I'll take it! The scale hasn't moved like this in MONTHS!!!!
• Try Jacobs Ladder and work out with kettlebells. - Will you accept one out of two?? I did NOT get to Jacobs Ladder because after the Kettlebell workout, I was dying for a good 2 days and by the time I felt OK to workout at the gym, I was doing all the stuff for the party. SO, I burned calories with cleaning - but really failed big time on getting back to the gym. I WILL be tackling that Jacob's Ladder asap - I even had a dream about it last night! Guilt for not meeting my goal? Maybe! But I am determined to get on that thing if it kills me!
• Continue to track - YES!!!! I have been great with this! I am now officially a tracking junkie! I truly contribute this single tool as helping me realize what I put in my mouth does, in fact, make all the difference!
• Complete at least 7.5 hours of exercise - Not in the "official" sense. Other than the one gym workout and 2 walks with the dogs (roughly an hour each), I really didn't hit my exercise goals which makes me feel lousy. Since I don't count my hours of housework, I only made about half my goal. Needless to say,  I better exercise this week or else!

I'm not too happy that I didn't hit all of my goals this week.  Funny how I feel like I truly let myself down, and feel like I have let down all of you in the process as well. But I am human, and I do know that life has a way of interfering with even the best laid plans sometimes. I also know I have to kick it into high gear this week because the scale is up a smidge from Friday and I know those sangrias and various other party foods (hello, hamburger and potato salad) will come back to haunt me big time if I don't fight them off tooth and nail with some serious sweat equity this week!

WEEK FOUR,  the challenge is:

Week 4 - (begin June 24) - 100 oz OF WATER AND SHARE A FAVORITE HEALTHY RECIPE
This week presents a big challenge for me - I don't know why, but I really struggle with drinking enough water. I aim to correct that since weight loss and water consumption go hand in hand. If you already drink copious amounts of water - kudos to you - this will be an easy week for you. For people like me, it will be interesting. Increased trips to the bathroom will at least burn extra calories!
Since I'm also always at a loss for flavorful low-cal recipes (and really am at a loss when it comes to good breakfast food that is filling), I thought we could all swap a few recipes of our go-to dishes we love while losing weight. I'm always curious to see what types of food people turn to while adjusting their lifestyle. I love stretching my culinary muscle and think it will be fun to share what our healthy eats are now that we understand that donuts are, in fact, not diet food.

So, I have to dig through my best healthy recipes and see which one I want to share. I may have a few in my arsenal that I can post  throughout the week. I'm really excited to see what everyone else will share too! I'm always down for a good recipe swap!

As for the H2O, I'm good so far with the water (well, we are only one day in, so hopefully I can keep up the momentum). Yesterday, being in the sun all day, I was so thirsty - so I knew I could meet this goal easily. I drank a liter of water right when I got up and had water throughout the day. Then when I got home, I drank like a camel. This did not bode well for my nighttime sleeping - as I was up twice in the night to run to the bathroom - but hey, a deal's a deal, right?


I have to get on it this morning. I only had one bottle of water so far and my goal today is not to let the bulk of my drinking go until the latter part of the day. Otherwise I might be inclined to throw on a Depends tonight before bed - LOL - JUST KIDDING!!!!

So - my goals for this week are:

• Lose 2 lbs
• Keep tracking
• Drink 100 oz of water a day
• Get on Jacobs Ladder FINALLY
• Share at least 2 healthy go-to recipes with nutritional info included.
• Get on my BIKE!!!

Anyway...that's about it for now. Link is set up below!
Once again, sorry for the delay but please post below if you have written your week 3 challenge post so we can all visit you!