Yep, we found what is broken, so we'll make the fix, in these last six!

These last two weeks have been incredibly time consuming and grueling. We did lots of back and forth soccer and family traveling, threw some birthday parties, created and put together a room make-over, had many doctors appointments etc....all amongst Big 'D's last week of school having final tests, projects and evaluations. And to top that off I also added a third 10-12  hour work day to my week to help us get ahead financially for the upcoming school year. With this added, but much needed, stress, I found myself throwing in the towel.  Being a dental hygienist at a community center is no easy task. It's both physically and mentally draining. Spending 12 hours hunched over a mouthful of bleeding ignorance can put any one over the edge. On a good day, don't get me wrong, I'm very lucky and blessed, and it can be very rewarding, but let me tell you....working where I work, and cleaning what I clean, is not for the faint of heart. These last two weeks I found myself so tired and even more so, tired of the scale and seeing Darrin, yet again, stuck. I lost my mojo and didn't have the energy to fix healthy food for my family.  So for the first time in this challenge, I personally threw in the towel. For a few days and nights in a row, I let my family fend for themselves. I quit. Stick a fork in me, I'm done. I skipped meals for myself all together just so I could cook fast easy things for the kids and nothing for me so then the calories literally didn't exist. Get me off this ride, these highs and lows are too high and too low. I checked out. I did more than throw that towel, I chucked it far over my head.

Well, thank heavens for Sundays, because they revive my soul, enlighten my mind and give my body it's strength. I was able to look back on the week, with much regret, but was able to look forward with faith and knew that I wasn't ready to quit, and I was ready to realize this challenge still has lots to teach us. This challenge is challenging us! Challenging us on so many more different levels than just being physical and healthy. Its teaching us how to be a better family, to work together, to listen to each other, to push and pull one another, to fight for what we love and  for who we love. So, I'm taking back my old, dirty, sweaty worn out towel. Give it back, I'm not done with it!

Our motto this week is "Lets make the fix in these last six"! Darrin and I were able to find out exactly what his weight loss problem is. It was an obvious light bulb moment, that I'd wish we could have discovered weeks and weeks ago. On Friday night Darrin was working his traditional over-night weekend shift, except this night it was his birthday, so the kids and I wanted to surprise him with a birthday treat. So we picked up a mini-pizza hut pizza, a diet drink, and a small birthday treat. I thought to myself, "It's his birthday, lets give him a good, but modest cheat night surprise." The kids and I were so excited to surprise visit him. Well, we easily pulled it off and it was so fun to see daddy in his element at work. But oh my heavens did we discover the problem when I entered his work break-room!!! I think I almost passed out at the sight of so much junk food. My insides started to turn and I wanted to scream! Now, granted there was "extra" food in honor of some retirement party, but it alone did not account for all the rest of the junk food that was present. Oh my gosh, this is the problem, the fix in these last six. I asked Darrin if this is how it is all the time, and he nodded with a big old "yep". So, in his long 24 hours of over-night hospital shifts, he is pretty much canceling out all the hard calorie counting, healthy eating and calorie burning he's done all week. My heart sank. If I'd only seen this earlier. But, at the same time, I don't blame him. When there isn't any ER action happening, this is a hard, long, tiring, food poundingly boring shift! Now that we know this challenge is what he's been facing alone every weekend, we can face it together. Like they say "Once you know better, you do better" "The past is in the past" We can do this!

So to do better, we have devised a do better over-nighter plan, and it will be to take the blender from home to his break room. He'll be making his fruit protein shakes that his sister Linsey taught him  how to make, to keep him from his junk food binges. I will be sending random encouraging texts through out the night, and the kids and I will be joining him for his 10:00 meal time. Yes, that's a late night for our little Heston, but we'll make it work, and he'll have to take a later nap! Also, Big 'D' never really gave up soda, so he wants to experiment in these last 6 weeks and only do WATER, with exception to his work shifts....he will do one caffeinated drink half way through his 12 hour shift. Throughout the week he has been doing great, so we'll see what this new work weekend plan does for his weight loss. I'm excited to see! He will be adding workouts in during the day as second or quite possibly, maybe third workouts now that school is out. Those are his words not mine. Say what you do, do what you say mister Big 'D'.....  He's back to two-a-days baby! As of right now Darrin is #20 on the leader-board. He still has plenty of time to get off the tails of the "losers" ahead of him, hahaha! Come on, you know that was funny!? We'll also be adding a nightly couple talk! I know, cheesy right? Who cares! We'll be reading, studying and talking with each other about our day and how we can do better the next day. This my friends, might be the secret? We'll see :)

As far as the family challenge goes......this week we are back to avocados, asparagus and blueberries! And this week we'll be taking a family hike on Wednesday where we will time how long it takes us, and then in 6 weeks we'll do it again and make a better time! Tommye-Lynn and I are adding a mother/daughter 30 minute walk/jog into our evenings on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Darrin and Tommye will be doing soccer drills on Mondays and Fridays. Wednesdays have always been our family activity days so we'll keep that in place. After my last blog post I did do some researching on how to make salad eating fun, so we tried a salad dressing taste test and the kids loved it! We dipped the salad leaves into different dressings and to no surprise they stuck to liking the traditional ranch and italian dressing. BUT, we found out that Walmart is now selling Olive garden dressing and croutons.....and since my children are back in the "not going to fight my mom to eat salad" zone, because they LOVE Olive Garden Salad. For me, Love is an understatement of my relationship with Olive Garden dressing. Let's just say I've died and gone to heaven!

Our community event is coming closer! We went from 65 employee sign-ups to a mere 15. Can you believe that???? No wonder these HUGE competitions have to have over 300 and 400 participants, cause you end up with only around 50 serious contenders. I had 65 initial participants, so I count myself lucky to end up with around 15. We have a top 5 who are head to head and working hard, with our top contender at 12 percent weight loss, and I'm so proud of her! This FHS challenge ends less than 3 weeks from now and we are gearing up for our CSI obstacle course on May 31st! I'm so excited, and I too have been working hard and hitting personal goals myself to get to where I want to be! I have actually lost 8.6 percent of my body weight, 15 pounds, which would actually put me in the top 40 of the Magic Valley weight loss competition if I was a part of the individual challenge. And I have lost 25 pounds since the beginning of November. I'm pretty dang excited! It's been a huge motivation to lead my FHS employees in their health challenge. Setting an example for them, my children and my husband has been my biggest motivator yet and I'm still going strong.

So here are Darrin's pics and stats from from January to now!

Quite the difference eh?? I stopped posting all of the month to month photo comparisons because I realized way too late in game how much more motivating is is for Darrin to just see his initial before shots compared to his current pic. It's all about motivation, so that's what we are sticking to! All of Darrin's measurements have gone down to approx 4-6 inches. We have to consider user error with the measuring tape, I can't seem to get it in the same spot every time. I'm sure there are inconsistency's that are to his disadvantage, which is why I appreciate what the pictures tell us!

                     Jan 4             May 4

weight           342                294
peck/bust     55.5                 51
real waist      56.5                50.5
arm/bicep     19                    15
thigh              28.5                26.5

Darrin is not happy with the "sagging" that is taking place and can't wait to incorporate more body building again. Nothing extreme will be happening till after the final weigh-in so that the muscle won't out-do the fat loss, but he will add weight training back in! He feels like he has a good feel for the treadmill and elliptical cardio workouts now and is ready to incorporate his love for cross-fit back into his routine. It was never any of our intentions for him to discontinue the cross-fit workout, but something had to give in his grueling schedule, and pure cardio had to be the priority. And it proved successful as he lost 17 pounds at this last Magic Valley weigh-in! So now he's ready to get back to it! And we are so thankful that the cross-fit gym is honoring the payment that was made through April, and extending it through May. His leader at "The Pack" cross-fit is a great guy, and he's excited to start busting Big 'D's chops again after a 3.5 week hiatus! We are hoping that the two of these combined will help him pull ahead, along with his eating habits getting better at work and continuing at home. Once again, I know that Darrin can do this! He has been given every tool for success with the help of so many family members! Six weeks babe! Let's make the fix in these next six!!!!!

BTW, FYI.....Darrin ended his first RN year with a bang and did great!! Yay for the long summer break ahead of us! We're gonna love summer more than Olaf!!