The Two Week Challenge

In efforts to finally lose the last ten pounds of the baby weight (more on this later--it is so hard!), JLO and I took up the Two Week Challenge from one of the gluten-free blogs I read. The challenge is pretty simple: women need to eat four servings of vegetables and three servings of fruit per day. Men need to eat five servings of vegetables and four servings of fruit. Plus both sexes need to drink half their body weight in ounces of water (for example, if you weight 100 lbs, you should drink 50 oz per day). You don't have to give up anything you normally eat, just make sure to do the above. Every. Day.

Tomorrow will mark the end of our two week challenge and although it has yielded some small results on the scale, it has also made us really conscious about what we eat. Which, some of you might be thinking, don't you do that all the time, SVO, with Celiac? Isn't a gluten-free diet super healthy? Wrong. So wrong as I discovered after having LJ. Sadly, Hollywood and others are using the gluten-free diet as a weight lost plan. Now, it's not all bad that Hollywood is bringing attention to the issue of gluten (although my bread still costs $5.60 a loaf), but gluten-free does not equal calorie free, carb free or fat free. Actually, it's pretty far from it. Pick up a gluten-free muffin the next time you see one. So. Many. Calories. And it doesn't really taste that good. Trust me; I've tried them all. Yet, I have digressed....

For five years before being diagnosed, I pretty much ate whatever I wanted--and lost weight. I won't lie and say I didn't enjoy not having to work at losing weight. Of course, the trade off was that I felt absolutely miserable all the time. Looked good; felt awful. Finally I got diagnosed. Then pregnant. So it wasn't until after LJ was born that I had to deal with the weight issue. I honestly didn't think about it. Oh how I wish I would have realized it sooner--I actually gained weight after coming home from the hospital. Gained. Not what my super cute, yet very dusty, pair of pants wanted to hear. Sadly, it wasn't until this past month (with the help of the Two Week Challenge) that I finally realized: I have to work at losing weight, working out, eating well, and being healthy. So although the two weeks are up, I am going to continue to work out every morning and crunch on those veggies and run to the bathroom a million times a day. I figure--there are many things in my life worth it!