And So It Begins...

July 1st. The day the diet begins!

I wanted to write yesterday but the day got away from me with family, food shopping & a quick stop into work.

Over the weekend I began putting together my menu for the week as well as my shopping list - I took advantage of the time I had while the baby took a nice long nap on Saturday afternoon. Boy, what a shopping list!

Its not like my husband and I survive on junk but we have our standard "value meals" of chicken, green beans and rice, tilapia, veggies & rice, and meatloaf with potatoes, to name a few. So seeing this large list of food that I will need over the course of one week was a little alarming. Are we not eating healthy?! What are we doing wrong here? I got past the shock and got to work!

Sunday morning started with a trip to Costco, my new favorite place. I stocked up on spinach, berries and vitamins and also indulged in the free samples they have available. Note to self: do not wander around Costco in the next 21 days because they have DELICIOUS samples. That was a $35 trip for my supplies.

Next, after checking in at work I hit Wegman's. That trip was $33 for quinoa, rolled oats, flax seed & my electrolyte replacement powder which was the single most expensive item and splurge for this diet. $17!!! I was hesitant about getting it but then realized that time was running out and I didn't want to run all over creation to find the perfect electrolyte replacement. My last stop was at Giant and that was the hard hit. Let me say this: veggies are freakin' expensive! Wooweee! $130 for 1 person for 1 week. Um? Keep in mind I had my bonus card so I saved a whopping $30. (yippee!) Needless to say, groceries were expansive and as I mentioned, we are a young family and that is really pushing it. As I was swiping my debit card, I reminded myself, it is only 3 weeks and that I may have bought an abundance of items and they could last into week 2 essentially making my bill smaller next week. Here's hoping.

I got home, unloaded and put everything away and in amazement looked at my green refrigerator. Spring mix here. Spinach there. Kale over here. Cilantro squeezed in there. Then I enjoyed a glass of red wine (it's good for the heart!) and some tomato pie with my husband and son to celebrate the swiftly approaching diet.  I followed the suggestion of Bob and prepped a lot ahead of time. When all was said in done, I climbed into bed at midnight. (I took an hour break for True Blood - guilty pleasure!)

And so the diet starts. Here we have, The Amazing Shrinking Woman (or so I hope, right?) weighing in at 154.0 pounds and towering over her opponents at 5 feet, 7 inches. My measurements are: 34.75in. around my stomach, 38in. around my hips, 23 1/8in. around my thigh and 12.25in. around my arm without being flexed.

There you have it. My starting weight and my body in its current state. I was apprehensive about taking/posting pictures of my body pre-diet but I thought that it was completely necessary because if I didn't, for all you know, I could be sitting on the couch stuffing my face with Doritos. I want to see the transformation from day 1 to day 21 and I want you to see the transformation, too.