I am done! My Biggest-Loser-Style 6 week Just Lose It Weight Loss Challenge is O-V-E-R, OVER! My final strength workout was yesterday (on a Sunday morning at 7AM thankyouverymuch!) and my final weigh-in is tonight at 7PM. And yes, I will have a margarita in my hand at 7:05! (Well, maybe not until 8:00.)

Last week I was down another pound, bringing my weight loss at 5 weeks to a total of 9.2 pounds.

I have been really, really good this week by not obsessively getting on the scale every single morning like I have pretty much done every single day of my adult life so I would be surprised by tonight’s results. For me, not getting on the scale every morning was even harder than not drinking wine. Yeah, that hard. Go ahead and say it – I am a freak.

And remember last week when I said I was going to take it up a notch? Well, I wasn’t kidding. Plus I didn’t have a choice, because Holly, our nutritionist, apparently takes it up a notch on the final week as well. She took away our whole grains (goodbye brown rice and quinoa) and replaced them with watermelon and grapefruit. I mean, I love fruit, but using fruit as your carb (and not the fermented kind made from grapes) for four meals a day – it gets challenging. (Not to mention a tad bit gassy. Ahem.)

And she took away my beloved Clif Builder Bars. My delicious, easy to grab, don’t have to plan or chop or measure, afternoon meal was taken away from me. Why, Holly, why?

And not only that, we were told to drink 3-4 cups of dandelion tea each day. Drinking dandelion tea is supposed to help your body’s natural detoxification process by breaking down fats during digestion and carry away waste.

Ummm…  hello, I haven’t had a drink in six weeks (okay, except for the wine tasting in Week 2. And another about-to-expire Groupon dinner that included a glass of wine in Week 4 that I neglected to tell you about). But still.

AND I’ve been eating really, really clean. I’m pretty sure I’m about as detoxed as I’m ever going to be.

Have you ever tasted dandelion tea? The box says it tastes, “pleasantly roasted, sweet and slightly bitter.” I say it tastes like you went running and took off your sweaty socks and shoved them in the corner of your gym bag for a week and then dipped them in water and started sucking on them.* Only worse. Perhaps that’s what they mean when they say “slightly bitter.”

One of the women on another other team said the only way she could drink it was to let it cool and then chug it. It’s a little like Survivor when they have those gross food challenges – just swallow it as fast as possible and don’t think about it.

Of course I shouldn’t complain too much. Even with the added restrictions this week, I’ve been eating a lot. Here is a photo of my four meals yesterday:

Breakfast: eggs with mushroom and asparagus (and just a tablespoon of fat free feta – shhh, don’t tell Holly) and one whole grapefruit, Lunch: turkey and roast beef rolls filled with avocado slices, pepperoncini and onion (the only thing missing is the mayonnaise and bread) and 400 grams of watermelon, Afternoon Meal: Greek Yogurt with raspberries (ugh 2% – the whole fat is my heaven & I will go to my grave defending its healthful deliciousness, but I’m being “good” this week), and Dinner: grilled salmon and shrimp, roasted sweet potatoes, grilled zucchini and mushrooms, green beans and salad (a fantastic meal if I do say so myself, but a nice buttery Chardonnay to accompany this meal would have been nice).

And of course three cups of old sweaty gym socks dandelion tea.

Yeah, I know that seems like a lot of food, but in this program you work out hard. And this week I skipped my rest days by running intervals on the treadmill. (I’d tell you not to tell Phil, but he caught me both times – that dude is always at the gym.) For those of you who don’t know what interval training is, it’s where you workout reallyreallyreally hard for a minute or two (I do two) and then cool down for a minute or two (I do one). So I run faster than I am comfortable (6 MPH) for two minutes and then speed-walk (4 MPH) to “cool down.” Rest Day Schmest Day.

Plus… look what I can do:

Yeah, three of ’em! Am I awesome or what?

Be sure to come back Wednesday when I reveal my Just Lose it Fitness Challenge results. I’m almost as excited to find out what they are as I am to taste that margarita!

If you missed a week you can catch up here: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, & Week 5.

 

 

*My teammate Jennifer actually came up with the dandelion tea-gym sock analogy – I must give credit where credit is due.

Margarita photo courtesy of By Jon Sullivan via Wikimedia Commons, dandelion photo courtesy of slgckgc via Creative Commons, Survivor Caramoan photo featuring the dreamy Malcolm Freberg borrowed from RealityNation.com