First weigh-in (BWL)

Well, this morning I had my first weigh-in for my workplace's biggest loser competition (BWL)... drum roll, please... and I lost 10 lbs!

Wow! It felt great to see that result on the scale today.  I quickly inventoried my clothes and realized that I was wearing jeans when I weighed in when I registered, so my real loss is probably closer to 8.5 or 9 lbs. (they were my lightest jeans and I'm wearing medium weight pants today), but I'll take it either way.  What a fantastic feeling!

I didn't even get in my own "last chance workout" last night.  I spent most of the evening mixing and packing some trail mix. [Which, unfortunately, I'll be able to eat only sparingly over the next few months, since it calculated at approximately 310 calories per half cup serving! (see below)] It's a high calorie food, but a favorite for camping, canoeing, and hiking trips. In reality, it will make a good energy food once I ramp up my workouts.  Here's the mix (rounded to the nearest whole pound for most):

Trail Mix (yields 128-160 1/2 cup servings)

1 lb Roasted Sunflower Nuts, Unsalted

 2 lb  Roasted Sunflower Nuts, Salted

16 oz Roasted/no Salt Soynuts (two 8 oz. containers)

16 oz Soynuts, Roasted Salted (two 8 oz. containers)

1 lb Roasted Salted Almonds

3 lb Salted Cashew Pieces

2 lb Roasted Salted Blanched Peanuts

1 lb Pecan

14 oz Dry Mango (two 7 oz. containers)

22 oz. Dried Pineapple (c. 5 1/3 cups--two 11 oz. containers)

3 1/2 cups Chopped Dates (two 8 oz. bags)

2 lb dried cranberries

2 lb Banana Chips

Remember, we have a large family, so you may want to scale this back if you try it.  I couldn't fit it into our largest mixing bowl (and, boy, is it large--it makes our 6 qt. Crock Pot look small), so I used the bowl to mix batches that I then divided between two paper grocery bags.  Then I combined portions from each bag back in the bowl and mixed to ensure everything was distributed evenly.  Once that was done, I measured out 1/2 cup servings into snack sized zipper bags, plus put another 24 cups away in sealed containers. The zipper bags then got placed into a Girl Scout cookie case--I got about 90 portions tucked away in that box.

When I measured out the mix before packing it, we had 64 cups of mix by volume.  When we packed the baggies and other containers, we ended up with about 90 bags plus eight three-cup containers (48 additional servings).  The difference seems to be from how tightly things were packed when I measured in our large measuring cup versus how things fit in the half-cup measure I used to scoop the mix for each bag.  So, in reality, that 310 calorie figure was based on 128 half-cup servings, when we actually got approximately 158 servings.  That would drop the calorie count on a bag down to 251--now I can live with that number, too!

So, I need to get back to it.  I have a class all morning, so I won't get my morning laps in, but I did already do six flights of stairs (each way), so I'm staying active.

Have a good day!