Week Two Results!

Well, I weighed myself this morning, and I lost 1.5 pounds in week 2.  Honestly, I expected to lose almost nothing after losing so much in the first week.  So I've lost 7 pounds in 2 weeks all while making eating super convenient.  I'm thrilled.  :)

Food update:

Brisket (B+) - it was pretty dry, but the flavor was good!

Garlic Roasted Chicken (A-) - not as good as the teriyaki, but it was pretty moist, and a bit lemony.  I liked it.

I'm still having a problem determining which foods I'm eating sometimes.  I really wish they'd be sure to label ALL the food packages.  I'm going to try the breaded chicken patty today, and I REALLY hope it's not full of bone bits like the buffalo chicken sticks were.  The breading looks similar, so I'm nervous.  :\

Personal Trainer Food - Success!!!

It's official.  It's working.

I had a student walk into my classroom today, look at me, and say, "You look skinnier."  I hadn't mentioned that I was doing anything different with my food.  Just a random comment from a student.  It's awesome.  I did a little dance.

Today, I am actually wearing another pair of slacks that I haven't worn in months, and my shirt is a bit baggier than the last time I wore it a few weeks ago.  I'm not quite two weeks into the program, and I'm already seeing such drastic results.  I'm thrilled.

I am still drinking LOTS of water, and I walk 20 minutes most days.  Other than that, it's just microwave and eat.  :)  Loving this.

Personal Trainer Food - Week One Complete!

Holy cow!

After a week of eating my Personal Trainer Food religiously and walking at least 20 minutes a day (almost every day) I got on the scale this morning, hoping for a 2-pound weight loss.  "Come on...just two pounds...or close to it...I'd take a pound and a half..."

So I step on the scale, and it reads 182.6.  That's five and a half pounds lost in one week!  Yesterday, I wore a pair of pants that I haven't worn in months because they were too tight.  A colleague of mine commented on my "skinny legs."  This is awesome!

So, I've tried a couple more of the food items.  Some of the meals I've had in the past couple of days are repeats, and they're still yummy.  I had the mesquite grilled chicken, which was tender and yummy: A on that one, and OMG, the chicken apple sausage is SO good.  A+ on the sausage.  I could eat that every day and never tire of it.  Too bad I only ordered 4.  :(

I know this isn't the cheapest way to lose weight, but it has been so easy, and the food tastes great (with the exception of those nasty buffalo chicken sticks), so I'm hooked.  I'll keep posting how the new foods taste and my weight loss as the weeks progress.  But for now, FIVE AND A HALF POUNDS!!! Woot!

Personal Trainer Food - Day Five Problem

I wasn't planning to post today, but something had to be added.  First, I thought that I'd eaten the buffalo ranch chicken sticks the other day.  It turns out that they were the zesty Italian chicken sticks.  Tonight for dinner, I had the buffalo ranch chicken sticks.

I will NEVER order them again.  While I like spicy foods, this was a nasty experience.  I had several bites with little bone chunks in it.  I don't know if they're all like that or if I just had bad luck with this batch, but I only ordered one package of them, and I'm not willing to try it again for fear that they're all that low in quality.

If anyone else has had the same or the opposite experience, feel free to comment here.  Maybe this was just an atypical moment in Personal Trainer Food history.

The customer service department actually called me again earlier today.  It's too bad it was before dinner, not after.  I'd have let them know about the bone bits.  Yuck.  But I'm pleased that they called after about a week to check in and see if I had any questions.  I'm still very impressed with the customer service.

After much deliberation, I've decided to weigh in once per week.  I want to know if it's working, but I will not go back to my scale-addicted ways, weighing myself every day, sometimes more than once.  So, Friday's update will include my weight loss, if any.

Personal Trainer Food Days Three and Four

Still digging the food.  Here's what I've tried in the last two days and the grade I'd give it:

spinach asagio chicken sausage: A-
buffalo ranch chicken sticks: A-
buffalo red pepper breaded chicken: A

I had the teriyaki chicken again for lunch today because it was so good the first day.  This cut had a little more fat on it, but I just cut it off, and it was still super tasty.  It's still my favorite so far.

The spinach asagio sausage was less cheesy than the monterey jack sausage was, so I liked it better.  I highly recommend cooking the chicken sticks in the toaster oven.  I microwaved them for a minute and then put them in the toaster oven to crisp the outside.  I think it made all the difference.

I have to say that the buffalo breaded chicken was magic.  I didn't want to bother with using the toaster oven, so I decided I'd just live with it being soggy out of the microwave, but it wasn't.  Somehow I cooked it in the plastic bag in the microwave, and the edges came out crisp.  Doesn't make any sense to me, but it was quite yummy, so I'm not complaining.  The breading had a nice, spicy kick to it.  I'll definitely order more of that one if I continue on the meal plan.

I've decided to weigh myself once per week.  I know they say not to weigh yourself, but I still want to be sure that there's a downward trend if I'm going to buy more of the food.

Day Two Food

I'm still very happy with the food.  For lunch, I had what I think was the mozzarella roasted garlic chicken sausage and a veggie blend that had broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, and carrots.  Both were very tasty.  The sausage was a bit cheesy for my taste, so I would give it a B+, but if you like a cheesy sausage, you'd probably rate it higher.

Dinner consisted of an Angus burger and broccoli (I ordered quite a bit of broccoli...I'm a fan).  The meat probably wasn't quite the quality I would usually buy, but the taste was great.  It had a nice grilled flavor.  I'd give it an A-.

This has been extremely easy.  I like being able to go from hungry to eating in four minutes.  I think that the hardest part so far has been not getting on the scale.  I want to know if it's working!!!

Day One of Personal Trainer Food Complete!

Day One - Personal Trainer Food

Ok.  I've eaten two meals now (just finished my first dinner), and I have to say that this is definitely something I can do for the long haul.  The teriyaki chicken I had for lunch was fantastic.  It really was tender and moist as advertised.  I ate the broccoli with a little of the included garlic vegetable sauce that they send with the order.  The broccoli was, well, microwaved broccoli, but better than some frozen broccoli I've had in the past.  I think that cooking it in the bag really does help.  The sauce seems like some sort of vegetable oil and garlic.  It's pretty tasty if you like garlic, which I do!

Dinner was not as good as lunch, but still beats anything I ever ate from Nutrisystem by a mile.  I had the monterey jack chicken sticks and one of the vegetable blends, which had yellow peppers that came out soggier than the other veggies.  I'd give the sticks a B-.  They are breaded, so they might turn out better if I put them in the toaster oven next time.  Again, the garlic sauce makes the veggies more interesting to eat.

Like the only other real review I've seen, I think it would be great if they would label the bags.  I figured out which chicken sticks I was eating by process of elimination.  

The program recommends that you walk for 5-10 minutes a day at first and walk longer as you build stamina.  I already had a treadmill and am used to walking for longer, so I did a 20-minute walk before I ate dinner.  They say in the videos that you don't have to do long, difficult workouts.  I guess my pants will let me know over time if that's true!  :)

Because they recommend breaking the scale addiction (and I have a serious scale addiction) I'm going to wait four weeks before I weigh in again.  So I'll write about energy levels and how my clothes feel until then.

Other than the soggy yellow peppers, the only complaint I've had so far is getting used to the portion sizes.  I had to have an extra snack between lunch and dinner because I was pretty hungry.  However, I'm feeling pretty satisfied from dinner, so maybe it's just the particular food I ate at lunch.

To sum up - so much yummier than any diet food I've ordered before, but you may not know which meal you're eating until you've tasted it!

Starting Personal Trainer Food Tomorrow!

I saw a Google offer for 4 weeks of healthy food for a decent price, so I hunted for a good review to tell me if it was worth the money.  After finding multiple reviews that looked like advertisements and only one honest-sounding review from someone who didn't follow the plan too well, I decided that I would start a blog about the program and my progress through it.  I will be starting the program tomorrow, and I'm already pretty excited about the whole thing.

First of all, I got a deal from Google for $224 for 28 lunches and 28 dinners.  With free shipping, that comes out to four dollars per meal.  Even at the regular price of $5.60 per meal if I didn't have the discount, it's still cheaper than buying healthier meals at most restaurants.

I am in graduate school, and I found myself putting on some weight with my new, more sedentary lifestyle, but I just don't have time to cook healthy meals every day.  I know I could make one or two big healthy meals on the weekend, but I get bored with the same leftovers every day, so I thought that maybe the Personal Trainer Food program might work for me.

The company so far has been fantastic.  I ordered my food on Monday and was informed that it would arrive via FedEx on Wednesday.  Excellent turn-around time in my opinion.  I have received a couple of emails with links to good videos about the program, what to expect, and how the program works.  The thing that really impressed me, though, is that a representative from the company called me the day I was scheduled to get the food (yesterday) to ask if I'd had time to view the videos and if I had any questions about the program.  I was invited to call at any time that I had questions or concerns.  I didn't expect that level of customer service at all.

I received the box of food yesterday, and it is a BIG box.  When they say to clean out your freezer, they aren't kidding.  I was able to cram it all in, even though I still have a few things in there that I didn't throw away (my daughter would be rather upset if I threw out her blueberry waffles!).  It comes well-packed and insulated with Styrofoam, with a big block of dry ice to keep the food frozen during shipment.  My daughter and I had fun with some dry ice experiments last night!

I already had plans to have lunch with my dad this afternoon, or I would have started today.  However, I had roasted chicken and vegetables for lunch, so I'm already on the right track!

I am a 6-foot-tall, large-boned (no, really...it's not an excuse!) woman, and my current weight is 188.2 pounds.  That is about 10 pounds above the healthy weight range for my height and build.  As they suggested, I'm not going to weigh myself daily, but at the end of these four weeks, you better believe I'll be back on that scale again to see the difference!

I'll keep posting through the four weeks...just click on the links on the right side of the page if you want to read more.  :)