Holiday Hotties Recap

Thank God the month of December is behind us. It's a hard month for most, with the temptation to eat more, move less, not to mention the added stress of buying gifts in a short amount of time, with money we may not have. It's stressful to say the least!

Where I work, my co-workers and I are surrounded by food from Thanksgiving to New Years. We get a small taste of temptation around Halloween, but then it hits hard at Thanksgiving. I work in a Retirement Community that has a strict "no-tipping or gifts" policy. The exception to this rule is "if we can eat it, we can take it." Sooooo, since the residents and their families know this rule as well, we are given food, food and more food as gifts of appreciation and friendship. This keeps us in sweets for years if we were to keep it all for ourselves. I dropped most everything that made a stop in my office in the staff room. Out of site, out of mind. Almost. Good in theory. Okay, I had about 2 really bad weeks between the food at work and the cookies I baked at home.

But, I did jump a major hurdle for myself this year. I only baked 5 types of cookies, and only enough for immediate family and one neighbor. This is huge, huge. In years past I have baked up to 20 different kinds of cookies, hundreds of dozens and dozens. Pre-rental property days we gave them away to customers of husband's business. Then we gave them away to all our renters (about 22 of them), friends, family, co-workers, the dentist, the vet - you name it - we gave them cookies.

This year I went to mini quick breads. I can bake more of them at a time, and they are not tempting to me at all. At. All. Really. That is a true statement. Next year I plan to scale back even more and bake only 3 kinds of cookies. Get it all done in 2 days, and then it's done and safe in the freezer.

So, all of the above was to lead into the results of the Holiday Hottie Challenge I was in with my Beach Body Facebook group. You can check out the guidelines of the challenge here.

My sister got a big head start at the beginning, and try as I might I was never able to catch her. But I came very close, and came in second. Our coach, Lindsay, came out with some super awesome prizes.

The top 3 finishers (Me!) will receive: Clean Eating's Meal Plans Made Easy..."the Clean Eating Meal Plans Made Easy" bookazine, 16 weeks of easy, slimming dishes.

The top 2 finishers (Me!) will receive: 2 year subscription (16 issues) to Clean Eating Magazine.

And the top finisher(My sister) will receive: a $50 gift card to either Lululemon, Underarmour, or Nike
(She chose Lululemon.)

So, awesome prizes, dontcha think? I was impressed and glad I kept up with the contest!

Now we are on to something new - more about the Push 30 challenge in my next post. Stay tuned! Pin It Now!