So I guess I won third place in the weight loss competition. Here's what I did:

I tracked my diet pretty carefully for the first week or so on fitday.com. I didn't continue doing so through the rest of the competition, but tracking my diet for a little while allowed me to get a pretty good idea of my eating habits, and thereby made me more conscious of what I was eating and how I could eat more healthfully. After my son was born (almost three years ago) I got in the habit of finishing his uneaten food, which meant I did a lot of extra snacking during the day without really noticing. Last month, although I stopped myself from finishing his food, I found it difficult to stop my snacking habit. What I did instead, is I would cut up a bunch of cucumbers, or peppers, or carrots so that if I fell into my habit of snacking unconsciously, it would be low-calorie, healthy foods that I would snack on.

In terms of exercise, I tried a number of different things (including various work-out videos from the library), but the one thing I really stuck to was jogging. I'm not sure I had ever even jogged a full mile in my life before last month, but I decided it was something I wanted to do. I would plan routes on google maps, and I tried to go a little further each day. Getting the motivation to go jogging every day is probably the best thing I got out of this competition, because I feel great and it's a habit that's sustainable for me. I actually spent my prize money on a new pair of running shoes!