Christmas 2016 to Valentine's Day 2017 Challenge

[Bobbinyc]

Welcome all Challengers!  What an amazing group we have!

Let's all continue together to take off the excess pounds and keep getting healthier.

This challenge will begin on Christmas and finish on Valentine's Day, Feb. 14. 

All you need to join this challenge is to post your stats regarding your weight, and check in weekly or as often as you'd like. We are a great support group and enjoy keeping up with each other and being there for our ups and downs.  Generally we have found that the more we check in and offer support, tips, info,  and ideas to others, the more we get for ourselves.

We list our weight, as well as any other goals we might have related to being healthy (such as increase water, more active minutes, etc).  Developing good health habits is primary.

A little rundown of terminology for anyone who is new.

USW- Ultimate Starting Weight

CSW- Current Starting Weight (for this challenge)

GW- Goal Weight   (for Feb 14)

UGW- Ultimate Goal Weight   (what your healthy target weight is)

PW- Previous Weight

CW- Current Weight

MFP- My Fitness Pal

List as much info as you like.  Some people include age, gender, height....whatever seems relevant to you.

We keep it as serious or light as we feel, but we always keep it focused on being as healthy as possible, while we support each other kindly.  We can do this together!!

[Brujita]

USW- 171.6

UGW-   135

MFP- brujitabrujita 

CSW- 171.6 (12/28)

PW- 170.4  (-1.2 1/03)

CW: 169.4 (-1 1/10)

..

GW-   165 (for Feb 14)  

Down a 1lb this week, which is nice to see. steady wins the race. Had a good week of stepping. hit my goals every day and then some. I've been doing the challenges and have gotten a few badges from that as well. I'm gonna be honest though, my Achilles  tendons are sore so I need to incorporate something else outside of the elliptical. I did some stretching yoga on tuesday after the elliptical as I haven't been stratching before/after. Ive been making weekly goals so as to build a foundation. My goal this week was to log my foods in MFP since its been 5 months but i've only managed to log in coffee thus far. May have to set reminds through the app. Been eating at home every day, as thats one of our problems here at home. So I Should be able to go back and log those things. I want to add stretching to my goals for the coming week. 

Nice to see everyone making progress. take it a day at a time and stay safe both with the weather and your exercise. 

[Brujita]

@_Lilac_ as other have mentioned you can log snow shoveling. I do mostly everything through the app. Mine will automatically add an activity when i've been doing for x amount of time. Then when im doine, I go back in the app to said activity and tap on the "Categorize Exercise" and type in snow shoveling and it pops up. I do the same when I mow my yard as it categorizes it as bike for some reason. If it doesnt recognize an activity you can add it, just keep in mind what time you started and for how long. It will then take the data on your fitbit from said time and calculate everything. Hope that helps!

[Brujita]

[Florriel]

Hi There

I am another late starter to this group, although I have been keeping my stats since I got my new fitbit for Christmas.

So here goes

USU 191

CSW 186

GW for Feb 179

UGW for May 154

CW 183

Daily step goal is 10,000 steps and so far managing to do that on most days apart from those when I am trapped in the office or like last Monday when I was in my car for 7 hours!

It has been fun and tiring looking at new and different ways to exercise each day and it would be nice to be a lot fitter before the softball season starts in April. I am planning on surprising my team and not being the older, fatter team mate this year for a change.

Looking forward to loggin in everyday 🙂

[em.kz]

I've been a little frustrated the past few days and I'm wondering if someone could help me. After a really good day on Monday of yoga, plenty of steps, watching what I'm eat, I expected my weight to go down the next day, but instead it jumped up nearly two pounds! Since then it's been really difficult to get the scale to move how I want it to. Yes, I know the scale isn't everything and that how I feel is more important, but it's so frustrating when I think I'm doing everything right and yet I see no improvements. As for now, I'll do my best today and hopefully my official weigh-in tomorrow will be a pleasant surprise.

[nightswimming]

@em.kz Do you weigh your food? I have discovered that I am absolutely terrible at judging portions and so I now weigh pretty much everything to keep my "calories in" figure fairly accurate.

Keep at it and the fat will drop off eventually, just not when you expect it to!

[HeartBiller]

Hope all is doing well today. Today is day 11 of the Daniel Fast and all is going good. I made it through my birthday with out eating anything I wasn't suppose to...lol. After church last night they had me a Daniel Fast Friendly BIrthday Cake...lol. It was super cute and very good I must say.. They stacked and arranged watermelon as the main layers and all kinds of fruit in between the layers with coconut sprinkled on the top. It was so cute and so super sweet of them. So I got through the whole day with no temptations of "real" cake..lol.

My official weigh day is Tuesday... But since on Tuesday I was so close to a milestone for myself...I decided to weigh today and I hit my 45 pound lose today... YAY!!! I did find humor in the fact the it is exact.. like not even an ounce under..lol. Exactly 45 pounds down.. BUT YES, I am super excited about it. I know every pound is exciting.. BUT I love the 5 and 10 pound markers.. with each one I get to I find it more and more encouraging to keep going. Those are always my mini goals. Each 5 pounds I set a new mini goal to the next 5 pounds..

I guess I should quit my rambling and get back to work..lol. Hope you all have a wonderful day!

[Gayle1018]

HI all,  maded it successfully through the 2 office lunches with out going nuts!  yeah!   and it was very warm last night so actually able to get my 10k steps in....  (dog got a bath after as it was very muddy and drizzling )  Storming here now and cold front coming.   But good on Water and food - so - just keep going on and on.  Feeling good and weekend is at hand

[em.kz]

@nightswimming I don't weigh my foods. Do you do that with your regular scale? My scale won't weigh things less than 25 lbs, so I don't think I could use that for food.

[_Lilac_]

@em.kz There are food scales. I use one for meat and cheese or something I can't measure easily in a measuring cup. I remember my grandmother being on weight watchers perpetually and had her scale on the counter all the time. You can pick them up at Walmart or maybe even dollar stores, the price depending on how fancy you want to get. I had a plastic plunger weight one and my hubby bought a digital one. They are small, about the size of a 64 box of crayons. 

[_Lilac_]

My rest day was kind of a fail. I did 12,000 steps on three walks, so I failed to 'rest'. I did however, take a break from tracking my food and I didn't eat the best food, but I'm sure I didn't go over on my calories...it just wasn't the best nutritious food. I'm exhausted so I'll flake the rest of the night. 

Meeting Mom for our walk tomorrow. She's struggling to get the fitbit ultra to sync, since it's so old it can't be supported by the app on her ipad. I remember having to force sync it on the website in settings somewhere but now I can't see that option because I have only the blaze listed. I'll fiddle with it tomorrow and if it still isn't working, I guess I'm going fitbit shopping. Haha. I might do that anyway. It's so frustrating for everyone, me, my mom, and my sister, who is trying to get it done now for her. The device is just so old. 

Nothing else to report. Drinking my water, moving, eating. I think that checks all the boxes. 

[_Lilac_]

@em.kz  When you did a day of exercise and eating well, etc., you said you weighed yourself the next day expecting to see the scale drop.  Man, oh, man. That isn't gonna happen! Sorry to say it, but if that's all it took for that number to go down, we'd be seeing it drop every darned day. It's a steady routine of exercise and eating well that e-v-e-n-t-u-a-l-l-y will turn into a loss. All that exercise might have drawn water into your muscles to help repair them. That would explain the gain. If you drank a lot of water and your body was kind of in shock, it would be yelling, "Whoa, what did you just do?? I'm not sure what to do with this stuff. Do I hang onto it?" and it might not have been released. Don't ever feel down if you've worked hard and don't see an immediate result. Every *body* is different. Mine is weird. I'll lose 3lbs in one day then it inches up and up and then 9-10 days later I'll drop again suddenly and end up even lower. It's always on that loop and has nothing to do with what happened the day before. We all need patience and to encourage ourselves. It's a victory that you did yoga, lots of steps, and ate well. If you do it daily, you will see that change you are looking for. *cheers for you*

[Glenda]

                                    Lilac,  You are really smart.  Evidently few people know that any muscle that is newly exercised needs to repair for a day before being exercised again and that the body retains extra water for that repair.  If more understood that the people on the Biggest  Loser  TV show would not have done new exercises using new muscle growth just before the weigh in.  Not smart at all.  They should have just done aerobic stuff using old muscle just before weigh in.  

[Glenda]

                                     Wow! Lilac,  Food scales must have evolved lately.  If I could find one as small as a box of 64 crayons I would definitely take it grocery shopping with me.  In the 1970s I read that you should only buy toilet paper by the pound.  If 2 packages of 12 rolls are the same price the heavier one has more paper.  You don't need to consider sheets & ply etc.  It is all sort of trickery.  I'm gong to shop for a new purse size scale so that I don't have to take packages of paper to the produce department to check the weight.  

[GettingfitinSC]

Just a quick checkin...I hit 15,000 steps yesterday for the first time! Yay! Also did good on my calories. Still waiting on the scale to get below 230, so I can get my 5 lb goal. Today it was 230.0- Really!?! Not even 229.9? Oh, well... it will get there this week, I'm pretty sure. I've been walking a lot, even jogged a little this morning. I walk at my school gym and I walked 1 lap, jogged 2, for about 15 minutes. Then I stopped jogging and walked another 5 min. I'll walk more today; I'd love to hit 15,000 again, but I'll be happy with 10,000. Hope everyone has a great day! 

[em.kz]

Alright it is time for my weekly weigh in!

USW - 161.6 (12/25/16)

CSW - 161.6 (12/25/16)

PW - 159.4 (12/30/16)

PW - 158.6 (01/06/17)

CW - 159.6 (01/13/17)

CW -  (01/20/17)

CW -  (01/27/17)

CW - (02/03/17)

CW - (02/10/17)

GW - 155 (2/14/17)

UGW #1 - 140

UGW #2 - 135

     I'm not very happy with my results this week, but I know it'll take some time. For the past four days I have been fluxuating around 159.5 and I was hoping it would drop today, but alas we'll keep trying. My mom brought me to a spin class this morning which was very difficult! I did my best but couldnt stand or go as hard as I would've liked because the biking posture isn't good for my asthma. Around 45 minutes in, I left and walked around the track for about 5 minutes because my throat was feeling constricted, but I made sure to join right back in for the last 10 minutes!

     Aside from my asthma issues, I don't love spin class because my Fitbit doesn't track stationary biking well. Despite the fact that my bike says I went nearly 10 miles, my Fitbit only says 0.4 mile. Does anyone else experience issues like this with stationary machines? What do you do to remedy this? This is one example of a situation in which I wish I could manually edit the Fitbit stats after the workout. If you feel the same way, I would encourage you to check out my Feature Suggestion and comment and/or vote for it so we can catch the attention of Fitbit! Link: Edit Workout Stats

[_Lilac_]

@em.kz You could attach the fitbit to a part of your body that makes the movement, such as your ankle, or tie it to your shoe. Another option that my mother found helpful was to put her hand on her thigh as she cycles because it will register the wrist going up and down. I hope this fixes it for you!

[Patickles]

Count me in!!! I know it is the middle of January but, I had my fitbit in Christmas, so I can still join, rigth?

CSW 230 (yes, I could not believe it either)

GW 220

I will be up datingthis information weekly. Thank you for the challenge!

[rcooperkaty]

I got a charge 2 for Christmas.  I immediately began wearing it and using it to help me get my body back on track.  I'm an emotional eater and going through some things right now so I am looking for some help.

ASL= 40/M/San Fran Bay Area

Height - 6'1"

USW - 230

CSW - 216

CW - 205.6

GW - 195

UGW - 175

[SunsetRunner]

Hi again everyone!

USW: 224.5 lbs (7/6/16)

CSW: 177.0 (12/23/16)

CW: 176.5 (12/30/16)

CW: 173.5 (01/06/17)

CW: 171.0 (01/13/17):

CW: (01/20/17):

CW: (01/27/17):

CW: (02/03/17):

CW: (02/10/17):

GW: 167 (02/14/17):

UGW: 155

It was a good week with the 2.5 lb loss.  I was actually surprised since it was a very stressful week at work and a lot of hours. I have been able to workout 24 of the last 26 days so that has helped. The power went out Tuesday morning and it was sleeting outside so I just crawled back in bed and slept for another hour! I figured my body could use the rest! 😀

 I also meal prepped both lunches and dinners last Sunday so that helped keep me in line with my eating. With this being our busy season, my goal is to meal prep both lunches and dinners to take with each day. I have found that it helps to keep me from snacking at the office and pigging out when I get home.

Have a good weekend!