I thought I would kick off the initiative, being Canadian and all through with Thanksgiving for this year. Our Thanksgiving is more linked to harvest time; it's not really the start of the Christmas season. Which leaves me in blissful ignorance of how soon the day actually is!
I've got one day towards my next weigh-in completed at 31 points and 4 for exercise. One down, six to go. Yay!
I wish I was the motivational thread-starter that some of you have been. Let me see.... we've got a bit more than a month till Christmas -- let's make it good!
May we all (Canadians, Americans, whatever...) count our blessings and realize how much we have to feel grateful for. Love to all!
May everyone have a Happy Thanksgiving Day full of joy and laughter. We all, everyone of us on this planet, have much to be thankful for. Today is the day to reflect on past joys and to face the future with new resolves for our lives.
Christmas is moving right this way. Thanks for starting the thread, Babette. My, you start early in the day! So, too, do I.
Thanks for starting this thread, Babette! I personally think you are quite motivational!
I started a Red and Green Christmas Initiative challenge/game for myself a few days ago, but didn't want anyone to think they were stuck with the name or time frame or any of the endless fantasy manipulations I use to keep myself entertained on the path to weight management.
I also agree with the suggestion made by Sychie (I think, sorry if I've cited wrong) to go to New Year's. I am using the Christmas season to rededicate myself to maintaining my 100+ weight loss, a feat that involves losing a pesky 10 pounds that has crept into my universe. And, the Christmas season really runs all the way to New Year's, so that sounds like a sensible time frame. My aging metabolism ain't what it used to be, Ma, and I lose and gain weight quite slowly. I refuse to cut back to a level of discomfort, so New Year's sounds good.
The Red and Green, to me, connotes a kind of realization that this is a forever journey taken in fits and starts, with stop signs and green lights all along the path. I'd like to post a fitness/weight-related goal(s) for myself each day and see how that goes.
Again, I'll post pounds lost or gained but will not post my exact weight. The number is a closely guarded sacred secret of mine!
Snowman is grinning at me from the printer and the little Queen is sitting on a legal pad on the table. They are reminding me of my power to change and to continue to do and be whatever I choose, though it takes WORK, WORK, WORK! But it is the journey that counts.
The fat Snowman smiles because he knows he's on the road to health and fitness and he's scheduled to be QUITE slender by spring ... a mere trickle of his former self, so to speak.
He telegraphically communicates a message to me not to be fooled by short-term thinking ... the kind that says nothing matters anyway and I might as well EAT, EAT, EAT and be merry today because tomorrow won't be any fun whatever I do. He KNOWS spring will come, one way or another.
The little Queen smiles because she knows she has the power within her to shape her own destiny. She knows she is strong in mind, body and spirit. She is strong enough to control the nation of her own life, manage the cabinet of her impulses and govern the kingdom of her physical well-being.
Okay, I will stop rambling now and report that my goals yesterday were more or less right on target. I did a 20-minute fitness walk and ate 2090 calories, 90 more than the goal specified, but on the right track anyway!
My goal for today is to celebrate the harvest (thanks, Babette, for the idea) of my life in cautious abundance and continue to journal my calories and exercise. I'm still going for the 20-minute exercise session I anted for every day this week.
Hope everyone had a great day yesterday, and wakes up today raring to go! I've got 2 days completed in my march towards next weigh-in, 5 to go. If I keep making each day a success, the week and weigh-in will be good. Yay! Tonight is a monthly pot luck dinner with a group of friends, so I will have to watch it. I find that thinking about it all in advance and having a plan is crucial. I know what 3 of the dishes are tonight, so I can start to plan my meal and keep in mind that I don't want to drink much (it's an hour's drive, so that means I can have a couple of glasses of wine early in the evening and then must cut myself off). Plus I may try to get in a second walk. My son is here helping pack; maybe we can go for a hike on the trail later. It's so beautiful, and would be the last time we got a chance to do that.
Crone, I understand completely about your not posting your weight. I suppose there are some people who will tell all and sundry the details, but most of us have a "line in the sand" that we will not cross. It's important for me to post my weight, because it forces me to confront it, whereas if I don't I can even fool myself. However, other than online, only my WW weigher and one of my sisters knows what I weigh. It drives my husband crazy! He's pretty much given up but he used to try to get me to tell him what I weighed all the time. One of the factors here is that I'm 5' 8 with a substantial frame and his first wife was 5' 2 and 100 pounds. He thinks that women weigh about 120-130 when they aren't overweight. He tried to figure out what I weighed from guessing if I'd hit my 10% loss at WW -- according to his calculations I would have STARTED OUT as 180 (when my first weigh in was actually 225.6). Not only that, but he is the kind of person who is hung up on numbers (if I ask him if he's hungry he looks at his watch as if it's a hungerometer ). Even though I am not overweight at 160 (and will look pretty darn hot ) he would think I was fat if he knew what I weighed. I will NEVER tell him! I'm so paranoid about anyone finding out what I weigh that I was hesitant to post a photo of myself in case of the remote possibility of someone actually meeting me!
One of the weirdest things about this for me is that I actually --even when this is so anonymous -- am occasionally tempted to fudge my weight, not report a gain, or say I weigh less How silly is that!
JoJoJo, I do start early in the day, somewhere between 5 and 5:20 . I think we'll nudge this ahead a little bit when we move in town and DH doesn't have a 45 minute drive to work. Right now we get up so that we can get in a walk or the gym before he has to leave. Even if I wanted to sleep in, this house is too small to let me do that if he gets up. There are some studies now showing that people who get up very early have increased cortisol (the deadly stress hormone) levels all day. But I think that goes for right up to 7:30 and I don't see us ever getting up that late. So I guess we'll just have to find ways to deal with it.
Yesterday my glorious streak of 34 days died a serene death on the table at the Thanksgiving feast. Nothing dramatic, I just broke my rule about overeating! I prepared everything extremely low-fat so that wasn't the issue, I just got greedy!
The body is wise and I wake this morning craving oranges and apples and lots of water. And I'm looking forward to a workout too as I missed yesterday.
I've decided it WILL be a great day and all the Queen's wishes will come true. (If not, well, there's always tomorrow, Scarlett).
Met all my goals yesterday of 2000 calories (had 1910) and 20 minutes of formal exercise (weights for 20 minutes, hit every BP with medium intensity, very fast).
Today's Goal: 1900 calories (give or take) & 20 minutes of exercise (have already done 25 minutes of aerobics, so that's in the bag), and keep the dang cat off of my chair (too late, she's there)!
Edyie: Congratulations on 34 days of great streaking! Sounds like you went out in a healthy manner anyway and your metabolism is probably the better for the extra food.
Babette: Hope you get your hike in and slide through your potluck with flying colors! (Red and green, of course). You hit exactly on why I never tell anyone my exact weight ... because in our anorexiec obsessed era, many people I know would use the opportunity to try to one-up me about the numbers. I am at a healthy weight, give or take those pesky 10 pounds, with excellent muscle tone, but other obsessed folk at the same weight would lie to me and make sure I knew they weigh less (even if they don't). Other friends who ARE at very unhealthy super low weight and malnourished would take the opportunity to let me know how wonderful they think they look. (Not bashing the naturally thin types, just the people starving themselves in the mistaken belief that the world will like them better).
Hope the above makes sense. I'm off to do market research. The Snowman and the Queen are now sitting together. I think they have a crush on each other.
Made it through the monthly potluck last night. Ended up with 37 points for the day, but with one 45 minute walk and one 1 and a quarter hour hike, I'm ahead of the game. I indulged a bit more than I intended but the exercise made it all work out okay. I love managing days like that. Gotta run -- walk, actually...
Yesterday I managed to overeat again with the Thanksgiving leftovers altho now that I think about it, it wasn't that great a quantity--I think maybe the stuffed feeling comes from all the carbs. I'll be doing a bit of creative recycling with the leftovers today. Succotash stew, anyone? [and some will be 'recycled' to my dawg I'm sure! ] Have kept up woth working out and I feel good about that.
Moving slow this morning. A single friend came by last nite and stayed till 11:00 and I'm always in bed by 9:00 so my rhythym is off today!
Had a good R&G Initiative kind of day yesterday. My goal was 1900 calories, give or take, and I ate 1985; exercise goal was 20 minutes of any formal workout and I did 25 minutes of aerobics (a tape, Leslie Sansone).
QUERY: Does anyone have any interest in doing some sort of more focused challenge on this thread or any fun contest (like who can do the most streak days or lose the most pounds or maintain the most weeks or meet a goal a day or anything?) My initiative to myself at the moment is to lose 10 pounds by New Year's (if humanly possible) in a healthy manner (always) and to see how many days in a row I can propose a goal or goals related to losing those pounds and stick to that daily goal.
Edyie: I had vegetable stew yesterday, also, no lima beans so that probably doesn't qualify as succotash! Re the alternative group's food journal you mentioned (think it was you), I've been reading it everyday for inspiration (I need a lot of inspiration in life) and think it's a good idea. I don't post there because my food preferences are so weird no one would believe it! But you are looking good with your menus. DON'T MISS YOUR STREAK, EACH DAY YOU ARE ALIVE IS THE START OF A NEW STREAK!
okay, I feel better. I magically trasformed all the Thanksgiving leftovers. The vegetables have morphed into a garlick-y minestrone, the boring mashed potatoes are potato-veg. cakes and the leftover yams will be sweet potato pancakes tomorrow morning! Now I can't be bullied into eating it because of that 'you only get this once a year' thing.
Crone, I'm into the challenges! Except for the weighing myself--I just don't want that rollercoaster. Maybe someday. Do you want to set up a challenge for tomorrow, please?
Ho, ho, ho, everyone! I'm having a bad day workwise, but a good day fitness wise, as I've met my 20 minute goal for a formal workout with a Leslie Sansone tape. I met my calorie challenge of 1900 (give or take) calories and have stopped eating at 1655. My weigh-in is tomorrow.
I am brain-dead and not sure what everyone wants to do with this thread. I think it'd be fun to have a strong focus and/or contest for the holiday season, not necessarily scale related. Something like the streaks but new and different ... such as everyone setting one or two focused daily challenges for themselves relating to weight loss or fitness and then reporting back daily, even if it's a very quick post?
Maybe there could be (virtual) weekly prizes for those with the most challenges met ... like an all-expense paid trip to an exotic location where one could bask with a companion of one's choice (or none) on a golden beach at sunset, sipping fruit and coconut concotions containing rum and having little green umbrellas on the rim ...
Hmmm, I digress. As you can see, I'm not possessed of a particularly focused mind, so if anyone out there has another challenge idea to morph this initiative into, maybe you could post it tomorrow. I promise to participate each and every day until New Year's if others do, but not to ramble. Name, rank and serial number, that'll be it!
Edyie: For me behavior and habits are more important than what the scale says, so I agree that monitoring weight on a scale doesn't work for everyone. It's just a tool for me to see the trend my weight is taking. I religiously adhere to once-a-week weigh-ins and NEVER hop on at any other time. It's important to me, though, to see that 10-pound drop at this moment in my life. After that it's back to maintenance.
My challenge for today is making sure I get in exercise today because I'm having friends over for breakfast and then I have to go to work all day--so I need to get started soon! Yoga and my dumbell routine this morning for sure.
My food challenge will be avoiding mindlessly eating at the reception I'm preparing today. My 'game' of staying within an certain number of fat grams helps with that.
I'll check in later!
Hey girls....I have not been here in so long I have missed it!!! How are you all doing? I am ready to jump in on the R&G challenge.....just fill me in on what needs to happen....!!!
I stopped going to my meetings and that lead to my not following the program which has now lead to my gaining back about 20lbs of what I had lost.....and feeling very disgusted and ashamed of myself....so here I am...once again....looking to you all for my support....and ready yet again....to test this out and get myself back on track and shedding these darn pounds I packed back on after working so hard to lose!
Where is all the others.....I noticed Crone and Babette and JoJoJo2......but where oh where is Joanie, Angel and all those other helpful support members I used to count on!!!!
Hoping you all had a great Thanksgiving.....and here's to our success!!!!
Take care girls......Lis
I'm up late, but a happy Red & Green Camper Queen!
Down 2 pounds, 8 to go to meet my overall challenge for this initiative (by New Year's). I will accomplish this by breaking my behavioral goal setting into easy weekly and daily challenges that I will try to meet.
When I meet my 10-pound goal (by New Year's or whenever), a virtual mega-health organization interested in studying how wonderfully I manage my weight has offered to sponsor me on the virtual vacation I mentioned last night. A charming travel agent (French, I believe) will arrive on my doorstep at a decent hour on a Sunday morning. He will help me pack and whisk me away in a limo to the airport, where a team of handsome travel agents will attend to all details and I will tat until plane time. I will board the plane and fly first-class to an unknown destination, which will turn out to be a mysterious but charming island somewhere in the Bahamas. I will be escorted to a 10-star, atmospheric resort where I willl spend however many weeks I chose basking on the beach, reading, tatting and involving myself in a baffling series of local mysterious events, which I will solve Agatha Christie style before deciding to return home. On the plane home, a mysterious (but charming) stranger will engage me in conversation. He has a French accent ...
1) My calorie challenge for the week is to eat less calories overall than last week. I've got this all on spreadsheets so the math's in the bag. My fitness challenge is to do a 30-minute formal workout each day (no more counting market research surveys as exercise!).
I will win a non-virtual prize for each week I meet my challenges. This week it is to take an angel off the Christmas Angel tree and buy the gift. Since I have no children, I always get a kick out of shopping for kids' toys and small clothes, etc. So that's my gift to me today because I am so cool!
2) My calorie challenge for today is no more than 1899 for the day; fitness challenge: The first of the weekly workouts, which I've already done (fitness walking with hand weights, 30 minutes).
MomTo2Boys: Hi, again! Without a doubt you will shed those pesky 20 pounds. I'm not sure exactly what the R&G Initiative is ... I think we should all basically make up the game for ourselves and stick to it and the pounds will roll (or maintain themselves) as they will. I also miss everyone. Will post shorter messages in the future!
Edyie: The game's afoot, Sherlock! We are on the case and no extra fat grams are going to be able to sneak in when our minds are not looking.
Babette, JJJ2, Sychie, Morrigan, Joanie, Angel, et all: Hello! Have a great day!
The good news is this morning before my friends arrived for the oh-so-healthy breakfast I prepared I completed my mission of yoga and my dumbell routine and even threw in a bonus 100 crunches! Felt good about that and the sweet potato pancakes and fruit, etc.
Then off to work where for some reason I was feeling stressed. And I just nibbled mindlessly and now I feel bad physically, not to mention that I feel bad about myself. But I'm going to shake this off and get back to the business at hand NOW!
Tomorrow I'm streaking again. Woohoo!!!!
RED & GREEN QUEEN CHRISTMAS SEASON INITIATIVE #1
Thanksgiving -
). Even though I am not overweight at 160 (and will look pretty darn hot 
) he would think I was fat if he knew what I weighed. I will NEVER tell him! I'm so paranoid about anyone finding out what I weigh that I was hesitant to post a photo of myself in case of the remote possibility of someone actually meeting me!
How silly is that!
. I think we'll nudge this ahead a little bit when we move in town and DH doesn't have a 45 minute drive to work. Right now we get up so that we can get in a walk or the gym before he has to leave. Even if I wanted to sleep in, this house is too small to let me do that if he gets up. There are some studies now showing that people who get up very early have increased cortisol (the deadly stress hormone) levels all day. But I think that goes for right up to 7:30 and I don't see us ever getting up that late. So I guess we'll just have to find ways to deal with it.
