"Every-Day" 21-Day Challenge -- It's a hot deck for sure!!!
Okay, everyone, as is the tradition, I start a new thread when I personally start a new challenge.
Below is a short explanation of how this challenge works so all you newcomers can take a look and decide if you're game or not! I hope you are! Hop aboard and enjoy the ride. We've got a great bunch of supportive people, so I hope you'll give us a try. A lot of people try for a while and then disappear.. I hope some of you will keep trying. There is NO shame in starting over. Remember, it's not over till you give up. And our motto around here is:
NEVER GIVE UP!!...Just start OVER!! EXPLANATION AND RULES:
It works like this: you decide you'll do something for 21 days straight, every single day, so keep it doable. Then you count ....one through 21.....and if you flub it, you MUST go back to zero and start over again. Everyone will be on different days. You can start anytime. At the beginning of the challenge you declare what level it is -- Level 1, 2, or 3. Level 1 means you feel it's a relatively easy challenge for you and means you only give yourself ONE pause day (see explanation of pause days below). Level 2 would give you two pause days and so on...
And taking NO pause days is what I'm going to call "aceing a challenge," as in "I'm aiming on aceing this one!" Yowzah!!
With a pause day you pause in your counting and continue the next day with the number you left off with. Pause days are NOT substitutes for days, i.e. Day 12 -- Day 13 -- Pause Day -- Day 14..... I suggest taking a pause day late in the game (better to go back to Day 1 early on) if you need a break or screw up when you're well into the challenge, meaning, when you're on Day 15 or something like that.
In any case, the trick is to keep going. The momentum builds and it's great incentive to stick to your guns, cause if you don't.........back to START you go. And the really great thing about this challenge is that you are forming new habits that will wipe out the old! AND, you get to do it with a great bunch of really supportive people to whom you are accountable! THREAD GUIDELINES:
In the interest of maintaining structure, a sense of solidarity and facilitating support I ask anyone who wishes to join this thread to please strive to follow the following guidelines while participating in this challenge and in posting.
1. Although this is a fabulous support group, the focus is to be on your CHALLENGE/S and/or other people's challenge/s AND weight loss, whether your challenge is about it or not. Please keep the challenge a priority, although we welcome chattiness! This means tell us what day you're on when you post and it's a good idea to make regular mention of just what your challenge is. This an action-based thread. Our members are ON a challenge, RESTARTING a challenge, or just in between and looking to start up again REAL SOON. We also welcome posts from admirers, encouragers, and old friends!
2. Please refrain from posting food logs or recipes, except where you are really looking for help and advice on your eating. If journaling is your challenge, please keep the journaling off the thread and in a notebook or blog and just tell us if you've done what you set out to do. We have ALL types of dieters here, low-carb, high-carb, low-fat, high-fat, vegetarians, meat-lovers...please use simple mentions if you have something you want to share and then links and/or private messages to do so.
3. Please do NOT go into glowing accounts of any slipups, food indulgences or binges, what we here call "food porn." Simple mentions are fine, but use of smilies etc. as substitutes where possible is encouraged.
4. Please keep this a secular thread. Of course, passing references to your beliefs, a bit of introduction about your beliefs, brief faith-related words of encouragement are fine.
5. Please show support, support, support! This is key. You can waffle on about yourself but please, at least occasionally,come up and look around at others and what they are doing and MENTION it with words of encouragement and/or praise or sympathy. We understand "busy," poor computer connections, and bouts of self-pity and life problems where the focus turns to "me" and dealing with those problems, but these should be temporary, not a habit! ('cept in the computer case.)
In conclusion, let me say, the above are just that, GUIDELINES. Please realize that these guidelines have been added in an attempt to keep this a supportive and beneficial thread, at the LEAST, to those who need it MOST, those for whom weight loss is the hardest and, more often than not, the most crucial as well as for those who still, perhaps despite great success, know all too well that the road they walk will always be a slippery one.
The guidelines are also meant to cultivate an atmosphere of consideration and concern for ALL, not individually, but AS A GROUP.
Hurray for the new thread, and Red's survival of 21 days - you rock
I took a pause on the eating challenge today. Might have to on the workout, if I don't find my running partner - will update later. I am stressing, and PMSing, and I let that be an excuse for eating badly. Very badly. When i ate that way before, it used to taste good, and feel good. . . at least until much later when the guilt and acid reflux kicked in. Now, I get maybe 5-10 minutes of it tasting good, then I just feel yucky. I did throw about 1/5 of the bad lunch out.
Heh there, Apple, jolly. Glad you found the new thread. I am continuing with my challenge, will have a tally for you soon. And, I am reverting back to the actual day without alcohol (straight!) and then if I add it in, how many days with with how many days without. But, that's not a challenge for here. I just want to continue it. I LIKE the streak, and that goes for sugar and cigarettes as well. The momentum is totally different than when you allow yourself pauses. You have this great feeling of, oh, I just can't fall off the wagon now and waste ALL those days.
Still, the pauses serve their purpose.
I will come up with a new challenge as well.
I am ticked again at the scale, up as usual, when I am expecting a loss. I mean, come on!!!!, how can I not be eating sugar nor drinking and NOT see a loss. And my clothes are NOT looser. My fingers are swollen as well because yesterday I could barely get my rings on. What goes?!?! It's not PMS. Strange, very strange. What planet do I come from??!?!?
Hi All~Can I join this challenge? I read and understand the guide lines and rules you have posted for this group. If I can join I challenge myself to do 21 straight days of exercise. An Ab work out every day with either cardio or weight training on alternate days. This would be level 2. A challenging challenge. Thanks Pat
Hey Red - good for you on completing your 21 days!!! WTG!
Challenges:
1) Eat at least 3 meals a day (grazing doesn't count): level 1
2) Find at least 5 minutes a day for ME time: level 3
3) Say the serenity prayer: level 1
here's some explanations about these 3:
1) Recently - due to the teaching (which ends tomorrow - WOOHOO!!!) I've screwed up all of me meals and eating habits.
2) Yes, 5 minutes is a lot sometimes...
3) I think that I need to focus more on the things I can change, because I have a lot,lot,lot of things that I can't....
Jolly - good for throwing out that nasty food! I still battle with not finishing everything on my plate. I went out to dinner last night, and I was so hard for me to see all the unfinished food-! But I didn't eat it anyway!
Apple - let's hear your new challenges! New thread, new start!
Hi all. Ok, just continuing on with my challenges for a while longer, to my birthday on all but alcohol, which I will probably allow some Aug. 2. Just want to go straight through till my birthday on the others and then some no doubt. jolly, Apple, thanks!!!
No alcohol 26 days straight (first day off was June 28)
No sugar 23 days straight (first day off was July 1)
No cigs 23 days straight
No processed foods 23 days straight
************** Dixie -- Of course you can join! Welcome!!
miriam -- Good to see you! Thanks for the congrats! Best of luck on your new challenges and glad to hear the teaching is OVER!!
RED! Thank you for still having this challenge thread! I've been needing to get myself back on track for some time now and this is exactly what I need to get me going.
I used to participate in this thread a couple years back (Red, has it really been that long???)
I'm needing to work on two things. Really simple things but I've been making it seem harder than it really is!
My challenges:
Water intake. (level 1)
Walking/jogging. (level 2)
A level one and two, but sure would like to ace them both!
These are the two main things I STRUGGLE with!! So, to be able to join you all will be great. I already recognize a couple of you here, and I'm looking forward to getting to know the rest of you.
Teaching ain't over YET. Still have tomorrow and preparation FOR tomorrow. Grr 4 more days and you have abstinence and you can talk at an AA meeting, LOL
Day 0: 3 meals
Day 1: 5 ME-minutes
Day 1: serenity
Just wanted to stop in and say hello. Been so busy around here with company. Takes a lot to keep a house clean with 9 people in it and takes a whole lot of cooking to feed everyone lol. Have our week at the camp grounds coming up and a few little things we want to do with everyone while they are here. Hope everyone is doing well.
WAY TO GO RED
Same old same old here. I am sticking with my normal eating and exercise but I haven't been keeping track of days so I will officially start a new challenge when the 5 extra people in my house leave lol.
I had a much better day yesterday. This morning is off to a rough start. I overslept, so am not hitting the gym. I have a run tonight, but I was still supposed to do a double workout today Can this day's workouts be saved
I think I will go do core, and some upper body weights. Then, after the run and dinner tonight, if I can get in some biking, I will be good. . .
It's going to take me a little bit to get all your names. But thank you for the welcome.
Day one (yesterday) was a success! Got in my water and my walk. Water was easier than I anticipated. The walk....that was something I was not wanting to do, but did it anyway.
So pretty pleased. Just need to continue on and get in the habit of it all and by the end of the 21 days....will feel stronger and more in control. That's my hopes anyway.
"Every-Day" 21-Day Challenge -- It's a hot deck for sure!!!
And the really great thing about this challenge is that you are forming new habits that will wipe out the old! AND, you get to do it with a great bunch of really supportive people to whom you are accountable! 
This means tell us what day you're on when you post and it's a good idea to make regular mention of just what your challenge is. This an action-based thread. Our members are ON a challenge, RESTARTING a challenge, or just in between and looking to start up again REAL SOON. 
We also welcome posts from admirers, encouragers, and old friends!
etc. as substitutes where possible is encouraged. 
Welcome old and new alike!!
continuing right along...
4 more days and you have abstinence and you can talk at an AA meeting, LOL
