hi everyone! I plan to be around more the next couple days. I'm slowing things back down, can't take much more of running around crazy. Hubby is back to work, kids are feeling better, so time to get back to normal. Except hubby bought this stupid 80GB Zune and it driving me INSANE. I spent half the night on the phone with their customer support and everything they tell me to do fixes nothing, I think they are as clueless as I am. It's just messing everything up. Hubby put in his music and it mixed all the files up. For example, his ACDC has cover art for Kenny Chesney and songs for 3 different artists, and those other 3 artists albums are empty Then it messed up the windows media player and we had to fix that, and can't! It's a total mess. I just boxed the stupid thing up and I'm getting my $300 back, it is a mess!

Okay, enough venting! I'm gave up my second workout last night to try and fix it for him, and I am not giving up anymore time today to deal with it. Time to focus on myself again. I have gotten away from that.

I wore my new size 16 jeans last night and felt so much better. They are so comfy compared to the 20s I have been holding up the past couple months

Yay I'm finally back into the 220's. I'm only like 4 pounds away from prepregnancy weight. Only took 2 years. Gosh. Gotta admit other than a couple months I wasn't really trying. Just have 50 pounds to go after that. No plans for another baby anytime soon so hopefully I'll finally make it. I also feel like TOM is soon. Starting to get that slightly depressed, my life is horrible feeling. Hopefully since I cut out the caffeine weeks ago it won't be as bad as it has been in the past.

Just got finished posting the results for Week 4. I'm pretty sure that we are not going to win this week. I'm really disappointed that the numbers are so low, mainly because of gains from people that don't participate in the chat. (This is not an attempt to bash a gain cause it does happen. Those that don't participate know who they are.)

I had a really big rant in my blog yesterday and the results this week really confirm what I was having a hard time with. If you don't participate, majority of the time you don't lose.

I got to thinking about a lot of things yesterday concerning the challenge. Believe it or not, i get emotionally invested in it more than I probably should. I truly feel horrible today for the way that a handful of people can effect all of my team mates that work their tails off every week and make sure they make it to the forums to chat.

So I have a QOTD and I'd like for as many people to answer it as possible. Please answer honestly because it will ultimately go into consideration for future actions on how to deal with non participating team members.

QOTD: If you could change one thing about the TBL challenge, what would it be? Also, how do you think we should deal with no participating chat members?

QOTD - I'm not sure about the first part of your question yet but I know that participating in chats helps me. The last time I tried to lose weight I stopped coming here and tried another site where there wasn't as much "interaction" and basically after a short amount of time just stopped trying altogether. I won't stop this time.

Way to go Purple on your jeans and Karen on getting to prepregnancy weight! Hope you both gave yourselves a pat on the back!!
For those that haven't had children getting off post partum weight is a killer! It doesn't seem to want to leave the body!
We had a sad past two weeks as a good friend of mine was in Mexico with her hubby and he fell asleep on the couch in their room. She let him sleep and went to wake him up in the morning and he had passed away in the night of a heart attack at age 53 years of age. She had a nightmare trying to make arrangements and get him back home to Canada all with a language barrier and no family. So it really hit home for us how much time we spend fretting about little things and taking things for granted! DH and I have been more committed to the gym than ever, totally on track with our eating since January and I am not letting the little things get to me.. including when my 4 and 3 year old have joint tantrums
So if you do slip up a little just get back on track, be thankful for everybody around you and make your health priority one.. you only get one body so take care of it!!
Have a good week gang!

QOTD: Are other teams having non-participation problems too? I don't really keep track of the other teams. I don't think that there's any way we can guarantee that people won't quit along the way. Everybody seems to start a new year saying "This year I'm going to lose the weight!" How many actually do? I might be wrong (this is my first challenge), but I would venture to guess that most folks who drop out probably start disappearing around week 3 (after the initial newness of it all wears off).

Could we institute some sort of rule that, if you miss two consecutive weeks (not posting at all during a 14-day period), you're dropped from the challenge (and your weight won't count in the team total anymore)? That will allow for folks to go on vacation without having to worry about posting. You don't have to do personals or even read the rest of the chat thread. But, if you go two weeks without a simple "I'm busy, but I wanted to check in and say 'hi'," you're probably not going to be remotely dedicated to the challenge.

Yes, it is very frustrating to me that many of our team members don't participate in the chats. I know that the chats threads can get long, but that is because some of us are chatting and being supportive....and, that's a very very good thing! And, I wish our team members wouldn't get their feelings hurt if they don't get personal responses to each and every one of their posts. My goodness, posting personals can take a huge amount of time! Let's stop putting expectations on everyone to post personals to everyone everyday. Its okay to just post a sentence or two a couple of times a week and let us know how you're doing and let us know if we can do anything to help you.

Now, on a very positive note.....I joined the BL challenge for support and encouragement on this very very difficult journey. This is my second time participating with the BL challenges and I've met some awesome weight loss partners! If there is another BL challenge following this one, you can be sure that I'll be signing up to participate again. Despite the fallout rate of our team members and the lack of participation sometimes, these challenges are worth every single minute I invest.

I don't know if I am one of the people annoying you guys because I do post here, just by far not as much lately as when the challenge first started...and I did gain 0.8 of a lb this week. I have had a nice loss every other week of this challenge and used to post daily, several times a day actually. The past couple weeks things changed in our house because we are doing home rennovations and it's taking a lot of my time because I'm not naturally a home decorating type person so I'm slow at making decisions, and my children have been sick, and we have a ton of birthdays this month so I am getting out invitations, valentines, school parties, etc. SO I am not around mostly because I can't be...but I have been checking in whenever possible and trying to do personals when I can.

I think it is unfair to assume that if someone is not posting here they are not losing weight. I post religiously to a group in the 100 lb. forum, where I first started chatting here before this competition started. I am losing even while not getting to post here much, and I am posting over there becaus it is a smaller group who I have gotten to know more and feel more connected to, so I tend to go there daily for that support and to check up on people.

I was also checking here in the same way off and on through the day, but honestly almost none of my posts ever get a response. i don't expect everything I say to be responded to, and definitely never expect everyone to respond to anything..but when you post say 10 posts and not a single one is responded to, you wonder if you are just typing to yourself. I really felt ignored here, and like so many of you all know each other from previous challenges so you respond to each other and then other people, like myself, just kinda get pushed aside. Like I said, I don't expect every post to be responded to, but I'd say 98% of what I post is never responded to by a single person..and what is the point in talking to myself?

I do understand Rhonda's point about there not being pressure for personals...but if we're all posting about ourselves and few to none do personals, what is the point? that's not really communicating with others if we just post about ourselves. When this started I was doing personals, to almost every single post for our blue team and I liked doing it, but most of those were never responded to, and whatever I wrote about myself in those personals was usually never responded to, so I wondered if I was wasting my time.

I really see both sides of it. I don't want anyone pressured into personals, which is why I have said nothing about it and just started chatting more in the other forum again. But at the same time posting regularly and having almost everything you say ignored doesn't feel good either. Here's what i honestly have felt on this issue: seems the posts that get responses are when people are struggling and having a hard time...which is GREAT! I love that, but it sucks when posts reporting good progress are not responded to. I posted a 3.6 lb. loss and not a single person said a word back to me, for all 3 of my posts where I reported my loss for the group I might have gotten 1-2 responses total. But at the same time others were struggling and everyone was patting them on the back...I just felt my progress was ignored while we babied those who were gaining and that made no sense to me. I was trying to respond equally to those struggling and those doing great, but I felt I was really talking to myself here.

I do LOVE that we rally around those having problems and I try to do that as well...but hoenstly, ignoring those doing really well makes no sense. I am hard on myself and maybe hard on others, but I don't believe saying "oh it's okay, just get back to it" over and over to the same person accomplishes anything. I'm all for support but ten or more posts of "it's okay" to someone struggling doesn't help that person...there needs to be more of a kick in the butt and GET TO IT, and problem solving to help them get going again sometimes. I had a gain of 0.8 lb. this week and I have made a clear plan of how to FIX that and have started already. I am not going to say it's okay because it's not okay to me. anyway, my point is just that we can't ignore those doing well and just overly indulge those who gain. Those doing well get discouraged, or at least I did.

I know I am not the only person who feels this way...maybe I won't be the only one to speak out. I hope i'm not demonized and hate dnow, but you asked for honest opinions and I am REALLY getting a lot out of this challenge. It has been very motivating for me, even without getting much support here (or at least I felt that way). i don't want to be hated now for how I have felt in the group, if that makes sense.

Rhonda - Thanks for the compliment. I hope that you have a great time tonight with the family.

Victoria - I hope that school and roommate situation settles down for you.

Nori- I hope that life has started to settle down for you. Keep moving forward.

Ginger _ I am sorry that you were sick. Feel better

Selina- I hope that you also get to feeling better. Congrats on staying OP.

Hello to everyone else. Sorry, I didn't get to everyone.

My DH is flying back out tonight. So, I need to go get him ready to go.

Everyone have a great day.

Karen -- I love them! Of course, they look just like mine, so that might be why.

Karen--I love the glasses, they look really good. I always feel the same way when I wear somthing new, like I'm a fake or something. The new will wear off soon and they'll just be your glasses

Sorry I deleted the last post with both pictures. I suddenly got paranoid I shouldn't be asking. (Like I said TOM). Not much self esteem. These are my new glasses. My last pair were metal framed so I'm trying to get used to them. I like them. But I feel like a fraud trying to be stylish.

When I think of teammates who never post, your name never once crossed my mind. IMO, you've been one of our loyal posters.

And, I agree. We should celebrate success a bit more. And, I'm a big proponent of "tough" love, but I bite my tongue quite often as I'm not sure how well that will be taken by everyone. Yes, we should rally around those who are struggling, however, we don't need to condone it or join in a group gripe fest. Sometimes, we get so busy commiserating and nobody stands up and says "Yes, you screwed up, now what are you going to do about it?" That tends to happen a lot throughout the forums. Know what I mean? Sometimes, we all just need a good kick in the butt to get us moving. This journey is really a battle and we need to step up to the challenge. And, I don't reserve the butt kicking for everyone else but me. You should hear how I talk to myself! "Quitting is not an option! Buckle up and quit whining!" Yep, you can tell that I was former military and raised in a military household.

Karen - I really see where you are coming from. I don't think that you are a non-participator, it's actually quite the opposite. Even if people do have life issues that they can't be here everyday, as long as they participated steadily before, I know they will come back eventually.

My QOTD was really directed towards those people that NEVER have come to the chat threads to post or they did in the very beginning and now they never do. I would call names and point fingers, but I'm more of an adult than to do that.

As far as giving people a big kick in the pants about having a gain, sometimes I feel like its necessary but other times I think it can't be helped. Obviously TOM plays a big factor in a gain every few weeks, and since we all are on different schedules, it makes it seem weird. But, there are people that just have a stray bad week. Now for those that continue to gain week after week, I agree that we should be administering some tough love. Unfortunately, it might be looked upon as a bashing and that gets people in trouble. There are days I'd LOVE to get on this forum and give people a swift but I fear that if I do I'll lose my position as a moderator. I'm supposed to be neutral and non aggressive, so really its hard for me to play without getting in trouble.

Erin - Ever since I've run the challenge there has always been drop outs. Both of the other teams are having the same problems that we are so this was something that had to be asked challenge wide. It'll be interesting because so far I've seen different types of responses coming from each team.

One of the big things that was brought to my attention prior to this QOTD and some members of the Black Team are affirming is that some people that are regular challenge participants don't feel as motivated because they are not on the team that they wanted to be on. This is mainly because of attachments to team leaders and other friends they've made in past challenges. I'm just curious to know if anyone on the Blue Team feels the same. Should we work on placing returning participants on preferred teams next challenge?

QOTD: This is the first time that I have done TBL challenge. So, I can't really answer the first part and as far as the second part goes. I don't really have any suggestions. I know that this is not much help. I do know that participating in the chat helps me to loose weight. I definitely am not someone that does a lot of personals and most of my posts are about myself. I am trying to get better at addressing some things I read. I do try to read the posts. But, I do have to admit that there are days when I can't read anything and just post about myself. I just figure that maybe some of my challenges that I face may somehow help someone else.

I have to run and get some stuff done. I will try to post back later.