Welcome to Riestrella's Sizzling for Summer 2017 Challenge!!

Hey you. Yeah, YOU! You’re awesome and beautiful. If you don't think so then I'm sorry, but you are totally wrong. Go listen to some sexy music and dance in the mirror like it’s 1999 and believe you are delicious! Otherwise we’re gonna have a problem here.

However, I know sometimes when you’re overweight you can feel a little pudgy and a bit like a sad panda. ESPECIALLY when the hot season is almost upon us (anyone else feel like saying “summer is coming” instead of “winter”?) Not to worry though! You can do something about it! Amazing right? You have the ability to change your future and morph yourself into a delicious candy panda. High fives all around.

To help you along the way is another of my spreadsheet challenges! Please read the rules below before joining.

1. You can join this challenge at any time up until the final 2 weeks of the challenge!!
2. -->Click here to access the spreadsheet used to document your weigh ins!<--
3. Enter your Username on 3FC, your starting weight and goal weight for this challenge NOT your overall starting weight/goal weight.
4. Be sure to have your weekly weigh in on the spreadsheet by Sunday, because I make the charts on Monday. In the spreadsheet when the column is labelled "WK 1 8/31", that means the week BEGINS on the 31st August NOT the particular day you have to weigh in!
5. Check back in to the thread and I'll publish a weekly chart to show who's dominating over us all. Charts are Top 15 biggest losers only!
6. If you want to take a break from weighing in then right click the cell for that week and select "Insert Note" (definitely not a "comment" because these won't move with your username if new members join the spreadsheet!) and add your reason for not weighing in. If you have a week that you know you won't weigh in ahead of time - let me know and I'll insert the note for you.
7. If you don't weigh in for more than 2 weeks without a noted reason you will be moved to Standby. Come to the thread and opt back in if you want to re-enter the challenge!

Optional before and after measurements challenge! Read below:

• I've included a tab on the spreadsheet to enter your measurements! Measure yourself at the beginning of the challenge and at the end to see how much you shrink!
• -->Click here to access the measurements sheet!<--

That's it!* A huge part of this challenge is the community support, so please use this thread to talk to each other and update us on your progress. It’s less about just saying “today I weigh ___” and more about actually communicating with fellow sexy candy panda’s and talking about your life and all its ups and downs. Think of this thread more like a chat thread rather than just a place to post weights. We're here for you on your road to awesomeness!!

• Can I change my Goal Weight once the challenge has begun? ~ Yes!
• There's a - mark in my cell for a week, but I know what I weighed! Can I change it? ~ Yes! The more information you can put in the better. Let me know your missing weights and I'll input them myself.
• My weight changed during the week but I already entered my weight, can I change it? ~ OF COURSE! Just submit your weight again using the same form, no problems.
• The chat thread for my forum is dead...can I talk in a different thread? ~ Absolutely! We have 2 threads going, one in the Chicks up for a Challenge forum and the other in the 20-Somethings forum. Doesn't matter about age or if you're a regular in that forum or not, please hop in to the thread wherever you see it.

Enter your starting weights now and the challenge begins April 24th 2017!!

Aww Thank you Rie for starting this

I really need a kick up the butt! I have been a slow moving tortoise all year and its starting to get to me

Yay! I've been dying for this challenge!

Scots: I'm right there with you. I've been struggling a bit. I got to onederland but since then I've stalled. I've also been having issues health wise that I don't understand so I'm going to see my obgyn next week. It's so frustrating when you've done so well in the past and can't seem to get back in your groove! It's like all the sudden I got really hungry again, and I've been feeling nauseated too, just generally exhausted. I'm very glad the challenge is back!

Hey guys!

Glad to see you both! Seems like we're all in a bit of a slump with weight loss at the moment. I'm up to 173.8 lbs for my challenge starting weight, I believe I was 168 lbs by the time I dropped out of the last challenge. Was a bummer changing my ticker, but, I'm feeling determined to make a change. I turned 28 a couple of weeks ago, so time is ticking for me to finally change my life and be healthy and happy with my body. There's always that feeling like "what's the point? I've wasted all this time already" but I need to silence that side of my brain and take action. I know I'm a broken record at this point, but I refuse to smash the record entirely! I wanna play out this song no matter how many times it skips until I reach the end.

Summer feels like it's here in GA, the humidity isn't quite here yet but it's getting rather warm! I'm finding myself making more excuses to not run, so I've decided to do Shaun T's T25 program. I always avoided home workouts because I live on the third floor, but I thought "eff it" it's only 25 minutes a day and I'll do it later in the morning when I hope people are working. Worse case scenario I'll ask to use my neighbors apartment since they live on the ground floor. T25 is still hard, but doesn't have the same intimidation factor as Insanity. With Insanity I lost 21 lbs in 5 months, which is pretty amazing when I reflect on it, so I hope that I get similar results. When I did do Insanity I did it whenever I had the time, but with T25 I hope I'll do it 5 times a week. It's an 18 week program so it'll take me all the way through to my vacation to Japan in September. I have a wedding to go to and I really want to look nice for it, since I'll a) be one of the only foreigners at the wedding so I'll get stared at and b) be surrounded by slender Japanese people! Plus on that vacation I'm going to be doing a lot of walking/hiking, so I want to be ready for that.

I'm going to be mindful of changing my eating habits too, since I'm finding myself turning to grains and worse of all - sugar. I'm going to do my habit changing technique of eliminating a bad habit for 30 days before moving on to the next one to ease myself into it. At the moment I'm going to focus on breakfast and eating at the table. I've got back into the bad habit of watching Netflix with breakfast, which means I end up sitting on the couch for far longer than I should.

Clay - Hope you get some answers for your health issues!!

Riestrella: I totally get what you mean about feeling like you're already 27, so the bad voice in your head (at least mine) will tell me I can't and I'll always be this way. If it makes you feel any better I'm 29, almost 30! 😣. I also have a wedding coming up. My sister is getting married at the end of June (days after the end of this challenge!). It's in San Francisco, and will also be around lots of slim Japanese people (my sisters fiance is Japanese). Thankfully my family is Cuban so there will be some more curvy people there! I'm also starting a new workout routine. I joined a gym with a great daycare, so I've been taking classes there a few days a week. I did my second spin class today, and got a great workout in. Spin class is so intense! It kind of took me off guard last week in my first class, I thought I might die. I'm trying to do a combination of strength classes and cardio to boost my weight loss. I got home today though and was just so incredibly exhausted. Hopefully everything is fine, but I need to make sure, I haven't been feeling my best lately.

Quick announcement! I've decided to remove the forum column in the spreadsheet and will now only be making a chart for everyone involved in the challenge. If this disappoints you I'm truly sorry, but this will save a lot of time for me in the future when making charts/badges. I hope you'll consider this even more motivation to get into the overall charts week by week!

As for me, day one is going well so far. I've just done my first T25 workout (Cardio) and boy it was a killer. Can't believe I sweat so much in just 25 minutes. Feeling positive about keeping this up since it's very doable to fit into my schedule, especially since it's rainy outside right now! I'm about to note down my measurements and I might even take some before pictures.

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Clay - Sounds like we'll both be in similar predicaments regarding Japanese people at weddings, how unusual! Though I bet it'll be a relief to have fellow Cubans there . Do you like your sisters fiance? They'll make beautiful babies that's for sure . That's so great you have daycare at your gym, what a wonderful idea. Spin class is no joke, good for you! I think combining strength and cardio is the way to go, I'm sure you'll see results in no time. Did I read that you got into the 100's? Congratulations!! Hmm, I hope it's something simple like an iron deficiency or something. Or maybe just general exhaustion from being a parent? Either way, I hope it's nothing serious.

Riestrella: I do like my sister's fiance. I wasn't really okay with him before but he and my sister have done a lot of work and counseling and they seem very happy now, either way I'm going to support them and him because my sister loves him, and I want her to be so incredibly happy!

It took me a while to find a gym I like with a good daycare, it's 19 minutes away which is quite the trek, but knowing my son is well taken care of is worth it for sure!

I did get into onederland finally! thanks I think there may be something wrong with my IUD so I'm going to get checked out just in case. Hopefully its just a vit D deficiency (it usually is!).


To be honest though, my husband and I are both on and off depressed these days. My husband's job is sucking the life out of both of us. We are hoping he will get a better job soon, with better quality of life so we can be happier as a family. I think once we get in a better situation we will both feel much better!

Question for all of you lovely ladies:

How do you cope with your emotions besides food?

As I mentioned earlier, my husband and I are having a really hard time. His work is terrible, and it's taken a huge toll on not only our home life but also our marriage (I hate to even type that but it's the truth).

When I get angry, or sad, I just want to eat, even though I know it's counterproductive in the long run. How do you cope? What methods work for you?

Day 2 of T25 complete! Sweating just as much as yesterday, which I always consider a good thing. It was "Speed 1.0" which involves stretches in between explosive movements so I savored those stretch moments. I'm definitely not quick on my feet that's for sure, I'm sure in time I'll get it back! I caught myself going slower on a few occasions but when I forced myself to keep up with the people on screen I started feeling the benefit.
I'm trying to focus more on getting these workouts in and feeling proud of that than pressuring myself to eat super healthy right now. I'm not eating junk food all the time, don't get me wrong, but I feel like exercise is always a good first port of call for me before I start making big changes to my diet. I definitely have a way to go with my diet, mainly phasing out bread and adding more fruit/veg, but again I think being proud of these workouts is what's going to make me want to make changes to my diet in the near future! It happened when I first started running, all I focused on was getting the runs in and eventually I WANTED to eat healthier so I could run faster!

I've also decided that instead of using my lightest weight of the week I'm going to start using my average weight of the week. I have an app called "RecStyle" that's a simple weigh in app, but you can look at your average weight for the week/month. I think weighing in daily and adjusting my average weight for the week will have a better long term effect on me, since fluctuations are bound to happen and it can be negative in the long run. For example, I could weigh in at 173 lbs 6 days of the week this week, but if I miraculously dropped to 170 lbs and used that as my official weigh in, then the following week if I see 172 or 171 lbs I'd feel like I'd gained weight. When really my average weight for the week would be 172.6 lbs. I think that's a big problem I was having with the last challenge, I was clinging to these lightest weigh ins as a way to feel good about myself, but it wasn't a truly accurate number. In the long run it affected me mentally, since I'd feel like I was just going back and forth and not progressing. Lesson learned!

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clay - I feel like EVERYTHING is 20 minutes away here, no matter what, haha! Sorry to hear things aren't going great for you guys. I think identifying the cause of the depression, so by the sounds of it your husbands job, and working hard on changing the situation will really help. Is he job hunting at the moment then? As lame as it sounds what helps with my emotions is going outside. Just taking a walk, no matter where and for how long. I find hanging out with friends is also a big one. I think negative feelings can sometimes feel like a physical cloud in your own space, so getting out of that space can be healing. Identifying that things aren't great in life but then trying to stay positive about things is good too, sometimes the BF and I will get freaked out about money and being freelancers, but we have to just stop and say to each other "this is not helping, we need to stay positive" and just that snapping out of it moment can help.

Sorry for posting multiple times in a row, I find coming here is instinctual after working out!!

Exercise: Day 3 of T25 complete! Today was "Total Body Circuit" which was no joke. There were a lot of plank moves that I just couldn't keep up with, so I might not have gotten as good of a workout since I spent a lot of time giving up or doing a crappy version of the modifier moves. I'm still sweating though, maybe not as much as day 1 and 2, but it's still my fat crying I've felt so stiff since after day 1 though, but it's amazing how doing a workout can really loosen up the muscles. I did a tiny session on the roller since I was too lazy to set up my interval timer, but I think I'll start rolling out after each workout since I feel so stiff once my muscles cool down. Normal stretching just ain't gonna cut it!

Weight is up a little today, 174 lbs, but my weekly average is still at 173.8 lbs. I'm coming on my period this weekend, so I imagine my weight is probably going to stick in the 173's for the next week. It's terrible timing, since whenever we start a new workout routine or a new eating plan we want to see results immediately don't we?! I'll just have to hang in there and hope to see a huge "whoosh" in a week or so. I also maintain weight starting a new workout too, takes my body a while to get used to the torture, so maybe I'll even see a 2-3 lb drop all at once?! I'm overthinking it now, hehe. I'm just gonna plow through with these T25 workouts and see what happens!

Life: Our friends are going away for a long weekend so we're looking after their dog. I love her, she's such a sweetheart. So not only will we get a furry friend around the house, but I'll be taking her on walks too on top of my workouts.

Hi all, looks like I need to be checking in on here more often. I don't know what it is that has caused me to pig out in the recent months, but sad to say I am up ~10-15lbs since I last checked into these forums. I know I haven't been accountable and my first year teaching is stressing me out, but no excuses! Time to do something about that.

Yesterday was a rough day - found out the bf's tentative job offer was rescinded, and now he's in talks about going back to school. Potentially losing some great coworkers this school year as well (happy for them, sad for me!)...I know, I know it could be worse. So today, I had stepped on the scale and freaked the $^*#(& out with the numbers...and here I am!

Today has been a good day so far food wise, I'm just dealing with some bloat right now, not totally sure why but hopefully it will be gone soon.

Riestrella: yeah we are doing some serious job searching right now. My husband has a bunch of interviews lined up, and he has a paid vacation coming up in a couple weeks. We are hoping we will have some options by vacation, some time to weigh them, and put in his notice when he gets back. That's the goal anyway. We just need to hold out a little bit longer! Sometimes it's just so haRd to see through the stress! Also I downloaded that app you mentioned and it is awesome! Thanks so much for sharing. I have a lot of trouble with weight fluctuations too. For example, yesterday I weighed 195.4, today I got on the scale and it was 198.4! That's the highest weight I've had in over a week. Hopefully it's just the bloat but basically the scale sucks!

Atarimae: what ages are you teaching? I went back to work recently after having my son and it can be a bit stressful! I have the same problems with stress eating, if you have a good tips id love to hear them! I'm sorry your BF lost a job offer, that really sucks. My husband is job searching now too and it can be so stressful, and frustrating when you get your hopes up. Hopefully something better will come along soon!

OOhh Hello Active Ladies!

I totally suck at writing on this website just now.

I have basically been on a strange plateau for months now, In Feb I lost a good amount of weight, but then I have been hugging the 270 line for far too long now, Its time to drop the calories. Basically, the guy at my gym was telling me that I was not aloud to lift weights until I was eating 1500 + cals a day. So I slowly worked to up them and not gain, I was able to get up to about 1650 before maintaining, which means I need to be close to 1500 every day to see a loss. The more I work out.... The hungrier I get so that's been my issue for the last few months.

I have also been eating the same every week....

Breakfast: 3 boiled eggs on toast and a cup of tea
Snack: Banana
Lunch: Chicken rice and veg
Snack: Greek yog and honey and cinnamon and cup of tea
Dinner: Chicken/salmon potatoes and veg
Snack: Rice cake and cup of tea

Same thing over and over and over, so now I am slipping and snacking more. Pay day tomorrow, so today I plan on making a new weekly meal plan, I'm bored and mindless eating.

Just to add to it.... I had cortisone injected into my elbow last October, started wearing off at the end of February, so been in pain for a little while now. But! I got a top up on Monday, so no gym for a week, then hopefully back on it!

I go to Germany in less than 2 weeks I am soooo excited I Soooo want to get to 265 by the time I go because in UK terms that means that I finally got out of 19stone! I will totally put about 5 back on through alcohol, but I am usually quite good at getting that back off again. So the next 2 weeks needs to be low cal, lots of walking, and next week gyming it.

I also have that wedding on the 24th June.... so gotta get working my butt off. Luckily no Japenise people, but all my mates over halves are tiny (in height) I can't exactly lose height But they have known me for a very long time, and will think I look great anyway

Glad to see you all back..... Lets get back on this!

Today has been good so far, although I've had some trouble with cravings. I also somehow have started my period again, which is driving me crazy. I've had it almost every other week for the past month or so and it's making me a crazy person! I have a doctor's appt in 2 weeks to make sure everything is okay. I weighed in at 197 today which made me feel better after seeing 198.4 yesterday morning. My husband is still interviewing for new jobs, we got a good lead today but we would have to move to Indianapolis (we are currently in Atlanta and own our house). So that would be a huge hassle. But it's a good company and the quality of life would be astronomically better, so it's still in the running at this time. We are just trying to be patient and weigh our options carefully.

Scotsgal: hey there! I started working out recently too and it's hard to ignore that hunger that comes along with it! My appetite has definitely increased. Wow Germany! That sounds like a fun trip! Oddly enough it seems like most of us have a wedding to go to this summer, my sisters is one day before the wedding you're going to!