"Every-Day" 21-Day Challenge -- Getting in the habit!!

You're on Page 1 of 19
Go to
  • 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.

    Well, all's said. Please join us!!

  • starting off on the right foot!!!
    Hey all. Welcome to the new thread. Hope you all find us here...I never started a new one when I started up my last challenge and now I've added even more! So here goes.
    I have notched yet another day on all challenges, currently four!

    So, here is where I stand:

    Day 13 crunches
    Day 11 no sugar
    Day 3 fresh vegetable juice
    Day 3 no alcohol

    How's that!??!
  • Today is a pause day for me.

    30 minutes intentional exercise, level 3
    5 days completed, 1 pause taken
    Start date 27 December




    Well done Red
  • day 4 - Counting calories - pause - 2 pause left

    day 4 - Exercise everyday - pause - 2 pauses left

    I knew when I started the other day that yesterday would be a tough one, so it's ok. Today will actually be busy too. I've got to spend a good part of my day taking down all the Christmas stuff and getting my house back to normal. I will definitely count those calories and try to get in some crunches or something to count for the exercise.

    chaarli! Glad to have you hear.

    Red - You're doing awesome! Keep it up!

    Hi SweetPea and everyone else out there!

    Have a great day all!
  • I'm just going to sneak right back in here for those of you who remember me. Redballoon, I've got to fill you in on what's been going on with me. I haven't decided on my challenges yet. I have developed weight related hypertension and when thinking about a plan, I immediately thought about this thread. Talk to you all soon. Tia
  • Hello all. Was contemplating 2006, and realized I needed to get my arse back here as well. I really need to work on my stress management as far as work goes (that usually is the biggest trigger) - since my "therapists" Ben & Jerry really derail me from so many goals. I need to stop spending so much money on crap food, and so little time doing positive things for myself.

    So, starting today, here are my first two challenges - both are level 3.

    1) daily exercise.
    2) two servings daily of both fruits and vegetables.

    I need to do some more contemplating, and get my mind fully in the game. Then I will add more challenges. Day one both challenges were met (or will be as soon as I eat an apple when I get off the computer )

    Hello and to Red, Sweet Pea, and DJ. Tia - it is great to see you back too
  • OK. My first challenge will be 30 minutes of exercise everyday, even on the weekends. This will definitely be a level 3. Maybe I will actually use my Curves membership. Here goes everything!!! Tia
  • tia.

    Jolly nice to see you again

    30 minutes intentional exercise, level 3
    6 days completed, 1 pause taken
    Start date 27 December

    went for a nice walk and felt good after! now i'm lounging around
  • down but not out.....
    Another day down on all challenges, which puts me at:

    Day 14 crunches completed
    Day 12 no sugar completed
    Day 4 fresh vegetable juice completed
    Day 4 no alcohol completed

    No pauses taken, three left on each!

    I'm sick with a cold. It came on suddenly. I had such energy at the gym and then, wham! it knocks me down. I think my body is in shock from all the exercise and good food, absence of booze and sugar. I may be in a type of detox. I feel pretty bad but I'm going to push on. It's the 2nd here and I was back in work. I turned down various sweets and chances to have a beer...I tell you, there are ALWAYS chances to have beer at that office, people always going out on breaks or after a shift and ready for a pint. I can see how very easy it is to get in the habit and I am really going to have to catch myself to stop from ordering. Today, it was tea and grapefruit juice. Only one person had some alcohol, so it wasn't so tempting. I am going to stay away from the group get-together where it's ALL beer and sitting there drinking something non-alcoholic is just no fun, better to stay away completely.


    **************

    sweet pea -- glad to see you're moving along there. Keep up the good work! And thanks for the encouragement!

    tia -- Where have you been!?!? There's no "sneaking back in here," no way! It's about time you got back in here! No, just kidding...great to see you again! Sorry to hear about the hypertension... But, it sounds like you've got the right attitude for a great year ahead! Good luck!

    jolly -- All the oldtimers, wow! Good to see you too. You get down to that contemplating and while you're at it....get that bootie moving and do your daily exercise! Best of luck to you and FIRE those therapists of yours!!! They are obvious quacks!

    dj -- First pause, no problem. Thanks for the nice words and best of luck to you too! You've got two tough challenges but we're all rooting for you. Power to you!

  • day 4 - Counting calories - good - 2 pause left

    day 4 - Exercise everyday - good - 2 pauses left

    Well, I managed to sneak in some crunches yesterday in between all the "end of Christmas clean up". That lets me count both challenges as good!

    It was really hard getting up this morning at 2:30 to go to work after having a week off, but I'm looking forward to life getting back to normal. I'll actually be able to work out in peace! Kids back to school and husband off to work, yay!

    Hey Red, hope you get to feeling better soon!

    Tia! Nice to have you here!

    Jolly - Glad to have you back as well!

    Hi SweetPea! Hope you're doing well.

    Have a great day all!
  • Hey all. Consider "Ben" and "Jerry" FIRED!! I made it to the gym this morning. I didn't work out long, as I had to work until midnight last night, and I am also down with a cold (and it had BETTER get overwith soon, as I leave for Vegas a week from Saturday ), but at least I went and did some movement.

    I have been so bad lately with my eating, and eating out a lot at work. So, I was very proud of myself for eating what I packed today, and not giving in to temptation. I am slurping soup (non cream or cheese based) as we speak.

    I have also decided that this year needs to be about treating myself in good ways. I have made up some little slips of paper with cool things to do. At the beginning of each month I will pick one, and plan and budget as needed to do it that month - no matter what! I can pick extras if I have a) had a loss each week of the previous month, and b) stayed within budget for groceries and restaurant spenditures.

    Here's to a great 2007 for all of us!

  • Today was a good day! Back to work but not back to school yet! Made it to the gym for little under two hours and ate well! Finally I seem to get the idea right?!
    Day 3, One pause (New years taken) Under 2000 calories - level 3
    Day 3, One pause (New years taken) 15 minutes of exercise a day - level 3
    Day 4 Fitday logging - level 1
    Looks like everyone is back!!
  • Hey all. Just wanted to check in before bed Day 2, both challenges met. even did well on my non challenge challenges

    Red, hope your cold is getting better, and the work stuff is getting easier to avoid. DJ - 2:30 AM??? I thought my 4:30 was bad. Hats off to you Tia and Sweet Pea - hope your challenges are going well.

    See you tomorrow
  • Quote: I have also decided that this year needs to be about treating myself in good ways. I have made up some little slips of paper with cool things to do. At the beginning of each month I will pick one, and plan and budget as needed to do it that month - no matter what! I can pick extras if I have a) had a loss each week of the previous month, and b) stayed within budget for groceries and restaurant spenditures.

    Here's to a great 2007 for all of us!

    Hi guys! Happy New Year!
    Great to see everyone. As promissed here I am on the 2nd of Jan!

    Jolly and Tia, glad to see you are back as well.
    Jolly when read your words, this is as if you are writing for me.
    I also noticed that many of my great results from last year have been covered with a new layer of fat :-( And I do feel exactly the same when it comes to budget for groceries and eating out.
    I am an Analyst at heart, and I just finished reviewing my finances for 2006, boy last 6 months, thousands spent eating out! I could have bought new furniture at the most expensive store, yet I choose to waste it.

    It is hard to re-commit, and though I was hoping to say Day1 is in the Bag I cannot. Same same, work. With my new job role, I am so busy, hence I don't have time for lunch or grab food porn on the way home.

    My two challenges for now would be:
    Challenge A (Level 2): 64oz of Water
    Chellenge B (Level 2): No food after 8pm

    My sister is comming to town tomorrow, I will really try to be good and follow through. I am older then she is by 10 years, and I want to be a good example. Wish me luck.
  • hi!!!!

    30 minutes intentional exercise, level 3
    7 days completed, 1 pause taken
    Start date 27 December

    15 each side of side stretches level 1
    1 day completed no pauses taken
    start date 3 January

    Back later with a report and to catch up on everyone else's news
    it's soooooooo exciting to see a big crowd here