"Every-Day" 21-Day Challenge -- Put the numbers behind you!!

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  • 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!!

  • gotta push on
    Well, people, here we are. I'm finally getting myself back in the game. I have to. I see no other way for me to keep on with the stuff going on in my life unless I can get myself in a physically very good place.

    Recently, the moment I start training or really hitting the exercise, I get sick. Either my skin condition (rashes) gets really bad and/or I get rundown with flu symptoms and what seem to be swollen lymph glands. Sorry for the details, but...

    I'm at a point in my life where it's not so much about the overeating or the excess weight. Things there are not so bad anymore. But what is very bad is the quality of my life, the things I have direct control over, eating and conditioning.

    And what has to come first is the eating. I eat junk most of the time, drink and smoke and sit around more than I think because my whole lifestyle was forced to change. Well, there may be things that were forced on me but I can't let them get the upper hand as they have. I MUST work on shoring up my reserves. I'm at an age where my body can't take the punches anymore and so I have to help it along.

    Right now, I haven't figured out the specific challenges and how to tailor them to this 21-day thing, but I'll be back soon to spell them out. Later!
  • Hi Jen, thanks for the interest. I'm deciding on my challenges too. Going to do more than one but you don't have to. A lot of people start out with something quite manageable in the beginning because often just remembering to do things is a challenge...lol.
    I look forward to seeing more of you and to seeing you work on clinching a successful round!!
  • Well, I've decided to do the old challenges again. Old is the word for sure. Even though I used to do these regularly and easily, I haven't in a long time and am totally out of practice. I am already craving the prohibited items....

    They are:

    No processed sugar challenge -- Day 1 completed -- 3 pauses left
    No smoking -- Day 1 completed -- 3 pauses left
    No alcohol -- Day 1 completed -- 3 pauses left
  • Thanks for the new thread Red.

    I really need to get back on the wagon, so I'm trying to decide what my challenges will be.

    Will be back later.
  • Hi there, girlie! Hope to have you back on board soon. Well, "back on board" is coming from someone who's been on sabbatical herself....

    So, this is the start of my second day and this will be a difficult day to be sure. Going in to the office, where sweet tidbits usually await me on my desk and where boredom sets in nearly immediately. Boredom is a siren call for eating sweets, so I'm going to be hard put to ignore it. Going to have to try to get some sweet fruit to prevent me from hitting the rocks!

    The smoking call will likely come toward evening after I get home and feel another day was lost to nothing but trying to pay bills....

    I am going to try to maintain the upper hand over these totally understandable feelings. They are understandable, but they do me little good. I really hate being told to be positive and all that, but I am not bothered by being told to "put your head down and fight on!!!!" Watching a whole week of "Rocky" movies last week has helped!
  • So far, so good...it is almost lunch break. Lunch breaks bring with them the ensuing afternoon and THAT brings a craving for sugar....I must be strong.


  • No processed sugar challenge -- Day 2 completed -- 3 pauses left
    No smoking -- Day 2 completed -- 3 pauses left
    No alcohol -- Day 2 completed -- 3 pauses left
  • Well, as this is a new thread, I'm going to do a level 2 challenge and start over. I am working with a book and the Weight Watchers program.
    I totally lost control over the last couple of days. I'm here and I want to try and I have to find a way to power through weekends. Weekends are my enemy, I can be an angel all week and then eating out, alcohol and those things stand in the way of my success.

    Today is day one of self control, working the program and moving forward instead of backwards.

    Goal:
    Follow my program. Journal what I eat and stop allowing dinners out to be my downfall. I can order more intelligently. I need to have ONE drink and stop at one, as the calories are there. I need to recognize that the experience of dining out is the fun, not the food and drink. The fun is fitting into all those clothes that hang in my closet.
    I had been doing really well. I was on Day 18 and blew it. Now, it's back to day 1 for me.
  • Hi everyone -

    I am finally over my bronchitis and able to breathe without steroids or nebulizer treatments!! My bad back has been stiff for the past couple days and that, plus a bit of weight gain, tells me that I have to get MOVING and get my eating back on track.

    I'm going back to my "old" tried and true challenges that help me be successful.

    1) Drink 64 ounces of water daily - 1 pause allowed
    2) Eat 5 servings of fruits/veggies daily - 1 pause allowed
    3) Exercise for at least 30 minutes per day.
  • struggling.....
    Well, allergies or something are really wreaking havoc with me. Violent sneezing throughout the day. But, somehow I got through on the challenges, though I was very tempted to eat tons of sugar to feel better and finish off the cigarettes that are lying around....


    No processed sugar challenge -- Day 3 completed -- 3 pauses left
    No smoking -- Day 3 completed -- 3 pauses left
    No alcohol -- Day 3 completed -- 3 pauses left

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

    Jen -- Your challenges sound good...and hard. Best of luck to you!!

    derry -- Great challenge. Yes, isn't it just the truth about the experience of dining out. I am the same with drinking. Though I don't drink often at all anymore, when I do, I think of it as a whole package, lots of beer, lots of smoking and a devil may care attitude. I really lose sight of the people I'm out with and thus lose some good memories. In fact, I lose some of the people too, I think, because I become only interested in continuing my "package." Well, yes, derry, it would be nice to get into nicer clothes. Best of luck!

    diyana -- Glad to hear you're finally better. You're doing the tried and true too. Good luck!
  • Wow, a bad night last night and worse morning...asthma, eye swollen. Wish I knew what was going on....I will still try to stick to my challenges. I don't think smoking or alcohol will be a problem, but the sugar may well be...strength, please....
  • I'm joining in!

    Everyday for 21 days I will...

    ...get 10,000 steps in - 0 days completed - 3 pause left
    ...not have alcohol - 0 days completed - 3 pauses left
    ...not go over my calorie limit - 0 days completed - 3 pauses left

    So far I've been good today so by the end of today I will have day 1 under my belt!
  • Today I got 10,200 steps, had 0 booze and was in my calorie range!!!

    ...get 10,000 steps in - 1 day completed - 3 pause left
    ...not have alcohol - 1 day completed - 3 pauses left
    ...not go over my calorie limit - 1 day completed - 3 pauses left

  • Ok, even though I was a bit lax in eating things with added sugar, I will allow it..

    No processed sugar challenge -- Day 3 completed -- 3 pauses left
    No smoking -- Day 3 completed -- 3 pauses left
    No alcohol -- Day 3 completed -- 3 pauses left

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

    Bikini -- Welcome!! Good to see some new faces along with the old. Good luck on your challenges and congratulations on a successful liftoff!!