So, in a conversation I had the other day (with a husband who will remain nameless), we talked about what constitutes a treat, how many calories are in certain things, how much a serving really is, etc. I wanted to explain something about this Challenge. I realize that it's not perfect. There are ways to really "beat the system." You can aim low and do the minimum and you'll make it. You can rationalize that a muffin is breakfast and not a treat even though it's made from a cake mix. You can eyeball a cup of raspberries and call it a serving until you actually get a measuring cup out and realize that it's about half as much as you thought it was. However, if you rationalize and try to cut corners, you aren't going to see many changes in your body. If you want to see change, then you need to change.
I know a flaw in this challenge is the fact that if you have an awesome week, it will be really hard to maintain that pace in the weeks to come.
"I'm home, I don't have much going on, I can exercise, eat healthy, and have plenty of time to plan meals and keep a food log."
But you know that it won't be like that every week, so you hold back. Avoid holding back. The key to seeing change is trying your best even if it's not easy. It's not easy to eat salads when you're at Disneyland. Believe me, I've gone twice in the past two weeks, but did you know that they actually have really good salads there???? Seriously, I loved it. Also, did you know that even though walking around Disneyland all day may not count as exercise in my book, but if you get up a little early, you can work out for 45 minutes before you go? I LOVE having challenges like this to push myself into making better choices. I've never regretted making those choices. I didn't miss the sleep and I know that I felt better because of them. In fact, I'm excited to see some of the changes I know are bound to happen if I keep this up for five more weeks. Those choices are getting easier to make and I can keep pushing myself each week to do just a little bit better.
You know, I also love that Saturday and Sunday are the last days of the Challenge week. Oftentimes we will slack off on the weekends, but when you know you need a certain amount of points to make it, you will make better choices on those days. I didn't eat treats, I planned my meals, and I went to bed early. Since my three "alarm clocks" don't know how to sleep in on the weekends, I appreciate the extra sleep.
Moral of my story: Don't hold back. Do the best you can and keep trying. I promise you that you won't regret exercising often and eating the most vegetables you can handle. You will feel so much better going to bed early and drinking more water. And you know what, you might even learn to like smoothies, because I have! I now have one every day. Ryan's probably sad because now he has to share his Vitamix with me, but at least I stock the fridge with awesome frozen fruit, Greek yogurt, and salad. Whatever works!
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Monday, September 14, 2015
Back to Basics Challenge: Week 1
I learned a lot from doing the first week of this Challenge. My biggest lesson:
Big fatty donuts from food trucks in Austin can cost you a lot of points.
Here's the breakdown of my week.
The first few days were awesome. Then I went to Austin to visit my sister. Which was even awesomer, just not for my healthy goals. The thing is, Austin is known for it's amazing food. So when you have two sisters with three kids under the age of 2 and no husbands or babysitters, what else is there to do other than eat that amazing food. Which is exactly what I did and I never looked back.
However, I knew that I was going out of town, so in order to meet my 100 points goal, I needed to make sure I got some good, high points in the beginning. I knew exercise would be my easy points, it always is. The trick is not to cancel out those points with my treats. This is exactly why I gave the point values that I did, it's WAY too easy to cancel out the good you do with burning calories when you eat them in treats.
I want to go through each of the points and note some specifics and hopefully clear up some confusion about them.
1. 30 Minutes of Exercise (5 points/ 30 minutes): This is meant to be intentional exercise. Did you get your workout clothes on and get a little sweaty? The point of this is to CHANGE your habits. If you are looking back on your day to figure out what you can "count" as exercise, then you're missing the point. You need to do MORE than you're already doing if you want to see your body change. So no. Walking around Disneyland for 8 hours will not earn you 80 points. Nice try.
2. Servings of Vegetables (2 points/ serving): I'm sure many of you are curious as to what exactly is a serving? Here's a helpful link
What is a serving?
3. Servings of Fruit (1 point/ serving): See above link. And you ask, why do vegetables get more points than fruit? For the most part, vegetables have much fewer calories than fruit and therefore the more of those you eat, the more food you can eat with less calories and still get lots of nutrients.
4. Not eating within 2 hours of going to bed (3 points): A lot of you have voiced your dislike for this goal. Here is my reasoning for it: A lot of people will have eaten their needed calories for the day by dinner. If you eat dinner around 6:00 pm, then wait to go to bed until 11:30 pm, of course you're going to be hungry! However, your body doesn't really need calories to sleep. In fact, it's better to go to bed a little hungry so that you will wake up hungrier and have a more nutritious breakfast to jumpstart your metabolism for the day. If you have had a crazy day and you haven't eaten dinner and it's 8:30, by all means, eat dinner. If you're exhausted, go to bed. The biggest reason behind this goal is to avoid bad late-night snacking habits and eating un-needed, bad choice calories. (Because let's be honest, if we're eating at 10:30, it's probably not a salad or a nice lean chicken breast).
5. Hours of sleep before midnight (2 points/ hour): As much as we'd like to stay up and watch our favorite shows, or read some good books, the sleep we get before midnight has been shown to be more beneficial than the sleep after midnight. And believe it or not, good quality sleep can make a huge difference in your energy level, metabolism, and overall health. It's worth it. And besides, when you wake up early, you're probably more productive than if you wake up later... maybe that's just me.
6. No soda (2 points): But what about diet soda?????? I know. So the point of this one was to get you to drink more water. I figured it can be tricky to keep track of exactly how much water you drink, but if you are not drinking soda, try to drink water instead. I know that diet soda doesn't have any calories in it, but your body needs water. Just sayin'. You can conclude what you will.
7. Kept food log (5 points): So this one helps me a ton. Just by holding yourself accountable for everything that goes into your mouth. I heard about a lady once who added up all the calories she ate through the Costco samples and it was really surprising. (Not sure what it was, but a few hundred calories add up fast). If you haven't done this one yet, you might be surprised.
8. Create a Meal Plan (5 points): So the point of this goal was to make your choices before the choice is to be made (just like saying no to drugs.... :)) If you decide beforehand what you are going to eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks, then you will have the food in your house and you won't have to make the choice when you're hungry, tired, etc. What if you are going to a party? Make a plan. (I'm going to eat one dessert and a salad before I go so I don't fill up on other food... etc.) This would really help a ton, I know it takes some time, but sometimes big changes take a little bit of effort.
9. Sticking to Your Meal Plan (5 points): Self-explanatory....
10. Motivation to other competitors (Limit 2 people/ day, 2 points/ person): Sticking to your goals is always easier when you are doing it with friends, right? Helping each other can really be beneficial. Obviously I realize that many of you don't know other people in the Challenge, so I created the FB page. However, just to be clear: One FB post is 2 points. If you comment on it, then you only get points if you add to the idea or somehow motivate them back. I know this one can seem silly, but there is a lot to be said for community efforts in helping each other succeed.
11. Personal Goal (3 point): This should be a goal that every day you can answer Yes/ No. (i.e.: your personal goal cannot be weight loss. If you weigh yourself every day, then it's not a true measure of actual fat loss). Make it something that you actually do as opposed to an outcome.
12. Serving of high sugar/ calorie treat (per 200 calories) (-5 points/ 200 calories): This is my nemesis. This is why I ended up with -22 points on Saturday. Again, just to clarify, you subtract 5 points for every 200 calories of a treat. If you want to break it down, you can. For instance a 300 calorie bowl of ice cream could be -7 points. Or a Gourdough's food truck donut and a quarter pan of Ghiradelli's brownies could be -30 points (just as a hypothetical example). This is meant to help people be aware of the fact that eating these treats could easily cancel out exercise. Of course, you'd still get the muscle gain and cardiovascular effect of exercise, just not the calorie loss. Please let me know if this is still unclear.
One week down! From here on out, we all need to increase or maintain our week's points. Just so you all know, the points I received from people expanded a range of 100 points all the way up to 204 points. Push yourselves and I promise you will see positive changes and you won't be disappointed!
Oh, and P.S. I will not remind you to send me your points every week. I am changing it to Monday night at midnight so you can finish earning your Sunday points and have Monday to total them up and send them to me. I would prefer that you email them to me so I only have to look in one place. Tonight I had to jump around from email, text, FB, etc.
I also believe that as of now, there are 23 people still in the game. May the odds be ever in your favor and may the force be with you!!!!
Big fatty donuts from food trucks in Austin can cost you a lot of points.
Here's the breakdown of my week.
The first few days were awesome. Then I went to Austin to visit my sister. Which was even awesomer, just not for my healthy goals. The thing is, Austin is known for it's amazing food. So when you have two sisters with three kids under the age of 2 and no husbands or babysitters, what else is there to do other than eat that amazing food. Which is exactly what I did and I never looked back.
However, I knew that I was going out of town, so in order to meet my 100 points goal, I needed to make sure I got some good, high points in the beginning. I knew exercise would be my easy points, it always is. The trick is not to cancel out those points with my treats. This is exactly why I gave the point values that I did, it's WAY too easy to cancel out the good you do with burning calories when you eat them in treats.
I want to go through each of the points and note some specifics and hopefully clear up some confusion about them.
1. 30 Minutes of Exercise (5 points/ 30 minutes): This is meant to be intentional exercise. Did you get your workout clothes on and get a little sweaty? The point of this is to CHANGE your habits. If you are looking back on your day to figure out what you can "count" as exercise, then you're missing the point. You need to do MORE than you're already doing if you want to see your body change. So no. Walking around Disneyland for 8 hours will not earn you 80 points. Nice try.
2. Servings of Vegetables (2 points/ serving): I'm sure many of you are curious as to what exactly is a serving? Here's a helpful link
What is a serving?
3. Servings of Fruit (1 point/ serving): See above link. And you ask, why do vegetables get more points than fruit? For the most part, vegetables have much fewer calories than fruit and therefore the more of those you eat, the more food you can eat with less calories and still get lots of nutrients.
4. Not eating within 2 hours of going to bed (3 points): A lot of you have voiced your dislike for this goal. Here is my reasoning for it: A lot of people will have eaten their needed calories for the day by dinner. If you eat dinner around 6:00 pm, then wait to go to bed until 11:30 pm, of course you're going to be hungry! However, your body doesn't really need calories to sleep. In fact, it's better to go to bed a little hungry so that you will wake up hungrier and have a more nutritious breakfast to jumpstart your metabolism for the day. If you have had a crazy day and you haven't eaten dinner and it's 8:30, by all means, eat dinner. If you're exhausted, go to bed. The biggest reason behind this goal is to avoid bad late-night snacking habits and eating un-needed, bad choice calories. (Because let's be honest, if we're eating at 10:30, it's probably not a salad or a nice lean chicken breast).
5. Hours of sleep before midnight (2 points/ hour): As much as we'd like to stay up and watch our favorite shows, or read some good books, the sleep we get before midnight has been shown to be more beneficial than the sleep after midnight. And believe it or not, good quality sleep can make a huge difference in your energy level, metabolism, and overall health. It's worth it. And besides, when you wake up early, you're probably more productive than if you wake up later... maybe that's just me.
6. No soda (2 points): But what about diet soda?????? I know. So the point of this one was to get you to drink more water. I figured it can be tricky to keep track of exactly how much water you drink, but if you are not drinking soda, try to drink water instead. I know that diet soda doesn't have any calories in it, but your body needs water. Just sayin'. You can conclude what you will.
7. Kept food log (5 points): So this one helps me a ton. Just by holding yourself accountable for everything that goes into your mouth. I heard about a lady once who added up all the calories she ate through the Costco samples and it was really surprising. (Not sure what it was, but a few hundred calories add up fast). If you haven't done this one yet, you might be surprised.
8. Create a Meal Plan (5 points): So the point of this goal was to make your choices before the choice is to be made (just like saying no to drugs.... :)) If you decide beforehand what you are going to eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks, then you will have the food in your house and you won't have to make the choice when you're hungry, tired, etc. What if you are going to a party? Make a plan. (I'm going to eat one dessert and a salad before I go so I don't fill up on other food... etc.) This would really help a ton, I know it takes some time, but sometimes big changes take a little bit of effort.
9. Sticking to Your Meal Plan (5 points): Self-explanatory....
10. Motivation to other competitors (Limit 2 people/ day, 2 points/ person): Sticking to your goals is always easier when you are doing it with friends, right? Helping each other can really be beneficial. Obviously I realize that many of you don't know other people in the Challenge, so I created the FB page. However, just to be clear: One FB post is 2 points. If you comment on it, then you only get points if you add to the idea or somehow motivate them back. I know this one can seem silly, but there is a lot to be said for community efforts in helping each other succeed.
11. Personal Goal (3 point): This should be a goal that every day you can answer Yes/ No. (i.e.: your personal goal cannot be weight loss. If you weigh yourself every day, then it's not a true measure of actual fat loss). Make it something that you actually do as opposed to an outcome.
12. Serving of high sugar/ calorie treat (per 200 calories) (-5 points/ 200 calories): This is my nemesis. This is why I ended up with -22 points on Saturday. Again, just to clarify, you subtract 5 points for every 200 calories of a treat. If you want to break it down, you can. For instance a 300 calorie bowl of ice cream could be -7 points. Or a Gourdough's food truck donut and a quarter pan of Ghiradelli's brownies could be -30 points (just as a hypothetical example). This is meant to help people be aware of the fact that eating these treats could easily cancel out exercise. Of course, you'd still get the muscle gain and cardiovascular effect of exercise, just not the calorie loss. Please let me know if this is still unclear.
One week down! From here on out, we all need to increase or maintain our week's points. Just so you all know, the points I received from people expanded a range of 100 points all the way up to 204 points. Push yourselves and I promise you will see positive changes and you won't be disappointed!
Oh, and P.S. I will not remind you to send me your points every week. I am changing it to Monday night at midnight so you can finish earning your Sunday points and have Monday to total them up and send them to me. I would prefer that you email them to me so I only have to look in one place. Tonight I had to jump around from email, text, FB, etc.
I also believe that as of now, there are 23 people still in the game. May the odds be ever in your favor and may the force be with you!!!!
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Back to Basics Challenge: Get fit, win money.
Hey friends! I've been thinking about doing a Get Healthy/ Weight Loss Challenge. A few years ago, a bunch of my friends did the 8-week Challenge from the Six Sisters. I loved it so much that I organized it again another year with my family.
I'm ready to do another one, however, this time I am making up my own Challenge with a different competition in mind. Instead of competing with other people, we will be competing against ourselves. In the past while doing the other challenge, I didn't like the fact that we lost because it's easier for someone else to lose weight or give up sweets. For this Challenge, if you continue to improve your own lifestyle through the entire 8-week Challenge, you will win.
In real life, the goal is to make changes that you can keep and continue to improve. I find that we often make goals or go on a diet and then we plateau; or worse, we give up completely. The most important thing we can do for ourselves is to stay healthy or become healthier, not deprive ourselves of our favorite things for a couple of weeks then binge on them when we give up. (Can you tell I'm not a fan of dieting?)
Here are the rules:
1. Sign up by commenting on this blog or contacting me via email, text, Facebook, etc. BEFORE MIDNIGHT ON SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 5TH.
2. Pay $25 to enter.
3. Print off 8 copies of the worksheet provided with this link.
4. Beginning Sept 7th (Labor Day), track your points every day for a week. That first week's total will be your baseline (a minimum of 100 points). Each week you will reset your baseline.
5. You will need to submit your weekly total to me by Sunday at midnight of each week or you will be disqualified.
6. If you fall below the previous week's total, you will be disqualified and forfeit your $25 entry fee. However, if you stay in, you, and everyone else who succeeds will split the entire money pot.
A few things you may be wondering:
- I developed the point system based on the things that will really make a difference in your physical health, If something is worth more points such as exercise, food logs, meal planning, it's because doing those things will contribute more toward your overall health.
- You may have noticed that there is a "Personal Goal" box at the bottom of the worksheet. This is to provide you a way to set your own goal that you have been meaning to work on. It could be anything from daily scripture study to making your bed to complimenting your spouse to not yelling at your kids... etc. You decide and keep track.
- This Challenge is all about improvement and consistency. In other words, every week you will need to earn the same amount or more points to stay in the Challenge. (For instance if in week 1 you earned 100 points, then in week 2 you earned 110 points, that would be your new baseline. Week 3 would need to be at least 110 or more).
- You can earn the points any way you want to. If all you wanted to focus on is increasing your exercise and servings of fruits and veggies then you can do just that. But remember, you need to get at least 100 points on the first week.
- Remember it doesn't matter if you earn 150 points and Joe Schmo earned 250. As long as you both continue to earn the same or more each week, you'll both win. This is why I was so excited to switch up the competition. You aren't competing against anyone else, you just need to keep motivated and consistent.
- If only 2 out of 25 people stay in through the entire Challenge, you will each get $312.50. That's a pretty big winning just for continuing to improve your healthy lifestyle! The worst that could happen is that everyone stays in and you all get your $25 back. Not a bad deal either!
- This Challenge may seem tedious. Keeping track of daily points for 8 weeks will not be easy, but I have seen more success come from dedicated goal-making than when I am just "trying to do better."
- Remember, that although the initial urge would be to earn as few points as possible during the first week, the more that you change in your lifestyle, the more change you will see in your health.
I'm ready to do another one, however, this time I am making up my own Challenge with a different competition in mind. Instead of competing with other people, we will be competing against ourselves. In the past while doing the other challenge, I didn't like the fact that we lost because it's easier for someone else to lose weight or give up sweets. For this Challenge, if you continue to improve your own lifestyle through the entire 8-week Challenge, you will win.
In real life, the goal is to make changes that you can keep and continue to improve. I find that we often make goals or go on a diet and then we plateau; or worse, we give up completely. The most important thing we can do for ourselves is to stay healthy or become healthier, not deprive ourselves of our favorite things for a couple of weeks then binge on them when we give up. (Can you tell I'm not a fan of dieting?)
Here are the rules:
1. Sign up by commenting on this blog or contacting me via email, text, Facebook, etc. BEFORE MIDNIGHT ON SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 5TH.
2. Pay $25 to enter.
3. Print off 8 copies of the worksheet provided with this link.
4. Beginning Sept 7th (Labor Day), track your points every day for a week. That first week's total will be your baseline (a minimum of 100 points). Each week you will reset your baseline.
5. You will need to submit your weekly total to me by Sunday at midnight of each week or you will be disqualified.
6. If you fall below the previous week's total, you will be disqualified and forfeit your $25 entry fee. However, if you stay in, you, and everyone else who succeeds will split the entire money pot.
A few things you may be wondering:
- I developed the point system based on the things that will really make a difference in your physical health, If something is worth more points such as exercise, food logs, meal planning, it's because doing those things will contribute more toward your overall health.
- You may have noticed that there is a "Personal Goal" box at the bottom of the worksheet. This is to provide you a way to set your own goal that you have been meaning to work on. It could be anything from daily scripture study to making your bed to complimenting your spouse to not yelling at your kids... etc. You decide and keep track.
- This Challenge is all about improvement and consistency. In other words, every week you will need to earn the same amount or more points to stay in the Challenge. (For instance if in week 1 you earned 100 points, then in week 2 you earned 110 points, that would be your new baseline. Week 3 would need to be at least 110 or more).
- You can earn the points any way you want to. If all you wanted to focus on is increasing your exercise and servings of fruits and veggies then you can do just that. But remember, you need to get at least 100 points on the first week.
- Remember it doesn't matter if you earn 150 points and Joe Schmo earned 250. As long as you both continue to earn the same or more each week, you'll both win. This is why I was so excited to switch up the competition. You aren't competing against anyone else, you just need to keep motivated and consistent.
- If only 2 out of 25 people stay in through the entire Challenge, you will each get $312.50. That's a pretty big winning just for continuing to improve your healthy lifestyle! The worst that could happen is that everyone stays in and you all get your $25 back. Not a bad deal either!
- This Challenge may seem tedious. Keeping track of daily points for 8 weeks will not be easy, but I have seen more success come from dedicated goal-making than when I am just "trying to do better."
- Remember, that although the initial urge would be to earn as few points as possible during the first week, the more that you change in your lifestyle, the more change you will see in your health.
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