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!!!!