2015 Amazing-can-do-Attitude April WISH challenge! ALL welcome!

[ohMom]

to the Amazing-can-do-Attitude April WISH challenge! You are welcome to join in at anytime and participate as much as you can...though we hope for lots of chatter and support all month long! no stress or worries if you miss a week though!


How the challenge works:
This is the new and improved challenge that replaced the BL challenges. Like the show has evolved, so have our challenges and this format takes the best of that long standing tradition and makes it even better!

The goal of the new challenge is to meet your weight loss/maintain goals on a monthly basis. We hope that this format will encourage some great discussions about weight loss, maintaining, diet, exercise and healthy living!

It is up to the hostess each month as to whether she wants to have coaches/Question of the day, mini-challenges, etc. It is her month, so she can choose to handle it how she wants.

Here's how the new challenge will work. It is going to be a monthly individual challenge. Each month is a new start. You are competing against yourself to meet your goals for the month. This month the participant consensus was to not officially track weekly weigh-in (WI). For those who choose the accountability of a WI, they are encouraged to post their weekly +/- result on Fridays, and to figure their percentage to share. (divide what you lost by your goal loss to get the percentage, i.e. 1/5 = 20)

 

[ohMom]

reserved for list of participants


ohmom
verleniahall
Trith
Flossbolna
pjlla
pixiegirl131415
Rose&Mike
chbc
jenne
joshmom5
bellanotte10
DisFam9
50sjayne
Zoesmama03




We are STILL in need of hostesses for the remainder of 2015! These challenges don't run themselves!! But it isn't hard either and it is a GREAT motivator to keep yourself on track! Consider volunteering for a month this year!!

Future challenge hosts:

May 2015: MissDisney121
June 2015:** PICTURE YOUR NAME HERE!!
July 2015: ** OR EVEN HERE!!
August 2015:

 

[verleniahall]

I would like to participate - how to i message you?

 

[ohMom]

Welcome to returning friends, newbies, and anyone/everyone who would like to chat about weight loss, weight maintenance, exercise, and anything related! No rules here EXCEPT to be kind and supportive of each other! No negative energy allowed!

We talk about calories, Weight Watchers, low-carb, SparkPeople, MFP, Fitbits, Jawbones, marathon training, walking, recipes, vitamins, meal planning, smoothies, juicing, motivation, YOU NAME IT!! No positive/healthy talk is off limits!


I'd like to ask everyone's input on the format for this month -- as I'm math challenged Let's discuss if we want to continue the weekly WI this month, or as I've noticed a the end of April there are some returning WISHers that mentioned using April as the month to get back in the swing, but not focusing on the scale. So, would you prefer this month be a supportive chatting month, without the weekly WI? if the consensus is to continue the WI, can someone email me the spreadsheet that does the math for me? (rose&mike? did you create this?)

This is my first month coaching in several years, so please bear with me! Disclosure: I have a terrible memory so if I repeat QOTD, or motivational quotes or pictures...please forgive! that's the great thing about a poor memory is that it's all like new every time, and hopefully if it's a repeat for you then it will serve as a good reminder of a great thought!

please post a small intro of yourself and what your goal for attitude goal for April is and how it will help you reach your overall healthy lifestyle goals!

 

[ohMom]

click on my username in the box under my avatar (Mike W), you should get a pop-up box, then click on 'start a conversation'

great question, sorry I didn't mention that how-to!

 

[verleniahall]

Personally, I would like to NOT focus on the WI - My goal for this month is to daily hit at minimum 4,000 steps each day with my fitbit and NO SODA IN APRIL

 

[Trith]

I would love to join in if there are no weekly WI. I have a trip to Disney scheduled at the end of the month, so I'm already doomed to put a few lbs on if the general consensus is to do them, then I'll get on board as a maintainer (I'll PM my stats later, on my phone right now).

Quick intro: I'm a newbie to all of this, so bear with me. I started my weight loss a year ago, down 60 lbs since then. I've now reached a weight where I'm happy and trying to increase my calorie intake to maintenance level. I do bodybuilding (although at a very beginner level), which I adore, and it's been a huge struggle to build muscle while I've been eating at a deficit. I'm hoping it will get easier as I transition out of that stage.

I've been having a bit if trouble with motivation recently because winter is the worst, so I'm hoping that spring and a little bit of a push from you lovely people will get me back on track.

 

[Flossbolna]

I would like to participate - how to i message you?

I would love to join in if there are no weekly WI. I have a trip to Disney scheduled at the end of the month, so I'm already doomed to put a few lbs on if the general consensus is to do them, then I'll get on board as a maintainer (I'll PM my stats later, on my phone right now).

Quick intro: I'm a newbie to all of this, so bear with me. I started my weight loss a year ago, down 60 lbs since then. I've now reached a weight where I'm happy and trying to increase my calorie intake to maintenance level. I do bodybuilding (although at a very beginner level), which I adore, and it's been a huge struggle to build muscle while I've been eating at a deficit. I'm hoping it will get easier as I transition out of that stage.

I've been having a bit if trouble with motivation recently because winter is the worst, so I'm hoping that spring and a little bit of a push from you lovely people will get me back on track.

and congratulations on your 60 pound loss!! That is quite some achievement! And we try our best to help you stay on track! My experience is that I get more out of these threads if I take part in the chatter and not just read along, so jump in and talk to us!

I'd like to ask everyone's input on the format for this month -- as I'm math challenged Let's discuss if we want to continue the weekly WI this month, or as I've noticed a the end of April there are some returning WISHers that mentioned using April as the month to get back in the swing, but not focusing on the scale. So, would you prefer this month be a supportive chatting month, without the weekly WI? if the consensus is to continue the WI, can someone email me the spreadsheet that does the math for me?

I am fine both ways. Currently I am not stepping on a scale because I am just too frustrated about my weight. I decided to try to stay on track with eating and exercising, but not look at the scale for a while. Since I am usually a daily scale visitor, I am not sure how long I will keep it up though...

 

[verleniahall]

I am fine both ways. Currently I am not stepping on a scale because I am just too frustrated about my weight. I decided to try to stay on track with eating and exercising, but not look at the scale for a while. Since I am usually a daily scale visitor, I am not sure how long I will keep it up though...

DONT STEP ON!!! DONT DO IT!!!!!

I confess I am usually guilty of this as well - my scale just won't come on right now

 

[pjlla]

Save a seat for me! I will be here to chat, as soon as March is cleaned up and completed! .......................P

 

[pixiegirl131415]

I will be tracking my weight anyways, and I personally like seeing my color change and seeing how far I can get. But I have no problem if the board takes a holiday from tracking, if there are a bunch of people who are just at a different place right now. The most important thing is that we all have a place to support one another.

 

[Rose&Mike]

I'd like to ask everyone's input on the format for this month -- as I'm math challenged Let's discuss if we want to continue the weekly WI this month, or as I've noticed a the end of April there are some returning WISHers that mentioned using April as the month to get back in the swing, but not focusing on the scale. So, would you prefer this month be a supportive chatting month, without the weekly WI? if the consensus is to continue the WI, can someone email me the spreadsheet that does the math for me? (rose&mike? did you create this?)

Thanks for hosting!
I joined a dietbet, so I am tracking there, but I am fine either way. Not sure if I still have the spreadsheet, so let me know if you want me to look for it.

I would love to join in if there are no weekly WI. I have a trip to Disney scheduled at the end of the month, so I'm already doomed to put a few lbs on if the general consensus is to do them, then I'll get on board as a maintainer (I'll PM my stats later, on my phone right now).

Quick intro: I'm a newbie to all of this, so bear with me. I started my weight loss a year ago, down 60 lbs since then. I've now reached a weight where I'm happy and trying to increase my calorie intake to maintenance level. I do bodybuilding (although at a very beginner level), which I adore, and it's been a huge struggle to build muscle while I've been eating at a deficit. I'm hoping it will get easier as I transition out of that stage.

I've been having a bit if trouble with motivation recently because winter is the worst, so I'm hoping that spring and a little bit of a push from you lovely people will get me back on track.

Welcome!! I lost over 50 pounds with this group in 2010/11. Then life happened and I have put ~40 back on. Maintaining is in itself it's own beast. I maintained for about a year and then life took over and I lost my focus. I found that I really needed a support group for maintaining, so we are glad to have you here!

***
I am Rose. 47yo who went through a somewhat early menopause due probably to my gluten issues. Over the past year I have really struggled and when I am struggling I eat. I was fighting a lot of injuries, dealing with all those body changes and last fall we moved from Louisville to Charlotte.

I have a great life--I have just done a really poor job managing some of the things that have come up over the last two years or so. I joined a dietbet so my goal for April is 7 pounds (which is a big loss for me) but that will put me back in the 160s! My son graduates from grad school in May and then we have a trip to wdw at the end of May so I really want to not feel gross and yucky for the pictures (which is where I am at now). We are also seeing friends in May who think of me as much thinner than I am and I don't want to be embarrassed by this gain. The nice part--it is gorgeous in Charlotte--so no reason to not get out, get moving and get these pounds off!

I am on mfp if anyone wants a buddy.

 

[pjlla]

Morning all! No time to chat this morning, but I at least wanted to check in with the new thread! I'll be back after school to talk!..............P

 

[verleniahall]

Checking In!! Have walked 2,042 steps so far today!

 

[ohMom]

verleniahall -- great job on getting your steps in already! I'm about half way there for today..Wed is my kick-butt class at the gym which tends to wipe me out. but I'm hoping to get a dog walk in later

I realized I didn't type up my intro! LOL

I'm Molli, my attitude for April is to take each day as a vital step in my goal. Every day counts! I spent March putzing the days away and before I knew it the month was over and I had gained! MFP said yesterday when I completed my entry that I could be 10 lbs lighter in 5 weeks if everyday was like yesterday....so my attitude is to get my steps in each and every day, and log into MFP. I know Easter will be cheat day, but other than that, I gotta work my plan EVERY DAY!

I'm a SAHM (with a contingent xray tech job) of two DD ages 22 and 18. when did that happen?! My youngest will be graduating HS on May 23, so that's one of my pushes for this year to feel more confident in myself and how I feel in my clothes. I'm in between sizes right now, and bought swimsuits the smaller size for the summer and I'm determined to wear them! We have two fab vaca this summer and everyday I remind myself that feeling good, strong and fit is how I want to be on vacation! And for the rest of my life!

I have a ton of projects started but not finished, and so another goal for me this month is to not let myself get overwhelmed with all that needs done, but take an hour to work on something and then feel ok leaving it until another day. eventually those hours will add up and i'll get these tasks done! yard work, for example. and the FE gifts I'm making for our cruise this August

My goal for April is to lose 5 lbs, we seem to be about half and half on the votes to WI or not this month. I'm leaning towards not WI right now...i'll wait until the rest of the days posts and sign-ups and give the determination tomorrow. thanks for your patience

 

[verleniahall]

WHEE!!!! its 3:22CST - I have walked 5,282 steps, and have drank 142.20oz of water - two of them had crystal light mixes in it - no soda cravings yet

 

[Trith]

and congratulations on your 60 pound loss!! That is quite some achievement! And we try our best to help you stay on track! My experience is that I get more out of these threads if I take part in the chatter and not just read along, so jump in and talk to us!

I am fine both ways. Currently I am not stepping on a scale because I am just too frustrated about my weight. I decided to try to stay on track with eating and exercising, but not look at the scale for a while. Since I am usually a daily scale visitor, I am not sure how long I will keep it up though...

Thank you for the warm welcome! I have a very bad tendency towards lurking but I'm going to try my best to stay active on here. As far as the scale: could you perhaps use alternative measurements for the month? Maybe waist/hip/bust measurements or progress pics? Those things seem to change more quickly than the scale in a lot of cases.

Welcome!! I lost over 50 pounds with this group in 2010/11. Then life happened and I have put ~40 back on. Maintaining is in itself it's own beast. I maintained for about a year and then life took over and I lost my focus. I found that I really needed a support group for maintaining, so we are glad to have you here!

I am on mfp if anyone wants a buddy.

Thank you! I'm really glad to be here! It's nice to have a community that's going through the same thing as me. I have a lot of supportive people in my life, but they honestly have no clue how much it takes out of you to lose weight. I'm Trithie over on MFP, but I can never figure out how to add people

I'm a SAHM (with a contingent xray tech job) of two DD ages 22 and 18. when did that happen?! My youngest will be graduating HS on May 23, so that's one of my pushes for this year to feel more confident in myself and how I feel in my clothes. I'm in between sizes right now, and bought swimsuits the smaller size for the summer and I'm determined to wear them! We have two fab vaca this summer and everyday I remind myself that feeling good, strong and fit is how I want to be on vacation! And for the rest of my life!

I'm an ultrasound tech, which is kind of but totally not the same thing. And I bet by the time your vacations roll around you'll be able to rock the bathing suits.

---

In other news, I'm off to a great start to the month by eating about ten mini Turtles... oops

 

[pjlla]

Hey all! I will try to be brief with my intro since I feel like most of you have heard it far too many times!!

I am a XX year old (number is just too big to see IRL!! ) wife and Mom of two.... 19.5 y/o DD Sophomore in college and 17 y/o DS, Junior in HS. I still consider myself a part time stay-at-home Mom because I work per diem as a substitute teacher, so I am still home when my DS is home. I also work one night a week as a Weight Watcher Leader. I lost 86 pounds on Weight Watchers between 01/02/2008 and sometime in 2009. I had been up and down and all around with my weight in my life.... but sadly more UP than DOWN, especially after marriage and two pregnancies. The motivation for this particular time was a WDW trip in April 2008. I had lost some weight before our 2004 trip, but put about half of it back on in the years that followed. I was absolutely DETERMINED not to return to Disney heavier than I had been on the previous trip.... so I put my nose to the grindstone and hit the treadmill HARD and watched every single bite, calorie, Point, and crumb and lost enough to return to Disney about 5 pounds lighter than I had been on our previous trip.... but what was the big difference you ask? What kept me GOING on my journey this time? I had a PLAN! I knew that when I had lost weight for our 2004 trip, the ONLY thing in my mind the entire time was losing for the trip.... and when we came back I had NO PLAN in mind for how to KEEP GOING.... so "one more day" of vacation-style eating and not tracking turned into "one more week" and "one more month" and "I'll start back next Monday" and "I'll start back at the beginning of next month" etc, etc, etc.

So I had a plan. I knew we were returning from our Disney vacation on a Saturday.... so I told myself that SUNDAY MORNING BREAKFAST was BACK ON PLAN.... no excuses, no whining, no more vacation-style eating. I made sure that there were some healthy choices available in the fridge for when we returned. I weighed in immediately, took the bad news in stride (after all, they were DISNEY pounds ) and got BACK ON TRACK.... weighing and measuring foods, tracking, exercise, etc. And I haven't looked back since!!!

I'm not saying I haven't had some struggles.... I'll be the FIRST to tell you that menopause hits the metabolism HARD! And I absolutely abhore exercise in nearly any and every form, so every step walked, every mile logged, is a struggle.... sometimes I overcome the struggle, sometimes the struggle wins and I get lazy. Sometimes I am sick and tired of thinking about food.... should I eat it? Can I eat it? If I eat it, how many PPV is it? How many pounds will I gain? Is it healthy? But EVERY SINGLE MOMENT spent in my healthier, slimmer, stronger at-goal-weight body is worth it!!

I'll be back in the morning to chat!........................P

 

[Flossbolna]

Good Morning everyone!

I realize that I forgot to introduce myself: My name is Magdalene, I am German and live in Germany (that explains the time of my posts and any possible language issues).

I was a heavy child in the 70s and 80s when kids here were all slim and not overweight (sadly, today I see many kids that are far more pudgy than I was, but back then I was the odd one). I turned into a heavy teenager. Having since learned about BMI, I am pretty sure that I was never in the "obese" category, but kind of came close to it.

In university I ended up with three wonderful friends who were all really skinny. They were the girls who were wearing size 0 before anyone knew that size 0 existed. They were great as they never felt me any less accepted because of my weight issues, but encouraged me in a positive way to lose weight. They took me with them to the university's exercise classes and taught me about eating healthier (one of the was a vegetarian, so when we cooked together there were always lots of veggies, and it is much cooler if your friends cook them than when your mother does...). I lost a lot of weight and got down to an BMI of 22. I looked great and gained a lot of confidence.

But then my life changed as university ended and I lost my routine that had worked so well. I struggled for some years and then when I started a new job that was highly stressful and had me relocate to a place where I knew no one, the weight quickly came back. That was one of the reasons why I decided that I needed to make changes and got a new job that while still stressful in phases, does not come with crazy long hours. That was 10 years ago. Since then I have had my downs and ups. I managed to loose a lot of those job pounds with WW Online and got down to a healthy BMI again. Then went up again. Lost some more several years later. In the last four years I have managed to kind of stay in the area of a BMI between 25 and 26. I seem to be able to get below that only for very short moments.

My goal for this year is to finally make it further down. Unfortunately, the first three months were not really good for that. Then last week I found out that I might have a slight thyroid problem that could cause the difficulty in losing weight. So, I am working on that (it might only be the necessity to get more iodine) and with spring starting I am looking forward to getting back into more running. So far it has often been only one 30 minute run on the weekend and that is not enough.

Yesterday the month was already off to a good start: I managed to only use one extra point out of my weekly points! And that without feeling overly hungry at any point in the day. I also had a very low carb dinner: Just a large bowl of stir fried chicken with veggies! I also stupidly had forgotten my fitbit during the day and therefore went out at 9pm for a walk around the neighborhood to get at least some steps in for the day!! Can't let my sister get too far ahead of me!!

 

[ohMom]

Yesterday the month was already off to a good start: I managed to only use one extra point out of my weekly points! And that without feeling overly hungry at any point in the day. I also had a very low carb dinner: Just a large bowl of stir fried chicken with veggies! I also stupidly had forgotten my fitbit during the day and therefore went out at 9pm for a walk around the neighborhood to get at least some steps in for the day!! Can't let my sister get too far ahead of me!!

I'm an ultrasound tech, which is kind of but totally not the same thing. And I bet by the time your vacations roll around you'll be able to rock the bathing suits.
---
In other news, I'm off to a great start to the month by eating about ten mini Turtles... oops

hello fellow RT! i'll take it as a challenge your faith in me to rock the swimsuits! i will conquer! you got your chorcolate fix, now make today count!

So I had a plan. I knew we were returning from our Disney vacation on a Saturday.... so I told myself that SUNDAY MORNING BREAKFAST was BACK ON PLAN.... no excuses, no whining, no more vacation-style eating. I made sure that there were some healthy choices available in the fridge for when we returned. I weighed in immediately, took the bad news in stride (after all, they were DISNEY pounds ) and got BACK ON TRACK.... weighing and measuring foods, tracking, exercise, etc. And I haven't looked back since!!!

that's the first time i've heard this about you...and i MUST adopt this attitude. the first day home...back OP! that is a HUGE downfall for me


today is a recovery day on the WO schedule, but i'm off to the grocery for Easter meal food and then to the Scotts Co. store for yard work supplies. looks like another beautiful day, so my plan is a dog walk to get my steps in before the rain hits this evening.