February 2017 Wish Lifestyle / Weight Challenge: Beat the Sugar Rush and Earn Your Hero Medal!

Good Monday morning friends! Just going to do a huge shout-out to ALL of our walking/running friends! Between here and Instagram I see lots of our current and former WISH challenge members were out there MOVING in some marathons, half-marathons, and 5ks this weekend! Wowza!!

But of course, a SPECIAL congrats to our "hostess-with-the-mostess" Courtney on her race PR!!! WOWza!!

Sorry I haven't been on since Thursday. DD ended up in the ER Thursday night (after a trip to on-campus health services AND a trip to a local walk-in clinic). Won't go into details (not sure she's appreciate that), but she is feeling better and off to work today (albeit moving slowly). So after a quick trip to RI after my WW meeting Thursday night and nearly a full night in the ER with her (back on campus about 3 am), I ended up spending the weekend playing personal nurse.... but I was happy to do it! As a Mom nothing makes me happier than to be able to CARE for my kids! I would have stayed longer, but she was determined she would go to her internship today, so no sense in me hanging around.

Not sure if I mentioned it or not, but DS's dorm had a transformer blow Wednesday evening and they weren't allowing the kids back inside until it was repaired.... so he ended up coming home about 11 pm that night and bringing two friends so they had a place to sleep (I think the kids stuck on campus were in the cafeteria.... not a place I'd like to spend the night!). So today I am doing laundry.... sheets, blankets, etc from the beds I made up that night.... but fortunately the sun is shining so everything will go out on the clothesline (despite temps in the upper 30's).

Anyhow.... planning to post some MOTIVATIONAL MONDAY meals on Instagram today, if you are interested! (I'm "ww_wearemom22".) Hoping by inspiring OTHERS, that I can improve my own motivation and inspiration! Been feeling a little lack-luster in those areas lately.

So..... I'm on school vacation this week! I still have my 24/7 shifts plus my two WW meetings this week.... but SO MUCH TIME on my hands! Going to make a few more time consuming meals that I haven't taken the time to make lately (already looking forward to Wednesday's beef and broccoli!), and pick some "trouble spots" around the house to concentrate on. First up.... I need to take stock of my Fiesta ware collection. I keep buying (without a good place to display), but I've lost track of what I own and what I want to part with... so time to do an inventory (however, maybe this should wait until DH is out of the house.... I'm a little afraid of him seeing ALL of it!). I've got it in the kitchen (duh), dining room (mostly in storage), attic, and even a pile of plates in the car currently (recent purchase).

I think the washer has stopped spinning, to time to head to the clothesline!..............P
 
I am back. It wasn't a really busy weekend but I was glued to watch April the Giraffe in my spare time. I am finally feeling back to normal and I am going to work out tonight for the first time in about a week and a half. I can't wait. I only watch How to get Away with Murder while working out and it is killing me that I haven't watched it in a week.

I forgot to weigh myself today so I will try to remember in the morning.
 
This month ended up being much busier than I had anticipated! I haven't been on to chat in what feels like ages. I don't think I've done a check-in outside of the first one. I will say that I'm rocking my early morning wake up calls pretty consistently which is super exciting! I even pushed the alarm clock back a little further this morning to get a bit more gym time in. It feels great to actually be done working out so early in the morning. I won't pretend that it gives me energy for the rest of the day because I'm pretty much always low energy. And days like today I'm so sleepy I could lay my head down for a quick power nap.

I'm going to say that my experimentation with ignoring the scale for the month was not a success. My clothes are tighter and I weighed myself and ended up gaining about 5 pounds. Not sure how much is muscle and how much is fat but I do know that tight clothes are the opposite of the goal! I think the scale holds me accountable because it forces me to think about how my food choices impact me. The good news is that this weekend I maintained my weight! That's a big victory because that never happens. The bad news is that the weight I maintained was 2.5 pounds up from 2 weeks ago. So back to the scale and consistently tracking. But this week I should make some good progress.
 


Happy Monday... happy cold snowy Monday.

Yes, we're having snow this morning - again. It also snowed Friday morning... on the drive down to the beach it was strange to see snow in the forest lands you drive thru along the way. My Brother and family had been at the camp ground since Wednesday and got some spectacular pictures of snow on the beach, right up to the water line. Saturday the weather was quite nice. We drove over to Astoria, which means going over the Megler Bridge which spans across the Columbia River: the Washington side was clear and sunny but on the Oregon side there was a fog bank at water level then regular clouds above that... when we were driving up the high rise it was like driving right into the clouds. When we left Sunday morning there was a 15 minute hail storm but it cleared up when we were a little way out of town. All in all it was a nice weekend... too much food, but good healthy food.
 
Last edited:


Hey everyone - sorry about disappearing. :D

Tomorrow is our last day and I am excited to wrap up the challenge. I hope you all earned your heroes medals! I sure did and enjoyed running at Disney. We just got home and I missed the last few days because of limited time on the phone to update information.

I'm going to post our last post tonight because I'm in meetings all day. <3
 
Did You Earn Your Medal?
giphy.gif

Ralph does - he learns that he doesn't need one if he has friends and support :)


source.gif



Our programming does not define who we are. We can be whomever we want to be.
Ralph may be the villain, but without him there is no game. And in the end he
gains friends and learns a valuable lesson: a medal is inside you, not a physical token.


Did you earn your heroes medal? What did you learn this month???? :)
 
Got 23.5 house laps done in 18 minutes today (Monday). I found out Sunday night that the rabbit we were looking at getting for my 9 year old was one of the ones of my friend's that was killed by her neighbor's dog. My friend is so sweet though she went and got a couple of mini lops from a breeder in the Sidney, MT area. We are getting a choice of which one we want, which is going to depend on which one she responds to the best, and my friend is going to keep the other one to help rebuild her mini lop herd. All together she lost over $500 worth of rabbits. We still need to get some litter for the corner litter pan and other than that we are set-though it does need to be taken outside and not in my front room. A little girl has tested the nail trimmers by cutting herself some bangs. Today I went and got 3 boxes of quilting material that was on my local freecycle group.
 
Good Morning. I did remember to weigh myself this morning. I am only down .6 pounds this month. So my check in is 15%.

I am not happy by this number. I worked really hard this month up until last week when I was sick. Last night I did get to workout and I got almost 14,000 steps. I will do the same tonight but I may only get like 12,000 since I will be in meets a lot today and won't be able to get my 250+ every hour. I did start off on a bad foot today. It has become a tradition to get doughnuts on Fat Tuesday so that is what i did today. Instead of just getting 1 I got 2. The rest of the week I will need to eat really good. Time to get back on track.
 
Weighed in this morning and gained 2.5 pounds. Could be retained water from running 22.4 miles or simply having a good time at WDW.

Today is the first day back on the usual routine. So I'll weigh in again once my legs aren't sore and see if that helps.
 
Well, I didn't perform well against my walking goal for the month... the only real walk/hike I did above my normal range of movement was the hike thru the boggy woods and down to the beach over the week end, oh and the beach walk at the camp ground to look at all the storm damage that happened at some point over the winter. The entire front row of trees had been ripped out and were toppled over. The front loop of camping spots had been filled with drift wood as well. It must have been crazy bad.

Speaking of storms, we got hit big time yesterday… early afternoon we heard this big boom, looked out the windows and realized we were having thunder snow, something virtually unheard of around here. It was coming down thick and heavy. On top of this, around 10am there had been a truck crash that closed north and south bound I5 just south of the city, and traffic was gridlocked with people trying to make their way thru town on the surface streets. I left the office at 4pm to be step ahead of the main crush, but the bus stop was already packed with people… there was an hour long gap where almost no buses came. I waited for another half an hour for my bus but once on it we made good time home. I was really bummed to find out that the boots that I was told were waterproof, are in fact not waterproof, so I had some pretty wet and cold feet by the time I got home. Today I’m wearing my hiking boots so I don’t have a repeat.


Even though I didn’t make my walking goal for the month, I have finished out with some good eating… the past few days have been heavy on green veggies. For one of the meals at the beach, we got some “sharing” dishes, which included an assortment of pickled veggies which were really good, the red beets didn’t even taste like dirt, so I ate all of them. This got me inspired to try this type of “meal” for dinners at home.

Will start thinking on goals for March, losing 5 pounds will be one of them for sure.
 
Last edited:
Did You Earn Your Medal?

Ralph does - he learns that he doesn't need one if he has friends and support :)


Our programming does not define who we are. We can be whomever we want to be.
Ralph may be the villain, but without him there is no game. And in the end he
gains friends and learns a valuable lesson: a medal is inside you, not a physical token.


Did you earn your heroes medal? What did you learn this month???? :)

Not sure I was a WEIGHT LOSS/WEIGHT MAINTENANCE/EXERCISE hero this month.... but I may have earned my "Mom medal".... by hosting my DS's friends at the last minute during the dorm closure and nursing DD during her recent recovery. But I certainly have LEARNED that even after 10 years on this weight loss/weight maintenance journey, I must still be ever-vigilant in my food choices and tracking. There are times when I feel like I am one bad day or frustrating situation away from falling totally away from this lifestyle..... but then I remind myself that during these 10 years I've tackled many, many bad days, scary days, stressful days, and tempting choices.... and I've ALWAYS managed to stay on track or get back on track quickly. I'VE GOT THIS!!!

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

Hey friends! Trying to stay busy here, but getting bogged down with the "you-deserve-to-relax-a-bit" monster! Did manage a trip to the thrift stores yesterday to do a return, buy some much-needed jeans for myself, and donating a big bin of stuff that needed to be gone from here! Also did 5 loads of laundry.... so its not exactly like I'm being a total couch potato! Tomorrow is SCRAPBOOKING DAY! I either need to get back into with a passion or start giving away/donating/selling my supplies.... because I've got way too much time, space, and money dedicated to this hobby if I'm not going to actively pursue it!

Mmmmmm.... lunch time! I'm so hungry! Breakfast was delicious (check Instagram ;) ) but it was pretty carby and as such I am already hungry........P
 
It's been a pretty good month for me. I went to all my classes, figured out how to up my Orangezone time, and am down somewhere around 4 lbs since January. The scale jumps around a little, but I'm sticking with my low number :-D However, I am starting to see the changes more than the scale which is inspiring. I hope it's enough to keep me motivated into next month as I up my training! I think it will be. I'm ready to get comfortably back into my old clothes!
 
It was not a great month for me in some aspects and a great month in others! I feel pretty confident in my new workout habits. I've been getting up and going to the gym at 5am 3-4 times a week (minus that one week where everything fell apart for whatever reason I can't remember anymore) which has been great for me. Then 3-4 times a week I'm also doing some low impact exercise in the evening such as taking a walk for half an hour or doing half an hour of yoga. I'm really happy to get my fitness back in order. Taking a break from running has helped. I think I was just burnt out after all the running I did last year. Plus I want that muscle! But this means I've been getting about an hour of high impact cardio each week plus however much walking and low impact work I get. And then weights for about 150 minutes a week. I'm trying to push back my wake up time a little so that I can get more gym time in the morning. I want more weight training.

Where I didn't do well, as always, is my eating. Last weekend I managed to maintain which was great but it was also still up like 6 pounds from where I had been before. Some of that could be muscle but I'm pretty confident that most of it is not. So now that I've got my fitness into a decent routine I'm refocusing on my weekends. And saying NO. Someone asks if I want to go out for dinner, that's a no thank you. I don't have the money to do it anyway. So it shouldn't be that difficult. Looking forward to a successful March!
 
Hello everyone! I am back from vacation (visiting BF in Florida) and now ready to restart my healthy lifestyle again! My goal of 21 nights with more than 8 hours of sleep was not that successful. I reached 38 percent. However, I think I slept more than on an average month, so I am doing better. I also restarted regular running while in Florida and snow and ice have cleared here, so I am excited about what the next month will bring!

Is there a March thread, yet? Do we have a host or hostess?
 
Hello everyone,

I am going to stick with 25% I achieved a few weeks ago. I really don't feel very hero like in my healthy life at the moment. The hot summer here has really affected my desire to be active - although on the one hand it did mean I ate a lot more salads. I have learned that my mind really hasn't been in it lately and that is such a big part of the whole journey. But I am trying not to fall into a funk over it and just keep moving forward .... I have also learned that for some reason (probably that I'm not good at getting active) that I do much better goal wise when I focus on the food side of getting healthier. Although - now that the weather is getting back to lesser temps - I did think this morning I need to get walking again this month.

Did you all see that the Biggest Loser Trainer - Bob Harper... had a heart attack.... whilst training?

@Lady Marie I don't remember anyone volunteering - so I guess you're it :-)
 
Well, I'm sad to say that this has not been a good month for me as far as weight / eating goes. I have re-learned that with me this is all such a mind game. I have to go back to the doctor for my yearly visit and I keep playing in my mind what I'm going to tell him.

Last year between February and June, I lost 30 pounds. I went to Hawaii for a 2+ week vacation with my family, my sister's family and my mom in June. Before we left, I was nervous I would blow all my work and gain some back and not be able to get on track. I gained like 2 pounds while we were gone which was a huge win in my book! I quickly lost that and I don't know if I let it go to my head or what, but that's when I started bottoming out. I just can't seem to do it anymore. And by it, I mean track my food, plan my meals, do any form of exercise, etc. I have now gained about 15 pounds of the 30 back. I'm feeling terrible - when I gain weight, it's mostly in my stomach and even though I didn't feel like I looked like I'd lost a lot of weight, now that I've gained half of it back, I can definitely feel a difference.

Anyway, after all of this - I'm hoping that what I've learned this month is that even though I HATE the thought of tracking everything, it is just something that I HAVE to do. Tomorrow starts lent for me and it's the first day of the new month. My commitment is to track everyday and get myself back on track!

Sorry to be a downer, but I'm just frustrated with myself and need to change it. I have such great things in my life and don't know why I can't at least semi-conquer this.
 

GET A DISNEY VACATION QUOTE

Dreams Unlimited Travel is committed to providing you with the very best vacation planning experience possible. Our Vacation Planners are experts and will share their honest advice to help you have a magical vacation.

Let us help you with your next Disney Vacation!










Top