Do People Like Spreadsheet Challenges?

VeryKatie

Hello! I am considering making a spreadsheet type of challenge for us all to participate in! However, I'd love some input as to what you'd like it to incorporate.

If you're interested, would you please list 2 things you would find it motivating to include and 2 things you do not find motivating. Or even one thing of each.

I may not be able to grant all the wishes, but I would try. It would be interesting and maybe more motivating if we had something unique.

I shall go first. Don't worry if we disagree, we have time to mix things up as we go along.

Things I find motivating:

1) A way to encourage exercise
2) Some way to include tracking calories vs just weight

Things I don't find as motivating:

1) Daily or weekly side challenges similar to "no added sugar", "get xxx many steps" (though encouraging servings of veggies or water is fine). - Generally for me, extreme things or things that involve Fitbits since I don't have one.

2) Punishments for forgetting to check in (like getting kicked out).

vrokhfit

Hi Katie! I do like the idea of a "public" weigh in type situation!

Things I find motivating:

1) Seeing other people progressing
2) Having fitness goals.. however I find this one to be hard to do as a group since its very likely that everyone is at a different place physically so it's kind of hard to make one group measurable goal... it'd be nice if we could like, set our own goals and then mark down if we achieved them or not or something like that?
3) Group loss/achievement measurement - For example, total lbs lost as a group or total minutes of activity as a group or something

Things I find unmotivating

1) I second your people getting punished for not checking in thing. It'd be nice if this was more of a "lets motivate each other to be successful" type thing than than a "lets see who can lose the most weight" type thing. (as an aside, I also agree with your side challenges note.)


Thanks for doing this! I'm excited!

Sabrinarose8

This could be fun.

Motivating
1. Reading about others who have lost a lot of weight and kept it off
2. Little rewards for reaching small goals, like every 5 pounds lost or every 50 days logging food.

Not motivating
1. Doing a specific amount of x exercise everyday. I am not a fan of the typical gym workout, for me it has to be fun. I have running and dance goals that aren't really related to weigh loss and I have my own 6 day a week workout plan for those. Also everyone is usually at a different fitness levels

VeryKatie

Awesome, keep it coming!

For exercise maybe simply letting people fill in the number of "active days" would work? So you have to meet your own goal, and it would be measured by percent.

In general, how long do you want the spreadsheets to span?
1 week? 2? A month? 3 months? How much "turn-over" or I guess "resetting" do you find best?

Some times you have a bad week, how long do you find it can throw you off for unless you have something telling you you have a clean slate in other words?

Oh and just a note.. the spreadsheets are typically best viewed while on a computer. Is everyone ok with that?

WifiresGettingFit

I like everything thing that has been said so far. (I haven't really thought of anything to add yet but I'll keep thinking on it.)

I think the active days would work well and people can choose how they are active for those days.

I think maybe do it month by month? or for just starting out maybe we could try doing it by weeks to get a feel for it and make changes as needed?

Normally, if I had a bad day (say not working out that day) it would be really easy for me to make it a habit of not working out (and I could get derailed for weeks or months) but I'm doing much better in that regard this time. I think a lot of it has to do with me being more active on the boards and more active in general by adding friends, socializing, etc.

For me, i'm definitely okay with it being viewed on the computer. My app can get wonky and half the time doesn't sync with the site and I can't imagine it would handle looking at a spreadsheet well, it takes forever just to load the app and internet.

EDITED: Fixed wording

teegan84

I agree with some kind of weigh in, I find it motivating to be accountable and my other half doesn't get as excited for me when I drop a few 100grams each week as you ladies would be for me also some activity days that we can choose to complete in any manner we choose would be good.....and I definitely agree with no punishments.....I punish myself enough when I don't achieve a goal!

VeryKatie

Awesome Keep the suggestions coming. I will try to have a sheet made for Feb 1

puffbrat

I agree with a lot of what has already been said.

I find it motivating to see the progress others have made, and tracking my own weight keeps me accountable to myself.

I also like the idea of tracking exercise/activity but letting people choose their own specific goals. For me, in the last week, my number of steps per day have increased a lot and will stay that way (have to walk the puppy ). So I want to keep tracking those and try to gradually up them. I am also thinking that tracking miles I walk per week would be fun.

I agree with you Katie that side/specific challenges like cutting out certain foods or everyone trying to hit the same activity goal is not motivating. Nor are punishments.

I think having the spreadsheets span 1 month or a couple months would be good so we can see our progress without feeling held back by a bad week.

VeryKatie

Does anyone else have any requests? Maybe something funky? Haha.

VeryKatie

I came up with a (hopefully) cute progress meter system

See the announcement for the link also. If everyone likes it, I'll put it in the group description.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/176VoQo1O354WMX5V56uvjDdxFLFOC_gw_NEmArQ0-FY/edit?usp=sharing

WifiresGettingFit

I like it! Looks good

vrokhfit

Super cute! Great job!

VeryKatie

Would people like to see a different looking progress meter for remaining calories in the month? The analogy isn't great haha. If it blows over the top (like when your fundraising) it's kind of opposite of what you want... since it means you ate more than you planned.

So far the other thing I can think of is using a pile of gold blocks in a bank kind of thing...which depletes as you spend your calories.

VeryKatie

How do people want to do the challenge - do you want to do it individually or do you want to do it in teams? It might end up depending on how many people sign up (i.e. if there's 5 - 6 of us I'm not sure if teams makes sense, but if there's all 15 of us, it might).

WifiresGettingFit

I like the depleting gold blocks type of thing if we go that way.

My vote is individually but i'm not opposed to teams either.

VeryKatie

I'm also thinking weigh in's on the 1st, 8th, 15, and 21 and 29th? You can weigh in more but maybe those could be the communal dates.

vrokhfit

Those weigh in dates work really well for me since I kind of consider that my "official" weigh in day (Mondays)

WifiresGettingFit

My weigh in day is on Saturday. I can always weigh again on Monday but I'll only log the Saturday one on MFP and the Monday one for the challenge.

VeryKatie

ok sounds good. Honestly, the spreadsheet will work no matter when you write it in, but its fun to do it together

WifiresGettingFit

teegan84

I was just checking out the spreadsheet, and filled it in to see how it works