2 week challenge

Options
1196197199201202315

Replies

  • amysj303
    amysj303 Posts: 5,086 Member
    Options
    yes, starting Sunday! Beeps can remind me what the range is for the stars!
  • ChLoE1130
    ChLoE1130 Posts: 1,696 Member
    Options
    I cannot wait to get back into it with you ladies!!!! I miss working out hard and seeing improvements to my body :ohwell:

    I am Chloe I LOVE this group of girls! I enjoy working out hardcore and always improving on eating. Mainly I would call myself a runner and a DVD rat. I like trying new programs. One day I would like to get into lifting heavy as well. I am 30 weeks pregnant today with our first baby and its a boy!

    I'm still going strong with my daily walks and I have increased my net cal goal to 2000 cals. I really haven't gained much in the past 15 weeks, I think about 10 lbs. But, unfortunately my nausea eating in the first trimester caused me to gain 20 in the first 15 weeks. I am thinking I will end up with about a 40 pound weight gain total, which I am ok with. I plan on breastfeeding and getting back into running as soon as possible once my little guy is here.
  • danilyman
    Options
    Welcome, new folks!
    Dani, what does your menu look like with such low carb? I have such a hard time with low-carb. I kept wanting to try carb-cycling but I couldn't seem to get a plan!

    I've found that its easier than I anticipated and for health reasons I'm newly gluten free so that makes it easier!

    A typical weekday menu might look like this:
    Plain Greek yogurt mixed with protein powder, cinnamon and blueberries. Tastes like a blueberry muffin!
    A small apple or celery with almond butter
    A spinach salad with cucumbers, peppers, carrots, red cabbage with an egg or turkey bacon with homemade dressing
    This lo carb banana nut bread I make
    Grilled chicken with a potato and veggies. Or tuna or salmon.
    Dark chocolate, over 70 percent.

    I drink unsweetened ice tea, unsweetened coffee, spinach smoothies made with almond milk and only rarely diet coke when I'm jonesing. My trouble has always been consuming too many carbs through sweet drinks.

    When I stick to eat I feel amazing, healthy and light. But I'm on 1200 calories and struggling a little to feel full so I may have to Mae some tweaks.
  • danilyman
    Options
    I cannot wait to get back into it with you ladies!!!! I miss working out hard and seeing improvements to my body :ohwell:

    I am Chloe I LOVE this group of girls! I enjoy working out hardcore and always improving on eating. Mainly I would call myself a runner and a DVD rat. I like trying new programs. One day I would like to get into lifting heavy as well. I am 30 weeks pregnant today with our first baby and its a boy!

    Congrats Chloe!!!! How exciting!! And way to stay motivated and fitness conscience along the way!
  • Beeps2011
    Beeps2011 Posts: 11,985 Member
    Options
    I'm in for the *star* challenge. I'll have to go back and look at my spreadsheet for the exact stuff.

    But, something like this:

    1. At or below your weekly alotted calories = PLATINuM
    2. 1-500 calories OVER weekly alotted = GOLD.
    3. 501-1,000 calories OVER weekly alotted = SiLVER.
    4. 1,001 - 1,500 calories OVER weekly alotted = BRONZE.

    You have to announce, in advance of the challenge, what YOUR weekly alottment is.

    I'm in for 9,800 per week. Maybe a 6-week-challenge?

    Would run Monday to Sunday....starting Monday, Aug 26?
  • shander7
    shander7 Posts: 613 Member
    Options
    Hey ladies! Sorry for being so flaky again!! Summer makes it so hard to keep up with you all!!

    Beeps - Holy moly you look fantastic!!! Congrats!!

    Amy - Love the motivation :) I'm with you!!

    Chloe - So awesome you're still working out at 30 weeks! I know so many people who give up as soon as they get pregnant!! You're going to bounce back fast!! What is your due date??

    I haven't been able to catch up on everyone, sorry!! I will try to later though!

    What is the "star" challenge? Could someone explain that to me a little more?

    I'm Shannon, I'm from Rhode Island and I work for Hasbro toy company as a model maker. I'm 25 and just moved in with my boyfriend last year and am trying to lose the weight I gained moving in with him!! Mainly trying to lose fat though :)

    I'm still holding off most of the weight from the cleanse from a few weeks ago! I haven't gone back up to my highest and I think that's pretty good! I'm going to try and be really good until next Friday, aside from this Friday (6 year anniversary with the bf!) and then after next Friday I'll be in Disney! I'm such a Disney girl, I can't wait for this vacation! I'm doing pretty well with eating, mostly due to the fact that I don't buy snacks! haha. I hope I don't flake for as long as I did this time, if you don't see me on here come yell at me on my profile!!

    Glad to see you're all doing so well! :):)
  • Better_Balance_2011
    Better_Balance_2011 Posts: 3,711 Member
    Options
    Can we run the star challenge Monday - Sunday like we did last time? Then we report in Monday?

    Hi Shander! Good to hear from you.

    Hi Chloe! Good to hear from you too. 30 weeks?! How exciting! Gosh time flies.

    Hi Jen! Sounds like you have a lot of fun stuff going on. I bet you're happy not to be starting back to school right now. :smile: Have fun at your fests this weekend.

    Dani, we probably need that low carb banana nut bread. Yum!

    Beeps, when is your surgery again?

    I got up and lifted this morning and it felt good. Eating has been good all week and I had 3 big glasses of wine last night; my plan was for 2-3. So far I'd call this week a success. Let's hope the scale agrees with me tomorrow.....
  • amysj303
    amysj303 Posts: 5,086 Member
    Options
    Monday-Sunday is fine too-starting August 26. I can fast til dinner on Sundays more easily than any other day. 6 weeks is good, but if you can't commit for the whole six don't worry.

    The lowdown on the star challenge is that you pick your overall calorie goal for the week, log everything and let me know at the end of the week what your actual calories were. Then you get a star, color based on how close you came to your goal.

    Dani, your low-carb plan sounds great, I should copy that for at least a couple of days, everything sounds good!
  • danilyman
    Options
    http://toneitup.com/blog.php?5724

    This is where you can kind the banana bread. It's pretty tasty. Sometimes I had nuts to the mixture or fruit. :)
  • caitlinashe511
    caitlinashe511 Posts: 16 Member
    Options
    Hey! I'd totally like to join in on this star chart!
    My name is Caitlin, I'm new. I'm currently living in West Africa as a volunteer and have been here for two years, but my service is coming to a close on Sept 19th! Then off to a wonderful vacation and back in my mom's house on Oct 12th (25 and living at home...great). I'm 5'7" and currently 140 lbs, and I'd like to get down to 125. I run a lot and do some yoga. Recently getting into HIIT, body weight circuits, and pilates.

    Before figuring out what I want my weekly calories to be, I have a few questions. Do y'all normally stick to the 1,200 range MFP gives? It encourages you to eat what you've worked off, are we including that in the total cals per week?
  • Better_Balance_2011
    Better_Balance_2011 Posts: 3,711 Member
    Options
    Thanks Dani. Those look yummy. Any idea on their nutritional values?

    Welcome Caitlin. West Africa?! Wow! Interesting. As for calorie goals, you can calculate your TDEE; just google a calculator. I am 5'2" and 132.5 as of this morning....:grumble: and my TDEE, considering I am sedentary, as in I have a desk job, is around 1621 a day. (I think that may be actually based on a slightly lower weight when I calculated it). So that's what my body uses daily. If I want to maintain, eat that every day. If I want to lose 0.25 pound a week, I eat 1496 a day. (3500 cals / 4 = 0.25 pound / 7 days - TDEE). If I want to lose 0.5, I eat 1371 a day, etc. etc. So I have mine set to 1350 a day to give me a tiny bit of wiggle room, and I also count my exercise calories. Right now I'm aiming for about 9500 calories a week to supposedly produce 0.5 pound loss a week. I personally have a hard time with 1200 consistently. I can do it for a day or two, I tend to feel deprived and end up binging at some piont. I hope that helps!

    Yeah, so my 0.5 pound loss from last week came back. I'm frustrated on several levels. #1, this is the first week I feel like I've been "back". My diet has been decent and my workouts good. However my weekend sucked and I drank too much and the scale is showing it. Plus I had planned on a light lunch yesterday, but my co-workers were going for sushi. Who turns down sushi for lunch?! Not me. So there was the soy sauce I had. I just felt pretty bloated and yucky yesterday. Feel mildly better today. I just need to kick @ss this weekend and keep it going. We're not going to St. Louis this weekend after all (death in family) so that should help with my food and drink battle. Anyways, I'm supposed to be down 6.5 pounds in 5 weeks for South Beach. Probably not going to happen....so I'll just do my best, eat well, get my workouts in, and watch the drinks.

    Have a great weekend. Today is my Friday!
  • Beeps2011
    Beeps2011 Posts: 11,985 Member
    Options
    I totally am going to have to dull my appetite to carbs when I return. It'll be back to protein shakes and salads for awhile. Calorie-controlled, but also, after about 3- to 5- days, my carb cravings will disappear.

    Which then, overall, makes diet and *star* challenge wwwaaaaayyyyyy easier to manage!
  • Beeps2011
    Beeps2011 Posts: 11,985 Member
    Options
    Caitlin's, try the 1,200 per day and see how you feel.

    For me, I work off a weekly average (not daily) so that I can plan a weekly allotment around special occasions, etc.

    I'm 5'9" and work off 9,800 calories per week.

    Mind you, I'm lucky to lose 0.5 lb per week with that many calories. I'm ok with slower weight loss.

    PS - I don't "eat my calories" back. But, I weight-train, so burning next to nil, anyway....
  • Beeps2011
    Beeps2011 Posts: 11,985 Member
    Options
    Slander - enjoy Disney!

    I must say, we haven't "theme-parked" in a couple years, and I'm grateful....before that, we did 6 theme park vacations (Florida and California) in 5 years.

    {shudders}

    We are going to sea world, San Diego, tomorrow, and I'm exhausted just thinking about it!
  • RisOnTheRun
    RisOnTheRun Posts: 624 Member
    Options
    Can I suggest a modified point calculation for those of us who are preggers and need to be maintaining or gaining weight? Maybe something like this?
    Within 100 calories of your weekly allotted calories = platinum
    Within 500 calories of your weekly allotted calories = gold
    Within 1000 calories of your weekly allotted calories = silver
    Within 1500 calories of your weekly allotted calories = bronze

    I think I'm too competitive to join a challenge where the goal is to eat under your allotted calories when I need to be trying to hit my target, not to go under it. But if that's going to be too confusing then I'm happy to just cheer you all on for now!

    For intros, I'm Marissa from Washington, DC. I originally joined this board to for motivation to try to lose those last 5-10 pounds. I got pretty close to by goal weight when I got pregnant. I'm currently 31 weeks pregnant so I'm gaining weight, rather than losing, but the ladies on this board are so wonderful and motivating that I still love coming on here. Right now I'm focusing on staying active and eating nutritious food. My exercises of choice are running, lifting weights, walking, and biking.
  • caitlinashe511
    caitlinashe511 Posts: 16 Member
    Options
    Thanks for all the advice, girls! I looked into the TDEE and other calculations, and I've come up with 8,800 cals/wk. I'm doing a lot of intervals and bodyweight circuits until I leave from here, so hopefully I'll tighten up a lot.


    Re: the whole living in West Africa thing... yes yes I have been here since 2011. If y'all want to read my blog, it's here: http://caitlinashe.blogspot.com After I'm done here, I'll be going on vacation to Fes, Morocco and Arles + Paris, France, and NYC. I figure that I'll be doing a lot lot lot of walking, so I'm going to eat in a guilt-free way but still choose salads over pasta, ya know? Anyways, that isn't for another 4 weeks!
  • amysj303
    amysj303 Posts: 5,086 Member
    Options
    Before figuring out what I want my weekly calories to be, I have a few questions. Do y'all normally stick to the 1,200 range MFP gives? It encourages you to eat what you've worked off, are we including that in the total cals per week?

    I think I will try to average 1200 per day, but I will have two low-cal days (600 Sunday and 900 Wednesday) so that I can have a couple of higher calorie days for events, get-togethers, dinners out, glass of wine, ya know?
    And, I will eat back exercise cals But it's up to you, because I know that I tend to over-estimate my calorie burn, so the other way would be to average 1500 per day and not eat back exercise cals. But you do the math, so you can add up your weekly calories and subtract the burned from exercise days for your weekly total or set your goal to include the exercise if you are pretty regular about working out.

    What really happens is that I binge on beer/wine and then workout the next day so I can subtract it from my total and get a star:drinker: :embarassed:
  • amysj303
    amysj303 Posts: 5,086 Member
    Options
    Can I suggest a modified point calculation for those of us who are preggers and need to be maintaining or gaining weight? Maybe something like this?
    Within 100 calories of your weekly allotted calories = platinum
    Within 500 calories of your weekly allotted calories = gold
    Within 1000 calories of your weekly allotted calories = silver
    Within 1500 calories of your weekly allotted calories = bronze

    Works for me, probably shouldn't encourage eating below your weekly goal too much anyway.
    Might get in trouble, go into starvation mode, get stoned by bystanders:noway:
  • Beeps2011
    Beeps2011 Posts: 11,985 Member
    Options
    I'm fine permitting preggo's to do what they want.

    I even thought about a 100 calorie buffer for ALL! But, you know what?? It's a CHALLENGE! Meaning: do it to MEET or EXCEED your goals....don't do it if you want some kind of permission to "slack off"!

    Even preggo's could choose to meet their goals by first giving themselves the proper allotment of weekly calories to begin with! If that means preggo's gets 15,000 calories per week while dieting-chick gets 9,800, so be it!!

    I digress....

    Be sure you are clear on what your weekly allotment is....the rest really is about sticking to THAT!
  • shander7
    shander7 Posts: 613 Member
    Options
    This sounds like a good challenge! I like the idea of weekly allowances SO much better than daily, I tend to eat less on weekdays and more on weekends, especially with all the cook outs. What are your favorite calculators to determine TDEE?? There are so many online!