9-5 Challenge...Week 1 (closed group)

PianoRaven
PianoRaven Posts: 52
edited September 30 in Motivation and Support
I am going to try to do weekly threads. So for this week, we can just post on this thread. Post as often as you like, but at least try for once a day. Remember, the point is to create accountability. So be honest, and don't be embarrassed! We are all in the same boat.

These are the participants:

PianoRaven
imarunner8908
jbiancad
lmontelongo1
szczepj
punkinejz
lovelyfacex3
AriannaInIdaho
tjandjmkahrs
DoctorWhoFan
Julijulz
jagrib0112
vanzandtsusan
arkenny
martinah4
scooterboy2003

The Challenge for Week 1 is simply to TRACK EVERYTHING you put in your mouth. Whether you use this website or old-fashioned pen and paper, every bite gets recorded. At the end of the day, check-in here and let us know how you did!
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Replies

  • PianoRaven
    PianoRaven Posts: 52
    And I suppose we should do introductions too!

    My name is Julie. I am 26 and live in NY. Last year, after having my 3rd baby in four years, I went on Weight Watchers and lost 50 lbs in 10 months. I reached my goal in Dec 2010. But then WW changed their plan and I fell off the wagon. I let life (namely, buying our first home and moving!) get in the way of my goals and I gained back 23 lbs in 6 months.

    I kept trying to go back on the WW plan, but I just can't get into the new program. So I am here trying something new.

    I recently started jogging, and I try to run 6-9 miles per week. I also have an elliptical at home that I use several times per week. Before we moved, I was also lifting weights 2-3x per week. I really need to get back into that!

    My goal for this challenge is to lose 9 lbs. I really look forward to getting to know you all!
  • szczepj
    szczepj Posts: 422
    Hi everyone! I'm Jessica, I'm 20 years old and a Junior in college graduating in May. I was diagnosed with Hypothyroidism about 3 years ago and my levels seem to finally be leveling out. *crosses fingers* I decided it was finally time to fight back and take back my life!

    My goal for this challenge is 11.6 pounds. :) I weigh in Friday's (no scale at home so I've been using the one at the rec center which is only .5 off)
  • MandaLee8908
    MandaLee8908 Posts: 1,353 Member
    I'm Mandy. I'm 26 years old and I was your typical scrawny child. I never had to worry about weight until college.

    I expected to gain 10 or 15 lbs, but I ended up gaining a total of 50 lbs between starting college and getting married (5 years), I am working to get back at least 40 of those lbs.

    My husband has never said a word about my weight gain...he really doesn't care how much I weigh. I didn't think that was a possible! However that doesn't help motivate me...especially since he doesn't prescribe to the concept of eating healthy. If he eat healthy it's because I cook it, but working 2nd shift makes fresh meals very hard (and some things don't taste very well reheated).

    What saddens me is that in Jan 2010 I was only 15 lbs from my goal. I had been doing WW on my own and dropped about 25 lbs. Then over the course of 2010 and especially after surgery (gallbladder) I gained back all 25 lbs...plus 10 more. When I stepped on the scale Jan 2011, I cried. 185 lbs. I still tear up.

    We do not have any kids yet, but the time is coming and I would like to be in the best shape I can be when we decide to try for a baby. I have back problems, already had my gallbladder out...I'm a mess of issues. And looking at my parents, I don't have much of a chance unless I do something NOW!

    Right now I am 174.2 lbs and my goal for this challenge is 9.2 lbs. Let's do this!
  • Hello. I am Bill and I am a college professor in Marshall Texas. I teach computer science and have been at the same school for 29 years. I am a former military officer and have 3 grown children, 3 grandchildren, and the love of my life. I am trying to lose 30 pounds upon the advice of my doctor. Losing the weight is relatively easy, but I need a lifestyle change to keep it off. I lost about 30 pounds 4 years ago, but it came back as I got busy with school. I am glad to be part of this challenge.

    Beg weight 234
    Current weight 231.2 (July 26)

    Goal 220 by the end of the challenge.

    Have a great week.
  • lovelyfacex3
    lovelyfacex3 Posts: 68 Member
    Hi! I'm Sarah. I'm a 19 year old sophomore at Franklin & Marshall College. I'm Undecided at the moment, but someday I think I'd like to become an elementary school teacher.

    Basically, in a nutshell, I have no self-control. I'm addicted to food and it is one of many things that makes me happy. I turn to it when I'm bored, sad, etc. My family eats large portions often and of the most unhealthy foods. Most of us have been overweight one point in our lives. A few of us have lost the weight but I'm still stuck with it!!

    I've always been overweight ... ever since I can remember. Bad eating habits and laziness have contributed to this. I went to weight loss camp for 3 years and it was awesome! Losing 4 lbs in a week every week was thrilling. But my grandmother died and I turned to food a year later. I've gained 3/4 of the weight back. I feel terrible.

    But I'm in it for the long haul now! I've been eating right and kicking *kitten* in the gym. I feel great about it... It's improved my mood and I think I can already feel physical changes. :)


    CW: 218 7/21
    GW: 205
  • Julijulz
    Julijulz Posts: 119 Member
    Hi everyone, I'm Julia. I am currently a full time Dental Hygiene student and a full time Navy wife. :) My whole life I have been out of shape. I come from a family where food is what used to bring us all together. I could never get any support, so I stayed pretty out of shape all throughout my childhood. Now that I am grown, and can make my own decisions, I want to get my life on track so the future children I have will never have to know that kind of lifestyle. Basically I have the same kind of husband. He never informs me about my weight. Eventually I had to sit him down and tell him that I really need for him to tell me about my weight gain. I don't want him to watch me constantly gain and gain. And he did. The truth hurts, but sometimes it's the only thing that can open our eyes. When I met my husband, I was 195lbs. Which is a size 14 on a 5'11 pear shaped frame. He loved my body at that size, but I was not happy with it. I am now 241lbs and struggling to take it off. I tried weight watchers, but I found that it was something I can't stick with. I felt hungry constantly. Even after weeks of following the program strictly. So you guys may cringe when I tell you this, but I do Atkins. And I follow a pretty healthy lifestyle doing it. I don't constantly eat meat and cheese. It's not what you may think. I eat salads, and lean meats, and lots of veggies. I occasionally do a bit of cheese, but I try to stay away for the sake of not stopping myself up. lol But either way, it works for me and it's easy for me to get the results I want. And weight loss is about finding something you can stick with. My doctor thinks it's perfectly healthy for me as a lifestyle change.

    I'm excited for this challenge.

    Starting Weight: 274lbs
    Current Weight: 241lbs
    Goal weight by 10/31/11: 221lbs

    I want to lose 20lbs!!!!! I average 2-3lbs a week, so I don't see where that will be a problem. :) Good luck to you all and feel free to add me.
  • Julijulz
    Julijulz Posts: 119 Member
    Hi everyone, I'm Julia. I am currently a full time Dental Hygiene student and a full time Navy wife. :) My whole life I have been out of shape. I come from a family where food is what used to bring us all together. I could never get any support, so I stayed pretty out of shape all throughout my childhood. Now that I am grown, and can make my own decisions, I want to get my life on track so the future children I have will never have to know that kind of lifestyle. Basically I have the same kind of husband. He never informs me about my weight. Eventually I had to sit him down and tell him that I really need for him to tell me about my weight gain. I don't want him to watch me constantly gain and gain. And he did. The truth hurts, but sometimes it's the only thing that can open our eyes. When I met my husband, I was 195lbs. Which is a size 14 on a 5'11 pear shaped frame. He loved my body at that size, but I was not happy with it. I am now 241lbs and struggling to take it off. I tried weight watchers, but I found that it was something I can't stick with. I felt hungry constantly. Even after weeks of following the program strictly. So you guys may cringe when I tell you this, but I do Atkins. And I follow a pretty healthy lifestyle doing it. I don't constantly eat meat and cheese. It's not what you may think. I eat salads, and lean meats, and lots of veggies. I occasionally do a bit of cheese, but I try to stay away for the sake of not stopping myself up. lol But either way, it works for me and it's easy for me to get the results I want. And weight loss is about finding something you can stick with. My doctor thinks it's perfectly healthy for me as a lifestyle change.

    I'm excited for this challenge.

    Starting Weight: 274lbs
    Current Weight: 241lbs
    Goal weight by 10/31/11: 221lbs

    I want to lose 20lbs!!!!! I average 2-3lbs a week, so I don't see where that will be a problem. :) Good luck to you all and feel free to add me.

    By the way, just so you guys don't think I just diet and lose weight, I work out 5-6 times a week for a hour or more each day. I lift weights with my husband 4-5 days out of the week.
  • Hi everyone, I'm Lori. I'm 34 years old, mother of two and a middle school assistant principal in Canyon Lake, TX. I grew up in a very athletic and competitive family so when I was younger I had no issues with my weight. In college, I gained A LOT, but at 25 decided it was time for a lifestyle change and lost it all. After 2 kids I was in the best shape of my life...until 4 years ago we moved to San Antonio out of the blue. We have no family here and I was depressed and in a job I did not like. Over 4 years I gained 40 lbs. I've lost 13 so far, but still want to lose another 25-30. My husband says he loves me the way I am and doesn't really support a healthy lifestyle, but I am slowly getting him on board. I love my life, our friends and my job...I never thought I would be saying this when we first moved here. I am just ready to get back in shape, I have arthritis and the extra weight is killing my knees. This is my first week back at work, so I hope that I can keep it up now that life is back to normal. I'm excited about this group and hope we all encourage each other to reach our goals.

    CW: 161.4
    GW for challenge 150
    GW: 135
  • Hey there everybody! I'm Arianna. I'm a 25 year old student as well as work full time for the phone company here. I am going to school for nursing, and my ultimate goal is change my habits, get healthy, and get into requirements to be a military nurse (which currently is going to be losing about half of myself). I've been doing good so far although I haven't been doing it too long, but I am very committed and I think this challenge is something that will help me kick myself into gear.

    I started MFP at 333
    Current weight 326
  • tjandjmkahrs
    tjandjmkahrs Posts: 53 Member
    Hi, I'm Jonna, I live in Southeastern WI! I'm 33, and have 6 kids, yes I know, I'm busy! :ohwell: So, my weight problem started back with my second pregnancy. I had my 1st 5 children in 6 years, with very limited time between pregnancies I was never able to shed all of the extra weight. My sixth pregnancy came 3 years after my 4th, but I was unable to recover before that point. Not only were my pregnancies close together I had weeks of bedrest with all but 1. Bedrest is terrible, you gain alot of weight and lose so much muscle, good for baby, bad for mom!

    I started really getting sick of my weight and wanted to do something about it in Oct. of last fall, 2010. Then I fell on the 9th of Oct. I broke my leg and ankle in 4 places, I had surgery to put me back together. I am now a proud owner of a screw in my ankle and a 7 inch plate along my Fibula., that is held on with another 6 screws. Bouncing back from that has been pretty rough, but I found in the last couple weeks I can run/jog! I was told that was probably not ever going to happen again. I was released from PT in early March. Since then I have been going to our area Rec Center, I also have been using my Wii at home.

    I started this journey at 215lbs. in October of 2010, I joined myfitnesspal in February, I have lost a total of 25lbs. I still have 55lbs to get to my end goal weight. My goal for this challenge is 20lbs. I have a big family trip planned of the end of Oct beginning of Nov. I will lighter, I will be healthier! :wink:
  • Hi everyone,

    I'm 20 years old and have just finished my 2nd year of university here in the UK. My weight has slowly but surely crept up on me over the past three or four years. This is my sixth week on MFP (I've used the site under a different username in the past though but didn't stick with it) and my second week with 40/30/30 macros for fat, protein and carbohydrates respectively. I weigh-in on Mondays though I won't be able to weigh for the next two/three weeks as I'm off to summer school.

    My first goal from June 13th was to lose 14lbs in 12 weeks thus my ending date was 5th September which is Labor Day in the US so this challenge is perfect for me to get to my goal as it coincides!

    Good luck to everyone and thank you to PianoRaven for making this challenge! I'm looking forward to it.

    SW: 167.3
    CW: 161.2
    GW: 157.0
  • jbiancad
    jbiancad Posts: 66 Member
    Hi,
    im Jasmine. 21 year old full time worker student and a mother to a 1 year old. I have a very weird relationship with food. Some days I love it some days I hate it. I hate salt though and hot (temp) food. I've been using MFP for about a month now and have lost about 15 pounds. My goal for this challenge is 10 pounds bringing me in at 165 but im hoping by christmas to be down to 135ish. I am also very tall (5'11). I also try to workout at least once a day. I currently do the leslie sansones walk at home dvds and i swim a lot. Oh and I decided to loose weight because im sick of being 21 and not being able to wear a two peice in public. Good luck everyone!

    CW:175
    GW (for challenge):165
    GW (12/11): 135
  • szczepj
    szczepj Posts: 422
    Finished my food diary for the day! Under my goal, actually by a lot but I found that it seems to work really well for me if I do a day really close to my goal of 1580 and then a really low day.. around 1000-1200. So, I'm trying that for a little while. :)
  • lovelyfacex3
    lovelyfacex3 Posts: 68 Member
    Happy Tuesday everyone!!!


    So. Today was interesting. I didn't work out until after dinner so I ate about 1800 calories, which is 500 over my limit. But then I went to the gym and worked REALLY hard and burned 1542 calories so I only netted about 316 calories. Yeah, I know it's really low but I ate a lot today, I promise! Go look at my diary :P


    Overall, I am happy with today. My sugar was over the limit which I need to limit and so was my protein but I always eat more protein than MFP suggests because I am trying to build muscle!
  • MandaLee8908
    MandaLee8908 Posts: 1,353 Member
    I tracked everything today! :-)
  • PianoRaven
    PianoRaven Posts: 52
    So how did everyone do yesterday?

    I did really well on Monday (was under my calorie goal and also ran 3 miles). Yesterday, I did 30 mins on the elliptical and did well with my food choices...until dinner. We went out to dinner at a local diner and I didn't make the best choice. Although, I must say that it was leagues better than what I would have chosen a few weeks ago! Small steps are the lasting steps.

    Question of the Day: How often do you weigh yourself? And how does that affect your eating habits?
  • My sugar was over the limit which I need to limit and so was my protein but I always eat more protein than MFP suggests because I am trying to build muscle!

    Lovelyfacex3, you can change your limits by going to MY HOME, then GOALS, then CUSTOM and CHANGE GOALS. Then you can pick your macros.
    I tracked everything today! :-)

    Awesome! I did too :-)
  • szczepj
    szczepj Posts: 422
    Question of the Day: How often do you weigh yourself? And how does that affect your eating habits?

    I weigh in on Monday's and Friday's. A Monday weigh in keeps me in line over the weekend! But I like to weigh in Friday to see if there's any progress from the week.
  • MandaLee8908
    MandaLee8908 Posts: 1,353 Member
    I've tried to put the scale away for a few weeks but it didn't work. I weigh about 2x a week...usually around M or T and then again around F or Sat. It keeps me more accountable...but I only use the M weights for logging here on MFP
  • Question of the Day: How often do you weigh yourself? And how does that affect your eating habits?

    I weigh myself once a week on Mondays. Though when I start strength training in September, I think I'm going to weigh either fortnightly or monthly and maybe focus more on body fat percentage and measurements.

    I'm going to be away from July 31st-August 16th at a 2 week summer school and straight after that to my friend's house for a birthday weekend. I'll be interested to see how I do without logging and possibly indulging for my friend's birthday. I don't want to splurge, but I don't really know what else to do!
  • Wed, july 27 Challenge weigh in

    Weight before doc says lose it 248.8
    Challenge beginning weight 234
    Current weight 230.8
    Challenge goal 220
    Ultimate goal 205
  • Question of the Day: How often do you weigh yourself? And how does that affect your eating habits?

    Since deciding to lose weight, I weigh every morning and record in a journal. Then, if I am happy, I stick to my (new) routine. If not, I try to eat less or exercise more during the day.
  • Julijulz
    Julijulz Posts: 119 Member
    I did great yesterday. Everything was logged. :D I just refuse to weigh myself right now. I'm trying to see how long I can go before I break down and finally weigh in. I like leaving some suspense to the scale. lol Usually I end up weighing myself at least 2-3 times a week. So I'm trying to change that. I think I had a bad sodium day on Monday. I put on like 4lbs of water weight. I know it came from the pickles. That's where pickles trick you. They are a low calorie, but a super HIGH sodium snack. And well, I had like 3 pickles on Monday. So I am going to wait a week or so before weighing myself. I am also watching my sodium intake carefully now. It makes a huge difference. :D

    HAPPY HUMP DAY EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!
  • lovelyfacex3
    lovelyfacex3 Posts: 68 Member
    I weigh myself once a week on Friday mornings before breakfast. I measure myself every 2 weeks on Tuesdays!
  • Did I do good?

    Splurged for mexican lunch with my wife. One chicken enchalada with red sauce, half of my refried beans, half of my rice, some dorito type chips with salsa, zero calorie unsweet tea. 540 calories. Did I do good?
  • I weigh myself daily, even though I know I shouldn't. It helps to keep me motivated to make the right choices. So far, I have tracked everything I've eaten. I treated myself to a kid scoop of ice cream with my boys last night and was still well under my limit (after exercise) for the day.
  • szczepj
    szczepj Posts: 422
    I did eh today. Well under calories, not so much with food choices for the day. Good exercise though, my knee is killing me and my arms. Dang 100 push up challenge. But it'll be worth it.

    All in all, bleh day. Bleh mood.
  • PianoRaven
    PianoRaven Posts: 52
    Happy Thursday, everyone!

    We are all doing great! Even though some of us have made some less-than-perfect decisions (me, included!), we are all paying attention and learning how to make the plan work. And scooterboy, I think your Mexican lunch was a perfect example: instead of swearing off all restaurants, you went and made smarter choices. And (presumably), you were able to enjoy a meal out and not have to feel guilty about it. The only lasting plan is the one you can live with!

    My answer to yesterday's question is that I weigh everyday. I used to only weigh once a week, for fear of becoming scale-obsessed. But then I read about a recent study which suggests that people lose MORE when they weigh everyday. So I started doing that and I really think it helps keep me focused. I am able to see how different foods affect me, and make decisions accordingly. But again, the only plan that works is the one that works for YOU!

    :smile: Today is Grocery Day for me, so here is the Question of the Day: How do you plan your meals/shopping (ie, how often do you shop, do you plan your meals in advance, what do you do about snacks, etc)?
  • szczepj
    szczepj Posts: 422
    :smile: Today is Grocery Day for me, so here is the Question of the Day: How do you plan your meals/shopping (ie, how often do you shop, do you plan your meals in advance, what do you do about snacks, etc)?

    Sadly, there isn't too much planning that happens for me. Damn college studentness. I eat on campus. But when I do go shopping I try to get fruits and veggies....that's about it... Ha
  • :smile: Today is Grocery Day for me, so here is the Question of the Day: How do you plan your meals/shopping (ie, how often do you shop, do you plan your meals in advance, what do you do about snacks, etc)?

    Sadly, there isn't too much planning that happens for me. Damn college studentness. I eat on campus. But when I do go shopping I try to get fruits and veggies....that's about it... Ha

    Ditto! It's difficult being a student, and even more difficult during the holidays. I've been travelling to and fro from university, to home, to summer schools, to visit friends...it's all a bit hectic. :-)
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