TEAM: Gutbusters (September)
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AB0215
Posts: 7,141 Member
Welcome to the Challenge new and returning teammates!! This is the conversation/weigh in thread for your Team Keep on losing because our first weigh ins begin THIS Sunday! I am here for you should you need anything - simply message me or tag me by putting an '@' just before my username (NO SPACES) and I will get to you asap! ~ Ashley @AB0215 or Craig @craigo3154 .
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Hey team! 😃 I’m a 23 year old girl from Norway. I’ve been struggling with weight all my life, and now I’m finally doing something about it. Started out on mfp back in march this year and boy it has been a game changer. Been logging and losing everyday since. When I started I was 210 lbs and now I’m down to 175.8. My relationship to healthy food and exercise has improved tremendously 😃 Can’t wait to see what this challenge brings! We are going to kill it 👊🏻🔥8
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Hi guys! I'm Tanya, 30 years old from Toronto!
I started this journey towards a healthy weight 2 weeks ago after a long, productive talk with a friend of mine. I've been tracking ever since and I'm really changing my eating habits! I hope to start exercising soon too.
I love challenges like this, it helps me stay on track.. and i'm extremely competitive so that's an added bonus haha6 -
Hi everyone. I'm the ol' lady of the bunch, almost 65, living in Montana. I'm here because I'm having a hard time getting back on track after losing 60 pounds (achieving a goal weight that eluded me for over 40 years!). Things happened and I gained back 15+ pounds and I'm still gaining. I'm hoping this challenge will be what I need to get back on track. That elation I felt when I got down to 129 pounds was amazing and I swore I would not be one of those statistics, part of the large percentage that gained weight back. My new clothes are getting too small and my body feels the extra weight when I'm hiking or even just doing stairs. Not acceptable!5
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Hey team! I’m a 28 year old girl from UK. I’ve been struggling with weight all my life. I started to lose weight for my sisters wedding and managed to lose 4 stone but after the wedding I put on a stone and I'm more determined to lose that 1 and 3 more. My weight is 193lbs. My relationship to food is up and down I'm doing clean eating and my new craze food fix is rice cakes, I can't stop eating them and I'm trying to do zombie run when i can. These sort of challenges really motivate me to lose the weight.5
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Hi all! I'm Les, 39, mom of 2, wife of 1, and new Gutbuster captain (yikes! I'll do my best!).
I joined Gutbusters in May, after getting back on track with my life in April. I'm saying "back on track with life" instead of "weight loss" because it really feels like I'm making changes everywhere: not just eating better, or exercising, but being kind to myself, believing in myself, and seeing the good in me and others. I volunteered to be captain partly to give Coach Craig a break (you'll see - he's a fount of wisdom here!) and partly because I thought I've reached a point where I might need to give back in order to stay on track.
So anyway, I've lost 40+ pounds since April, and I've got about 26 more to go to get to a BMI of about 23 (I'm 5'7.5", 174lbs currently).
Glad to see you new folks here, and I hope to see lots of returners from August as well! Best wishes!4 -
Hello team Gutbusters.
I will be your coach again for this month (when I can). My role here is to help motivate, encourage.
I am also moderator for the TBL challenge (but Ashley ( @AB0215. ) has been doing most of the heavy lifting recently with my work commitments being insane). I rely heavily on the support of the team captains to make this successful as it is too much for one person to do alone.
I am happy to say that this month Gutbusters does have a captain. Les (@LesIckaBod.) has risen to the challenge and I encourage you to help her as much as possible. As team captain, Les' primary role is to also help motivate and encourage the team (as she has already been doing throughout August). The captains secondary role is to keep the weight tracking spreadsheet up to date based on people's poset weigh in's.
As coach, I am running an optional mini-challenge within the Gutbusters team again this month.
Now an introduction:
I am a happily married 50yo father of one. I live in Melbourne Australia. I am passionate about helping people. Late August last year I passed my minimum goal weight (70kg - down from 91.5kg) and am now trying to maintain without bouncing back too far. I achieved the reduction in 4 months (so 40+ lbs in 4 months). I have kept the weight off for over 12 months now.
As I am now actively trying to NOT lose weight. At BMI 20.6 and less than 8% body fat, it would be crazy (if not dangerous) for me to try lose more weight.
(Why would someone not losing weight want to help run a weight loss challenge? Because it helps so many people and I feel I have so much to share. I learned so much losing weight that I seems a shame to not have it benefit others.).
About the mini-challenge.
First and foremost is that participation in this challenge is optional. It's up to you as to whether you want to try this. (If you take the attitude that "this is not what I signed up for", that is up to you).
I used the principles of this challenge to win July (6.29% - down 10.8 lbs) and August (6.44% - down 10.4 lbs). Following this challenge does work.
The challenge is based on another challenge on MFP called UAC (ultimate accountability challenge). The way UAC works is that the aim is to follow 5 basic rules.- Track EVERYTHING you eat that has calories on MFP.
- Stay inside your allocated daily budget.
- Do at least 20 minutes of activity a day (anything: walk, run, cycle, swim, gardening, housework, yoga, gym, etc.. As long as it gets you active and off the couch)
- 1 pass day permitted per week (went over calories, could not track, not enough exercise, intentional pass)
- Check in daily (tracking yes/no, calories yes/no, exercise yes/no).
Using this strategy of consistent tracking and minimal exercise I have set a lifestyle plan that should keep me in my target weight range. (has for the last month )
I liked this strategy as:- No dietary restrictions. (fine for vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, paleo, carnivore, etc...)
- Works with whatever strategy you may want to follow. (keto, 5:2, 16:8, atkins, etc..).
- You set your own daily budget (MFP helps with this).
- You choose you own exercise and intensity (no step limit, no exercises you cannot or should not do, 20 mins of gardening counts as much as a 10mile run).
- Is not weight based (as weight fluctuates day by day).
- Can continue beyond weight loss.
Daily check in keeps you in touch with those doing similar. Longer term weight management is hard to do on your own.
It also has frequent resets (as in a circle each week).
It works on an honor system. Being honest with yourself and others is a key to making things work.
Consistency and new habits have been shown the only long term successful way to change weight. We all want the progress made here to last a lifetime.
You will find out more from me as the weeks go on. I have done A LOT of research into weight loss, diets, health and strength. I will happily share what I have learned with the group.
My commitment to this group is to post my daily results for this accountability tracking (and help out where I can).
I also post a daily strength challenge.
The daily strength challenge is additional to the 20 mins exercise in the mini-challenge. It is designed to:- build lean muscle (not bulk).
- be quick (5 mins).
- use no equipment (bodyweight only) and minimal space.
- no impact so gentle on joints.
- cycle through arms, legs and core with enough recovery time to get best results.
So welcome September Gutbusters.
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Hello fellow Gutbusters! I am a 55 yo married woman, living in Walla Walla, WA in the US (yep, it really is a place). This is the first time I have ever participated in a weight loss public challenge, and I am really looking forward to it! I started working on my weight in January of this year, joined Weight Watchers and lost 20 lbs in 5 months. July and August have been hard for me, I gained back 6. I almost hit 200 lbs again, and said "Oh no I am not going there!" So I am really going to make September count and look forward to the motivation of this challenge.4
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I am so so psyched for this challenge! Physically, I am achy and miserable ( a long few days) but i really really want to get off to a good start!
I'm doing the ultimate accountability challenge too, so i'm happy that's a mini challenge here! It's a MVP tough love challenge, that's for sure!
I have a lot to lose, so % loss is tough, but I'm determined and going to give it everything I have! (in a healthy way)4 -
Hi everyone! I am a 26 year old mother of two. I have recently restarted my weight loss journey. I lost 50 lb in 2016, but haven't been losing since. I just got off track, and actually gained ten pounds. But I have now lost that 10 lb this month! Hoping to lose another 30 by the end of the year!5
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Checking in to stay that I tracked all of my calories today. I haven't ate dinner yet, but have it all planned and am about to start cooking. As far as exercise goes, I am a server so I am active throughout several hours of the day. However, I do want to add 20 minutes of exercise at the least! I have always slacked on the exercising part.3
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littleflutterby wrote: »I am so so psyched for this challenge! Physically, I am achy and miserable ( a long few days) but i really really want to get off to a good start!
I'm doing the ultimate accountability challenge too, so i'm happy that's a mini challenge here! It's a MVP tough love challenge, that's for sure!
I have a lot to lose, so % loss is tough, but I'm determined and going to give it everything I have! (in a healthy way)
@littleflutterby. I use the same post for UAC as here daily. Keeps me on track.
I use it because it works. Each day is a new day. You just aim to do a little each day and let the weight take care of itself.
Actually % loss means TBL is as tough for someone at 300 lbs as 150 lbs. As you get lower it becomes incrementally harder to lose.
Best advise is to focus on the process rather than the weight. Get the process right and the weight follows.
There is no one right process. You need to find what works for you. Review your tracking and results to see what has the best impact for you. Reviewing tracking can also help you find where "hidden" calories are, or which foods are naturally calorie dense (and which are filling and calorie sparse).
For me it's no snacks, low carb, moderate fat, high protein. For my wife (currently type 2 diabetic, but insulin requirement now dropping ) it is high fat, moderate protein, low carb. I also found, by experimentation, that I have a minor sensitivity to gluten, so my diet is largely gluten free (which also keeps it low carb).
Fats, Protein and Fibre trigger satiety (the feeling of being full). If you stay away from processed food (sugar, juice, flour, milled or husked grains, etc...), you will feel full on less food. Soups make you feel full for longer (as they are processed out of the system slower). If you get the macro balance right, then you can eat a calorie deficit and not feel hungry.
Drink plenty of water and get lots of sleep. A lot of times thirst is confused for hunger. If hungry and not a meal time, drink a glass of water and do something else for 20 minutes (set a timer if you need to - take you mind off the hunger). If still hungry 20 minutes later, then eat something which is both enjoyable, filling and ideally, calorie sparse. The idea here is to have food you enjoy that can still keep you inside your daily budget. If you can avoid "snacking" you can have larger, more enjoyable and more fulfilling meals (and less chances to over-eat).
Lastly, do not get hung up on exercise. Weight/health management is 90+% based on what you eat. (You cannot consistently out-exercise a bad diet). When carrying excess weight, activity is difficult. As you carry less, activity gets a lot easier.
Best of luck for this month.
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Aug 29
Exercise: Yes
Calories: No, over about 200
Tracked: Yes
Calories are probably over, but I'm counting yesterday as mostly a win. Long commute day with a boxed working lunch and overnight at hotel. The lunch was terrible -- a sandwich, plus a bag of chips and a bag of cookies. No wonder obesity is such a problem for society, if this boxed lunch was a caterer's expectation of what would be desirable.
I had packed food for breakfast and snack but didn't have a chance to eat it so I was ravenous for lunch. I ate the sandwich, looked at the bags of chips and cookies, and stood up and walked them out of the room and threw away the rest of my box. After later meetings, I went to my hotel, finally ate the food I had packed for myself, then walked and jogged on the treadmill.
Dinner is what threw me over for calories for the day, assuming my estimates are about right. Given long walks between train stations and meetings, plus the treadmill, I might have had enough activity to offset the bad meal, but I don't "eat back" exercise calories generally.
New day, fresh start, just finished exercising for the day, now to get ready and off to meetings!
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@littleflutterby. Got me thinking.
Commonly Touted Myths:- You need 5 serves of carbs a day
- Breakfast is the most important meal of the day
- Eating more often makes you lose weight
- Fats make you fat
- Artificial sweetners are bad for you
- You must finish everything on your plate
You need 5 serves of carbs a day
There is no such thing as an essential carbohydrate. There are essentials, fats, amino acids, vitamins and minerals; but not carbohydrates.
This myth was propagated by the FDA, largely funding and supporting the grain growers of the US. (remember the "Food Pyramind" - I call the "Fat Pyramid" - as if followed will almost certainly make you overweight) Grain, when processed, produces long shelf life, low cost, calorie dense food. Great for feeding a population on a budget with little wastage during hard times. Bad for the health of that population if made the primary food source.
The snacking and 5 meals a day is a modern westernised society trait, which seems to be hand in hand with the average populous being overweight. Every society processed grain based foods have been introduced has slowly had it's average BMI increase (weight/height ratio).
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day
Great if you are company that produces breakfast foods, but there is little scientific evidence that backs up this claim.
Experiment and see if breakfast is for you. For many it is not required (or desirable). In many cultures, breakfast is not eaten, or is more health meal than a carbohydrate rich feast.
Eating more often makes you lose weight
Another claim that has very little scientific backing.
The TEE (Thermal Eating Effect) is so small that it is hard to quantify. Weigh this up against the number of chances you make to over-eat and you are in dangerous waters.
TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) vs Calories Consumed seems to be the MOST reliable indicator of weight change. (aka. calories in vs calories out). The hard bit is working out TDEE and Calories consumed as these are estimates. A close enough estimate on Calories Consumed can be achieved by weighing portions and tracking. If a close enough Calories Consumed can be found then a relative TDEE can be computed with about 3 weeks tracking data including weights. These will always be estimates, so to ensure weight loss ensure the balance is WELL in your favour (200+ calories per day).
Fats make you fat
Fats are processed by the body as glycerides (HDL, LDL and tri-glycerides), not fat. To make a fat, your body needs to use insulin to combine glucose (sugar) that is not able to be absorbed by the cells for immediate use as energy.
So in reality, its the excess sugars that cannot be used immediately, or stored in the liver's glycogen stores, that make you fat (not fats).
Only really bad eating fats are trans fats (hydrolised oils - fired oil). The body does not know how to adequately work with these and their side-effect is to make shut down the LDL regulation system (LDL is the bad cholesterol). Mono-, Poly-, saturated- unsaturated-, etc.. all these fats the body knows how to process for energy.
Artificial sweetners are bad for you
The toxic level of most artificial sweetners is so astronomically high that you would never consume them in a quantity that is damaging.
That said, artificial sweetners do maintain the body's insensitivity to sweet foods. If you consume no sugar, artificial sweetner or sweet foods for about a month, your sweet taste sensitivity returns. Some foods start to taste TOO sweet. With sweet sensitivity re-established you start to get a feel for foods that are hiding calories (also any bitter after-tatse from an artificial sweetner becomes very obvious).
If you can stand to go through sugar/sweetness withdrawl for a month, it is WELL worth the effort.
You must finish everything on your plate
This is a fall back to hard times (like war time) where food was not plenty and the next meal was not assured. Parents used to insist that children finish everything on their plate to ensure that they had enough to grow (even if it meant doing without themself).
In our current times of plenty. Always finishing what is on your plate has 2 issues:
- 1 - The person serving has no idea of how much YOU should really be eating.
- 2 - It encourages eating when already full.
Kids, left on their own, rarely over-eat. If eating non-processed food, they have a great capacity to know when enough is enough. As we grow older, this "innate" ability gets suppressed by our "maturity" to the point where we eat by habit, not by need or feel.
As such MFP and other tracking systems can re-teach us when "enough" really is "enough".
There are probably a number of others I have missed along the way, but these are the few that came to mind when I was prompted into thinking by @littleflutterby.
Hope this helps people.
Happy also to be corrected on any point by anyone who has information of evidence to the contrary. One last thing I have learned is that no matter how much I learn, there is always more to learn.
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August 30
Exercised?: Yes. 20+ minutes of bodyweight exercises.
Calories?: Yes
Tracked?: Yes
Worked from home again today. Still a bit off. Cold weather, so did bodyweight instead of walking.
On a day when I do not walk and I elect to do bodyweight exercises, I do not post until I have done them so I am sure I do not "blow them off".
(I am cross posting my daily status post here as well as in August, so others can see what I do - Although a coach and not a competitor, I continue the same routine in maintenance I was using while losing weight - Just my calorie allowance is a little larger so I maintain weight instead of lose it).
Daily Strength challenge
Challenge for August 30 is side planks. ()
2 sets- First set 15s, 30s each side, wait 2 mins
- Second set 15s, 30s each side.
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Totally agree with you on the myths @craigo3154
Practicing IF is what works best for me. And what helped me lose my first 50 lb. People always told me how I need to eat more often, that I have to eat breakfast, that I shouldn't eat so late at night. Blah blah blah. And what is crazy that even after losing 50 lb, they insisted that I was still doing it the wrong way, and that they were right. But hey, my body, my life, my weight loss! Do what works best for you!4 -
Hi all, I am a 58 year old woman living in Queensland, Australia. I've gained back all the weight I had lost after a shoulder fracture last October. Stopped exercising and dieting. I need to get motivated and get the weight off again.4
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i heard a lot of those myths before... I like to focus more on the lean proteins and carbs side of things, but the difference between this time and the last time I lost weight, I'm adding a few fats to my diet- avocado being one of them. I add it to salads and enjoy a bit of sushi from time to time
The last 2 weeks have been great but tough! I've eaten what I wanted for 3 years.... I'm addicted to a lot of different foods so cutting out the things I am addicted to is so hard! But so far so good... a day at a time!4 -
Hi team!I’m Farah ,37 year old from Michigan.I am struggling to lose weight for the past few years.I have gained 30 pounds since I came to US 5 years ago after getting married.I have 2 small kids.When I was expecting with my first child I received an intense back pain for the first time in my life.In later years too I was getting the same pain in back off and on like a total of 3 months each year in which I was unable to take a single step.But this time in emergency MRI was carried out and it is diagnosed as a disc problem.
I remained with this challenge since November last.I had been maintaining my weight after losing 10 pounds.But have regained all just recently.
In the coming three months I will try my best to lose 15 pounds starting from the same point.
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Username:fe452436
Starting weight:202.5 lbs0 -
Wow! Thanks for using so much of your time to write this challenge and all the other tips. Means a lot to me @craigo3154 😱 And well done on your weight loss! Will be checking in and participating in the challenge everyday.
Aug 30th
Exercised? No 🤭
Tracking? Yes
Calories? Yes
I’m gonna aim on getting in 20 minutes of exercise everyday. I’ve been slacking a bit on the exercise part, but I’ve been tracking and staying within my calorie goal everyday. I’ll be writing the check-in in the evening or sometimes the day after.
I’ve also found that a low carb, high fat and moderate protein works best for me. I have diabetes t1 and PCOS. I’m using like half the insulin I used before starting this.1
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