Today I dipped my toe in the Strength training pool with a 30 min weight class. I also hit my water goal. Food wasn’t so great and I didn’t track but it was much better that it was last week.

Sylvia here in Massachusetts, 52, single, no kids, caregiver for my old dad, have been with Waistaways since Jan 2020 - did great the first year and got to my weight goal but has crept up ever since (as the cycle has gone my whole life). Family health stressors, full time office job on top of the caregiving are not helping me get back to where I want to be....considered giving May a complete miss on Waistaways- then thought well..on support, but now I'd like to just be thrown in on the regular team. Just reading thru the last of the April posts inspires me....we all have our own stressors to deal with, and we just have to plow through. I see all the new intros for May and will read tonight. Great team, great motivation (copied that motivation link https://gmb.io/motivation/ for later reading) and I know I can do this...the main thing for me is prep and pre-logging to keep me sticking to the plan (and eggs,salad and soup, ha!).
And so, please include me - my starting weight 175.1.
(5/9 high stress as, after post chemo scans, for my brother will meet with docs to see if anything can be done about his parasinal tumor)

First things first…look at those numbers!!! 😁🏡 Moving’s up side!

👋🏼 Hello! I’m Michele from Abington, PA, right outside Philadelphia. I’m 58, married with two grown kids. I have a 5 year old granddaughter that I’m lucky enough to see everyday as her teacher in PreK. I’ve been with Waistaways since 2019 and this group is the best, literally through thick and thin. Support, motivation, encouragement, hugs, and gentle kicks when you need them. ❤️ I have been dealing (or not dealing) with weight related issues most of my adult life. Being a member of this group feels good. I love me no matter what weight and know I have learned so much and created new habits for a lifetime through being part of
this group. I have never met any of these friends in real life, but consider you all some of my closest knowing so much about each others lives.

I moved to a new home Saturday. So, I may have boxes piled high in every room, but I made huge progress yesterday. Took today off from school to get a little more done. My move can be a metaphor for weight loss. What is one thing you can do today? Can’t get rid of all the boxes overnight. Need to be consistent. Get rid of the junk and focus on what you really need.

I can tell reading all the welcome posts, it’s going to be a great month!!

You bet @strong_fit_ells
Is there a specific step pledge you want to make to be included in the consistency stats?

I took a break from tracking this weekend when we were at the trailer and my weight is still down from my post-trip weight (which was a huge spike). I am still up quite a bit for the week but there is still time to make progress so I'm choosing to focus on that.

I can easily overeat in a big way so not tracking long term doesn't feel like an option for me. Back at it... only way I know how I'm doing personally.

Have a great start to the week! Keep those April week 4 steps coming

Good afternoon Waistaways 🥰
My name is Ellie, 45, married and I have 3 teenage boys. I was born in Poland but I live in the UK for the last 30 years.
My weight gain started when my son became epileptic. He suffered with horrendous seizures lasting 90 minutes. It started when he was 10 months old and finished when he was 4.5 years old, so really I'm trying to lose weight for the last 10 years 🤦🤔 I'm losing and gaining same pounds 😢

I have 2 jobs. I work in the hotel from 9am to 2.30 pm. I clean in my boys high school from 3pm until 5pm and then sometimes I work the evenings in the same hotel. From April until October I can work for up to 60 hours weeks, so a little intense. I have 2 days off so not too bad 😊

This account is my brand new one. I am with Waistaways for about 1 year. Previously I was ells_bellz. I've had a lot of problems in the past. I drunk too much alcohol because I was in so much debt 😢 since working in the hotel, I cut down my alcohol intake because there's jobs security, better pay so I could pay off half of my credit card debt.

So far I lasted in this challenge the longest 🤦🤭
I feel like my life is in really good place at the moment. My current landlady is selling the house we live in and my current boss is buying it so we can live here.
I am so blessed and grateful to him.
That must be a sign from God for me to change my life style. Between intermittent fasting and eating healthy meals I'm sure this time I'll succeed ❤️

So here it is my story. Sorry its long, and if you still reading it congratulations on lasting this long 🤪😴😂

Have a great week everyone 🤩🤗💐

Hi team!

I'm Courtney in Québec Canada, a federal public servant who, as of this morning, is no longer on strike! Picketing in the cold and rain hasn't been good for my health, and I'm definitely feeling run down as a result. Poor snacking choices and avoiding drinking water to limit the need to use porta-potties have added up over the past two weeks as well and I've moved up out of what used to be the top of my maintenance range. My real goal is to lose another 20lbs and increase my cardio level for the sports I participate in.

My biggest hurdles are portion sizes with food. If it's on my plate, I'm going to eat it.

I just had a sandwich for lunch and half way through I was satisfied and no longer hungry, but it was already in front of me, so I ate it all. It's those little things that consistently stop me from reaching my goal. Mindful eating is not one of my strengths.

I have to find a way to change that mindset because it's inevitable that I will face an injury at some point which will limit my physical activity, and I will balloon back to my top weight if I don't adjust my caloric intake accordingly. I've done it before and I see it consistently in the other women in my family.

@ashleycarole86 for the step challenge, are you supposed to try to remove the steps that you do while carrying out other exercise, or is the other exercise converted to a step' supplement' only based on the intensity?
I've never joined the step challenge as I don't trust the accuracy of my device (I get congratulatory notifications on my step climbing while driving my car on a bumpy road) but I've always been curious how I would report it properly since I don't tend to walk much unless it's while carrying rocks up and down the stairs and around our yard, or while participating in an exercise class.

PlaneMonkey wrote: »

@ashleycarole86 for the step challenge, are you supposed to try to remove the steps that you do while carrying out other exercise, or is the other exercise converted to a step' supplement' only based on the intensity?
I've never joined the step challenge as I don't trust the accuracy of my device (I get congratulatory notifications on my step climbing while driving my car on a bumpy road) but I've always been curious how I would report it properly since I don't tend to walk much unless it's while carrying rocks up and down the stairs and around our yard, or while participating in an exercise class.

First of all, glad the strike is over. Hopefully you and your fellow union members feel satisfied with the deal.

I'd say the biggest thing for me is to ensure that you're not double counting without making it too onerous so that it's still fun to participate. So for example, if someone walks, that's already included in the steps, so there is nothing more for those minutes. However, if you jog, as that is steps but at a higher intensity, there is a supplement added for those minutes. Same with Liselyn's snowshoeing... it was basically a supplemental add on I was putting on intensity minutes since the movement itself was already counted in the steps.

For activities that don't register as steps on your watch (or shouldn't), it's got to be individual discretion. For example, when I ride on my bike, I wear my watch, but it doesn't count steps while I'm moving on it, so there's no risk of double count and I get full biking minutes for that. If I rode a horse and it gave me steps cause it thought the bouncing was walking, then I'd remove those steps or leave them but wouldn't count the minutes (or something to that effect). If I were to get on an elliptical and I thought it would count as steps, I might take my watch off so it didn't double count (or just leave it as steps and forget my supplement).

I am lucky that most of my activities don't register as steps if I'm counting the activity minutes and I don't seem to have issues with phantom steps recording when I'm not walking. At the end of the day, I want it to be set up for you in a way that motivates, while staying as accurate as possible for the team stats.

It's also okay to just track non-steps if you'd rather - it would be under-reported overall but if that pushed you to exercise more in different ways, go for more walks, etc. then I think that's the important thing.

Got it @project_shan and @strong_fit_ells .. welcome aboard and happy stepping!

I had a big step day today (over 13K already) and I still hope to get on the bike.. I do love really active days like this

And wow @micki48 you must be exhausted.. wonderful result with those steps doing all that moving!

hey everyone, happy monday! I hope everyone was able to find something great in their day today.

I love mondays and always feel the most motivated on them. sooo, my day started off great despite waking up an hour late. I managed to make time for my devotionals and prayer before working a 10hr shift, and somewhere along the day decided to try walking 3mi after work. made it to 3.07mi in 59 min, at an average pace of 19’19”. I tried throwing a little jog in there but running/jogging feels weird for my body to do lol. does anyone have any tips/suggestions on how to actually get your body going? 😂

also, I logged in my meals for today and I actually kinda like it bc it’s forcing me to be aware of what I’m eating and makes me want to be more mindful of what I’m putting in my body. oh and I bought a new book today, I’ll start again Monday by Lisa TerKeurst, and it’s such a great read so far. has anyone else read it?

@ashleycarole86 can you please add me to the steps challenge as well for a goal of 10k?

PW 170
CW 167.5

Hi all I"m Joann. I"m a 42 year old RN working full time in as a public health nurse. I'm married with a 8 year old daughter and 11 month old German Shepard dog. I'm also taking a masters level course about to complete a Masters Certificate by the end of June. I've always been active but have always had binge eating episodes that sabotage my progress and want to get more habits down that addresses the perfection idea of what my diet should be.

@eggfreak I'm rooting for you. you can't keep all your balls up in the air but maybe maintenance and just treading water is success too.

@strong_fit_ells nice to see you are making some positive changes for yourself.

Feel like my weight is still all over the place but I'm happy with my excersize and keeping with my habits. Go Oilers Go