StayFITTer wrote: »

@cinebibliophile

The prompts are super helpful (for me). And drives those who are competitive and/or desire to be a good team player. I can’t stand chatting all the time, but I will try to give you what you need (which are my points).

You are free post up your miles no later than Saturday—however the “motivation” is that you are on a team and as a team player you want to do what it takes to get your team across the finish line and not horde points that can help get them there.

You don’t have to post every day, but strategically in away that honors your personal rhythm and not hold up the team from making progress. Therefore posting by Monday/early in the week at least your exercise minutes is most helpful to the team.

In the beginning, I didn’t get it either and use to post my points on Friday all the time. That was “technically” fine and keeps you in good standing. But—the goal is to reach the goal (ie breaking the ribbon) as quick as possible and that’ll only work if everybody works.

Sorry about the other glitches you’ve experience, but congrats on completing your first 5% challenge.

When asking questions, Be sure to tag a leader (multiple if possible) anytime you have a question because if you have an active thread, things can get lost in the shuffle. I’ve even requested that they tag me in return so I don’t miss important stuff. Or better yet, message them directly—it feels really personal, connected and you’ve got a “paper trail”.

Bovinity55 wrote: »

I like doing challenges, but I really didn’t enjoy this one too much. It was a constant struggle to get my fiber count, perhaps this is because I’m close to my goal weight. I didn’t care for the way the points were accumulated. However, I really appreciate the work our leaders put in to coming up with ideas for the challenges - please understand that these are my personal thoughts, not any reflection on the our leader’s ideas.

Lynne10010 wrote: »

I'm fine with the new format. I appreciate all your work on setting up the LTGL challenges. I felt some of the new LTGL's were overly restrictive this time and a little heavy on food challenges. I prefer more of a mix of food and other challenges.

*Intentional Eating - Making a daily meal plan the night before - is very helpful. I am continuing that. However, staying exactly on your plan for the day seems unrealistic - days don't always go as planned. It would be more realistic to require that changes during the day not increase your total calories for the day.

*I see no reason to put an upper limit on Protein and Fiber, especially not such a tight limit. It really complicates planning for no good reason that I can see. I managed it five out of seven days but it was time consuming and fiddly and not something that seems of value to me.

*Having protein and fiber challenges the same week without increasing calories was very difficult for me. Mostly what is good for increasing one decreases the other. Most high protein foods are low fiber (except beans) and most high fiber foods don't have much protein (except beans.). I found it extra hard on a low carbohydrate diet since most high fiber foods have a fair amount of carbs. I did manage to do it, but had to use psyllium powder for part of the fiber. I plan to continue that habit.

*Five fruits a day - I only managed the 5 fruits a day because my team leader said it was OK to include "vegetables" that are botanically fruits. Five fruits a day is way too much sugar for my low carb diet. This LTGL was not helpful for me.

Thanks again for your leadership.

Kateljm wrote: »

Whether we land a plane or break a ribbon, it's kinda fun to have a race.

As for daily reporting... If someone puts off reporting, that person is way more likely to fail to report at all, and then drop out. Reporting takes 5 minutes if you stay up on it, including the time for the computer to boot. Posting daily means keeping the week's goals in your direct consciousness. You are more likely to do more, and then you're more likely to see positive results.

I think before that too much time was spent writing up destinations, and you OAL leaders deserve relief from that burden. However, I rather liked the idea of thinking about new places, maybe team members could be encouraged to share occasional insights or discoveries, instead of it being a "job."

As with any health idea, each individual has to determine if the suggestion actually works for them. But OAL leaders should think carefully about "bonus points"; the bonus points for fiber (as written) actually discouraged me from eating many functional foods because of the ridiculous cap. For example, had I eaten a gala apple this afternoon, I would have overshot my grace fiber range. I am used to consuming a fairly high amount of fiber. I'm sure that vegetarians are as well. Reintroducing low/no fiber foods into my diet would have been a wrong turn, for me. And, of course, many people have to severely limit their fiber for medical reasons. (I say, "It's good for you, unless, of course, it is NOT good for YOU."

I have structured my diet ("what I eat") to use a high-quality protein powder or shake to reach my protein goal, while permitting me to invest calories into healthy fats. I am a survivor of the no-fat movement of the 1990s; now I view healthy fats as necessary to keep my skin in good condition - and there's a lot of skin both inside and out.

Ronnie_happy2ranch wrote: »

Greetings and thank you to all the OAL's, leaders, and participants. I think the whole idea of these "challenges" is accountability. I use the challenges to be accountable to myself to make sure I do the things I need to do in order to lead a healthy life. We all know what we really need to do in order to be healthy, some of us need others to help us be accountable to ourselves so we don't slack off on our own. If we didn't want some type of accountability, we wouldn't be here in this group. We all know what we need to eat to be healthy; we all know we need to exercise to be healthy; and we all know we need to drink water/hydrate to keep our bodies healthy. The challenges remind us of what we may be lacking in our diets as far as fiber, protein, freggies, water or whatever the case may be. In order to accept that the challenges are holding us to our accountability means we are also accountable to our teams to at least try to win these challenges.

There was a time during the summer challenge when I was resentful of these people basically calling us out if we didn't find time in the day (most of the team seems to be on the east coast, so I'm later to post than others) to get our numbers in early enough in the day to win the "land the plane" challenge or to remember to get your weight entered by the deadline. I was like, what a nerve they've got to be so rude! I was in a slump and had other things going on in my personal life and why couldn't they just leave me alone for a bit? Sometimes I felt they were treating us like children, were being bullies, and unreasonable; and, at one point, I almost just quit and left the entire program and I didn't even "speak" to anyone on my team for a few weeks. I just put in my daily habits and did the work that was required to be on the team, but didn't "socialize" or contribute otherwise. Plus, there was the fact that my firm cut us off from social media and personal email, so I couldn't even access some sites depending on what browser I was using. And then I realized, it was kind of silly, when I think about it now, that they were doing exactly what I expected the challenge to do: make me get up and be accountable, if not to the team, then at least myself and to respect the amount of time and energy our leaders put into making this a successful way to keep ourselves healthy-which is why we're all here in the first place.

So, my point is, instead of grousing about what they leaders come up with, let's just go with the flow, do what we have to do and move on to the next challenge; maybe it will be different than the last one. Not one of them has really been the same since I started earlier in the year. I don't like all of the LTGLs or HHs, but I do them because they are helpful in one way or another to move forward.