Oh, and every day, they scatter 7 "rainbow balls" across the island. Find all seven, and a rainbow puts itself in the sky until the next day. I have 6 out of 7 so far today, and am hoping that when I go back in later this afternoon, I still only have one more to find.

I found the last piece of the rainbow ... and between my 3 sessions, I clocked an unbelievable 9.4 miles and burned over 900 calories. (VERY A-typical ... not enough hours in the day for this much game-time on a work-day) I still want to get enough time in to cover 15 miles by the end of the week. If that turns out to be easily do-able, I will aim for 20 miles next week.

Happy birthday, vasogoma!

Yesterday, I made another rainbow - launched an airship (zeplin-type floating airship) - and completed 5 Zodiac Constellations (how fitting that #2 happened to be Capricorn, my DH's Sign)

All this in three combined sessions that totalled OVER 7 HOURS!! (and that's on a work-day! :huh: ) and over 722 calories burned.

Between Boot Camp class, and some other family chores tonight, I anticipate a "mere" 2 hrs or so before supper and that will be it for tonight ..... or will it? (cue sinister music)

BeeJ- you're a freaking work out rock star!

:blushing: It's not so much that I am a "work rock star" as "I have a new toy" plus "I need to get a life" :laugh: Spending that long walking in place in front of the tv for days on end is almost pathetic from a different point of view

But thanks for the complement!

Vale Happy Birthday! I hope you had a great day!
Lisa Great job with the running. I often find music motivates me as well during a workout
BeeJ great job with the rainbows. Is this on wii fit as well? At least you are moving...inside or out your doing great with your activity. Keep it up!
Suzie I hope you had a great 4th visiting your family!

Happy belated 4th to my fellow American Hufflepuffs. Lazy day at the pool and made homemade pesto (is there anything better than basil pesto, fresh tomato and mozzeralla cheese sandwiches?) As far as the challenges go for the week...I do a modified squat with a balance ball (shaped like a log) behind my back every other day, and with the sugar challenge...I am a complete failure due to the fruit I eat. I think I have done a decent job this week of keeping the junk sugar within my macro limit which for me is a step in the right direction
Happy Friday to all!

I have been unable to find the Owl and Newt challenges for the week, so haven't been able to do them 8 ( --I haven't looked in the last couple of days, so it's a wash for this week I think. Next week I am on vacation, so will get back to O's and N's when I get back.

BeeJ great job with the rainbows. Is this on wii fit as well? At least you are moving...inside or out your doing great with your activity. Keep it up!

The rainbows etc are courtesy of Wii Walk It Out game (also available for Playstation, apparently) Here are my "news feed" descriptions on what rainbow making and constellation making are all about:

An explanation about why I keep saying "I'll make you a rainbow" (for those who have not heard about it via various Groups I am in .... I got the Wii Walk It Out game just last week.

Part of the built-in "hook" to keep you coming back is ... every day they scatter 7 coloured balls across the virtual island. When you have "collected" all of them, a rainbow appears in the sky, and stays there until midnight (real time). The next day, you have to "make a rainbow" all over again. One of my private goals is to "make a rainbow" every day for the entire month of July. It only took me about 25-35 minutes yesterday .... then I kept on walking for a grand total of the equivalent of 5 miles.

About "Zodiac" and "constellation" references - a major part of the way Walk It Out works is - you don't just "tour around" (as in Wii Fit Plus Free Wheeling biking for example). You literally affect you environment by "unlocking" trees, fountains, apartment buildings etc.

One long-term "hook" is - they scatter blue balls with a star in the middle (numbers of ball and positions keep changing hour by hour through the day) - each ball is "part of a zodiac constellation" The total # balls needed for any given constellation is probably equivalent to the number of stars that form it (some need more, some need less). As you collect the last piece needed, the constellation appears permanently in the night sky.

Another "hook"is, you don't get to access all 120 songs right off the bat - you have to "collect" record fragments as you are walking around, and your song collection gradually increases – once you reach a critical mass, it becomes worthwhile to considering selecting a sub-set (many to choose from, like “just Girl Singers” or “just techno-club” or “Kiddie Collection” for the junior crowd) Until then, it is better to select “All Songs” so that you have more than 2-3 tunes cycling through.

I know I won't be keeping the same # hours per day after the first week (this isn't exactly high-intensity aerobics - but it wasn't designed to be, either :laugh: ) BUT ..... SO far .... I have traveled more than 25 virtual miles just since Monday. And that doesn't count my marathon 9 miles plus on last Sunday :noway:

:laugh: You can see know why I can say of myself : "Girl, you need to get a LIFE!"

Hey, tofit! You changed your picture! and did your ticker always have an archer, or did it just not register before?

You are looking GREAT!

Might have to change it again because I'm not doing archery much either...

Leave it! Your "fitness aims are right on target" :laugh: (metaphors don't HAVE to realistically reflect current action )

We are leaving in about 1/2 hour for our vacation and I realized I had not logged on yet this morning. Hope everyone has a great week. I will not be able to post anything, but will be able to log on with my phone daily. I will be back on Thursday. Till then, stay cool and well hydrated. Ciao!

5.5 miles walked / 531 calories burned - a rainbow and the last of the constellations made. I totaled it up, and I have walked almost 35 MILES (in front of the tv) this week.

WHAT WHAT!? That's so super. Keep it up!

Suzie, enjoy your vaca.

In Lisa news, I'm so excited to be leaving for MY vacation in 10 days. We're going to North Carolina. I can not even tell you how excited I am. I LOVE the mountains. I plan on doing AT least a trail a day. Hopefully I can handle having a toddler strapped to me for hours at a time or find some stroller friendly trails. She has extreme separation anxiety with me, so leaving her at the cabin isn't really an option.
Oh, and guys... guys.... I jogged 2/3 of my route yesterday. Totaling an entire mile. I think that brings my total mileage this week up to 10.

Have a relaxing Sunday!

BeeJ some amazing walking! keep it up!

Lisa--Where are you headed, as there are lots of mountains in NC? Anywhere you end up at will a great vacation (and hopefully they will have cooled off by the time you get there). One of the many things I like about living where I live...great beaches 3 hours away and great mountains 3 hours away. Congrats on the run! You are doing great with that!

Off from today sticking to the indoors (except for pool time) as we are having another "feels like 110" day. looks like relief to the heat is in sight later this week. On a bright note, I picked some peppers and dug up some onions from the garden this weekend...now tomatoes ripen

Have a great Monday everyone!

I wound up with a total of 45.8 miles walked. I have pledged to give my feet a break - and to not cover NEARLY so many miles, unless some of it is on my bike :bigsmile: But I had started a second "account"on WIO, and can now make 2 rainbows a day. I also used more challenging settings, so it will take me longer to finish everything this time.

Hi everyone! *wave*
I'm Christine and I'd like to be sorted into Hufflepuff.
How do I join the Inter-House Challenge / is there any rules I should know of?

Welcome Christine. I am Karen and currently serving as a deputy head of house. Below is the link to the spreadsheet

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArisWe6qmbHrdFVoLWtFem12THRkSDk2UU95dWpPM1E#gid=0

You can enter your name at the bottom of the names on the spreadsheet and fill in as much as you can

housepoints=activity points and it is 1 to 1
NEWTS food challenge
OWL exercise challenge

The owl and newt challenge are on page 4 of the great hall

The challenge weeks run Sun to Sat and you can weigh in from Sat to Mon

If you have any questions please feel free to ask!

Awesome, so I can join in on week 1 and count the exercise I've done on sunday/monday/tuesday already?
Also, how do I log OWLs and NEWTs? Is it by amount (like, 10 push ups = 10 NEWT points?)
Thank you!

So sorry for my absence, it's late here so I will make a proper post tomorrow!

Week 1 - Gryffindor
Food - Stay under your sugar macro goal for the day.
Exercise - Squats! For every day that you complete at least 20 squats, you'll earn your challenge for the day! If you complete at least 150 during the week, give yourself one extra OWL at the end of the week!

Week 2 - Hufflepuff
Food - Monitor your sodium levels! Each participant should have the sodium column in their diary and for every day they are 'under' the sodium 'goal', they should award themselves. For every day that the individual is under their sodium goal, they should award themselves 5 NEWTs (or OWLs, depending on the house's usual tracking system). As well as that, for every glass of water an individual has they should award themselves 1 NEWT/OWL, so 1 NEWT/OWL per glass.
Exercise - This week's exercise is crunches! For every set of 10 crunches an individual completes, they should award themselves 5 OWLs. A bonus 5 OWLs can be awarded for 60 minutes of exercise completed, and that can be any form exercise.

Week 3 - Ravenclaw
Food - Eat at least four servings of vegetables during the day.
Exercise - Aim for 50 jumping jacks per day! You can split them up throughout the day or you can complete them all at once.

Week 4 - Slytherin
TBD

Hi everyone! So sorry I haven't been posting a lot recently, working two jobs and 6 days a week is exhausting.

Just to clarify that for this weeks challenge, our food is being recorded in NEWTs and our exercise in OWLs. I wrote NEWTs/OWLs in my message to Kelly (which Karen posted here for all to see, thanks Karen btw!) as I wasn't sure if the other houses worked in the same way to us here in Hufflepuff.

I am now working two jobs and have been for about 5 weeks now. Recently I have been working almost every day (usually 6 days a week though occasionally 5 which is a lot better!) and so I'm just really tired a lot of the time as my hours a long with a late finish and an early start. Both of my jobs are in national retail stores which are having big sales at the moment which is one reason for the long hours, but it is okay and I am quite enjoying it all now, as I wasn't enjoying my new, second job a few weeks ago.

However I had today off of work and I have Monday off too as it is my best friends birthday! Well her birthday is on Monday but today we went to London for the day (we live an hour from London if you didn't know) and we're taking her out for lunch on Monday.

Christine, welcome to Hufflepuff! I'm Molly and I'm the head of house here. I'm trying to add you to the spreadsheet but it is proving to be a little problematic at the moment as the formula's do not recognise your inputted data, so please bear with me