Motivation

Welcome

(Sorry we're closed to new members until the group is less than 30 members)

Welcome to the Wagon Jumpers weekly thread. We are a group of CC members who have identified that one of our main challenges with achieving our weight loss, maintenance or general health goals is consistency. 

This thread is designed to encourage long term commitment to our goals by publicly declaring them and asking the other members of this thread to hold us accountable.

Each member on this thread (listed below) has agreed to check into the thread at least once per week. If any member does not check in by the end of the week, we ask all members to politely and positively PM that member and encourage them to make a post and stay on track (or get back on track).

If you would like to be a member of this thread please see the guidelines below and send me a PM if you are still interested (there may be a waiting list). 

Why is the participation capped?

The original idea of Wagon Jumpers was to create a close community where participants could get to know each other and hopefully form virtual-life and perhaps even physical-life bonds to create a support network as they attempted long term weight loss. 

Over the first few weeks we experimented with an "open to all" concept and found that the thread became too long and confusing and as a result no one got to know each other and it became too much work for many members. 

With a mid sized group (30) I am hoping to maintain the community and supportive goals of the original thread, and have enough people that if we are not all daily posters (as the only requirement is a weekly post) that the thread is still motivational and has new content day to day. 

Interested in Joining?

General Guidelines for Joining

1. Are you a wagon jumper?

Do you know how to loose weight, you often have success but then you find yourself loosing interest in your plan, or sabotaging your plan. It's not the "how" to loose weight that is the problem, it's the "how" to stay motivated. 

2. Do you have a long way to go?

This group is designed so that members can get to know each other and support each other. Ideally you are planning to be a CC member and part of this forum for at least 6 months or more to achieve your goals and hopefully stay in motivation for a further 6 months or more.

Yes. This is, a long term plan. 

Still interested? Send Supersized a PM. 

 Wagon Jumpers Participants

Week 11 Riders:

Supersized (myself)

Jane3001

JCR

Karenie  - Bad weather may not be able to post

Kaydeefalls  - Traveling to July 25th, 2008

Vicki8seekers

FantasyFlight

Got2getthin 

Week 10 Riders:

Defrog3

Week 9 Riders:

Hopeful31

Thin27

Healthfirst - Traveling to July 23rd, 2008

Week 8 Riders - Congratulations on 2 Months!:

Igrratu

Rwbsmom - traveling to August 16, 2008

Writestuff 

Peera 

Ld1984 - Traveling to August 1, 2008

Week 7 Riders:

Wenchi58

Msmeg1984

The_Vitamin_Dominatrix

Week 6 Riders:

Hurley_Mom 

Ciosa1020

Week 5 Riders:

Marlasinger

Ka2007

Tiegurl

Week 4 Riders - Congratulations on one Month!:

M_saluone

Inshapemommy

Raven21

Jilly_Bean

KittyKat596

Week 2 Riders:

SkinnybyJune9th

Unlimitedana - Traveling to August 15, 2008

momof2funykids

Missing In Action

Shannyshan

Missing In Action - 1 Week:

Jopi

Lilley1199

Justjess_1

Missing In Action - 2 Weeks:

Kreitter

Platypipearson

 

Current Membership: 39

Current Waiting List: 3

 

Previous Threads:

Wagon Jumpers July 6 - July 21st, 2008 (another, two week special!)

Wagon Jumpers June 22 - July 5th, 2008 (two week special!)

Wagon Jumpers June 15-21, 2008

Wagon Jumpers June 8-14, 2008

Wagon Jumpers June 1 -7, 2008

Wagon Jumpers May 25 - 31, 2008

Wagon Jumpers May 18 - 24, 2008

Wagon Jumpers May 11-17, 2008

Wagon Jumpers Week 1 (May 4 - 10)

Wagon Jumpers - Anyone Need a Lift? (initial thread)

As always all members are encouraged to tag this thread so that it is easy to find. 

 

THIS WEEK'S TOPIC

A lot of us are now hitting our stride, but we all have our little foibles. Maybe it's getting enough water, exercising, staying away from the candy bowl at work... 

What area of your plan do you most need to improve to meet your goals? How are you going to do it?

hello.

i do need to improve regarding meal planning.

i tend to stock up on cheese and other healthy, but calorie dense things - have a plan how i will spread the lot -then end up eating it in one or two sittings.

my plan is to buy less of these food, so they are not available when i crave something. and to plan my meals in more detail.

till now, i have improved in most of the "binge-prone" areas. i no longer cook parta for example, when i feel like having it-the weakness are the things that are ready to eat

I need to make more of a concerted effort to eat conciously when I'm eating socially.  I just love to eat, and when I'm with people that I love (out to dinner, parties, etc.), I love to eat more.  Perhaps its a bit of a comfort thing??  Hrm, will need to analyze that a bit this week...

In any case, I eat.  A Lot.  And I like it.  I just have to be more careful that I burn off what I take in.  (I biked off 900 calories this morning, even in the deadly heat, because we're hosting a BBQ this afternoon.  DH is making smoked pork tenderloin and ribs.  Mmmmmm...)

Whenever I eat off my plan, I "forget" to write down the calories. I convince myself that I'll start again fresh the next day writing them down. Then a couple days later, I have a relapse and "forget" again for the rest of that day, promising to log again the next day.

The result is a very inaccurate account of what I've eaten and the implied rationalization that it's fine to mess up, forget it, and start again. It seems that I'm only willing to log calories when I'm following my plan perfectly.

So, starting NOW, I will log every bite for the next week. If I don't know the exact calories, I'll estimate as carefully as possible. Nothing will be omitted. Maybe if I see the truth in round numbers in front of me it will help.

Thanks, supersized, for the thought-provoking question. Best of luck to everyone fighting their obstacles to reaching their goals!

I need to work on spreading my meals and snacks out to have 3 little meals and 2 or 3 snacks, since my blood sugar tends to be a little high.  I also need to plan what I'm going to eat for snacks (about 100-150 cals each) a little better.  For some reason, I seem to buy food around "meals" and forget to get "extras" to keep me from getting hungry.  Then, I either tend to skip the snack (and get extra hungry by the next meal time, which isn't good) or eat another "meal-sized" amount (300-450 cals, rather than 100-200).

Does anyone have any good, easy to prep snack suggestions that don't involve peanuts or bananas?  I'd love it if they had extra fiber or protein.  :D

Original Post by writestuff:

Does anyone have any good, easy to prep snack suggestions that don't involve peanuts or bananas?  I'd love it if they had extra fiber or protein.  :D

Hi, Write!

1 cup plain lowfat yogurt

1/2 cup any fruit you like (I prefer blueberries or a pit fruit {peach, nectarine})

2 tbsp wheat germ

1 tbps agave nectar

 

A yummy yogurt parfait!!  Breakfast, lunch, snack, anytime!!

 

:)

defrog3, that sounds good.  I don't have any agave nectar, but I do have everything else.  What's the nectar like, a syrup?? I wonder if I could substitue a little honey or some pineapple w/juice or minced dates or something . . . I decided this week to get the plain yogurt (not vanilla or "flavored") so that I could determine exactly what tastes I wanted it to have.  I got fresh blueberries, pineapple, apples, strawberries, and peaches, and I have dried dates and apricots, so my options are open!  Thanks!

Do you have any more ideas?  :Db

What a great question, Supersized...

I'm doing great staying to my goal calorie in take daily but I'm getting a little board with the foods I am eating.  Maybe I'll venture over to the food forum and see what everyone is eating.

Also, my motivation to exercise is lacking.  Don't really know what to do about that.  Guess I've figured that I've got so much to loose that I have time later... kwim?  Since I've been constantly loosing, it seems ok but I know I'd feel and look better if I got to it.  I've done a couple of exercise videos, I could do those in the afternoons.

Thanks everyone, looking forward to reading your replys.

Ka2007 I don't know how close you are to a grocery. I live in Toronto so there are two major groceries within 2 blocks and several small ones, I shop daily (because it's not an inconvenience) which helps with the not having extra food around to tempt me. 

Defrog3 That's also a hard one for me. I have great control at home, but not only do I tend to eat more socially, but I also tend to drastically underestimate how much I have eaten when I am out with friends. I'm really not sure what to do about this, thinking on that one. Suggestions appreciated.

JCR Yeah, that one is one you need to get control of to have success in other areas. I don't know if you are averaging your calories across a week. I found that really helped me. It forced me to log every day, every thing and if I went over one day it was easier to forgive myself because the rest of the week, if done well, could smooth it out. If that bad day was early in the week it would also give me the motivation to make the rest of the week good to bring the average number down.

Writestuff Guilty again on that one myself. I tend to skip meals, skip snacks and then end up having a huge dinner. Sorry I can't be of more use on the suggestions for that one but I'll keep my eyes open or perhaps we should both head over to the food forum and take a peak.

Inshapemommy Ah, the dreaded food rut. I ended up picking up a cookbook and I'm working my way through the book. This was fairly easy for me since I'm vegan so a vegan cookbook gives me a fairly wide variety of styles and different tastes of foods most of which are fairly low cal. Checking out the food forum is a good idea, and if you find a good cookbook (good = almost all recipes you think you would try, that don't look high cal & are easy enough to make that you would actually make them) that did help me a lot. 

Weekly Check-In

I didn't do very well last week, and I really have no reason for it. I missed my goal of averaging 1700 cal/day by about 35 calories. So I'm trying for that again, I also didn't make my exercise goal of 4 days per week, mainly due to sleeping in. Bad me! I need to be careful that this is not a self sabotage as I am so close to completing phase I of my plan. Really only 2 more weeks to go, as I just have to get a week at 1700 cal and a week at 1600 cal and then I am onto phase II of trying for 12 weeks at 1500 cal with the exercise. This is NOT a time to fall off the wagon.

I got up late today (I never get up early on Monday's) and my friend has cancelled our tennis game (she's stick) so I'm planning to go to the gym instead of tennis this afternoon and hope, that like tennis last week, that it will give me the energy needed to get up early tomorrow morning. 

I'm doing a bit better on my life balance goals having most above 50%, obviously the health goals not doing so well last week missing both the calorie and the exercise goal. I also need to pay more attention to my career goals. 

This week's topic

I've got quite a few foibles, most of which will be worked into later phases of my plan. I don't drink enough water, I skip breakfast, often lunch and sometimes don't eat a single thing until dinner, I know I eat too much sodium, don't often balance my diet well, flake out on the exercise, and drift off into other goals.

The main one I need to focus on this week is getting my exercise back. I'm so close to completing my calorie goal for this phase that I can't let the exercise slip now. The plan is to try to get some exercise in on Monday's to either get one of the four days of exercise out of the way earlier in the week, or to motivate me to get to the gym the rest of the week. I find the first day is the hardest for me, so if I can get it going I know I can do it. 

Agave nectar is low on the glycemic index, and I use it as a substitute for honey.  It has a slightly different flavor, but it is deliciously sweet and has the vicosity and color of maple syrup. 

I love your idea of minced dates, though.  YUM!!

This isn't the healthiest snack in the world, but I found these chips at Costco and they are wonderfully delicous and are rated as a B nutrition grade by CC:  "foodshouldtastegood, Multigrain chips"

http://www.foodshouldtastegood.com

Add some hummous, and I'm a very happy camper!  Actually, hummous with anything is quite delicious...

I'm here, had a family emergency...and though it might be tough for some to understand, family comes before the internet! 

I just finished a 12 week tracking program of weight and measurements and I was happily impressed with the results.

12 weeks

Weight down 13 lbs, body fat down 5.6%, lost 12.5 inches overall!!  Wooohooo.

I've been trying not to beat myself up over exercise.  I dont do rigorous, maybe in my 20's or 30's..possibly even my 40's, but I gotta fess up, I am NOT getting younger.  I figure if I can take walks and keep eating well like I have been, the changes will take place.  Slow and steady wins the race, or so they say.  :) 

Hope all of you are doing well!!

defrog3 Very cool link! I'm also a big hummous fan. 

Wenchie58 Sorry you had a family emergency, I think everyone understands that they (and friend and work emergencies) are part of life and will happen for all of us some times. I don't think anyone will haven any trouble understanding being away from the group for that reason, however I do want everyone to continue to reach out to people who are missing, because I think that is the most valuable feature of that group, that hand out saying "come back" "you can do it" when people (in most cases who are missing) have fallen off the wagon and are having a hard time. I really think that makes all the difference (at least for me). 

Congratulations on staying on the wagon through your very busy time and 13 lbs down must feel VERY great!

hey all

i feel like over the last few weeks i've taken a gigantic break from the weight loss...  not good.  i really haven't gained, but i haven't lost any more.  i have lost about 20 pounds over the last 5 months, which is AWESOME, but i feel like it really could have been double that if i were really working on it all the time....

 

so.  goal is to really get back on the wagon this week... in about a week and a half i will be on vacation, and i really want to be good until then.  then after the vacation, i will need to set my next mini-goal from the current weight then. 

sigh... gotta remember....long term... and every day DOES count....

defrog3, I love hummus!  I have some really good papadam chips that I've been eating with a sort of homemade chutney/ff plain yogurt dip, and I could use them with hummus, too.  Good idea!  I usually make sandwiches with it, but I could just scoop it with a few of these chips or carrots and cukes and be very happy with that.

supersized, I have an idea for us "meal skippers" . . . . if you're game . . . I'm going to try to make my own 100-200 calorie "Lara" and "Clif" bars from scratch to keep in the fridge to grab when I don't feel like making something elaborate and/or I need a snack to go.  I got some good recipes from this site and another one, and I'll let you know how they work.  If they're good, maybe they'd be a nice change for a snack a day!  There are several flavors, and all they use are minced fruits and nuts, coconut, oats, vanilla, spices (cinnamon and/or nutmeg and/or ginger, depending), and some kind of seeds (sesame, sunflower, pumpkin, etc.).  Sooooo, no preservatives or "bad stuff," and all the sugars and fats are "healthy."  :D

Yea for the hummus lovers!  I should note that I've tried almost all of the chip styles that foodshouldtastegood makes, and that the Multigrain is by far the tastiest (IMHO).  Then I'd go with the Olive, then the Works, Jalepeno, and Chocolate.  I've not tried the Sweet Potato nor the Buffalo...

Oh, Write, have you seen the mini Luna bars?  I think I got a box at Target (?)--they are only 80 calores each, about 1/3 of the size of a regular Luna bar, but still tasty and perfectly snack sized!

Speaking of Luna bars, how do I get my husband to stop eating them all on me??  I've tried asking him not to eat them, then I've resorted to hiding them (he found them), and now I've completely given up and have to keep buying them all the time.  *sigh*  A little thing, I know, but, MEN!!

Lately i have been in a kind of funk... I took two weeks off to eat at maintenance level and i am having a terrible time getting back into diet mode...

I need to work on making a meal plan for each day and sticking to it! No extra snacks - unless i have leftover cals, and i need to tell myself that i don't have to have something sweet after dinner everyday...

I'm also having trouble getting my water consumption back up...

This is so hard! I find myself losing faith and i only have 13 lbs to go...

Original Post by defrog3:

Agave nectar is low on the glycemic index, and I use it as a substitute for honey.  It has a slightly different flavor, but it is deliciously sweet and has the vicosity and color of maple syrup. 

I love your idea of minced dates, though.  YUM!!

This isn't the healthiest snack in the world, but I found these chips at Costco and they are wonderfully delicous and are rated as a B nutrition grade by CC:  "foodshouldtastegood, Multigrain chips"

http://www.foodshouldtastegood.com

Add some hummous, and I'm a very happy camper!  Actually, hummous with anything is quite delicious...

i have bought 3 pots of houmous yesterday. managed NOt to eat all three of them (i was sort of afraid i would destroy my "good meal planning" idea but i actually had one yesterday, one today, and one tomorrow. yesterday i have had it with red peppers, and today with mixed veggies including leafy ones-i have sort of used it as a salad dressing. it was fantastic!)

I have so many areas to work on that I have to just tackle them one at a time, or it starts to feel overwhelming! I have a bad sweet tooth so I dont buy snacks if I can help it. If I have snacks sitting by my desk when I am working I will eat the whole package! I so now I take outwhat I will allow myself for the day and hide the rest in a diffrent room.

I also have to make sure I drink enough water.  I am so busy durring the day I just forget. To make sure I drink enough I try to always have a glass of water next to me when I am working, I just slowly drink water the whole time.

 

I feel like each one of you has hit on an issue that at some point or another is something I deal with, not planning my meals in advance, skipping meals and then ending up starving at dinner time, not getting enough water, etc....

What I am trying to focus most on right now is adding back weight training to my exercise program.  I've been doing pretty good as far as cardio goes, but I know that adding the weights will maximize my weight loss and tone my body.  Cardio alone will never do that for me.  I just HATE having sore muscles so I tend to keep putting the weights off for another day.  I guess no time like the present though eh?