EDIT: The "NEW" list has been moved to this post because I can no longer edit the 1st post, I will move all names up next week, please welcome our new members:

Hopeful31

Gettinghealthy123

DC_Runner81

Healthfirst

Marlasinger

Sneakafreaka

Writestuff

igrratu

rwbsmom

Thank you everyone for a great first week! We actually doubled the size of the group in the first week, AND every member checked into the thread at least once during the week (sometimes more ).

Topic for this week: What phase of Wagon Jumping are you in & why?

Have you just got back on the wagon? Have you been on for awhile and your motivation is slipping? Are you barely hanging on? Picking yourself up after having been run over by the wagon? Or climbing back on board? Can you identify why you are currently in this phase, and do you have a plan to get back on / stay on and try to break the cycle?

Okay, this is my official (at least once a week) check in. I am planning to stay active on this thread, but I'm finding I need to curb my CC addiction as I spent WAY too much time browsing forums and old posts this past week at the expense of some of my life balance goals. 

What phase of wagon jumping am I in? I think I didn't quite fall off in the past 3 weeks, but I was certainly hanging on by a little finger. About 2 weeks ago I was having trouble finding time to log my calories or get to the gym 4 times a week, both of which I had been doing consistently for the previous 8 weeks approximately. 

I'm happy that I didn't fall off completely, I started this thread, kicked my own butt and had very good success on my health goals this week. 

I met about 60% of my health goals (which is up from 30% the previous week, and 20% the week before that.... down from 71%, and 95% the weeks before that) this week. 

I am happy to say that I finally completed the week eating an average of 2071 calories / day. My goal was to eat an average of 2500 calories per day. So in this week my goal is now to eat 2400 calories per week which seems quite achievable considering that I ate under that this week. 

I am also happy to say that I did make it to the gym 4 days this week for 1.5 hour work outs (30 min elliptical, 30 min treadmill, 30 min abs). The goal for this week will be to go to the gym 4 days a week for 2 hours a day adding a 30 min weight session. This is actually my end goal for workouts, I will not increase the time I spend at the gym after this until I have complete meeting my calorie goal (1500) maintaing a consistent program for 12 weeks, and then a 12 week tracking program to monitor what my progress is. 

Nine weeks seems like a long time right now to get my calories per day under control. I have a lot of temptation to just drop my calories to 2000 per day averages since that would be the next step based on what I ate this week, but I want to keep this at a slow steady pace and I'm reminding myself of that.

I did not do so well in other areas of my life this past week, which concerns me because I'm very good at focusing entirely on one area of my life at the expense of others which then makes me jump from area to area as they go into crisis instead of managing them all rationally. So I need to spend more time this week catching up on my bookkeeping, organizing what I want to do for my career search before the rug is pulled out from under me, and catching up on the reading for my book clubs. 

Have a great week!

Cheers,

Sara.

O.k. it's time to keep me here and give me some advice! this was my first week back on. The burn meter estimates I burn 1970/day. Right now I am 5'7", 188 lbs. The website tells me to eat 1250/day to reach a 40lb weight loss goal by October or something like that. I made it my goal to eat around 1450/day - and I managed to stay within that 5 days out of this week, one day ate around 1600, one day 1900 :(.

So I know this is where things start to go downhill - in the middle of the week I was down 2 lbs., today I'm down .2. It really took some effort to hover around 1300/1400 and I feel like it gets me nowhere. I know, it's only been a week, water weight, blah blah but this is what discourages me I guess. I also went for walks this week.

Thin 27 - unfortunately the blah, blah, blah's are right. That's the main reason I'm staying well away from my scale for so very very long. It's also the reason I'm averaging my daily calories across the week so I don't beat myself up for a "bad" day. 

Mantras:

It will take time for your body to adjust to your new food choices.

It will take time to stop storing food / calories.

THere will be water weight. Sodium encourages the storing of water. Our bodies do have cycles. 

Okay so I'm not really a mantra person either, and they frustrate me when I just want to see the scale go down.

The hard part is, it does take time. 

My suggestion is to reframe your goal in terms of a time commitment to be on track. Right your goal is phrased as "I will loose X pounds by Y date" so when you don't loose pounds you get frustrated because you are frustrated that you are closer to your date goal but not closer to your weight goal which puts more pressure on you to loose more weight in less time. This is a really good way to panic and stress yourself over this whole process.

Can you set a goal of I will eat X calories / day for Y weeks, I will exercise Z amount for Y weeks. I will run a 5 K in 6 months something like that where you know you are in control of the results, and that achieving the results will have an impact on your overall healthy weight goal.

The idea here would be to untie the actual pound loss from a specific date. But to encourage the pound loss by setting goals that will help you achieve it but that you are in control of. 

This thread is a great idea! I am not really trying to "lose weight" (although that would be an awesome side effect) but I'mt rying to get healthier and have a healthier view of exercising/eatint right, etc. I will confess that I'm a compulsive overeater and have been having lots and lots of struggles with thsi lately prob due to the stress of studying in a foreign country (Thailand) and also, I just overeat constantly anyway, whether at home or abroad.

So, my goals for this site adn thread are: mindful eating, eating enough calories daily to prevent binging, stop overeating, and turn to healthier food when I feel a binge is inevitable.

Workign out is not an issue for me seeing as I am addicted to working out and tend to overdo that, as well. I'm actually proud of myself for not working out at all today - give your body a day of rest once a month or so,s ounds good to me!

So the weekend went really well - I stayed away from trigger foods and ate healthy, delicious meals everytime I was hungry - but in smaller portions. I felt comfortably full adn did not have the urge to bigne at all. Until this morning. I started eating and couldnt' stop. I've eaten cookies, chips, rice, chicken soup I amde, some pancakes I made, lots of bread, diet coke, two grilled cheese sandwiches, two bowls of cereal, a bowl of oatmeal, some jam, a mango, a pear, half an apple, tuna mixed with mustard, and prob more food I can't remember at the moment. I'm too ashamed to log my food and calculate the calories. And I'm staying away from the scale - it just makes me either give up or obsess too much.

But at least I had two good days, adn tomorrow I hope to get back "on the wagon."

One question, though: Any advice for whent he cookie/carb cravings hit? I know better than tos tart eating trigger foods, but for some reason can NEVER resist. ARHHHHH! Thanks for any advice,a dn thanks for  this forum!

Hi Guys,

Thought I would share a big dilemma I'm having: should I re-join weight watchers or not?

I don't know if I am up for that big a commitment...

Edit: We're back in MOTIVATION!

Thank you Igor, NYC Girl, and all the other moderators who got a VERY LONG e-mail from me this morning. 

I really appreciate you understanding that I was not up for the challenge of meeting the demands and expectations of running a full fledged challenge thread. Wagon Jumpers will be kept to no more than 2 threads (weekly + general discussion) going forward. 

Okay, lets try to keep this going until I get told where to go by the moderator... I don't want to loose the great ideas / questions / thoughts above.

JCR - Take it slow with getting better and don't push yourself too much. It just slows down the recovery. Good step is logging the calories, let us know how you're doing and how goes the neglected goals... I can really relate to that. Bookeeping, what bookkeeping?

Gettinghealthy123 - I'll add you to the list for our new members. Hopefully we keep going. Wow Thailand?! What are you studying there. I'm not a binger myself, I tend to fall slowly and gradually hopefully one of our other members has some suggestions on that. I'm not sure if you've checked it out but I think there is a group that talks about bingeing specifically they likely have some great ideas on that.

Tamarbee - I guess the question is if you think you need the one to one motivation enough to be committed to it, or if it would become too much work and derail you. I've been putting off anything like WW, LA Weight Loss or even a personal trainer at the gym until I know I can stick with it for 12 weeks. But then I tend to be less motivated and hide away from people when I think I've derailed rather than getting strength from them. Somehow it's easier to "confess" to an online community rather than someone I'm paying. But that's just me. 

Well isn't this just a pile of oat bran flakes! (one of my least favorite foods there).

No such thing as letting a group die. If nothing else, we could probably find another place to trade messages. I know the concept of another forum is daunting and everything, but I know of a few places around here that would probably be alot easier to deal with. I'm a geek, we have our corners of the world worth living in :)

Keep us apprised, Sara. Fight the good fight and all that jazz. I'd hate to see this stop just as soon as it started.

So far, it seems this is still working...

I am writing to them too to ensure that it continues to.

So.. week 2.. well.. for me.. I need to go back to week 1.  I jumped. Alot of OT at work and also I think I may have been cutting too many cals.. cause I got to a point where I seriously wanted to eat everything lol.. (I didnt.. only half of it LOL) Combine that with going out to take the edge of work (the natural disaster stuff is so hard...the  raw video is tough to handle) and viola.  Normally, when I got this far off track.. Id stay off track for a while.  But the email notification from our group...led me to signing on and climbing back onto the wagon.

Good job to all for making it.. and let's not let them take away our wagon!

hey guys! Glad I found you! haha

I hope everyone's been doing well! My weekend was ok....a mix of 'cheating' and 'working'! Hopefully the scale will take pity!

Edit: We're back in MOTIVATION!

Thank you Igor, NYC Girl, and all the other moderators who got a VERY LONG e-mail from me this morning. 

I really appreciate you understanding that I was not up for the challenge of meeting the demands and expectations of running a full fledged challenge thread. Wagon Jumpers will be kept to no more than 2 threads (weekly + general discussion) going forward. 

Sara-I was so disappointed to hear that they were shutting down our thread! Maybe they had a change of heart since I'm able to post to Week 2?

As to the question of the week? I can't even SEE the wagon right now!  In the last week and a half, I have somehow managed to gain 5 lbs.  I'm hoping most of which is water weight, but still.....

I've figured out I usually have one of two problems that lead me to falling off the wagon. 

1.  I'll eat well and exercise religiously for weeks on end, if not a good couple of months.  I'll stand on the scale and see no progress.  My clothes aren't any looser, I haven't lost any inches anywhere.  And to top it off I feel like I've been depriving myself of the things(translated food) I love for nothing.  So.....I throw in the towel and eat.  Nothing out of control mind you.  This week it was Chinese one night, movie theater popcorn another, and a couple of sodas.  And just like that, no wagon in sight....sigh.

2.  I'll do the above mentioned exercise/eat well routine, lose a few pounds, and for some strange reason use the weight loss and an excuse to treat myself! Pretty much defeats the purpose but I do it all the same.  How messed up is that?

Anyway, it's a new week and I'm going off searching for that blasted wagon!  I'm going to develop a new plan.  Small non food rewards for accomplishing my goals.  Also, I need to find some way to incorporate the foods I love into my diet on occasion so that I don't feel deprived and snap.  All things in moderation I suppose.....

I hope everyone else is off to a great week!

Edit: We're back in MOTIVATION!

Thank you Igor, NYC Girl, and all the other moderators who got a VERY LONG e-mail from me this morning. 

I really appreciate you understanding that I was not up for the challenge of meeting the demands and expectations of running a full fledged challenge thread. Wagon Jumpers will be kept to no more than 2 threads (weekly + general discussion) going forward. 

We're Back! We're Bold! And We're going to be MOTIVATING! (If it kills me!)

Thank you many times to the moderators who heard me out and either relented or agreed to move us back to motivation. I've organized threads on challenge forum before and I knew I couldn't handle the amount of requests that is typical of a challenge forum. 

I believe the moderators are working on a way to allow me to edit the first post in the thread so that I can add our newest members (if I haven't scared them off). If I can't add them to the fist post, I will leave the first post of this thread as the week 1 survivors and add new members to the second post which I believe I can edit. Next week we'll go back to all names in first post.

One way or another I think most of us got our posting done today. Here's to another week of success!

Cheers,

Sara.

Hi Everyone,

I will be sending out PM's to everyone to let them know the thread is back to normal, I'll have to do that tomorrow as I've used up my limit of e-mails on this system today.

Sara.

*puts down his potato gun*

WOOT! Way to go Sara, your eloquence has won us a wonderful thing! Way to go!

As far as my wagon goes, I never posted about that. Now that I know it won't be for naught, here goes!

My wagon might be different from others. The first thing I thought about when I began writing in this, is what *IS* my wagon? I think it might be different from your goal. My initial goal is to lose weight. That's my destination. How to get there, that's my wagon. So what do I do to lose weight? Cut back on calories (especially calories derived from drinking soda), maintain healthy eating habits, exercise, reduce stress [also, included in reducing my intake of caffeine...gets me worked up), so on and so forth.

So to begin, I'd like to define what my wagon is. If I don't complete these steps during the week, I am off my wagon. I have found that one off day doesn't kill you physically, just mentally. I would recommend to you that rethinking the term "off day" might help curb your binges.

I am currently on the SlimFast plan. I try my best to follow it to the letter, but at my current weight, it's not possible to do that. They recommend and I have read elsewhere that I need to be a little higher in the consumption area. So I improvise with that (peanut butter and tuna, anyone? :) :) )

I honestly think that I do ok, for the most part. I'm working on killing my snacking problems, but it's been difficult to curb completely. I think that I will work on this extremely slowly, because trying to kill too much at once gets you a fifth star (GTA joke, there)

My wagon can best be defined as this right now: 

1. Follow the slimfast guidelines. One meal bar in the morning, one shake at lunch. Add something else with your shake that is low calorie to supplement your hunger.

2. Completely cut out sodas in my life. Not even diet drinks. Do this for as long as you can. Drink only water, occasionally use drink mixes (such as propel or Special K protein water) to add some flavor to your mess.

3. Reduce the amount of snacks. Keep chips and other things out of the house. Eat the snack bars from slimfast sparingly.

4. Stay away from fast food places. If you must go to one (such as with family or friends), make good choices (if such places don't have good choices, eat small amounts) Make good use of the establishment's website, as they have nutritional information for all their dishes, and can help you make educated decisions about caloric content.

5. Increase physical activity slowly. As my knee still isn't the best in the world. Use alternative exercise methods if needed (ultra physical video games like the Wii and stuff like that helps enormously. So does Drumming in Rock Band [yep, I'm a gamer])

Based on those goals above, I am currently on the wagon, but barely...I'm on the running side board. :)

So there you go, now that you know what I define my wagon as, you can be in a better position to offer encouragement. Hope everyone else is having a great day as well.