challenge – Page 2 – Sweat & Sparkle

Fitness Challenge: Let’s Go!

new-week-new-goals-spotebi-workout-motivation Our fitness challenge is officially underway! I kicked it off yesterday with a good weight training workout, and my arms, in particular, are feeling it today. I’m excited that several of you are joining me. Thank you! Let’s push each other and see just what we can accomplish over the next 30 days or so.

I am going to consider most of last week a break, and that break is now over. Back to work! I am about 18 pounds from my goal weight, and I am most definitely not going to screw up now and ruin this. I still worked out most days last week, but I took too many days off for no good reason, and my eating was terrible. I know better, and I can do better. Much better.

Over the weekend, I had to retire two more pairs of jeans. My husband and my stepson threatened to start calling me “homey” if I kept wearing them, because they sagged so much. I’ve also been informed that some of my workout pants are way too big, but I really like them, so I will wear them until they fall right off my body…hopefully that doesn’t happen at the gym, though!

My goal for this week: inspirational-quote-motivational-print-light-grey-wall-hanging-motivational-wall-decor-fitness-motivation-gym-decor-art.jpg_640x640

New Fitness Challenge!

Did you know that 80% of people fail at their New Year’s resolutions by the second week of February? Or that losing weight is the #1 resolution that people make?

I’m not sharing this with you to depress you on this fine Friday morning, or to wow you with my random facts and impressive statistics-spitting. Just trying to convince you to join me in a challenge to keep our momentum and motivation going well into this new year!

I have struggled this past week, between the funeral and then worrying about the kids. I sure could use an extra dose of motivation. I searched online for a weight loss challenge, but nothing stood out to me as particularly interesting, so I figured: why not start my own?

I don’t have the time (or patience) for a lot of tracking and logging on top of what I am already doing, and I already know that if I have to count points or do a bunch of math every night, I won’t do it very long. So I want to keep it simple and something that can work for all of us.

How’s this? Starting on Sunday, January 27, we will set a goal of how many exercise minutes we will accomplish over the next 30 days (until February 28…okay, that’s more than 30 days, but I didn’t want to end a few days before the end of the month!) So, for example, if you want to work out for 30 minutes a day, four days a week, your goal would be 480 minutes by February 28.

Let’s see…I want to aim for 45 minutes a day, 6 days a week. That would be about 1080 minutes by February 28.

This way, the challenge is personalized to what you can do, what you want to accomplish, how much you want to challenge yourself.

Anyone want to join me? A fellow blogger had the idea of joining the challenge by writing on her blog about it, but I also thought we might want a central place to virtually meet up, like a Facebook group. I can create the group if anyone is interested, and I will post a link for anyone who would like to meet up there for accountability, tracking, questions, motivation, griping, whatever you need over the next thirty-ish days!

Protected: This Week’s Goal

T.K.O. Challenge

TKO Challenge A big thank you to Journey to a Healthy Me for rekindling the T.K.O. Challenge! I had forgotten all about it until I saw her post. I have decided to join her in this challenge, and I have added a page to my blog to track my progress.

In a nutshell, every five weeks is one round, and my goal is to lose 10 pounds in each round. If I make it, great! If I don’t, well, I start the next round with the ending weight from the previous round and get to start over. So every round is a new start.

We get things moving with a 3-week kick-start, from now until September 8, during which my goal is to lose at least 5 pounds. I like challenges and having something to keep me focused.

*Ding-ding!* (That is the ringside bell ringing, for those with no imagination.) Let’s get ready to rumble!

My Last New Start (Really!)

Ever have one of those workouts where every second feels like you are on the verge of a horrible death, each cell in your body has burst into flames, your lungs have collapsed, and your poor, feeble heart is about to thump out of your sweaty chest? That was me last night, suffering on the treadmill, feeling just as out of shape as I truly am. When I got home, I told my husband, “That was pure torture.” He told me, like he has before, “But you did it.” That part is true: I hated it, but I did it. It will get easier…right?

I started this blog in April of 2015. I have a good bit of weight to lose, but come on. Over three years, only to be just about as heavy as I was back then? Obviously I am not doing something right. The whole point to a weight loss blog is to LOSE WEIGHT. Sure, I also offer witty banter, insightful dialogue, and captivating anectodes (ha!), but one thing I am not offering is actual progress, results, change.

The lose-some, gain-more shuffle has got to stop. I’ve been doing it for years. My closet is overloaded, not because I’m such a fashion plate, but because I have clothes in various sizes, based on my whiplash weight gain and loss over the years. I want to walk into my closet and know that I can wear everything hanging there, and look great in it. I can’t do that now.

So I am making some changes. I do best with plans, charts, goals, tracking things. I updated my weigh-in page, for starters. No more hiding behind cryptic or veiled weigh-ins. I cringe at the thought of publicly posting my weight each week, but I need to be accountable. And honest.

I know tomorrow’s weigh-in is going to be a gain. I relaxed a bit too much with my time off last week and have struggled to get back on track this week, and the smattering of workouts I did this week won’t counteract my bad eating. What’s done is done. I will weigh in tomorrow morning and take that number as my official starting-over weight.

And from there? No more jerking around. Yeah, I’ve said that before. I know. I am a broken record. But I am so sick of being overweight and out of shape. How many years of my life have I wasted, not being as happy as I could be, or as healthy as I could be? I don’t even want to think about it, to be honest. It’s depressing. It’s positively, definitely, absolutely time for real change.

I challenge myself to lose 10 pounds in August. Anyone care to join me in that challenge?

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