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W5 Check In & Weigh In

One month done, onward to month #2!

Use this post to brag or kvetch about your day. If you are doing burn calorie burn, let us know how much cals you are burning off. As for the Walking challenge, we are now in week 2, adding 775 steps to last weeks daily goal, aiming for

Those without pedometers doing something like biking or jogging. Still track miles and can convert what you did into steps. Fell short one day? Remember it's a 7 day time frame, if your weekly average is 1550 per day, you did good!

W4 Check In & Weigh In

Welcome to October!

We are just hitting the one month stride. To keep things streamlined so there aren't multiple check in posts (one for burning 250-500 calories per day, one for logging daily pedometer steps and one for tracking progress on the walking program) going forward, the main check in post will focus on, as it encompasses the others, the daily pedometer challenge. Still use the post to brag or kvetch about your day, but now that I created this snazzy graphic…

...use it to check off your daily steps. Each week I'll tally up the walking leaders. Those without pedometers, biking, jogging, can track miles and I'll convert what you did into steps.

W3 Check In & Weigh In

Welcome to week 3 challenge peeps! This is the magical week that turns all efforts into habits. How have you been holding up? Are you sticking to your game plan? Do you reread your personal mission statement to keep yourself on track? Or do you feel yourself slipping and thinking of giving up?

If you fall into the latter vs. the former, hang tight, I'll share some calorie burning tips to get you through the week and hang onto your forks, looks like Tacita has cooked up another veggie eat!

W2 Check In & Weigh In

After one solid week of burning calories, how'd you do? Did you slip, miss a workout, eat too much? That's okay. Consider it a lesson learned as you enter week 2 and come up with a plan to overcome that pitfall should it arise again this week. You don't have to be perfect, just consistent. Don't give up if week 1 didn't go exactly to plan, there are 15 weeks left in the year, 15-30lbs to safely burn off

Use this post to check in for week 2 and if you are into weighing yourself and feel like bragging, you can do that here too

How you doin'?

How are my busy little cb's (calorie burners ) today? As with most challenges, the first week or two I figure out the kinks before there is a set routine. I was going to post a daily check-in, but with less than 10 peeps playing along, I'll do it weekly and leave the post pinned at the top.

Remember your gameplan from last week, you have your goals, a personal mission statement and you picked your poison. All that's left to do is: burn calorie burn. Check in later tonight or tomorrow with your daily deficit, in 7 days we'll total it all up.

16 weeks left in 06'...do I hear 16-32lbs gone by New Years Day?

Pick your Poison

Okay challenge participants, now's the time to choose how you plan to burn your calories.

- Burn 250 by cutting back on your daily eats
- Burn 500 calories via exercise
- Burn 500 calories with a combo of exercise and cutting back on eats (250 + 250)

You know yourself best. Do you loathe exercising? Perhaps you should focus on cutting back on eats. I say 250 to be reasonable, you can cut 500 calories, but if it puts you under 1200 or at an extremely low number, it's pretty safe to say you'll feel deprived and will end up rebelling. A daily deficit of 250 calories will net you a .5lb loss each week. Doesn't sound like much, but if it keeps you consistent, it'll add up and you can still end the year almost 10lbs lighter!

500 calories via exercise. That's tailored to folks like me who detest counting calories, yet love getting sweaty. Most cardio machines provide a readout of the approximate caloric burn, but you can always use this trusty activity calculator. Plug in your stats, and it'll tell you the caloric burn of various activities. Choose one that you can see yourself doing each week, or make it a combo and do one activity in the AM (vigorous housecleaning) + a PM activity (gardening).

Burn 500 calories the combo way. This is probably the best method, as it combines the two. Moderately eat + moderately workout and 7 days later…wham! 1lb gone *theoretically* I will almost bet you may lose even more than 1lb with this method as you consistently workout. But of all 3 it gives the most flexibility. One day you may *only* have a 100 calorie deficit going due to that pesky donut, but the next day an hour on the elliptical burns 600 calories and you are back on schedule.

Please keep in mind, none of this is set in stone. The goal is to consistently work at burning calories and track how much you are approximately burning. The whole point of this challenge is to demystify losing weight and armed with basic education, put control back in your hands.

Have you been trying to lose weight by food alone? And 7 days later the scale barely budges, total up your caloric deficit and see if you were truly on track to shed a lb in 7 days. Even if you weren't, it may mean keep doing what you are doing, 4-5 days later, you'll hit the 3500 mark.

So pick your poison, Daily Check In's start Monday and there'll be some icons under the smileys for you to post how many calories you burned that day. All 2 homework assignments, do require some thought and planning. If you didn't get a chance to answer it when it was posted, there is no rush. Take a few days to figure out your own personal game plan.

What's your mission?

Think of yourself as a business, most all companies have a mission statement. Today's homework assignment is to come up with a personal mission statement. Unlike goals, your mission statement defines you, it sort of combines all your ongoing goals and sums up who you are or are trying to be.

While your goal is something you want to achieve, in my case, lose 7lbs by Halloween. My mission is who I want to become: Renee is a physically fit and active person.

What's your personal mission statement? You don't have to post it here, as the key word is personal, but write it down, print it out and read it every morning. It may be the defining point on when those moments of frustration and feelings of giving up arise, trust me they will, you can read it out loud and make a better choice.

Get SMART

Welcome to the first week of the Burn Calorie Burn challenge. As it is a short week, US holiday yesterday, and to give folks a chance to come up with a personal game plan, before we dive right into burning calories, we'll use this week to do 3 things.

1) Determine SMART Fitness Goals
2) Come up with a personal Mission Statement
3) Choose how we are going to burn our calories and put it in writing.

Pretty simple right?

Running more than my fair share of personal and public challenges, once the initial frenzy of week 1 dies down, people peter out. This challenge is going to take a slow and consistent approach to weight loss. Not sexy or glamorous, but deep down, I believe it'll work.

Today's homework, 1) Determine SMART Fitness Goals

What do I mean by SMART?

S = Specific - When setting your goals, don't be too general. Decide exactly what you want to achieve. That will be the starting point of your goals.

M = Measurable - Choose goals that can be monitored so you can watch your progress.

A = Attainable - Set goals you think you will be able to achieve in a reasonable amount of time. Then plan the specific steps you'll use to establish your goals.

R = Realistic - Goals are realistic if they are ones you truly believe you can achieve. Set goals for yourself, and not for anyone else. Choosing goals that are unrealistic for you and that are based on someone else’s wishes, you will just be setting yourself up for failure.

T = Timely - To be more focused, choose dates or occasions as target times for achieving your goals. Saying you want to lose all the weight you’ve put on since you broke up with your boyfriend is not very specific, measurable, realistic, or time-centered.

A better way to state your goal is to say that you want to lose 10 pounds by Halloween.

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I'll use me as an example and you can either follow along on your blog & post a link back so we can check out what you posted, leave a comment here if you don't have a blog, or do it in your head if you lurk

Renee's SMART Goals:

S = Specific
By the end of 2006, I will lose 20lbs and run, non-stop, 45 mins.

M = Measurable
To lose 20lbs, each week I will attempt to lose .8lbs.
To run 45 mins, each week I'll add 2.5 minutes to my running time.

A = Attainable
By aiming to lose .8lbs, it's means I need to burn 2800 calories a week, or 400 calories a day. Running 2.5 minutes more isn't hard to do.

R = Realistic
My goals are realistic for me because it takes a lot of effort to lose 1lb each week, my body tends to shed weight very slowly.

T = Timely
My first milestone will be to lose 7lbs by Halloween.

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It's a bit crude, but you get the idea. Tomorrow, coming up with a personal mission statement.

The Stats

The one thing doing phase 1 of south beach and working out like a demon taught me was, "Shit, you mean I'm not going to lose weight by just saying I want to lose weight?!?!?"

Why this challenge? I've always felt a disconnect between what it takes to lose weight and actually losing weight. There is so much misinformation out there, I thought if I could break weight loss down to the simplest essence, burn calories, a collective fog will lift and things we do or don't do will make sense.

For instance, you go down to 1500 calories of daily eats, opt out of exercising and 7 days later only lost ½ a lb. Well, if you BMR says you need to eat 1800 calories to stay you same weight, and you've essentially cut 300, 300x7=2100 not quite a full lb burned.

Now you can slap yourself on the head and say, Ahhh, ok, I can either eat less, or can dust off the jump rope and try to burn some more calories.

Not sexy, not glamorous, but this is weight loss.

Remember I said this is bare bones, there are tons of other factors that you may actually lose more, but for the sake of the challenge and dealing with a varied group, I'm going to keep it really simple: burn 250 – 500 calories every day.

Does that make sense?

I'm thinking by making burning calories a conscious and deliberate effort, you are taking a direct approach in your weight loss efforts. If counting calories ain't your thing, see how long it'll take you to burn 500 calories via exercise, do that and bam, your done.

Or, if you already do NutriSystem, Weight Watchers, South Beach Diet, or any other preset eating program, eat on program for the entire day, and log in that you got your calories burned.

Get creative, make a game out of it. Anything that keeps you engaged and motivated, will also make you successful. You may not burn 250 calories today, but maybe tomorrow you'll burn 500. You know it takes 3500 calories burned to lose a 1lb, you have 7 days to make it happen, mix and match how you'll burn it and even if you fall short a lb lost, remember this is guestimating, your true loss may show up the following weigh in.

In this challenge it doesn't matter how much you currently weigh, or even how much you want to lose, each week the goal is to lose at least 1lb, some may lose more, some may lose less, but that's the group goal. You can fantasize about losing 5lbs the first week and I'll throw a bit of cold water on you to say, ok, 5x3500=17,500 calories burned…go for it…

Makes that 3500 seem a lot more doable don't it

By the end of next week, the Pick Your Poison post will go up, where after a week of letting this challenge marinate in your head, you pick how you plan to burn your calories and what day is your official weigh in day. The following week, the daily check ins will begin and the weekly weigh in will start the week after.

Depending on how many people participate, if it's under 10, I can handle being head cheerleader, but if it's more, I'll set up a round robin way of support, where each person will either buddy up with another loser, or each commenter will cheer on the person who commented before them. I'll know more when I see how many are gonna play.

As for the next 16 weeks, the posting will look something like this:
Daily check in, weekly weigh in, calorie burning tips, success tips, recipes, food reviews, walking/running routine. And two topics just for fun, a weekly advice column, where I post questions I tend to get asked, and put it out for the group to answer, think of it as group Ann Landers and of course, any books or DVDs or fitness related swag I come across, I'll do a monthly give away.

Today is September 1st, let's get a 4 month head start on January 1st and resolve to lose some weight!

Tools To Use

During the Burn Calorie Burn Challenge, you'll track your calories burned on a daily basis. If you chose to cut back on food, figure out your BMR, subtract 250, and that's your caloric allotment for the day. Keep in mind it'll take about 2 weeks to lose a 1lb via that method, especially if you do nothing else. You can subtract 500 but if your calories are so low you'll end up rebelling, stick with 250 and lose weight at a nice and slow pace.

For those doing the calorie burn via exercise, most cardio machines spit out an estimate of how many calories you burned during your session. If they one you use doesn't do that, or you'll do other activities, like weight lifting or roller blading or rope jumping, this is a really good site to see how many calories you burn through various activities.

The challenge officially kicks off next week, though for the holiday weekend and the fact that I'm moving, means it really launches on Tuesday. Next week will be dedicated to coming up with a plan on how you want to lose weight and committing to one of the methods of burning calories. This challenge is meant to go along with what you are already doing, it's not going to tell everyone to eat a certain way or do this particular workout, for the most part people have their own routines. The challenge will just be a hub where you can log your daily doing and check out what other people are doing.

For the duration, as I come across tips to burn more calories, whether it's something to eat or not eat, or a new twist on a workout routine, I'll share that too.

And lastly, if you are feeling a bit overwhelmed, not sure what routine to do I have a few basic walking routines I'll share on a weekly basis, and you can use that as a guideline to getting physical.

Tomorrow, how stats will be tracked and what to expect in the next 16 weeks.

Burn Calorie Burn

The moment you've all been waiting for, a preview of the Labor Day to New Year's Day Challenge. Starting next Sunday, there are 16 weeks left in the year. If you go by the suggested weight loss goal per week, you can be 16-32lbs lighter by New Years Day.

Weigh 180 today? Say hello to 148-164 on January 1st.

I mean why not get a 4 month head start on the resolutioners and resolve to lose weight now. If nothing else, it gives you 4 months to figure out a system to really kick into high gear come January and you can spend the early months already on a roll shedding the last remaining lbs vs. starting over, again.

Here is the challenge to help you make that happen. I call this one, Burn Calorie Burn. Why?

Simple. The goal of this challenge is to lose weight by burning calories. Naturally you already knew that tidbit, this site attract such smart visitors. But, after going through the BMR research, it became clear to me, all medical conditions excluded, by burning the appropriate number of calories, on a consistent basis, the fat will burn off.

The best explanation I found for fat that hit home to me is, calories are nothing but energy, excess fat is stored energy, burn more than you have, you'll lose weight. Again, outstanding medical conditions aside, this should work for the masses.

So how does this challenge work? Read on.

There will be 3 groups, you simply pick the group you want to be in.

Burn 250 to 500 calories by eating less.

Burn 250 to 500 calories by working out.

Or, burn 250 to 500 calories by combining both.

What's the catch?

Well, some people hate exercise, they can opt to cut 250-500 calories out of their daily eats. 500 calories is harder to cut if your BMR suggests you eat 1800 calories, you'll be eating 1300 and most likely feeling miserable and deprived. If you cut 250, it'll take you about 2 weeks to lose 1lb. It's not fast results, but it's the fact:
250/3500 = 14 days

Or you can burn 250 to 500 via working out. In this group, you'll figure out how long it'll take you to approximately burn 250-500 calories and which exercise will make it happen. You can focus on food, but if you are like me and counting calories or worrying about food is annoying, sweating away the fat may be best.

The final group can opt to do both, they can figure, they'll eat 250 calories less, burn 250 and aim to lose 1lb in 1 week.

Those are the base numbers, surely you can lose more, but figure 7000 calories equals 2lbs. Burn that up through a combo of food and exercise, or if it's too daunting, aim for the 3500 calorie burn per week. Each day the mission is to burn 250 calories minimum, and we'll have a daily check in/shout out along the way. At the end of the week, we weigh in and will see if our daily deficit matches the scale. If it doesn't, simply go back to the drawing board and see how accurate your week really is.

And with all things, this is aproximate. Some weeks I work out like a demon and see the scale go up, or stay the same. What we are aiming for is being consistent and over time watching the daily deficit, add to up a loss.

That's the overview, tomorrow: breaking it down further. Later in the week, tools to use, how we track our stats, what each of the 16 weeks will bring.

Oh and I know next week is a short holiday week, at least in the States. The focus is not going to be jumping in and losing weight. Instead, we'll spend the week getting organized and coming up with a plan of attack to get through what I affectionately call, Holiday Eating Season™.