A Plan!! A Challenge! A...potentially awesome 7 weeks?

Every week at our Weight Watchers meeting I sit and listen to our leader, Tex (name changed to protect her privacy, til I hear otherwise), talk about that week's topic. In the past, most of the topics that the WW powers that be deem worthy of talking about have bored me to tears. It seems to be different this time around though. I know that part of it is that my head is in the right place and I'm more willing to actually take in the information. The other part of it is that Tex - a petite little fireball from Texas (didn't see that one coming did you?) with the enthusiasm of 10 people - makes it FUN! She doesn't just stand at the front of the room and drone on at all the gals and hope that someone is listening. She engages us. She encourages us. She supports us. But more importantly, she reminds us that she hasn't always been the petite woman we see every week. She has also been heavy.

At the end of every meeting, Tex asks us what we're going to do that week to make sure we succeed at the scales.....in our journey. And every time, she gets the same old stock answers fired back at her:

Tracking our food

Exercise

Drink water

I can't help but feel like we're letting her down. Why don't we flesh those things out and actually come up with a plan? An honest to goodness PLAN!!

So, that's what I'm doing. Right here, right now. The inspiration for mine came from a challenge that I saw today on the blog the Prior Fat Girl. She discovered she'd gained 13 lbs (about 6 kgs) and wanted to do something about that. So she came up with the 10+3 Action Plan. They're already 3 weeks into that challenge so I'm putting my own twist on it and setting up my own, slightly shorter, timeline. I invite you all, whoever might be out there reading, to join me. Come up with your own plan.

The general goals of PFG's action plan were much like the stock answers we come up with at our meetings.

Workout regularly (she had 5 days a week)

Journal food

Drink water

And that's fine. But to make it a successful plan, you have to put yourself into it like she did. So here's mine

GOAL #1

Working out a minimum of 5 days a week - I don't want to corner myself and say that I will be working out for 90 minutes a day on each of those days but I will say that I will do a minimum of 30 to 60 minutes a day. These exercises will include such pleasures (*snort*) as:

swimming

walking (I do have that Half Marathon I'm meant to be training for!)

gym circuits (weights & cardio)

Wii Fit & Wii Biggest Loser (Bob's a jerk!)

I've already mentioned that when I exercise I feel better mentally, so maybe this will be beneficial for my husband and kids too? Happy Mommy = Less Yelling...right?

GOAL #2

Drinking MORE Water - I had this grand idea at one point, that lasted all of twelve seconds, that I would cut out ALL the Diet Coke I was drinking and only drink water. Cold turkey. Moron. I very quickly managed to develop a massive caffeine withdrawal headache which in turn made me guzzle a ton of Diet Coke to make it go away. I'm still drinking it. Actually I'm drinking Coke Zero because, y'know, it's soooo much better for you.

Then I came up with the idea that I would drink one bottle of water for every glass of Coke that I was drinking. Um. Yeah. Well, I peed a lot.

So what's the grand plan now? I don't really know. I do know that I need to cut out the Coke, but I can't do the cold turkey thing again. So how about this for now:

Week 1 - Maximum of 3 glasses of Coke Zero per day. Minimum of 5 glasses of water.

Week 2 - Maximum of 2 glasses of Coke Zero per day. Minimum of 6 glasses of water.

Week 3 - Maximum of 1 glass of Coke Zero per day. Minimum of 7 glasses of water.

Week 4 - No more Coke Zero. Minimum of 8 glasses of water.

This is to be tracked on fridge chart.

Totally doable right? Mmmm. We'll see.


GOAL #3

Keep a journal of ALL food (and drink) that goes into my mouth - I have been so incredibly slack in this department lately. I keep telling myself that I've been keeping track in my head, but then I remember that well there was that mint earlier and the latte...did I account for those? Probably not.

I have purchased a lovely spiral notebook where I will write down everything that I eat. It will fit in my purse and even coordinates well with my WW points calculator. A lot of the time I can plan ahead because I menu plan for evening meals, and I tend to eat the same thing for breakfast & lunch 99% of the time. MUST STAY WITHIN POINTS - My first mini goal (sub-goal?) for this challenge is to not exceed my daily points at all. DO NOT EAT EXERCISE POINTS - I've always been good about this but my second mini goal is to not use any of the points I earn doing exercise.

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TIME FRAME

Today is Monday, April 5th. My regular day for weighing in at Weight Watchers is Wednesday.

So this challenge will, for me, run from the morning of Thursday, April 8th til the evening of Wednesday, May 26th. That's 7 weeks. It also means I'm ending on my 31st birthday. Hopefully there'll be a good result!

UPDATES

I will continue to post on Wednesday evenings with updates on my weight but I will try to flesh them out with updates about how I'm meeting these goals too.

SCALE VS NON SCALE VICTORIES

It is always important to remember that even though the numbers on the scales aren't going the way you want them to, or going fast enough, that there are other victories. Because of this, I will take my measurements on Thursday morning when I start this. I will then take them half way through and again at the end. Let's see how much of a difference these 7 weeks can make!

WHAT ABOUT THE END?

So what do I get at the end of this? Is there a challenge reward?

Well, I'd like to think that there will be a really cool number on the scales that will make me jump for joy. That will be reward enough. Beyond that....I don't know. Maybe I'll buy myself some lowlights for my hair or something.

And then....I'll start a new challenge for myself!