"Brand New You"-New weight loss group! (Page 3)

Braden - business trips are hard... but I know you can do it!

Alexander - Welcome... did you make a typo when you said your goal weight?  It is impossible to healthfully lose that much that quickly (sorry to be a party pooper but I don't want to see you burn out immediately or hurt yourself).

Chris and Shermbelle - welcome aboard!

Thank you for posting and keeping track. Thank you also for the caring words. It was not a typo, 245 to 185. The four minute mile was impossible. Roger Banniker did not believe it, and proceeded to dismiss the impossibility. The next year 32 more people dismissed it.  The year after, an additional 400 people dismissed it.  I intend to do what I say, and have fun doing it. I am grateful for this thread and want to add to the excitement. I intend to remove high blood pressure medicine from my life,  save money, my health, and have fun doing it. I will keep this board informed of my progress, and watch others do it, while having fun doing it.

I had a one whole egg, five egg whites, 2 cups of fresh spinach omelette, and while that isn't a pork chop sandwich smothered in mayo kind of thing, I had fun thinking that this will lead me to my belief that 185 is just a short 89 days away.

I am aware of the superb athletes that most of you people are, and you are correct in advising this dramatic effort may lead to disenfranchisement.  You are extraordinary people. I do not want to be normal, I want to be extraordinary. That is why I have joined this group. Birds of a feather...

God Bless you and yours.

Hope everyone is being diligent this week - I know I'd love to start off with a loss this Friday... so I only had one chocolate chunk cookie this morning.  I'm tapering for two weeks, so will need to be extra careful with the caloric intake!

Fixing some bad links - sorry for those whose names went to the wrong logs.

I've added a TOTAL column where we can chart our progress as a group.  As a group, we need to lose 526 pounds in 90 or less days! 

In fact, I'd like to propose a group goal of 80% (~421 pounds based on current figures)... it will help me stay motivated if I know I've got a group counting on me.

I hope you each have individual rewards built into your goals... for the group goal, I propose a dairy queen outing the week of 9/23 where you can have whatever you want if we reach the 80% mark.  Or if dairy queen isn't your poison... you can indulge on something sinful... the point being we all indulge as a team (and write in this thread about how good it was) if we make our group goal.

Anyone else have thoughts regarding 80%?  Regarding the reward?  Regarding the goal in general?  I'm all ears.

I love DQ....9/23 is the date of my HIM if I end up able to do it.

Blizzard...mint M&M please.....but maybe it will be something other than food...need to think about it. Food rewards for losing weight isn't big with me in general.

80% is good...but Josh just as someone who has done many of these BT weight loss challenges about 50% of folks drop out and just disappear...it is very sad. How are we going to handle that? Can we make it 80% of active folks.

I'm doing pretty good...I have been doing a lot of reading (picked up 2 books over the weekend) about mental aspect of dieting and eating. I know how to lose weight, need to address why I don't. Why I sometimes sabotage myself.

One book explains I have two views...dictator Kathy who imagine is standing on my right hand is 3" tall dressed up like a dictator telling me to be good...eat this or that...get with the program..suck it up. In the left hand is wild child Kathy who is dressed in animals skins and wants to do what ever feels good and is rebellious. Which one will I listen to when I see that yummy brownie...dictator Kathy or wild child Kathy? I need to develop a watcher Kathy that takes it all in and doesn't react by emotions but sees both sides...sticks with the program and boy that looks good and learn to make a choice to pick the one that will help me reach my goal of thinner me.

The other book strongly suggests making a long list in priority order of why I want to lose weight so when the going gets tough I can look at that list and see why that yummy brownie is not a good choice. I'm working on my list...it is quite long. Also this book discusses how we need to practice making good choices and always saying no to things not on our eating program so that it becomes like a strong muscle or reaction....just does it job so we never get in that place where we vacillate between should we or shouldn't we. I remember when I first starting losing weight I NEVER CHEATED. Folks found that strange, but for me it was easier to say no always and never really consider having something off the plan. Now I cheat and it is much harder to decide if today or right now I should have x or y. I need to go back to my never cheat mode it was easier and I lost weight faster.

Hope everyone is doing well...share your struggles and successes too! 

The two books that I picked up are:

The Beck Diet Solution Train your brain to think like a think person by Judith S. Beck

Easiest to follow, 6 week program with daily activities to do, stresses teaching/training yourself to just say no, and having making the choice to cheat not be a choice. I do like her idea of making lists of why we want to be thinner and using cards to encourage me to make good choices. Another thing I like is to give yourself credit when you make a hard choice like no bread at restaurant or if you waited 10 minutes to take a piece and only took one that is progress and see that as success not failure. The idea is using the techniques she teaches you to enhance any diet program you'd follow and help you stick with it for the long haul.

The Four-Day Win End your diet war and achieve thinner peace by Martha Beck

Yep this is the book that talks about dictator vs wild child and watcher self view of yourself. The women admits she has ADD and it read that way. In many ways this book is opposite of the first and is in my first read more scary...some exercises are eat as much of you want of something, then progress to more yummy type foods...order more than you can ever eat and just eat what feels like makes you full to maybe a 8 on a scale of 1-10. She teaches you how to retrain your brain to famine brain she calls that you get from always going without when dieting. One kind of reoccurring them she has is to look at past experiences to see what worked and what didn't work and use that past knowledge to be more successful this time. When did you lose weight easily, when did you gain, what can you learn from that.

As you can tell I have been doing a lot of thinking about this. I hope I can work on the exercises and come to a better understanding of what helps me and do more of those things and to learn from and overcome some pitfalls I have had in the past.

I was guessing at my weight when I posted this.  Need to make a minor revision.  Sorry Josh.

Starting weight: 181 lbs
Goal weight (30 days): 170 lbs

I will update you both from work tomorrow... don't have a current version of spreadsheet at home.

Aloha guys and gals,

Count me in to please. Been injured (still am) an balooned again so need help and encouragement (okay and kicks in the ). I'll weigh tonight. Dreading it, and report tonight. Good luck all.