Another 21 Day Challenge Under Our Belts

Hard to believe, but the February 21 Day Challenge is over. How did you do?

I think I've turned the corner. New habits are actually really habits. My weight continues to steadily drop...not fast, but it is going in the right direction. This time around, my goal is for slow, long-term weight loss. A real healthy lifestyle. I've broken the habit of eating between meals. That is a big...no HUGE change for me. As of the end of this challenge, I've lost 7.6 pounds since the first of the year. Who knows, by the end of the month it might just be 8 pounds. Whatever it is, it's moving toward my goal.

If you are sick and tired of the yo-yo dieting experience, come join me next month for the March 21 Day Challenge. Set attainable goals that move you in the direction you want to go. Come on. Let's do it! You can lose weight before summer and keep it off!

Anyone with questions, feel free to contact me or leave a comment.

One of Those Days

Have you ever had one of those days where things get off on the wrong foot? I experienced that Tuesday and then it bled over to Wednesday. It started with oversleeping which I haven't done in like 20 years. I shuffled into the kitchen to find I hadn't set the delay on the coffee maker...just little things that put me off kilter. As the day went on, things continued to go that way. Plus the gray overcast sky was enough to send me into a funk.

No matter how you feel, as a freelance writer, you still have work to get done and deadlines to meet. I plugged away at things to do and ran into "technical difficulties. " Something that should have taken me about 30 minutes or so took about 4 hours. My frustration climbed. When the phone rang and my daughter asked, "How are things going?" I shared a piece of my reality and told her I was getting hungry and wanted to get this project done before lunch...and technology wasn't cooperating.

She said, "You better eat before you do something you regret."

Her words struck me. I hadn't even thought of turning to food to make me feel better. The 21 Day Challenge has really developed a new habit. I don't eat between meals, so I hadn't even considered it.

When I hung up the phone, I decided to eat lunch. And then before I went back to work, I went for a walk...in the rain. It wasn't a hard rain, but a light rain that fell off and on. Decided I could go for a mile and see how it went. I walked for an hour! My feet were wet, but it was a nice, quiet, contemplative walk. When I returned to the computer, I worked things out and eventually got caught up to where I needed to be with my work load.

I share this slice of life, because not turning to food is a huge thing for me...a former binge eater. We really can develop new habits and break old ones!

Day 1: February 21 Day Challenge

Here we are, another new month and a brand new start. The January 21 Day Challenge went well for me, and for the days between challenges, I actually continued with those same goals. The end result for January was that I'm down 5.4 pounds. That surpasses my hopes. So here's to February!

The Way the Challenge Works

It is said that it takes 21 days to establish a new habit. The 21 Day Challenge starts the 1st of the the month and goes through the 21st. The challenge is to set goals for those 21 days in hopes you will gradually establish new habits. The days "off" between challenges will show you whether or not your new behavior has become a habit, whether it needs work, or perhaps needs tweaking to work for you.

I set goals for many different aspects of life, but for this blog the focus is losing weight. If you don't need to lose weight the same technique can be used to maintain weight, work toward a healthier lifestyle and even for gaining weight. Before year's end, I hope to be maintaining rather than losing.

My February 21 Day Challenge Goals

• Exercise 3-5 days a week
• No S Diet
• Drink water

How to Set Goals

When setting goals, be sure to make them achievable. For example, if I set a goal to lose 5 pounds and only lose 4, then I have not succeeded. Failure can send me into a tailspin. I don't really have control over exactly how much I lose so that is not a practical goal. However, if I set a goal to exercise 3-5 days a week, THAT I can have control over. It's measurable and achievable. The result will be weight loss. How much weight loss, well that's in God's hands.

Don't set yourself up for failure, but success! Set attainable goals.

Life Between Challenges

Here I am in the week between the January 21 Day Challenge and February's challenge. The idea behind the 21 Day Challenge is to set goals that help to establish new habits. While I employ this strategy to many areas of life, this blog focuses on weight and health. For me that means losing weight, and hopefully this year learning to maintain the weight loss.

The time in between challenges is eye opening. For one, you'll know soon enough if the things your practiced during the challenge have stuck or not. It reminds me of making a New Year's resolution to lose weight. Without smaller goals to help reach the big goal, we usually we get off track and most of the time we stay off track. The problem with a New Year's resolution is that when we fail, we tend to think..."There's always next year." But who wants to wait until next year? I want to lose weight now!

With the 21 Day Challenge, each new month is a clean slate. This works two ways. First, for people who failed to stick to their health/weight goals in one month have a new start the next month. Not only that, we can set the new goals based on what worked and what didn't. I mean there's no sense continuing to do what didn't work! Secondly, it offers the opportunity to tweak our goals. For example, if you had a goal to eat no snacks but learned you were so hungry at dinner time you tended to eat more than you should, you can change that no snack goal to eating only small healthy snacks.

For me, in these days of life between challenges, I've continued to do what I did on the January challenge. I'm feeling good, exercising regularly, eating right and I see it motivating people around me to do the same. Now that's a bonus!

Now's the time to think about the February 21 Day Challenge. Not only is summer on the way (in terms of weight loss it is just around the corner), but today is the best day to make plans for better health. Come on and join us!

If you're looking for inspiration, here are a few articles you may find helpful:

Natural Detoxification Diets

1200 Calorie Diet

10 Step Diet Interview

January 21 Challenge Results

Hard to believe we are fast approaching the end of January, but this January I'm happy to say that I have stuck with my health and exercise goals. Most people fall away from their weight loss resolution goals by the middle of the month! The 21 Day Challenge approach works for me because I set goals for the first 21 days of the month. It breaks things down to smaller manageable pieces. Instead of a whole year, I focus on 21 days. It is said that it takes 21 days to establish a new habit. The days in between the 21st and the start of the new month let me see how well the new habits stick, and it also gives me the opportunity to tweak my goals for the next month. That flexibility helps me stay on target.

My January 21 Day Challenge goals were to:

Follow the No S Diet

Drink 64 ounces of water daily

Exercise 3-5 days a week

These goals worked and I plan to continue them in February. Overall, I'm going for slow healthy weight loss and as of the end of the January 21 Day Challenge I have lost 5.2 pounds. I was hoping for 3 pounds, so I'm happy.

Over this week I'll talk about why it is working for me and the new habits that are helping me move to a healthier weight.

21 Day Challenge: Day 14

This week is just whizzing by! I have more work to do than I have hours, technological bugs that have made life interesting, and a few out-of-the-ordinary things to fit into an otherwise tight schedule like a surprise birthday party. Plus remember I started the week in a funk?

Today marks two weeks into the January 21 Day Challenge, so I had to be sure to at least stop by and post here. Fitting an hour walk into my schedule 3-5 days a week is a priority and guess what? I've stuck with it. I've walked 4 days so far. Both my eating and exercise have stayed constant! I didn't succumb to the stress that in the past would send me into a feeding frenzy more commonly known as binge eating. I weighed in today and I'm just .2 pounds short of losing 4 pounds this first two weeks. My goal is 1 pound a week so I'm ahead of the game.

One week to go on this challenge and then we have the rest of the month to evaluate how things went, what we need to change and what we want to accomplish for the February 21 Day Challenge! One day at a time, we can establish new habits that will change our lives.

21 Day Challenge: Day 6

Here is is already day 6 in the January 21 Day Challenge. I'm amazed how fast time flies. When I step back and look at it, it also becomes clear why I've gained weight in these past years. When I walked through life with the "I'll start to do something about my weight tomorrow" mindset, one day blended into the next and the only thing I was doing about my weight was adding to it.

Losing weight is a process. One day of healthy eating and exercise is just that one day. When we learn to string them together, it can be called a lifestyle. That's my overall goal for this year. To develop the habit of a healthy lifestyle. Saying that, today I'd like to talk about excuses.

Excuses are the reasons we come up with for why we don't eat healthy and/or don't exercise. Believe me, I'm a writer, I can come up with some creative reasons for why not to eat right and probably even more excuses for why I didn't exercise. That's one of the reasons I'm a member of the No Excuses Workout System. I think many of our excuses are a result of our busy lives...or at least that's what we blame it on. But think about it. Are we really so busy as to have no time for ourselves? For our health? If we are, then that needs to change.

My life as a writer and editor is busier than ever. I have another book coming this year which is in editing (which takes time), the sequel to Beyond the Fifth Gate which 3/4 written and is supposed to be finished soon, editing a non-fiction book for epress-online, and a host of articles to write and more. I think I work more hours now than ever, but this 21 Day Challenge, I've made exercise and fitness, in general, a priority. I set an appointment to exercise and so far I've made them. Even in below freezing weather, I've walked 9 miles so far this week! That's progress. Tomorrow I'll step on the scale and see if I've met my goal of losing one pound a week!

21 Day Challenge: Day 1

Here we are in a New Year and a fresh start. So many of us make New Year's resolutions to lose weight each year and by the middle of January get discouraged and quit.

The 21 Day Challenge is designed to keep us going all year...to see our weight loss and health goals through to year's end. The idea is that it takes 21 days to establish a new habit, so for the first 21 days of each month we will set goals to help build a foundation of healthy habits. The last days of each month will help us see if we need to continue on the same goals, change them totally, or just tweak them,. Each month represents a new start and a new set of goals will be posted; each month is a new start. This will help keep us motivated and moving forward to success!

For this month, my personal goals for the 21 Day Challenge are:

Follow the No S Diet

Drink 64 ounces of water daily

Exercise 3-5 days a week

I'd love it if others out there following the challenge would post their own goals in the comments section. Feel free to use "anonymous" posts if you don't want people to know who you are but please use some kind of name and sign your post so we can follow your progress.

Happy New Year!

How to Lose Weight in 2010

Here it is the last week of the month...heck it's the last week of year. It's the time when re-evaluating goals comes naturally. A new year, a new start and a new diet. Do I really want to start another diet? That's the real question. Bottom line is that I do want to lose weight. I do want to be healthy. I do want to fit into my clothes and breathe comfortably, and to bend over and tie my shoes without feeling like my air is cut off.

I'm taking steps toward the New Year and my plan for January's 21 Day Challenge. Today I bought a new scale. It not only tells me what I weigh but my percentage of body fat. Well, it hasn't told me yet. I didn't realize I didn't have two AA batteries. But I've taken that step, and will get the batteries this week. I also bought another book called The Maker's Diet. I'm looking for something to help inspire me and remind me of the importance of eating for health.

As I head toward January's 21 Day Challenge and putting together my goals for the first 21 days of the year, I'm considering following the No S Diet again and to walk at least 5 days a week. That's where I'm sitting with things right now.

Anybody else have any thoughts about the New Year and what they'll be doing with their weight? Have you set your goals?

New Year and the 21 Day Challenge

I've toyed with the idea of coming back to this blog for a number of reasons. First of all, I still have people leaving comments on old posts. Secondly, it's that time of year again when everyone is sick and tired of being overweight and we look with renewed determination at the New Year thinking we can actually lose that weight!

I've been facilitating a 21 Day Challenge elsewhere that has people setting goals--diet related goals--for the first 21 days of each month. I've made some new friends and couldn't help but think of those friends I left behind here.

It takes 21 days to establish a new habit. That means we can establish a new habit every month in the New Year. The goal is to work toward healthy lifestyle habits. Let’s get together and set some goals to springboard into a healthy 2010! I’m ready to lose all my excess weight! How about you?

If you want to take steps to a healthier lifestyle whether it involves losing weight or not, I encourage you to join me on or before January 1. Post your goals here and lets spur one another on to healthy living.

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For more check out my Diet News Blog.