JULY SLIMMING MINIS OPEN, but we're moving it to a new thread soon.

This challenge was originally started to be for folks under 5'4", but it evolved to be an all-comers challenge. So welcome, and I hope you enjoy participating!

Here are the guidelines:

• Email me your starting weight.
• 2 points each for every 8 ounces of water. Plain or bottle (No flavors)
• 3 points for each 15 minutes of workout time. This is structured workouts - as in you went for a walk with the intention of it being exercise - and there are no points for anything other than 15 minute intervals.
• 1 point if you complete a physical challenge.
• 1 point if you complete a personal challenge.
• Send your weight at the end of the month.
• Person with the most points wins.

Note: 1 point bonus if you suggest a challenge! You can suggest a challenge by posting it in the thread or by messaging me and I'll post it. Challenges can be completed at any time during the month - just tell me which one you did after you do it. Just give your challenge a title and give a brief description of how to complete it, and you're good to go (and you get an extra point!) For example: "I would like to challenge everyone to do 10 pushups today." would be a physical challenge. "I would like everyone to do 5 minutes of quiet reflection/meditation" would be a personal challenge."

Please send your information to me via private message daily or every other day in the following format:
3x 8 oz of water
45 minutes of treadmill
completed side bend challenge

If you go out of town please let me know ahead of time, and then when you get back please send me your points broken down by dates.

I usually update points every day in the morning, but sometimes I take the weekend off - I'll let you know if I do.

Post or message me if you have any questions.

Good luck everyone!

The Contenders - JUNE - FINAL POINTS

augette - 775

findingmeagain2009 - 1633 - congrats!

kyashiis - 707

moonduster - 1278

nev2179 - 154

solemnleaf - 412

spacedreamer01 - 361

Physical Challenges - we'll keep the same from April if y'all want...

Change It Up! - Try a workout you've never done before (1 point per new activity tried)

Strength Training - One point for at least 15 minutes of strength training - this will also get you 3 regular exercise points!

Crunches - As many sets of 25 as you can (max 1 point per day)

Pushups - As many sets of 25 as you can (max 1 point per day)

Plank - Hold the plank position for 20-30 seconds (1 point per day)

squats - with your weight centered over the middles of your feet, squat down and stand back up again. Keep your knees centered over your toes and your back straight. Repeat as many times as you can - try it in sets of 10-25 (max 1 point per day)

jumping jacks - one, two! one, two! try a few sets of jumping jacks (max 1 point per day)

zany workout! - one point per day for the most odd, creative workout you can think of

Positive Challenges

5-a-day - eat the recommended 5 fruits/veg a day (recurring)

Go Outside - enjoy the great outdoor

Litter Busters - Pick up a piece of trash when you go outside

Eat Breakfast - The most important meal of the day!

Reading - get one point per day for picking up the book you've been meaning to read (p.s. I'd love to hear what it is, as I work for a Library =)

Finish a Book - back by popular demand - one point for every book you finish

8 a Day H2O - You will receive one extra point per day if your water totals 8 x 8 oz or more.

Straight A Students - log in your food and get an A for the day, and you get a point

Set a Goal - one point for setting a total points goal for the month

Meet Your Goal

Get Some Sleep - get at least 7.5 hours of sleep a night

Stay Under Your Personal Maintenance Calorie Level

Log Your Food By Midnight

Zany Workouts

This is where I'll be posting your creative/crazy workouts, if you'd like

Kneading Bread

Car Racing (I'm not going to count this in my exercise total, but it was a nice isometric core stabilization workout!)

wrestling my tiller!

trimming sheep feet (awesome)

making balloon animals

I'm all for continuing the challenges from last month.  They've helped me so far especially the 5 A-Day. 

Unfortunately right now the Get Outside challenge is the last I want to do. We are in the midst of another Winter Weather Advisory with more snow and highs in the teens/low twenties.  They are calling for an additional 2" so I'll probably be outside this evening shoveling snow yet again. I just wish it would either stay cold or warm up I don't really care which just stick to one extreme or the other! We hit 57 degrees on Sunday but I wasn't feeling well and ended up spending most of the weekend in bed. This weekend is supposed to warm up into the 50s again so maybe I'll be able to get out for a walk. 

Same here augette.  Still have a foot an a half of snow on the ground and under another winter storm advisory (3-6 inches possible)  till 1 pm tomorrow.  :(  I miss the outdoors so much!!!  My daughter has only had 6 days of school since they went on Christmas break back in December.  :(

Physical challenge

How about cardio?  Jumping Jacks, or walking, or jogging, or...  We had programmed exercise among January's challenges, but I don't see it on the carry-over suggestions for February.  (Of course, I have a vested interest in this one...I walk every day, even in frigid Ohio) lol.

Thanks mauntler. Since many people do normal cardio (walking, running, elliptical machine) as part of the physical activity that would get them 3 points per 15 minutes, how about we do the physical challenge...

creative cardio: find a creative way to get  your heart rate up - a boot camp workout, dancing, jumping rope, playing hopscotch....

Happy Thursday everyone!

How are you all today?

Hope everyone is having a good weekend. 

I went a little overboard today.  We went to the bookstore and I got two books on knitting. Then we went to Best Buy and got a photo printer and tri-pod for my camera (early birthday present from my hubsband). We also stopped at Red Lobster for Dinner.   Then to top it off once we got home I felt like baking and ended up making chocolate chip cookies  and having 2-3 plus some ice cream.  What was I thinking???

After all of that I got on the bike and made sure I did 30 minutes. I'd missed a couple of days due to having company.  Overall I guess I didn't do as bad as I had thought because although I went over it was only by about 600 calories so that just means that I've got to watch this next week and maybe get in an extra work out or 2. 

Well I can complete my grateful challenge today....I AM SO GRATEFUL THAT I DIDN'T LET UP AND THE SCALE FINALLY MOVED.  LOL  I have been stuck at 134.5 since the 30th of last month....finally came down a pound.  Pleatu's are soooo discouraging....It was very hard not to give in and just eat this last week...But at least for now I'm seeing the pay off!  LOL

Spacedreamer I know I'm a couple days behind on sending points.  I have had my brother and his kids staying with me a couple days and things have just been crazy.  :(  I have got them written down though and will make sure at the end of today to get them all sent in.  :D

I've got one for the grateful challenge today.  I am grateful for the weather that finally let up!  After all the snow we've had over the past week or 2 today was beautiful. Sunny and a warm 60+ degrees! 

I did my usual 30 minutes on the bike this afternoon and then while I was looking out the window decided that I just needed to be outside. So I put on my tennis shoes and headed out for a walk.   I did 2 miles at a rather slow pace since I convinced the entire family to come along.  I also took my camera and took a few shots. I'm still learning how to use the camera that I got for Christmas so this was a great opportunity.

Hope everyone had a great day!

I'm really grateful for some renewed activity in the forum =)

Also for an absolutely bluebird day of skiing. We haven't had any snow up at the mountain where I teach for over three weeks (people - wish your snow my way! we need it!) but the sun warmed us up and I had a fun day teaching and skiing with a few of my instructor friends.

Happy Wednesday everyone. Hope you're all doing well. I had an interesting visit to the doc's yesterday. In 2003, my horse threw me into a wall and I felt like I'd broken my rib(s?). I went to the ER, but they didn't think I needed an xray, just rest and vicodin. Then a year later, I started playing golf and doing a lot of yoga at the same time, and it felt like my ribs were going to tear themselves apart. Since then, I've been taking it easy. Six years of not doing twisting exercises, not playing golf, having to structure my workouts with my personal trainer so that they didn't stress my rib.

Yesterday I finally went to see a doc about it, and get an xray. It turns out that the place where the cartilage (which makes up the front part of your rib cage) and the actual ribs join together was broken all those years ago and didn't knit back together properly. The solution according to the doc: work out as hard as you can and don't stop. Eventually the place will have to heal back together properly because you're never resting it to let it heal improperly...

Considering that when I was working out hard the year after the injury I couldn't breathe because of the pain when I laid down to go to sleep at night... this is going to hurt.

So wish me luck everyone! I'm off on a rib-tearing adventure =)

OUCH! That sounds like it's going to be painful, Spacedreamer!  Hope everything heals back properly. I guess if nothing else you'll be getting a terrific workout!

I've slacked on the exercise a little here the last day or so - I did some just not what I had hoped. I've been getting on the bike most days for at least 30 minutes but it's not been at the level that it should be so tonight I need to really get into it and get a good strenuous workout.  Although I've found that if I keep the exercise on the lower intensity I tend to keep at it instead of giving up after a month or so.  My plan is to continue with the lower intensity for most days and try to pick it up a notch or 2 at least 1 or 2 times a week.

shellbysmomma: I hope this new round of storms isn't effecting you.  We've had some major wind here today and I know they were concerned about the KY area in general see as how some in the area just got power back on  (or are still waiting) from the snow/ice storm a couple of weeks ago.

Sounds like you have a good plan there augette, and thanks for the well wishes.

That's actually a good question for the group - what do you guys do to stick with your workout plan? My answer to that would be my personal trainer, if he hadn't moved to australia for six months!

Hope everyone is having a good weekend. I had a pretty good day yesterday managed to get in 2 workouts of 45 min each on the bike one in the morning and another later in the evening.

We spent the day taking the kids out yesterday. We took them to McDonalds for lunch (I know not the best choice but it was quick and a treat for them since we don't go there often) and then took them to see "Journey to the Center of the Earth" at the theatre.  After that we spent 45 minutes or so at the library returning some books and picking out a few more. 

Today's plan is grocery shopping then a quiet day at home and hopefully another workout or 2.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone.

We had a great suggestion for a positive challenge:

Litter Busters - Pick up a piece of litter when you're out and about...

Many of you do walks for your exercise, so just take a little bag with you or find a nearby trash can to toss a piece of litter you might see.

Thanks mauntler for this one!

I've also finally updated the points - sorry it took me a couple days - I've been busy with skiing and valentine's day activities.

I'm BACK!! LOL  Grrrrrrrrr Yes, augette, my little town got hit HARD w/ the winds...kids back outa school and all.....I was lucky that in the fact that I kept all my electric and internet and all BUT both my mother and brothers family was without so my little 2 bedroom house has been a mad house lately...LOL  I am just glad I could help everyone else out but have to admit I am very grateful that Every thing is FINALLY back to normal. (hey does that count as a grateful challenge....LOL!!) How are you doing...are you still recovering from all this bad weather?

Spacedreamer, how are you feeling....gosh it doesn't sound like your having to much fun right now...:(  I have written down things but to be honest have missed out on about a week of sending in points and it would be a lot to send in at once....I think I'm just going to pick up from today and go from there.  I hate missing the points but it's more important to me to just STAY ON TRACK!! :D

Shellbysmomma, I think we've finally recovered.  The past week has been unseasonably warm - 50 - 60 degrees.  By Friday things settled back to normal and we've had highs in the 40s the past couple of days.  So sorry to hear that you were hit hard again. I'm glad you were able to help out your family though.  We spent a week without power back in September when Hurricane Ike came through (I still can't quite comprehend that - I live in Indiana afterall!)and it was MISERABLE but at least we didn't have to deal with the cold weather on top of it!

Hey everybody - I'll update the points later tonight when I get back from taking a midterm for my grad school law class -eek!

How's everyone been doing?  I was going strong up until about Thursday and since then things just haven't been going well.  I feel drained all the time and haven't been eating very well. Hum, wonder if those 2 things are related? I guess maybe my first step is to get back on track with my meals (we've been eating out a lot this past weekend and thus having lots of sodium).

Hi everyone! Sorry I was awol this weekend - I had a very fast process to get ready to buy my first home! A very cute little townhouse. Now I'm stuck in the life-sucking cycle of waiting to find out if it's going to work out and it's so scary - I'm eating badly and not getting good sleep =( I'll update points this evening.

How did everyone do?  I've had a very bad week this past week.  I've not been eating as well and while I've been getting some exercise it's not been very intense at all and a struggle to make myself do it.

Spacedreamer: How's it going with the house?