Wagon Jumpers - June 7 - 13th, 2009 (Closed, Waiting List Available)
Welcome
(If you are interested in being on the waiting list, please read below and e-mail me. We currently have 1 person on the waiting list.)
Welcome to the Wagon Jumpers weekly thread. We are a group of CC members who have identified that one of our main challenges with achieving our weight loss, maintenance or general health goals is consistency.
This thread is designed to encourage long term commitment to our goals by publicly declaring them and asking the other members of this thread to hold us accountable. The primary focus of wagon jumpers is not how much weight you have lost, or need to loose, but what you need to do on a daily basis to meet your long term goals.
There are two rules for Wagon Jumpers:
1. All members must post once per week between Sunday and Friday.
2. All members must check the thread for members who have not posted by Saturday (a short list is posted on Thursday) or are on the MIA list on Sunday and send them a polite and positive message to stay involved in the group and on track with their goals.
If you would like to be a member of this thread please see the guidelines below and send me a PM if you are still interested (there may be a waiting list).
Medium Size Group = Some Time Commitment
The original idea of Wagon Jumpers was to create a close community where participants could get to know each other and hopefully form virtual-life and perhaps even physical-life bonds to create a support network as they attempted long term weight loss.
We quickly discovered that this was impossible with an 'always open' group as there were too many people coming and going. For this reason the group is finding its optimum level is between 20 and 25 participants.
A medium sized group means that we have an active thread that produces between 30 - 45 posts per week. Members do not need to read / respond to every post every week. I do notice that those who respond regularly do tend to keep their goals top of mind, and have a better chance to achieve them. I estimate the average time spent by an active member on Wagon Jumpers to be between 1-2 hours per week.
If you are looking for an always open group on CC there are several that operate by different weight criteria, similar motivational patterns etc... There are also many small groups that cap their numbers between 4-10 people to keep the group more intimate, and easier for members to keep up with.
Interested in Joining?
General Guidelines for Joining
1. Are you a wagon jumper?
Do you know how to loose weight, you often have success but then you find yourself loosing interest in your plan, or sabotaging your plan. It's not the "how" to loose weight that is the problem, it's the "how" to stay motivated.
2. Do you have a long way to go?
This group is designed so that members can get to know each other and support each other. Ideally you are planning to be a CC member and part of this forum for at least 6 months or more to achieve your goals and hopefully stay in motivation for a further 6 months or more.
Yes. This is, a long term plan.
3. Do you have the time?
This is a medium sized group, the thread does move fairly quickly each week. If you do not have regular internet access this is likely not the group for you.
Still interested?
Send Supersized a PM. (Please do not reply on the thread)
An overview will be sent to you, you will have a chance to ask questions and an invitation will be sent to you once a spot is open.
Google Group
We have recently added a google group as an option for members, past members, and members on the waiting list. If you would like access to the google group (and are in one of the above categories) send a message to beaglesmuggler (at) roger.com with your username and e-mail address and I will add you to the google group.
Wagon Jumpers Participants
Year 1 - Week 5 Riders:
Supersized 
(myself)
Year 1 - Week 1 Riders:
Week 49 Riders:
Wenchie58 - extended sick leave
Week 47 Riders:
Week 46 Riders:
Week 43 Riders:
Week 38 Riders:
Week 37 Riders:
Week 33 Riders:
Week 29 Riders:
Week 28 Riders - Congratulations on 7 Months!:
Week 27 Riders:
Week 26 Riders:
Week 25 Riders:
Week 22 Riders:
Week 21 Riders:
Week 4 Riders - Congratulations on 1 Month!:
Week 2 Riders:
Week 1 Riders:
Missing In Action:
Missing In Action - 1 Week:
Missing In Action - 2 Weeks:
Current Membership: 21
Current Waiting List: 1
Outstanding Wait List Invites: 0
12 Week CONSISTENCY GOALS
(as set w/o April 5th, 2009)
By June 27th, I will be...
Msmeg1984 - Maintenance: I will continue to eat less than 1800 cals/day on average New: Exercise at least 3x a week at least 9 of the 12 weeks.
Defrog3 - To continue eating healthfully for me and my little fetus, which means I need to stick to 2,000 balanced calories/day. My NEW goal is to start exercising regularly, meaning moving my butt in some fashion for 30 minutes, 3 days a week.
Cawilder - NEW: Attain a 30 / 30 / 40 food combo 80% of the time. MAINTENANCE: Running @ least 5 hours / week and 2X weight lifting.
Unlimitedana - Maintenance goal: Eat 1550-1650 cals a day. New Goal Achieve the 40-40-20 at least two days per week.
Raven21 - 1. Exercise at least 3 x a week (maintenance) 2. Average daily calorie intake of 1450-1650 (new)
Figurethefat - For maintenance: I will continue to complete a minimum of 1,500 exercise minutes per month. New goal: I will drink at least 1.5 litres of water per day.
Supersized - MAINTENANCE: Continue to eat at or below 2,000 cal/day average for at least 6 of 12 weeks, and never over 2,500 cal/day average. NEW: start going to the gym (again), and achieve at least 4 weeks where I attend the gym 3x/week.
Lam7 - NEW GOAL: Participate in our Navan Walking Club 10 Week Program (Tuesdays) starting April 21-June 26; as well as attend 6 "Spring into Spring" Interval Classes which will run on Thursday evenings starting April 9th, 2009.
Constanza - (new) Eat an average of 1700 calories/day. (maintenance) Exercise at least twice weekly (calculated by average)
Thesilverstar121 - Excercising at least 3x a week.
Kyashiis - Maintenance goal:Exercise for a minimum of 20 minutes a day 5 days a week. New goal: I will zig-zag on my food intake consistently throughout the week and end up with an average daily calorie count of 1,200 cals.
Nannygabber - Maintenance goal of doing NROLFW 3x per week with an allowance of two weeks slack for this 12-week session.
Pelkeyjm - Maintenance: Exercise a minimum of 30 minutes at least 3x per week. New Goal: Log ALL food on calorie count.
Previous Threads:
Wagon Jumpers May 31 - June 6th, 2009
Wagon Jumpers May 24 - 30th, 2009
Wagon Jumpers - May 17 - 23rd, 2009
Wagon Jumpers - May 10 - 16th, 2009
Wagon Jumpers - May 3 - 9th, 2009
Wagon Jumpers - April 26 - May 2nd, 2009
Wagon Jumpers - April 19 - 25th, 2009
Wagon Jumpers - April 12 - 18th, 2009
Wagon Jumpers - April 5 - April 11th, 2009
Wagon Jumpers - March 29 - April 4th, 2009
Wagon Jumpers - March 22 - 28th, 2009
Wagon Jumpers - March 15 - 21st, 2009
Wagon Jumpers - March 8 - 14th, 2009
Wagon Jumpers - March 1 - 7th, 2009
Wagon Jumpers - February 22 - 28th, 2009
Wagon Jumpers - February 15 - 21st, 2009
Wagon Jumpers - February 8 - 14th, 2009
Wagon Jumpers - February 1 - 7th, 2009
Wagon Jumpers - January 25 - 31st, 2009
Wagon Jumpers - January 18 - 24th, 2009
Wagon Jumpers - January 11 - 17th, 2009
As always all members are encouraged to tag this thread so that it is easy to find.
Hey, checking in. I wanted to tell everyone to keep forward with you goals. Can't believe you guys are coming to the home stretch already. Congrats to everyone who are on track. To everyone who isn't its okay. Y'all will get it. Just keep going. Can't wait to hear the final results.
Checking in - 100% on exercise goal, not so much on the calorie counting goal. I am going to have to give some serious thought to what will work for me in regards to an eating plan (thanks for the advice from Carol and others ). Congrats to everyone that is on track to complete their goals and for those that are in a similiar situation to mine, look at this as a learning experience. The good news is that I'm not gaining weight and seem to be on a slow but steady decline.
Well must get back to work. Lots of things to do, busy busy month.
Carrie
Julie I can relate about feeling a little demotivated by setting "realistic" life goals. That's in quotes because I think I'm still working that bit out, I'm used to doing one of two things... either setting unattainable goals and failing... or setting somewhat reasonable goals and then feeling like I failed if I don't overachieve by at least 50%. Realizing that realistic and acheivable goal setting is a way of prioritizing myself and deciding what is important to me is an ongoing struggle.
Jessica I think we all go through those ups and downs especially when we're sick. As a contract worker I've learned to spend the day in bed to get the extra productivity later... take care of getting better first, you can't have a healthy body if you don't give it the recouperation it needs.
Meri This group will probably talk much more about this when we get closer to goal setting, in the next three weeks. I typically limit new members to one declared new goal, by declared I mean that you may have as many personal goals as you want, but I only put one new one up on the thread. Members who have been through at least one session get a declared maintenance goal as well.
On the calories, yours are at the bottom of the diet range, this may or may not be approriate depending on your build. Kyashiis for example is shorter than average (Kathy, I hope you don't take offense as you've said so several times yourself)... on the other hand many of us who are average build found that we were really struggling on the low cal diets and we discovered the New Rules of Lifting for Women, and several health and fitness blogs that dicussed the benfits of balancing macronutrients over super low cal diets.
I personally don't think we slip off the wagon any less than other groups. I think the difference is that we take for granted that we will, so the shame / guilt associated with coming back to the group after a fall is (hopefully) much less. I think the other difference with the goals is that I focus on what you can actually achieve, you can't control if you loose 5lbs or not, but you can control if you go to the gym or not.
Stress eating: Carol I think has some good advice or at least some experience struggling with this issue.
Don't worry about the weird binges, I binge on flavoured seaweed, olives, and protobello mushrooms (sometimes together). I'll have to revive the thread on weird binges eventually.
Tiegurl Thanks for the cheerleading!
Carrie Great job on 100% exercise!
TWO DAY REMINDERS
Dear gawd! Is it Thursday already! Where did this week go? Please send polite and positive reminders to our about to be MIA members.
Sorry I'm late in checking in this week. I volunteer at a cat shelter and we are fairly small (maybe 10 volunteers or so) but we have a little over 80 cats! Anyways we have something going through the kittens at the shelter and in the past three weeks have lost eight kittens and two more are likely to go soon as well. So I have been rushing kittens to and from vets, giving fluids, handfeeding, and making sure everyone gets their meds on time.
As far as staying on track with my eating the past three weeks have not been too good. I have eaten out a lot, as I don't like eating in the shelter and its in a plaza conveniently next to three restaurants. I guess I just need to suck it up and pack lunches to eat outside or in my car. But despite my horrible eating I have managed to not gain any weight, hopefully I can get my act together starting now! lol
Thanks to everyone for the nice reminders to check in, sometimes I get a bit scatterbrained.
I don't know about the calories, thing is I'm 5 foot 2 (160 cm) and have a small-medium frame - depends on the accepted measurements (usually I rank small).
Calorie Count recommends 1300 with my level set at sedentary, so I figured, that I could cut back some calories on days I don't work out, since I don't burn so much (only about 1700 cals/per day).
Anyway, thanks for clearing the guidelines for the future challenges.
@jnielsen awwww... kitty cats... I hope they get much better
Trust me about packed lunches: they are the thing! I have a horribly busy schedule usually and if you put your mind to it, it can be a lot of fun at night to make your own lunches. I used to go crazy with colors and shapes - try to stock your kitchen full of frozen or fresh veggies and get busy(make sure you have a wide array of choices)!You could try bento boxes - a Japanese fun way to make packed lunches look pretty. (It looks like a lot of effort, but trust me, it isn't such a bother).
Hang in there!
Meri
Jacqueline Sorry about the kitties, my partner volunteered at the Toronto Humane Society for some time and was assigned to the kitten nursery, so I've a vague idea of what it's like. I always loved the little feral kittens that would hiss at me. :) As for lunches, I keep trying to pack mine as well, I go with the opposite threory as Meri, but then I am absolutely fine with consistency. I decide on one lunch, make enough for a week, wrap it and then either take it with me each day or now that I've moved offices bring all of them on Monday.
Meri At 5'2" you are probably in a reasonably range at 1200- 1400... the trend I was finding in the group is that people who were committing to low cal diets (i.e. a 1200 cal diet for someone who is 5'9" and 200+ lbs is super low cal) were having very high failure rates, when they bumped up their calories and their exercise they were generally happier, less stressed and still able to achieve results. I think because this is a calorie counting site the low-cal side of things tends to get much more emphasis over the good nutrition. We try to keep the two balanced here, but it's a collective learning experince as none of us are experts.
Sara... I know I'm short. I don't care if people talk about it. At least here in Japan, you can occasionally find women shorter than me. I don't know how they eat normally and stay so small though. I'd love to solve that mystery LOL...
meri... I'm just under 5 ft (151 cm). Women are not supposed to go lower than 1,200 cals a day. My maintenance calories are only 1,400 cals, so it's a bit tricky to lose given those parameters (and I have about 25 lbs more to lose). The leeway between 1,200 and 1,400 is really impossible. For awhile I was eating a lot more after sustained exercise (hiking up and down mountains for 4 to 8 hours at a time). Then, I realized I may have been shooting myself in the foot. I know everybody burns calories differently and has different metabolisms, so what works for me (or them for that matter) would naturally be different. I'm treating the daily calorie intake and burn rate as a guideline (the one size fits all argument).
So, I have found zigging and zagging between 1,000, 1,100 and 1,200 to be effective with the occasional 1,400 cal day here and there. As long as I eat very healthy (which I tend to do anyway - lots of veggies, some fruits, fish and very little meat, laying off the sugary things), and I feel good, I think this is what works for me. I'm still in the overweight category, so it is important to lose the next 25 lbs. I have accepted that it will take close to another year to reach my goal if I want to do it in a healthy way.
You are right about the Japanese obento (box lunches). They are fun to make and don't take long after you get a repertoire of foods built up. If you have rice in it, you can lay a wet tea towel over it and the rice will stay very fresh if you prepare it the night before. It works like a primitive refrigeration system. It's so humid here, that I have to put wet tea towels over quite a few foods that don't improve by refrigeration but can't be left out in the heat. When my kids were in grade school, I made them every morning at 6 am... glad those days are over...
Thanks for the advice guys, I guess I'm just a bit burnt out when it comes to packing lunches. I pack lunches every day while I'm in school and since school just got out my schedual for everything is mixed up. I don't pack lunches, I sleep in, I don't get my chores done on time. I just need to replan my life for summer or I'm going to get nothing accomplished.
Packing bento boxes is fun, I used to make really cute lunches for my boyfriend but I don't like spending the effort making them for me, normally I just throw my food in a lunchbox. Anyways my boyfriend and I are off to the shelter to help with the kittens then we might go on a nice bike ride. Have a nice day everyone!
THIS THREAD IS CLOSED, PLEASE POST ON OUR NEW WEEKLY THREAD:
So you can keep track of what you eat - which enables you to analyze your foods and receive the following:
- Health Score of your overall diet
- Warning when you approach your daily calorie limit
- Overview of the good and bad nutrients
