It is on ... it's so very on!

Contest starts Aug. 31 (that's MONDAY!!!) and runs through Nov. 23 (12 weeks). If you're wanting to join, leave a comment on this post by Aug. 30. We're hoping to get at least 10 people to join so the pot is $100 or more for the winner. So, please send your $10 to me or Gwen by Sept. 30 so we can let everyone know how big the pot is ... (Recruit friends to make the pot even bigger!) The pot will be given to the winner just in time for Christmas shopping ...

This contest is based on fitness and healthy eating, NOT on weight loss ... although none of us are going to complain if that happens. :) Winner gets the pot (or splits it if there is a tie) based on how many points are accumulated throughout the 12 weeks.

Points are given each day based on the following:

• Keeping a food log (1 point per day - must keep it for the whole day)
  
• Exercising for 30 minutes (1 point max per day -- 1 hour doesn't equal 2 points)
• One point for each serving of fruit/vegetables (up to 5 per day)
  
• Meeting a personal goal (me time, scripture study, not yelling, etc.) (1 point per day)
  
• No snacking (1 snack the size of your palm = 0 points; more snacks = -1 point) (If you wonder if it's a snack, it's a snack! Be honest here -- it's for your health!)
• Getting 6+ hours of sleep per night (1 point per day ... adjust as necessary for newborns)
  

That makes a possible total of 10 points each day.

There will also be a bonus point each Monday for those who post to the blog (an entry or comment) about how many points you earned over the past week (and hopefully weight lost! :). The first week there will be a bonus point for posting a "before" picture as well, and the last week there will be a bonus point for posting an "after" picture.

My friend who did a similar contest said the first few weeks she got hardly any points, but she ended up losing a bit of weight and felt great!

I am pumped to start eating healthier, and I'm afraid it will take this contest to finally get me to do it! Also, if you'd like a copy of the food log I plan to use, post your e-mail in the comments as well. (Feel free to use at instead of @ and dot com so it doesn't link as an e-mail.)

GOOD LUCK!!!

Birthdays are over!

My birthday/anniversary month is over now and the kids are back in school-finally. The birthdays started in July with my brother-in-law who was on the 26th, my husband's was on the 29th. Then my birthday was August 7th, my daughter Hailey's on the 10th and then our anniversary on the 11th. Of course we kept eating out for everyone's birthday plus cakes and stuff. I wasn't too good. But, at least I didn't gain and now I am officially okayed to try and get pregnant so I can't really try to lose hard core. I figure I can still eat healthy and work out though, and maybe cut back on portions until I am actually pregnant. I guess my goal if I get pregnant will be to keep exercising, which I didn't do with my past pregnancies, so maybe it won't be so far for me to go afterwards. Good luck girls! We've all had a rough summer it sounds like.

What Happened????

So I have fallen off the weight loss wagon. I haven't posted lately because I have gotten a little lazy and gained back about two pounds. What really brought my attention to this is my husband commenting on how I have seemed to slack off after I was doing so good. It all started with the week that Jarrett took off for vacation. It threw everything out of whack sort of. We were going out and doing a lot of stuff, walking around in the hot sun. I guess my thought process was that this could count for exercise. It didn't. Then I would eat out with the family, and that was no good either. I felt like treating myself, which in itself is not all that bad, but I felt like doing it all the time. Trips to the ice cream shop, dessert at Applebee's(that after the hamburger I had eaten). I have also not been eating on schedule. We all know what that does. Then somehow that week stretched into two and then three. All along I kept telling myself I will start again tomorrow, then it became after the weekend, and so on. Now here I am up two pounds after all that work to take it off. So I WILL be starting again today, I've already worked out this morning and then took a walk over to the school with the kids. I will lose this week you can count on that. Good Luck to all.

Time for a contest?

Wondering if the rest of you are game for a contest of sorts? A friend who saw this blog said she did it with a group of women that made fitness and healthy eating a competition. They had each person put in $25 (I'm thinking more like $10 would be better), but after 12 weeks they tallied points and the winner(s) got the pot. (The winners also got a bit of weight off!)

Needless to say, if we each recruited a person or two, that would mean the winner would get something like $100 right in time for Christmas.

Points were given each day based on things like the following:

• Keeping a food log
• Exercising for 30 minutes (1 point per day -- 1 hour doesn't equal 2 points)
• One point for each serving of fruit/vegetables (up to 5 per day)
  
• Meeting a personal goal (me time, scripture study, not yelling, etc.)
• No snacking (1 snack the size of your palm = 0 points; more snacks = -1 point) (If you wonder if it's a snack, it's a snack!)
• Getting 6+ hours of sleep per night

That makes a possible total of 10 points each day. They also had a bonus point each Monday for those who posted to the blog and said how many points they'd earned over the past week (and hopefully how many pounds they'd lost!). My friend said the first few weeks she got hardly any points, but she endured and ended up losing a bit of weight.

As our kids start school and we're getting into new routines and schedules, it's a perfect time to make sure our fitness is a part of that schedule. I like that this point system isn't based on weight loss, but on overall fitness in general. If we were to start Sept. 1, we could go through Nov. 30 and find out the winner the first of December ...

Anyone game?