TT Thursday : my Weight Loss Challenge Week 28

my Weight Loss Challenge Weeks 28 : won $143.25

Usually I write two parts to my Thursday Thunder Thighs post.  The top portion is usually weightloss strategies or inspirational people and the bottom portion is my update.  Right now I took a two-week holiday gig which is manual labor (lifting, walking) for 8-12 hours.  So I am beyond exhausted.  I thought I was in good enough shape as I’ve been walking on three-hour photographing trips taking shots of murals or geocaching around Tucson.  Ummm, nope.  Turns out this job uses completely different muscles.  I had no idea lifting uses thigh muscles — are maybe it’s the standing/walking for so long.  Surprisingly my arms feel fine.  I roll into bed thinking I’m already dead.  Even zombies have it better than me because as far as I’ve read they feel no pain.  If I can tough it out for the two weeks though, I should have the muscles in my legs to climb Mt. Lemmon.  I can hope.

Because I’m tired (brain tired too), I am only dong the weightloss update section.  The job ends January 4th so I hope after that to get back to my inspirational people.  Meantime if there is someone you think I should look into for my January 10th, I’m open to suggestions.  Parameters are they have to be inspirational in either losing weight, becoming fit or being fit.  For example, I’ve done chefs who have lost weight, Mirna the Mirnavator and Coach Tulin, and the first woman to climb Mount Everest and the Seven Summits.  I’d really like to know more about people over 50 and/or start weight is over 200.  I don’t care if the end weight is under 200 as fit is more important than weight.

Having said fitness is more important than weightloss, I am still focused on the weightloss.  I have some good news and some bad news.  First the good news.  I got paid for another challenge. Yay! HealthyWage paid me for the Big Losers Jackpot Challenge. I’ve won another $143.25, less the $100 I bet.  520 people participated and 277 successfully lost 6%.  I am glad that I lost another 6%.  In the three months challenge, I went from 223.1 to 209.7 pounds. I know I said the same thing last week when I won $96.59 but I started both challenges at the same time because last week’s challenge I strated a week late.

I missed posting last week.  Last weeks my new low was 204.7.  This week my newest lost the day after that one was 204.3.

So here’s the trouble.  Since then I’ve started working at a place with no cafeteria but a ton of vending machines.  I’m hurting and as I’ve mentioned before I’ve realized food is my palliative.  The first two days was orientation during the day — sitting so it was easy — but I walked to the only nearby place to buy lunch.  They made hot but greasy burritos.  No veggies in sight.

The third and fourth days, I brought in my lunch.  The first night I brought in a salad and last night I ate cherry tomatoes for lunch.  Doesn’t sound bad right?  Yeah.  It’s the first break that kills me.  I hit the vending machines.  A bag of potatoes or corn chips.  I want the carb, salt and crunch.  And coke.  I love coke and have been off of it forever and now I’m back on.  Yesterday I had one at first break and lunch.  I did bring ice water with me yesterday so drank a bit of that too but I wanted the fizz, sugar and caffeine.  The end result is that I am back up to 205 when I wake up (my lowest weight is first thing in the morning).  During the day, I fluctuate between 205 and 207.5.

I went shopping for food today and walked out having spent more than $90.  Kind of a shocker because I’ve been spending between $15 and $50 lately.  And I only hit the $50 because of cat litter and catfood.  I did buy cat litter and catfood but the rest was all me.  I bought carbs for the first time in ages.  Croissant, Italian bread, and double chocolate muffins.  There’s a candy bar in one of the bags somewhere too: chocolate with almonds. Plus a couple frozen dinners to bring to work in a pinch.  Frozen dinners always have carbs.  I also bought a premade salad for tonight’s lunch.

I am cutting myself some slack though because at least I’ve gone back to a decent lunch re: salad vs burrito.  I did buy the muffins but I didn’t buy the cheesecake.  I put that back.  So tonight I’ll bring in a muffin so I don’t buy the chips.  Plus look for my thermos to bring in sweet tea with raw honey to replace the cola.  Yeah, I realize they are compromises but I suspect if I get the salt water weight off, I probably did lose another pound.  I need to get off the cola fast too as I forgot how addicting that is for me.

When you’re home a lot, it’s easier to control your food habits.  Also if you’ve established a routine.  However, when your routine is disrupted or if you’re away from home in an environment with easy access to salt, carbs and sugar but no easy access to fresh veggies, it’s a different paradigm.  So the thing for me is to bring in my own source of food.  I have some blueberries I need to eat up.  I bought some more cherry tomatoes and a salad.  I also need to learn to make granola.  I looked at the bags of commercial granola at the store but they sure seem to have a lot of sugar in them for something that’s touted as healthy. I also looked at some bags of berries and nuts and the nuts are all honeyroasted.  I should be able to make up a version or granola that is healthy without that the sugar or salt. If not a granola, at least a toasted nut and fruit snack.  Toasting the nuts in the microwave without oil or salt gives them a crunch.  You just have to watch the time as the time for a good crunch to a burned nut is very close.  And the time is different if it’s a sliced nut like almonds versus pieces like walnuts. I’m still experimenting with the time.

My past HealthyWage challenges.

name	end date	goal	lost	bet	paid	net
Big Losers	12/3/18	209.7	13.4 lbs	$33.33/mo	$143.25	$43.25
Poundshedders	12/3/18	209.7	13.4 lbs	$20/mo	$96.59	$36.59
Going for Goal	11/9/18	219.7	14 lbs	$20/mo	$92.94	$32.94
Slimming & Winning	8/27/18	237	15.1lbs	$20/mo	$151.40	$91.40
Totals			42.4 lbs	$160	$484.18	$204.14

Here is how I’m doing on my current HealthyWage challenges. (ontrack versus today morning weight of 205).  As you can see I’m in trouble on the closest ones because I didn’t lose my pound for the week yet.  I’m burning calories but I’ve upped my calories too to counter the tiredness.  Soooo.  I really need to bring in the healthy snacks so that first break doesn’t have me banging on the vending machines again.  My intermittent fasting is out the window at the moment.  I may try to do a fasting half day on my day off whatever that day is.  Hopefully my report will be better next week as I bring in healthier food. I like knowing I am losing the 2% per month so it does bother me that this week I don’t have this month’s 2% nailed.

name	end date	goal	expected	ontrack?
Falling Pounds	12/26	206.7	210.8	done, weighed out
Big Buck Losers	1/2	202.3	204.1	no but 2-week weighout window is open
Healthier Holidays	1/6	202.3	204.7	no
Scale Watchers	1/16	202.7	206.7	yes
Winter Winners	2/20	197.6	206.8	yes
Pound Droppers	2/27	197.6	207.8	yes
WeightLoss Takeoff	3/3	197.6	208.4	yes
Shrinking Scale s	3/6	193.5	204.6	no
Healthy Wager	6/4	187.1	216.6	yes

I love HealthyWage.  The 3-month 6% challenges are really working for me. I started Big Losers at the same time as Poundshedders but it won’t pay out until next week.  Falling Pounds just opened their final weigh-out window so my hitting 205 allowed me to film my final weigh-out video a couple of days ago. The weigh-out window opens up two weeks before the final day.  I try to be at the goal weight when the window opens so I don’t have to worry about it.  I extended the big HealthyWage Healthy Wager bet another 6 months so I didn’t get the $768 on December 4th but I’m pretty certain I’ll get it June 4th.  I also joined a few more 6% challenges because I just finished a few. The cool thing is that if I win the new ones, weighing out in February, I will be under 200.  I like the smaller manageable goals of the 6% challenges.

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I am an affiliate for HealthyWage because I like them and studies prove people with a little financial incentive to lose weight have a significantly higher percentage of success. It worked for me on several 6% loss challenges so far. In the above post text, the HealthyWage links are affiliate links only but you can also choose to join by a friends link. If you join through the links above, I’ll get a small fee whether you and/or I succeed or fail. However, they also have a friends link where we both earn only if we both succeed at the main HealthyWager challenge — the added motivation of social pressure! If you join up by clicking this friends link, it adds a $40 to your HealthyWager award and $40 to my HealthyWager award but only if we both succeed. Neither of us gets the $40 if either person fails. The $40 is for HealthyWager challenges only and not the other challenges like the 6% individual challenge or the team challenge. I have not seen any info if that includes either person extending the challenge. The HealthyWage affiliate link doesn’t matter if anyone succeeds but there is no benefit for the friend, just for the affiliate no matter what kind of challenge they join. Joining through the friends link also lets you view your friend on the dashboard: you’ll see their name and what % they’ve lost so far but not the actual weight. That’s private unless you make it public.