TT Thursday : my Weight Loss Challenge Week 29

TT Thursday : my Weight Loss Challenge Week 29

TT Thursday : my Weight Loss Challenge Week 29

Falling Pounds Jackpot Challenge, payout 1/9/19

Ok, still working the holiday gig so this is just the bottom half of the post — my progress report.  It’s late too.  No research involved though so I can just do it off the top of my head. Next week I’m still doing the holiday gig but after that things should go back to normal. Crossing my fingers.  So the January 3rd post will likely be just another progress report and then the January 10th one will be my usual two-parter and hopefully some of my other posts should start appearing too.

The first week I started working I went up to 210 from a low of 204.3.  Cola and chips in the work vending machine had reappeared on my diet. Those were the culprits. After a few days though, I’d cut the chips out. My addiction had been retriggered so it’s only been the last couple of days I stopped drinking it.  Mostly because I ran out of coins to feed the machine.  What can I say? I’m not a saint. I was at least eating consistently healthy at lunch break though — salad, cherry tomatoes or mandarin oranges so lunch wasn’t a problem.  Just that first break. This morning when I woke up I was at 203.5.  Yay!

Big Buck Losers Jackpot Challenge, last  weighout day is Jan 2.  Uh-oh!

That leaves me two days to get to 201.9 for the Big Buck Losers Challenge.  Losing the week due to chocolate muffins, chips, candy bars and cola really cost me. Vending machines are dangerous!  January 2nd is the last day of the weigh-in. It’s going to be tight.

I’d be more confident of hitting 201.9 if I wasn’t working because I have more control at home.  Today is my day off so I made garbage soup which is very low calorie.  Garbage soup is when you look through your refrigerator at the vegetables and throw anything that looks like it’s getting old into a pot of water.  So in went a 1/4 cabbage, a bag of spinach, 1 red pepper, a half dozen grape tomatoes, 1/2 an onion, a few garlic cloves, some slices of chicken and cilantro. I’m pretty certain I hit my new low of 203.5 due to the garbage soup as that’s all I’ve eaten today. I really need to make up a better name for garbage soup because it’s pretty yummy actually and perfect for a cold winter’s day.

I also have a bag of cranberries in the refrig.  I bought it because it was $1 but have no idea what to do with it yet.  Putting it into a soup didn’t sound appealing so that’ll be something for another day.  I have a cactus fruit in there too. Not sure what to do with that either.

Work is pretty tiring, doing a lot of walking, lifting, pushing and pulling.  Right now I just hurt but I’m hoping at the end of three weeks, I will be fine and a lot fitter than I was when I began.  My fitbit is telling me I am walking a lot more. It’s a huge difference. Here is a comparison of a week before I started which included a couple geocaching days and a photo walk with a week at the holiday work.

Steps

week sun mon tues wed thu fri sat total
dec2-8 1,469 11,155 5,727 1,479 5,341 1,700 11,218 38,089
dec23-29 6,418 19.476 12,797 9,353 9,866 14,331 9,998 82,239
Weight : 202.7 pounds Taken the day after the post on 12-31-18. I didn’t get a photo of my weight at 203.5 but I’m glad I dropped a little the next day

That’s a 215% increase in walking.  I’m still amazed that I hit 19,476 steps in one day.  I am hoping? planning? after this ends to start doing more fitness stuff. Hmmm, maybe I can blame the initial weight gain on muscle gain instead of the chocolate bars and coca cola.  Ok, ok, You’re right.  It was definitely the vending machines.

Last week HealthyWage paid me $143.25 for the Big Losers Jackpot Challenge so that gave me a little positive buzz. I’ve weighed out on the Falling Pounds Jackpot Challenge for hitting 206.7.  I videotaped myself at 205 for Falling pounds.  I should be paid for that one on January 9th.  Out of 532 participants, 219 of us have successfully lost 6% which is pretty cool considering it’s the holiday season.

The window is closing on the Big Buck Losers Jackpot Challenge.  January 2nd is the last day and I have to be on 201.9 by then.  Sucking in my gut and praying.  Looks at the vending machine.  Crosses my forefingers in the sign of the Cross — back, back, evil temptation! I’ve got two pounds to lose! Oooh, look at that Snickers bar.  Sighs.  I think I may be dead in the water. It’s going to be a flip of the coin at this point.

Here is how I’m doing on my current HealthyWage challenges. (ontrack versus today morning weight of 203.5).

name end date goal expected ontrack?
Falling Pounds 12/26 206.7 206.7 done, weighed out
Big Buck Losers 1/2 202.3 202.7 no but 2-week weighout window is open
Healthier Holidays 1/6 202.3 203.4 close, only 0.1 pound off
Scale Watchers 1/16 202.7 205.3 yes
Winter Winners 2/20 197.6 205.4 yes
Pound Droppers 2/27 197.6 206.5 yes
WeightLoss Takeoff 3/3 197.6 207.1 yes
Shrinking Scale s 3/6 193.5 203.2 yes
Healthy Wager 6/4 187.1 215 yes

I love HealthyWage.  The 3-month 6% challenges are work for me. When I fell off the wagon with the vending machines, knowing I had a goal to meet of 201.9 got me back on track in a week.  Especially with the chips because the salt made a fast difference in water weight and I definitely did not like that. Negative reinforcement!  In the past, I would have stayed off the wagon for a bit longer.  I like the smaller manageable goals of the 6% challenges.

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

I appreciate everybody hanging in there with me.  A lot of you have been here since I started at 252.  I can’t wait to tell you that I am finally under 200.  Hopefully by the end of January.  And I know I’ve said this before but I really can’t say it enough.  I don’t think I’d have gotten this far without you.  So thank you again.


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.

I am also an affiliate for Amazon: “We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.”


12 Replies to “TT Thursday : my Weight Loss Challenge Week 29”

  1. You’ve been doing so well, forget about that two day deadline and bit of weight gain. If I had to name the hardest things to quit I’d say soda and chips, especially on New Year’s Eve and Day. Old habits I guess. Did I see you won some cash?
    I think you’ve done very, very well and congratulations and Happy New Year to you, CC.

    1. I agree. Soda and chips are very hard to give up. I was addicted to cola for the longest time — I still am. I found out it only takes a can a couple of days in a row and I want it everyday again. I like hot coffee and hot tea but sodas used to be my go to cold drink. Sighs. But it’s been worth it. Today I lost another pound so my total is now 50 pounds lost for the last year.

      I win money through HealthyWage. That’s the affiliate link. If you want, if you decide to try it out, this is the friends link https://hwage.co/323522/ . On a friends link, we can see each other’s progress. Also if both people succeed, both get an added $40 to their main bet. If either person fails, neither gets the $40. I do the 6% challenges and those are often $20 a month bet for 3 months ($60) and I usually win $90 when I succeed. The 6% challenges are preset so it’s 6% of your current weight when you start, 3 months and either $60 or $100 (total over the 3 months). On the main bet, you set the parameters — how long, how much $ and how much weight. So if you wanted to do $20 a month for 6 months to lose 10 pounds, you could. How much you win depends on age, weight and sex versus how many pounds you want to lose/the bet amount/length of time as they calculate the odds of your succeeding. I have the main bet going as well as some 6% ones. It worked for me because it’s a built-in double incentive. I hate to lose the money I bet and I like winning money. Plus they have chat boards in each challenge where people give each other advice or cheer each other on or commiserate bad days. It works for me. Some people use WeightWatchers and other communities. I think it helps to be in a community of nonjudgemental people who cheer you on like you all have done on my blog. You have no idea how much it helps to have that. The money is just extra incentive. I feel like my going from 252 to 202 is as much the emotional support of all of you more than winning some dollars here and there actually. The dollars are just markers of success points. Everytime I win, it means I lost 6%.

  2. Many congrats, Mary! I certainly need to get back on track with a healthier diet and exercise regime now that the chaos is behind me for the most part. The holidays are partly to blame but then life threw us for a loop, nothing too serious just things tearing up and needing replaced. I want to drop 10-15 pounds as quickly as possible. It requires a strict mindset and strong will power to stay away from junk food. Have a fuuntastic 2019, my friend!

    1. You can do it! (especially as people are starting to put away their cookies and pies with the holidays being over). There are four categories that I cut: carb, salt, sugar and fat. For me the fastest results was cutting salt because it tends to pack on water weight. It took awhile to stop missing it because I loved my chips but I’ve gotten used to cooking without it. I’ve noticed now that if I eat one of those small lunch-size bag of chips like you get at Subway, I gain 2-4 pounds within 24 hours and it’s just water. At least it’s easy to get rid of once I stop salt again. So I very rarely have chips any more, sighs. Let me know how you do on dropping your 10-15 and how you did it. I’ll be cheering you on!

    1. Yeah, it’s that time of year when everyone trots out cookies, pies and a whole host of goodies. I’m sure he’ll make it up the rest of the year though if he only does this once a year

  3. You’ve done an amazing job and I’m glad I’ve been here from the beginning. I’m so proud of you. This is not an easy thing to do, but you did it.

    Have a fabulous day and week. ♥

    1. Thank you, Sandee! I’m amazed that you’ve stuck with me this long. Your kudos has helped a lot on the weeks I got discouraged. Thank you again!

    1. Thank you, Chris! Garbage soup is really easy to make — reminds me of that Stone Soup story. Throw everything in and it ends up tasting yummy. Although I skip the stone, lol. Hope you and your cats are having a great holiday season

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