2013 Official Chaz Weight Loss Challenge

I'd like to join in too. I'm 5'3" and used to be 110 pounds, and then graduate school hit. I am now up to 126 and would like to get back down to at least 115. I am doing a dual PhD so I don't have time to go to the gym with my schedule, but I walk 3-9 miles to and from school everyday.

I was recently diagnosed with epilepsy and gluten is a trigger, so I have had to change my diet significantly in the past few months. Overall I feel much healthier (minus the seizures) but I definitely think there is room for improvement.

I'm joining in.

At my heaviest, I weighed in at 245lbs. Over the past year and a half, I lost 56lbs. I only gained 3 pounds over the holidays, which I lost this year already again.

My ends goal is around 140, but I don't have a small frame to begin with, so weighing less might make me look sickly. I'll just go with the flow until it feels right. That being said, I'd like to be a size 8. I was a 18 attention my most, and now wear a 12.

I feel like I should hit my end goal this year. Oh, and that's fabulous fossil vintage purse is mine at 170lbs!

If you reduce your calories, your metabolism will slow to down to conserve fat because it thinks you're starving. If you're eating healthy, though, and doing things to boost metabolism, it should even out pretty quickly.

Im a size 11/12 pants now, and would like to get back to a 7/8. I also don't have a small frame. When i was 16(?) I was at 132 lbs and looked ridiculous. I had linebacker shoulders and big J.Lo hips but was toned/fit but I looked unportional lol.
Then I went back up to 140 and looked great. Im going to try for 155 now but my end goal is 140.

Larger frames suck for losing weight sometimes.

I'm not trying to lose weight....but I just joined MFP and my username is AlexHaberle

Total double post. Ooops.

Either my brand new scale is broken or I've lost 7.9 lbs already. Last time I weighed myself was Christmas and I scaled in at 214 lbs. This morning I weighed myself and I'm not 206.1 lbs. I just started the paleo diet at the beginning of this year and I've been tracking my calories to stay under a certain number of calories and carbs, etc... also been walking a lot.

well I'm back to 203 and holding steady tomorrow I start a fitness class with a friend from church so hopefully that will kick me into gear

Amber, Christmas was two weeks ago! If you were eating junk and bloated at all during Christmas and have pretty radically changed your diet, 8 lbs isn't an outrageous number at all

Has it been two weeks already? Holy crap! I packed a healthy meat and veggie lunch for today at work. I went to the movies with josh yesterday and the popcorn was so tempting.

How do you guys get motivated to exercise and stick with it?

That has always been hard for me. I DON'T enjoy working out no matter the method. I don't like sweating, I usually feel bad after working out and I just don't get any enjoyment out of it. I don't know how to break this cycle of disliking exercise. I've tried lots of things. Going for walks, dance classes, work out classes, etc. I just don't enjoy it after a while.

I'm going to start going to a fitness class on Tuesday nights with a friend from church and hope having a friend with me will keep me motivated to keep at it

I've just started watching tae bo videos and have found it to be the only workout I can stick with (so far, I've only been doing it for like a week). I usually HATE exercise, all of it, but this is better for me, I like the content (punching and kicking lol, I always wanted to do tae kwon do as a kid). I can do it without having to leave my house and there are many different videos to choose from, some short, some long.

Sparks, good question! People say how good they feel after workouts and stuff...I'm like "really?!? Are you sure?!?"

I do really enjoy doing yoga, though. And I'll exercise fine if its horse riding or frisbee or swimming in the ocean. But gym? Insanity? Jogging? No thank you.

Maybe try fun videos like dance or Zumba on the wii? Hannah could do them with you.

Yeah I always feel terrible after working out and I don't get how people feel GREAT after working out lol it's so alien to me.

that's a good idea. I need to get back into doing more wii games (other than bowling... that's what Hannah always wants to play lol. We are going bowling today like we do every monday but then she wants to come home and bowl more and more and more lol). I have a couple different dance games (country, disney and Michael Jackson LOL) and I have Wii resort which has a large variety of games and we also have the kinect track and field which kicks my butt lol.

I want to join. I'm 5'1" and 140. I feel good at 120 but look best 120-125. I would love to get down to 115 again but my face looked really gross and too skinny then, although my body looked good

I eat pretty healthy but my portion control is horrendous. I am starting to train for a half marathon so I am running, hiking, or walking 5x a week plus work walking.

Height: 5'5
Current Weight: 173lbs, the heaviest I've ever been
Goal: For right now I'll say 145 ish, I've gotten there before and didn't feel like I was done loosing, but I had started at a lower weight than I am now, so from here 145 sounds fantastic. I've been overweight since I was 8 years old so I don't know what weight a healthy me should be.

Methods: I have attempted (though not for long) cutting stuff and doing low carb and there is no way I can do it. After like two weeks I become physically incapable of swallowing the veggies or other healthy food, it makes me gag. My relationship with food isn't exactly healthy, food makes me happy, meals are something I look forward to every day, and when I cut out all of the stuff I like (carb heavy deliciousness) it makes me think it's not worth it, I'd rather be fat and enjoying myself. BUT when I was on weight watchers back in high school I didn't have that problem, and it did work, we just couldn't afford to keep going so I lost motivation. When I look at pictures of myself back then I get so mad that I didn't stick with it, even though at the time I thought I still had a lot to loose, I looked SO MUCH BETTER than I do now, my face wasn't round! So I'm going to try and do what I did back then, cut portions, find the lowest calorie option for the things I like (100 calorie packs, low calorie frozen meals for lunch, lowest calorie bread I can find, etc.). I am going to try and eat more fruits and veggies as snacks. What I didn't do back then, even though I lost weight, was exercise, but I'm going to do that now. Even if it's not really hard exercise I figure something is better than nothing, and if it were really hard I'd probably give up. So we'll see how far this gets me, I am hopeful that this time I'll get somewhere since I'm using a way that worked for me before, not cutting out the stuff I love completely.

Maxy, I've never tried to lose weight, but when I'm trying to eat healthier and I consider the fact that while I like health food, I also REALLY like unhealthier food, what I did was try to eat veggies, salad, etc. FIRST.

Like a ton of people will say "Oh I'm going out to eat tonight and I know I'll eat so many unhealthy calories so I'll cut calories all day to make up for it" which just means you're going to eat even more junk at the end of the day. If you're planning on going out, and eat a salad or some nuts and yogurt before you go to dinner, you'll end up just ordering an appetizer or something, and still get to enjoy the delicious fried bready greasy yummyness, but you're going to eat half as much of it.

If you're forcing yourself to eat a huge boring salad for dinner three nights in a row...no. If you order pizza and usually eat three slices, eat as much salad as you can, and then eat one slice of pizza.

You can also make a lot of really delicious snacks, either sweet-tasting or whatever, that are a lot healthier if you look around for recipes.

Sharing this, I know people here are running - this is likely too intense for anybody just starting but I found it on Pinterest and thought it sounded like a great way to make a treadmill run more interesting. Just tried it tonight and it's great! I would however recommend warming up longer either on or off the treadmill, and a longer cool down.

http://housewifeglamour.com/cardio/31-minute-5k-treadmill-workout/

I LOVE that link! Saved it in my bookmarks... Thank you so much!

bookmarked this and definitely want to give it a shot. I may alter it a little bit to suit where I'm at fit wise right now, but thank you for the link. Excited about running again.