New Year’s Resolutions Starting Early?

I was at my gym this morning (the day after Christmas) and it was packed!! That doesn’t normally happen until the day after New Year’s. Usually, the first three weeks of January at my YMCA (and probably gyms all over the United States) are awful — no parking, overcrowded childcare, waits for treadmills, etc. Then around Jan. 21, it goes back to normal. So I’m wondering if people are making their New Year’s resolutions early.

Speaking of resolutions, quoters of statistics often say that a full 30 percent of New Year’s resolutions are broken by the end of January. This article says that less than 30 percent of New Year’s resolutions ever achieve success. If the waning crowds at my YMCA in late January are any indication, these numbers are probably pretty accurate.

So what can you do to make your New Year’s resolution stick? I’ve put a few links at the end of this post to some articles that I think are worth reading on this topic. Last year, I took a friend’s advice and made some SMART goals, which I wrote about here. I don’t think the approach worked any better for me, but I’m going to try it again this year. I really, really, really need to incorporate some strength training/toning into my exercise routine. I run ALOT because I love it. It’s my “drug of choice.” But I keep getting flabbier and flabbier. Running doesn’t tone and it doesn’t make you stronger — it simply burns calories and gets those endorphins flowing.

My husband, teen and I also are doing a weight-loss challenge. I won’t share any numbers, but each of us is trying to lose 5 percent of our body weight. The first one to the goal gets a $50 mall gift card, paid for by the other two. We’re still working out the details of this challenge, but I’m hoping we can keep each other accountable.

I will say this — my most successful New Year’s resolutions have been the ones that I’ve really thought through and written down IN DETAIL. That’s linked to the whole SMART goals thing, and I neglected to do that last year. So, before January 1, I’m going to write down the details regarding how I’m going to go about achieving my New Year’s resolutions this year. How about you?

Additional New Year’s resolutions articles/posts:

Article 1

Article 2

Finally Back at Goal!

Whew. A little while ago (er, two months ago), I wrote about the fact that I’m a Lifetime Weight Watchers Member but I had gone more than 2 pounds over my goal weight. I “re-committed” myself to the program at that time and vainly suggested that I’d be back to being “free” (i.e. back at my goal weight) at Weight Watchers within two weeks.

Well, eight-plus weeks later, I’m finally free again. It sure does take a lot longer to take off a few pounds than it does to put them on, eh? Well, if I’m honest about it, those pounds crept on over the course of about two months, as well.

Anyway, even though it took me two months instead of two weeks, I’m glad I got back on the Weight Watchers wagon. Sometimes that’s the hardest part — going in when you know you’ve gained weight and getting back to work. The last time I did that, I didn’t make it back in for a couple of years, and then it took a lot longer than two months to take the weight off. It’s always better to head back in when you’ve only got six pounds to lose instead of 15 or 20.

Winner of the 2nd Weight Watchers Membership Giveaway

Congratulations to Jill, the winner of my 2nd Weight Watchers Membership Giveaway.

If you entered my contest and didn’t win, I hope you’ll consider joining Weight Watchers and the Momentum Walk-It Challenge just the same. It’s a great program, and once you reach and maintain your goal weight for six weeks, you achieve lifetime status, which means you never have to pay again as long as you remain within two pounds of your goal weight.

Another Weight Watchers Membership Giveaway

First of all, congratulations to Tori, winner of my first Weight Watchers Membership Giveaway. Tori was comment #88 and I just KNOW she will love Weight Watchers as much as I do.

Now it’s time to enter my second contest, which ends at 11:59 p.m. May 15. Here are the details:

Weight Watchers just launched the Momentum Walk-It Challenge, and to celebrate, they’ve given me two 3-month memberships to give away on my blog!

These memberships can be used for Weight Watchers in-person meetings or for Weight Watchers online. Meeting attendance costs $12 per week, plus the one-time registration fee unless you join during a free registration period. And the online membership costs about $65 for three months. So, these 3-month memberships are pretty valuable. Plus, you can get healthier and thinner and learn new/better eating habits, etc. etc. So, they’re actually priceless.

You can read more about the Walk-It Challenge and my confidence in the Weight Watchers program here.

Now, onto the contest:  To enter my second Weight Watchers Membership contest, all you have to do is post a comment below about why you want to win the membership and you’ll be entered into the drawing. Be sure to include your email address in the post so that I can contact you if you’re the winner. Again, the contest deadline is 11:59 p.m. May 15. The winner will have three days to respond to my email or the prize will go to someone else.

For additional entries:

• Subscribe to this blog in a reader or via email (see the buttons in the upper right sidebar). Be sure to post an additional comment that you did this.
• Tweet about this contest, and again, post an additional comment with the link to your tweet.
• Blog about this contest, and post an additional comment with the link to your blog post.

Good luck.

Weight Watchers Challenge

As promised (to myself), I made it back to my Weight Watchers meeting this week. I lost a pound (and I just resisted the temptation to type “only lost a pound”). Isn’t it amazing how we all want to lose weight quickly, but don’t mind if it takes months to put it on? Anyway, I’m glad I’m back to the accountability of weekly meetings. I’m still motivated to be “free” again , but it may take three weeks instead of two weeks at this rate.

I’m also still looking for a 5K event that my husband and I can do together, since he’s decided to join Weight Watchers and do the Walk-It Challenge, as well. I’m thinking about one sponsored by our YMCA in July. We both plan to run the 5K, and I’d like to see if I can run it in less than 25 minutes since I just achieved my first “speed” goal in the St. Louis Half Marathon.

If you’re interested in trying Weight Watchers, don’t forget to enter my giveaway. The first one ends tonight at midnight, and the second one starts tomorrow.

Win a 3-month Membership to Weight Watchers and Lose Weight!

Weight Watchers just launched the Momentum Walk-It Challenge, and to celebrate, they’ve given me two 3-month memberships to give away on my blog!

These memberships can be used for Weight Watchers in-person meetings or for Weight Watchers online. Meeting attendance costs $12 per week, plus the one-time registration fee unless you join during a free registration period. And the online membership costs about $65 for three months. So, these 3-month memberships are pretty valuable. Plus, you can get healthier and thinner and learn new/better eating habits, etc. etc. So, they’re actually priceless.

I’m a huge believer in the Weight Watchers program and I’ve written about that here and here and here. I lost all my baby weight on the Weight Watchers program and trained for my first marathon while also attending  meetings and learning to eat better. I’m  a lifetime Weight Watchers member, which means I attend meetings for free as long as I stay within 2 pounds of my goal weight. Unfortunately, I waned in my commitment over the last few months and I’m no longer within that range.  But that’s okay. I went back to my meeting today and re-committed myself to the program and to meeting attendance. I plan to be “free” again within two weeks. (There, it’s in writing).

I also signed up for the Momentum Walk-It Challenge (I’m a runner, so I’ll be “running” it) and I created a Walk-It Challenge team. That’s because my DH is joining Weight Watchers, too, and will be doing the challenge with me. We’re going to train for a 5K together sometime in the next eight weeks. I haven’t chosen our 5K event yet, but when I do, I’ll be writing about that, as well as my progress and my DH’s progress in the Walk-It Challenge training, here.

The Momentum Walk-It Challenge encourages all Weight Watchers meetings members and Weight Watchers Online subscribers to get active this spring. Between April 12 and June 6, set an activity goal for yourself — like walking 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) — and Weight Watchers will give you access to the tools you need to get there. Join or create a walking team, or sign up for a 5K event and you can get a FREE 8-week online training program to help reach your goal. (I downloaded my free 8-week online training program and it is very cool and fun to use). So, if you win one of my free memberships, you’ll want to consider signing up for this challenge.

Now, onto the contest:  I’m giving away one 3-month Weight Watchers membership between now and May 8 and one between May 9 and May 15. To enter the first contest, all you have to do is post a comment below about why you want to win the membership and you’ll be entered into the drawing. Be sure to include your email address in the post so that I can contact you if you’re the winner. The contest deadline is 11:59 p.m. May 8. The winner will have three days to respond to my email or the prize will go to someone else.

For additional entries:

• Subscribe to this blog in a reader or via email (see the buttons in the upper right sidebar). Be sure to post an additional comment that you did this.
• Tweet about this contest, and again, post an additional comment with the link to your tweet.
• Blog about this contest, and post an additional comment with the link to your blog post.

Good luck.

Don’t Eat the Mangoes

I did my grocery shopping yesterday and I was particularly organized this week because I’m really trying to get back on track with commitment the Weight Watchers way of eating. I gathered recipes I wanted to make on Wednesday, made my list on Thursday and went shopping on Friday. I have a list taped inside my cabinet of the recipes I plan to make, and one is a Weight Watchers Momentum recipe that includes mangoes. My older children LOVE mangoes, so I had to resort to this tactic to make sure my recipe ingredients didn’t disappear:

My 14-year-old thought this was hilarious. If you’re interested in the recipe, it’s from Book 6 of the Weight Watcher Momentum Plan and here it is:

Black Bean, Mango and Tomato Salad/serves 8 (I plan to triple this recipe, thus, three mangoes in my picture)

• 1 large mango, diced and divided
• 3 TBS fresh lime juice
• 3 TBS water
• 2 TBS olive oil
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 15 oz canned black beans, drained & rinsed
• 1 C diced tomatoes
• 1/2 C diced sweet onion
• 1/4 C fresh mint or cilantro, cut into thin slivers
• 1 TBS minced canned or fresh jalapeno peppers

In a large bowl, mash 1/4 cup of diced mango with a fork; whisk in lime juice, water, oil, cumin and salt. Add remaining diced mango, beans, tomato, onion, mint and jalapeno to bowl; toss to mix and coat. Serve immediately or cover and refrigerate up to 1 day. Yields about 1/2 C per serving.

Grace in the Small Things Part 5

• Sippy cups that are really spill proof.
• Mondays (MAINLY because it’s a new week to do better on my Weight Watchers plan and my weekly points allowance starts over).
• The Grover, MO post office where there is never a wait and the employees are friendly.
• My friend Karen who listens when I gripe and who really gets it.
• Clients who are generous with praise when they’re happy with my work.

See original post here.

Best Snack for Weight-conscious Chocolate Lovers

Chocolate is a food group. I really believe this. But when I began really sticking to my Weight Watchers program a little over a year ago, I had to make some adjustments to my chocolate intake. I’m now a lifetime Weight Watchers member (which means I hit my goal weight and have maintained it), and I owe part of my success to these:

Weight Watchers Whitman's candies pecan crowns

1,067 Miles

One thousand sixty-seven miles is the approximate distance from my home in St. Louis, MO to Sarasota, Florida. It’s a little further from my home to New York City and it’s just under the distance from my home to Ontario, Canada. It’s also exactly the number of miles I ran/jogged in 2008.

I run/jog for exercise and I do it almost every day. In fact, I ran/jogged all but 72 days in 2008.  (I say run/jog because sometimes I’m running and sometimes I’m jogging – it just depends on the day). As you can probably tell, I kept a rather detailed exercise log in 2008. And I love running/jogging. It’s easily my favorite form of exercise. If I’m not training for a distance event, I run between three miles and six miles each day. You get that feeling of “cardio accomplishment” faster with running or jogging than you do with most other forms of exercise, and I feel like I get more bang for my buck, so to speak. I can run for 30 minutes and really feel like I’ve done something, but I have to do other things, like aerobics or walking, a lot longer to get the same feeling. I’m not what you would call a patient person.

So here’s the problem: although I was very committed to my exercise routine in 2008, and although I lost all my “baby” weight (via Weight Watchers) and am back into all my clothes, I’m probably flabbier than I’ve ever been except when pregnant. I’m at least less toned than I’ve ever been. Running/jogging is just not a toning type of exercise. It takes and helps keep the weight off, but it doesn’t keep the back-fat away, nor does it tone the arms or abs.  And as I get older, I find myself limping to the bathroom in the morning and becoming less and less flexible. Thus, my New Year’s resolutions:

• Incorporate strength training into my exercise routine 2-3 times per week
• Incorporate yoga and/or pilates into my exercise routine once per week
• Continue running and train for the 2009 Chicago marathon
• Keep my new (used, but new to me) Honda Odyssey clean by vacuuming and wiping down the inside every Friday and washing the outside every other time I fill up. (I know - this has nothing to do with exercise, but it is a resolution of mine).

I wanted to write this post and have it up by New Year’s Day, but I’m actually glad I didn’t because my friend, former co-worker and fellow blogger Marijean of STLWorkingMom.com wrote a great post about making SMART goals versus resolutions. Smart is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Reasonable and Time-bound. After reading her post on SMART goals, I tried to write my resolutions like SMART goals. I think I did so.

There. Now it’s all in writing and it’s way more public than any of my resolutions have been in previous years. So far, I’ve kept to all four of them (the yoga class starts this Thursday). But, it’s only Jan. 3. 

On another note: I’m secretly, selfishly hoping most of the “newbies” at my YMCA start falling off their resolution wagons soon because the crowds at MY Y are a pain and I expect they will be even worse this week. And I KNOW that’s a bad thing for me to wish for, because the increased numbers are good for the Y, and exercise is good for everyone, but I can’t help it.