Manage YOUR Weight during the Holidays [Challenge]

Hi everyone! I have a challenge for you.  We are doing this at work, so I thought I'd see if anyone outside of work would like to do this as well.  This challenge was not created by me, however I am tweaking it a bit to fit the online format.

The challenge is to maintain your weight during the holidays.  We all know how hard it is to do that over the holidays.  I mean let's examine the facts:

• many holiday parties based around food and drinks
• overeating
• sweets/desserts galore
• sitting to socialize
• jam packed schedule with little to no room for workouts
• jam packed schedule with no time to cook = eating out and mall food court food 

Photo by WishUponACupcake from Flickr

There's a lot working against us here!



Now, I have recently read a few things that say Americans don't gain any weight during the holidays and some that say the average American gains 10 lbs!  Perhaps we should go with the middle of the road with an article by webmd.com which states, "Studies show that the average American gains 1 to 2 pounds during the holiday season. And, those extra pounds tend to become permanent baggage."  Whatever theory you subscribe too, it's a good idea to develop a holiday health plan to keep you on track during the holidays.

Here is the challenge's details:
1. Weigh yourself and send me your weight before Thanksgiving by Wednesday, November 21 at 11:59pm eastern standard time.  I promise that I won't post them, share them with anyone else or make fun of you.  OR if you are too uncomfortable with that you can weigh yourself and keep track of it somewhere.
2. Weigh yourself again, with the same scale, between January 2-4 (last submission by January 4th at 11:59pm eastern standard time)
3. To motivate you, if you gain weight you lose $5 or $10, you decide, and send that money to a local charity.  No one wants to lose money - so let's maintain that weight!

During the holidays I'll post weekly tips on here to help us and keep us motivated.  I also found this website called Eat Smart, Move More that will send out weekly newsletters with tips to help us make it through the holiday.  You can sign up for it for free.

Send me an email with your first name only (to help keep it more anonymous) and weight to: journey2onehundred@gmail.com with subject of Holiday Weight Challenge and we'll make it through the holidays together! Look for a challenge tip post later this week - possibly tomorrow if I am on my game :)

Shoveling a car out is a great way to burn calories!

In order to keep me on track, I'll let you all know that I was weighed today for my work's challenge and I'm at 146lbs.  I'm a little frustrated since I have been working out five days a week since my last doctor's appointment on Oct. 8th and at that time I weighed 147.  It seems like I should've loss more.  I think it's time to start keeping track of what I am eating in addition working out.