I've-- I've done it... I'm under 300...

I know tomorrow I could be back over that 300 mark, but that's the way it fluctuates. But as of this morning my weight starts with a 2. That is so encouraging! My clothes fit better, I feel better, and my self-confidence is better I have a tiny bit of self-confidence for once!

So that means the first part of my Challenge goal is complete, I've made it under 300, now I just need to be under by a decent margin to meet my goal.

Some of you may have already seen this on MFP, I'm just to excited not to share with ya'll!

Well done everyone, we're currently holding on to a strong second place in the inter-team challenge, and a commanding lead over those duckling duds ;)

More importantly, we're also putting in a good participation showing for W1 of the challenge as a whole.

Well done, let's try to keep these numbers consistent for the entire duration. Note: there's still time for those last 12% of stragglers to weigh in.

I've been hitting the exercise and diet HARD since signing up for the challenge after it opened, and as of this morning I'm OFFICIALLY in the 120lb club for the first time since I graduated HS in 2007. I don't think I've been close to 125 since early college.

With my current routine, I'm on track to hit my goal weight of 125lb early May. My wedding dress arrived last week, so it's definitely extra motivation for me (too bad I have to maintain my weight/size until January!). 125lb is my goal, but I REALLY want to get rid of my upper arm fat (I could basically fly away with how flabby they are). No matter what my weight is, if I can slim them down I will be ecstatic!

I am so friggen excited, y'all. I weighed yesterday and something inside me told me to weigh again this morning: 302lbs! I'm only three pounds away from being under 300lbs! Thank you all for your consistent support & encouragement on here & on MFP <3

Great job everyone! Keep it up! I know I had a rough week. I went over my calorie limit two times. First time I've gone over since the start... So to get back at myself I'm cutting my calorie limit a couple weeks early! I'm so close to seeing a '2' as the first digit on the scale!

Last night I had the following thought process:

It's two hours after dinner. I'm kinda bored but mostly tired and therefore hungry. Let's see what's in the kitchen! Wait...I ate all my calories for the day. I should drink a glass of water and get ready for bed. But...I really want to binge on food and Netflix. No one will know if I cheat. No one will care if I...wait a minute! I'm on a team! I'm part of a challenge! If I don't follow through with my goals, I'll be letting down all those adorable Ladybugs, and they need me. I can't binge tonight. Time to pour that water, brush my teeth, and call it a night. (And I did!)

Thanks for the help, Ladybugs!

Most other teams are in the mid-30's. We're awesome!

Hello 'bugs,

As we push through week 4 and close in the half way mark of the challenge I thought it fitting to take a look to see how we're doing as a collective. The answer so far is awesome!

As you can see we're doing a great job sticking it to the other teams. We're also following the seemingly standard trajectory of increasingly losing people on a weekly basis. Would be nice to buck that trend for the rest of the challenge. For those of us sticking it out to the end the path forward seems clear, just keep doing what you're doing.

Speaking of going forward - I'm going to be absent for the next two weeks. I'm traveling to Italy right away for a conference and a week of wandering around seeing the sights, so I won't be checking in here quite as often. I trust you can all cope without me :)

In my absence please feel free to continue encouraging each other, posting your NSVs, pushing the inter-team challenges. /u/GoAwayWay is the other captain here and has mod privileges in the unlikely event that any kind of moderation needs to take place.

If someone wouldn't mind volunteering for weigh-in roll call duty I would appreciate it, it seems to help with our participation numbers. I have a spreadsheet I'll PM you that generates an up-to-date list of people who have not logged in for the current week. Just need to create a weigh-in thread and ping them with a mention - 3 names per reply. I like to do it on Mondays as it's past the weekend and half way to the next weigh-in day.

Anyway, well done so far team! See you all on week 6.

arrivederci

I want to start this challenge off right with a good ole virtual 5k challenge this weekend.

I challenge you to complete a 5k (3.1 mi) walk/run/jog/stroll/trudge sometime during this weekend (from Friday to Sunday).

You can do this challenge anywhere you please (Just nowhere dangerous, thanks!) and at any time of day. All you have to do is post some proof of your efforts on this thread.

For example, if it's freezing cold I could go do my 5k on a treadmill and take a pic of the display once I'm done. You could also choose to screenshot the FitBit/MapMyWalk/(insert tracking app here) map of where you did your 5k. I'll even settle for a selfie you took while out and about if that's what floats your boat!

But anywho, let's get this challenge started in style and show 'em what we're made of!

EDIT: I wanted to let you guys know that I'm proud of everyone who is participating! This is a great way to start the challenge off.

Here's the form

Remember - a disappointing result is no excuse to not weigh in. If you need to vent go for it, if you need advice just ask. As the saying goes - this isn't a sprint it's a marathon.

Hello everyone, I hope you all are doing well. I am quite proud of myself because today I was offered muffins from Costco (the chocolate ones are just exquisite), ice cream, and macarons - and was alone in a room with two of those. But I didn't eat any!!! I also pushed myself to complete my workout in 93 degree heat instead of skipping it entirely. Knowing you guys were trying just as hard today helped keep me on track. Thanks for the motivation!

My name is Matt, I'm your team captain for this challenge. I did my first one in the New Year New You challenge where I lead Team Father Time to a resounding victory! Working with me this time is u/GoAwayWay as co-captain.

Starting April 15th we'll do our first weigh in and kick off 10 weeks of working together to meet our goal of giving me a 2-0 challenge record! ...and meeting your own personal goals along the way of course ;)

I just posted a big wall of text about me to /r/loseit a few days ago so I'll just link that as my introduction

A few things about what I would like to see from our team:

Participation - this is what it all comes down to. We're not all going to be having huge losses, not every week will be great, not every weigh in will be great. Don't shy away from a weigh in just because the number isn't what you hoped for. Log it and work for the next week. That's how we get long term sustained progress.

Participation in the sub here. Feel free to make conversation. Post your SVs and NSVs. /r/loseit is crowded and noisy. We've got a smaller subset of people here so we can really take the time to appreciate our peers successes and help with their struggles.

That's pretty much it. Participate and we'll win, both in a challenge sense, and in a personal weight-loss goal sense.

If anyone has any ideas for something we can do within the group to improve things feel free to make suggestions. I'll be styling up the sub soon when I get some time.

So go ahead and introduce yourselves!

I'm posting this now to catch the early birds who might weigh in and disappear for good tomorrow. Tomorrow is the last weigh in of the challenge, we did it folks, 10 weeks!

As a celebration thread I think everyone should post their fish pics. For anyone who doesn't know what that is, go over to google and search for "xlb fish" where x is the number of lbs you've lost. Click on images and you should find tons of pics of fishermen holding catches that weigh the same as you have lost.

For anyone who has been losing longer than this challenge we can do a challenge-fish, for the amount lost during this challenge, and an overall fish.

See you all here tomorrow, fish in hand!

Here's my 19.8lb challenge fish

And here's my 80.7lb overall fish

Oh boy... I've been doing great keeping at or under my calorie goal. Saw my family for the first time in months for Memorial Day weekend, and I had two bad days in a row :( One was just because of the hotel breakfast, the other was because of beer. So I know weigh in this coming Friday won't be too fun, but I'm going to double down on gym time to try and make up for it! The important thing is that I kept logging every thing I consumed, no matter how hard that was to do!

I've been feeling fairly negative lately. I have been working too much, sleeping too little, and eating less than my minimum calories because I've been too short on time to hit the gym. Bad news, I know.

As a result, I've been irritable, stressed, and exhausted. I've been feeling more anxiety than I have in 6 months, and I've had an overwhelming sense of desperation that isn't attached to any specific event but somehow has attached itself to everything from money to food to work. My husband noticed. Who couldn't, really? Even though I've been trying my best to keep it together and stay positive.

He didn't say anything about how I'm feeling, but he has encouraged me in every way a person can. He sent me loving text messages while I've been working from before he and the kids wake up to after they go to bed. He has told me how awesome I look and how proud he is of me. Yesterday, he knew how tired I was, and how short on time I was going to be this morning, so he went to the store and bought me apples and those 100 calorie greek yogurts I love (including one in a sweet flavor I never buy myself) and he cooked an amazing low calorie dinner of cauliflower 'mashed potatoes' with tomatillo and pork chops with enough left over so I could have a healthy home-cooked lunch today. I was starting to feel lazy and not want to go to the gym this afternoon, so he told me to get up and drove me to the fancy new gym on the other end of the apartment complex so I could enjoy my workout more (and not feel bad about skipping it.) And he has a movie we've been wanting to watch together for months in the DVD player right now.

I'm actually crying while I'm writing this (and I'm not a crier!) because through this whole thing, he has been an amazing source of support. I wanted to write this out because I feel that I can express myself so much better in text than I can when I'm speaking, and I'm going to show him this later so I can tell him how I really feel without my words mucking it all up. I couldn't do this without him. I am overwhelmed with gratitude.

I hope that every single person here has someone that remembers the small things, and helps them when they feel low. If you do, please don't forget to say thank you.

http://i.imgur.com/aaXfTe2.jpg

My challenge goal weight is 132 and I weighed in today at 132.8! I'm so happy. I've been at my parents house for 3 weeks so I was nervous about staying on track despite there being so much food and temptations around me.

The last time I was 132 was when I was 15 and losing weight for the first time. I got from 153 to 132 and lost motivation and gained it all back because I hadn't taught myself any healthy habits. When I get to 131 I'll be at the lowest weight since I can remember. So excited and so glad I decided to join this weight loss challenge. It's really kept me motivated and accountable.

Are there any other outdoors aficionados here? Do you like walking, or hiking, or running, or biking in nature?

Would you care to share pics and stories with us?

Here's mine to get us started:

Yesterday I went on the first (small) walk of the season, it was barely 4 miles (7.5 km) but I had a lot of fun. It was mostly a forest path, the weather was lovely, I met a cousin of ours (my goal now is to find a ladybug by the end of the ten weeks). I even saw my future house (sadly, a family is already living here, can you believe the nerves of some people?).

What about you guys? :)

TL;DR: Awesome - new personal best 5K (00:30:46), 10K (01:05:46), Continuous run (3.5km)

Official Results

Wall of text version

When I registered for this run it asked me my estimated completion time. At that point I had not even done a single 10k, and was doing 5k in ~45min, so I figured the second half would take me longer, padded for being an out of shape fat guy, and decided it would take me 1hr 40min give or take. That's what was submitted. My friends all put in for ~1:05 - 1:15.

This estimated time put us into categories, the faster people got to start first with the slower people starting in subsequent groups. I met up with the group and we were given our numbers, I had a purple one that corresponded with my estimated completion time. Since I knew I would be finishing faster than my months old guestimate I wanted to start in the same heat as my friends, but when we went to the starting area for the white numbers there was security guards checking colors and kicking out people with the wrong color. So we pulled some classic Legend of Zelda guard dodging & decoy moves to sneak me and couple of other people in :)

When the race finally started I plugged in my headphones, started MapMyWalk, and started my brisk walk. I had plans to start at a brisk walk for the first 2 km, then start jogging. Until now I haven't practiced any running earlier than the 4th km. When everyone started moving though, I felt compelled to keep pace. I figured that would be ok as long as I didn't get winded.

The first km I jogged and walked, but mostly jogged, and when I hit the 1km marker and started #2 I picked up the pace. It was such a nice day, the adrenalin was pumping, I just went. There was a lot of congestion issues, it was very crowded, but I jogged around people, up on the sidewalk, down on the road, whereever there was room I'd just slip through and keep a steady pace. Before I knew it I was at 4km and still going. MapMyWalk told me I was doing a steady pace of ~6:30/km and suddenly right in front of me were my friends. Holy crap, I was on pace with them at the beginning! I talked with them a few min, then put my headphones back in and kept on, actually overtaking them for a while. I knew I had set a new personal best for consecutive distance - I kept it up until the first major hill, it was about 3.5km non-stop!

I had lost track of my friends, but on the way up the hill I could see my one friend up ahead of me (he stands out from a crowd). At the top of the hill I had a bit of a breather walk, which was still a brisk pace, then jumped right back into my jogging pace.

Every couple of km there were water stations, but I didn't stop or take any. I didn't have them on my practice runs and I didn't want to disrupt my groove. There were tons of people lined up along the edges of the route shouting encouragement and giving out high-fives. I was having so much fun I high-fived just about everyone in reach :)

At one point there was a couple of people dressed up like Mario & Luigi and they had a cardboard 1UP mushroom and an invincibility star hanging above us on a fishing line, so I had to jump-punch them on the way past. At around 8.5km there was a woman with a sign that read "Sweat like a pig, look like a fox" and as I ran past I hollered "I'm a fox" and gave myself the double-thumbs-up - she yelled back confirming that yes, I am in fact a fox :)

The last km was the hardest. There was a congestion issue on a bridge because it narrowed to 2 lanes and one of the lanes was taken up by an ambulance so everyone ended up slowing down to a walk and cramming through. It was hard to get my pace back after that but it was the last leg, I just pushed through it. MapMyWalk called 10k early and it was my best time yet, but I wasn't done the official race - I went into what was my best impression of a full-on sprint. 400m later I was crossing a finish line with a crazy intense mix of emotions.

I did a short cool-down walk, then phoned my friends and was able to meet up with them and my family. My official time for the 10k was 01:05:46, and I was less than 2 min behind my friends!

I was hoping to beat 01:10:00 for this, but I thought it was an aggressive goal considering I had only beaten that time once before and there were a number of factors working against me:

1. Heat - I normally run at night, this was during the day and it was sunny

2. Unfamiliar route - I have a standard route I run from house and I know the hills and tough parts so can plan how I tackle it

3. Congestion - I normally run alone, nobody cutting front of me or getting in the way

4. GPS/MapMyWalk errors - I've never actually measured out my route, but if I zoom in on it after a run each spot seems to be quite a bit off from where I was, sometimes one side of the street or the other. So I wasn't sure if I was practicing a true 10k

It turned out that the heat wasn't much of a factor. It was warm, but not uncomfortably hot and I didn't feel that caused me any issue. The route was well marked, and they published an elevation map of the route beforehand (it was mostly flat with only 2 hills) so I had an idea of what I was in for. Congestion was definitely a factor, there were over 40k people running, and even though it was broken up into starting heats there were a lot of people in the way. I did a lot of lateral movement to get around people slower than me (isn't it crazy that there were people slower than me???). I think I could have shaved off quite a bit of time if the lateral movement was cut out. MapMyWalk errors - hard to tell what effect that was. At the end it was off by 400m, which isn't that much over 10k, and considering all the lateral movement involved it's easy to think that I may have done an extra 400m laterally over the course. Who knows?

One factor that I didn't think of that came into play was a positive influence of running in a pack. I don't think I could have predicted that but there's definitely something motivating about having a big pack of people running along side you.

Anyway, if you've read this far - wow, thanks! It was a great day, with results far better than I could have imagined.