Slimmer This Summer Weight Loss Challenge

I've been a part of several online weight loss challenges over the last year. I started out with Biz's challenge which led me to many, many blogs that have helped me so much.  I didn't have too much success with weight loss in my first couple of challenges but they each did help me a great deal. 

One of the reasons I've loved being in these challenges is that I love to help and support people. I don't always have time to read everything and comment all the time but I love visiting people and witnessing their successes and trying to help when they fail. 

My good friend Mir and I are starting our own challenge.  We're calling it Slimmer This Summer.  It will run June 6th through August 28th.  12 weeks, 84 days of commitment to get fit!  We would love to have as many people join us in this quest to get healthier. 

Our goals are to lose weight and move more.  Simple, huh?

Here's what we're going to do in this summer challenge.  We're still working on the details but this will give you an idea of how it will go.
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I believe that to be successful you have to have a plan and a goal.  Without it, you're just flying blind. Here's the plan.

1. Blog our goals!! Please do an initial post stating what your goals are. We have 12 weeks of this challenge. How much do you want to lose in 12 weeks? How much water or liquids do you intend to drink daily? How many workouts are you going to do? What is your exercise plan? Measurements? This way you'll have measurable goals to aim for. End goal could simply be an increased level of exercising or entering a 5K run or being able to do X number of repetitions or adding an extra hour a week. The type of exercise and level of challenge is an individual choice of each challenge participant. All the challenge asks is that you be accountable weekly to how you met your goals for calories, exercise, fluids and other personal challenge goals.

2. Tracking food and water is essential.  It was the only way I have found success and if you talk with anyone else who has lost substantial weight, they would agree.  Tracking and journaling is a must.  I am planning to track my daily calories on my blog and encourage you to do the same. We'd love to see what you eat and share ideas!  It certainly isn't manditory though.

3. I've tried different diets and have found that eating between 1200 - 1400 calories works for me. That comes to about 9800 calories per week maximum. Tracking calories keeps us aware of food labels and portioning. If you don't have a food scale, get one. They are inexpensive and essential for accurately tracking calories.  Round numbers, let's keep it under 10,000 calories a week. TOPS. Water or liquids should be at 10 - 8 oz. cups a day.  Good chance your body needs more than that so this is minimum!  Keep hydrated!

4. Get moving!  If you're already sticking to an exercise routine.  Great.  Keep it up and maybe see how you change it up or kick it up a notch.  If you're like me and struggling to get into a routine, well then what the heck are you waiting for!  Let's set some goals and plan our exercise for the next 12 weeks. Exercise should be "challenging", ie, get you to work up a sweat and get stronger. Whether you choose walking, biking, jogging, lifting weights, Pilates, CrossFit, home videos, salsa dancing, it should be for at least 20 minutes and should grow progressively more challenging as the weeks progress. If you start with 20 minutes, then increase it a bit week by week. If you are already doing an exercise regimen that works for you, then simply state your goals for how often/how long and keep accountable.  We need to FIT exercise into our schedules.  It's not going to happen by itself.   

5.  We want to lose weight, so lets stay accountable and blog weekly with results.  We're not going to be the scale police but we expect results.  Twelve weeks is enough time to see some awesome results from everyone.  I'll put a linky up on a post on Sunday night.  You can do a weekly results post over the weekend and post it to the linky on Monday morning so we can all see your progress.

6. No winners or losers. So don't quit! If you have a bad week, get over it and get back on track. That's what we're here for, to stay on track!   Challengers should have fun with this. It should be "challenging", but it should not be a huge pain in the keister. Blogging and the rules are to motivate, not to burden.


7. Challengers should support other challengers. Please consider supporting via comments on blog posts. 
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No specific prizes but I do intend to do some giveaways at the end for those who stick with it and stay super supportive. More details on that later.

You are welcome to be in any other challenges as well. We all need as much help and encouragement as possible.

So there it is.  The Slimmer This Summer Challenge. Email me or leave a comment with your email address if you're in!  Please include the challenge button and link back to this post so others can join as well. Your initial post can be anytime between now and June 6th but I won't start tracking until the 6th. Email me with your initial post.  I can't wait to see what your goals are!