Welcome to the Strong Healthy Mom Challenge update! Wondering what this is? Check out this post to join us. Then read on to find out how to enter to win this week’s giveaway and join us for a little accountability!
Well, how was it? How did your week go? I just have to admit up-front that my week was a crazy mess! A few of my goals went by the wayside, but I did keep to the exercise plan.
I know it’s getting harder as we get closer to Christmas, but stick with it! We totally have this. I noticed not very many of you commented on last week’s post, so I know we’re all feeling the pinch. DON’T let that deter you. Even if you completely missed the mark on your goals, there is no shame here. We are working together and encouraging each other on!
Here is how my goals shook down:
1) Continue with the Eight-Week Fat Loss Plan for Busy People from FitnessBlender.com. Yay! Did it! I honestly can’t tell you how much I love this program. It’s less than 30 minutes! It’s challenging! I can workout in my basement while the girls are doing school projects! It’s fabulous! 🙂
2) Work on getting to bed by 10:30 PM. Terrible. Horrible. Fail.
3) Do a modified food detox using the idea of two liquid meals per day idea from Clean. I partially did this…I did one liquid meal a day and added in more probiotics and prebiotics. I’m seeing a difference!
Here are my goals for Week 3:
1) Continue forcing myself to go to bed by 10:30 PM!
2) Continue with the Eight-Week Fat Loss Plan for Busy People from FitnessBlender.com.
3) Eat mindfully and slowly.
If you’ve missed the past few weeks, here is a recap of what the challenge is all about:
Strong Healthy Mom Challenge: Holiday Edition
From now through January 11, I will be posting weekly goals and sharing updates on how it is going. Even better, I want to invite you to share your goals and progress…and be eligible to win. Here’s how it works:
1) If you haven’t yet, leave a comment on the first week’s post with your long-term goals for the next eight weeks. (This post will be open for comments throughout the challenge.)
2) Leave a comment on this post about how your week went. Then, share your goals for the next week.
That’s it! Each week, we’ll just share and be accountable to each other. To keep it fun and mix things up, I’ll be throwing in a giveaway each week. There will be things like Amazon Gift Cards, Jillian Michael’s DVDs, Fitness Blender programs, Trim Healthy Mama books, and Starbucks gift cards. These winners will be randomly chosen from the comment section on each week’s post, and I will share those winners each week. Each weekly post will be open for comments until the following Sunday at 8 PM CT.
Our “big” giveaway will be at the end of the eight weeks. Those who have commented and joined in with us for at least four of the eight weeks will be eligible for that giveaway. The winner will be able to choose what they want from these three options: $100 Gift Card to Amazon, $100 Gift Card to Trim Healthy Mama store, or a $100 gift card to Target. The final winner will be chosen on January 12, 2015!
I will be posting on Instagram (you can find me here) under the hashtag #stronghealthymomchallenge. If you are on Instagram or Twitter, there will be a special giveaway at the end for those who use the hashtag, so use it so we can find you!
You can also join our Facebook group – Strong Healthy Mom Challenge! Unfortunately Facebook has banned me from posting, liking, or commenting for 30 days (I’m not sure why except that I had tons of posts go into my Motherhood on a Dime group on Black Friday), so I won’t be posting in there for a while, but you are welcome to throw out questions and suggestions to people in there. I can see everything…I just can’t respond!
Last week’s winner of the $10 Amazon or Starbucks gift card is:
This week, we have the same choice! You can pick either a $10 Amazon Gift Card or a $10 Starbucks gift card! So, get to commenting!! Even if things didn’t go as planned, it’s okay! We’re in progress….
I did great on my goals last week up until about Thursday. We found out some big news for our family on Wednesday, so things have been pretty hectic ever since. I have a lot of anxiety about it.
My goals for this week:
1. Get at least 8 hours of sleep every night.
2. Get at least 30 minutes of exercise every day(except Sunday).
3. Make sure to get my food logging in every day.
You’re doing awesome! The stress can definitely add a different dimension. Praying things smoothed out a little bit for you this week.
I’ve done really well on my exercise goals. Only gained 1/2 pound over Thanksgiving! I’ve done really well with not eating past full at the various parties/celebrations. It is HARD to live in New Orleans and NOT OVEREAT!!!! I’m learning little by little how to eat mindfully and not just eat it all for fun. 🙂
This week’s goals:
1) Exercise.
2) Manage my stress. I know stress adds to the desire to eat mindlessly, and also interrupts sleep and so on.
3) Add more greens. My chef hubby got a really nice blender from his boss for Christmas and I want to learn to make some smoothies with kale and spinach.
That’s awesome! You are doing so well! How did adding more greens go?
I started last week off really well with my exercise program but, come Wednesday, it failed. Not completely my fault, though. Right after my Wednesday cardio workout, I started to bend down to do some stretches and pulled a muscle in my back. It threw me completely out of workout commission and I’m still not back in it yet. My back is much better but I can still feel it and don’t want to jump back in too soon in case I make it flare up again. I was more conscious about my food choices, especially my lunches and snacks throughout the day, and I did get in 5 glasses or more of water each day except one. So, overall, I feel like I did pretty well in those areas.
Goals for this week:
1) Get back into exercise program and make sure to do a warm up and cool down each day.
2) Drink at least 5 tall glasses of water each day.
3) Continue to be mindful of what I put into my body but don’t go overboard on the restrictions or it won’t stick
4) Continue to try to slow down while I eat (this is a hard one for me)
Ouch…that sounds really painful. 🙁 I hope things healed up for you this week. I’m with you on the slowing down while eating. Still working on that, too.
My goals for the week:
1) Eliminate dairy
2) Three Jillian workouts
3) Walk 60 minutes/day
I love Jillian workouts! Are you using the DVDs or her site?
Last week was rough for me. I only got 2 workouts in. I was just in a funk and feeling lazy. Back to it this week though.
1. 4 PiYo workouts
2. Eat THM except for maybe one cheat per day.
I’ve heard of PiYo, but I’m not really too familiar with it? What kind of workout is it?
Last week was a fail. I was comet my out of my element as it was my brothers wedding week. Between all the traveling, cold & wet weather, & stress my plan fell through. I do feel that it can do better this week. I have detoxes my fridge and my cupboards. Im planning on incorporating my 3pm workouts agains.
Weekly Goals:
1) 2 zeal protein shakes per day
2) 1 zeal wellness shake a day
3) eat 5 servings of fruit and veggies a day
4) only eat lean meat
5) return to the Jillian Michael exercise program
I love that! Detoxing your fridge and cupboards! I never thought of it like that!
Last week:
Continued making healthier eating choices, then a lady sent a whole big bin of cookies to our house. Yummy homemade ones…
Exercise didn’t happen.
This week:
Make healthy eating choices.
Exercise using videos from the library.
Try probiotics.
Oh, I had a really difficult time finding the post last week. In fact, I am not sure that I ever did. Did some searches, read through your blog, and gave up…. Not sure why it was so heard to find. I usually am able to easily find what I want on your site. I probably wasn’t using the right search words.
Hey, Amy! If you just go to https://www.motherhoodonadime.com/living – you should be able to find all the posts as you scroll down! Sorry about that…I know the site can be a little confusing. I’m trying to figure out how I can change that!
Ok, so I was wondering why I felt so sick and also felt so fatigue. I actually convinced myself that it was because I had gained weight and I needed to just try harder to exercise. The harder I tried the worse I felt. I started getting really bad stomach aches, and ended up finding out that I have a bacterial infection in my stomach called H.Pylori (from contaminated food eating out!). But now that I’m on the antibiotics going on 4 days, I feel so much better. I have been drinking my water, sleeping at least 7 hours, and eating pretty good (although I made chocolate chip cookies for my kids today). But really I have been eating well. The only goal I hadn’t been keeping up with was the exercise, but now that I feel better, me and the kids are gonna try out a Jillian Michaels workout tomorrow, and maybe take a walk(depending on the weather. Honestly, I might not even be thinking about getting back on track if it wasn’t for the healthy mama’s challenge. Thanks for the accountability ladies.
That is so interesting…I’ve been reading a little bit about H. Pylori and listening to some webinars. It can really affect you in tons of ways. I’m so glad you are finding some relief, and I’m praying for you! Stick with it and with us here. It’s so good we can cheer each other on!
Thank you so much. I truly appreciate your prayers. 🙂
Well, totally messed up week 3, as far as my goals go. I had done well during Thanksgiving, but we went out of town for our anniversary this weekend, which included preparing for going out of town along with coming back from being out to town 🙁 I can say that I have kept up with my exercise schedule, so “yay” for feeling stronger! I did realize too that going to bed earlier really, really makes me feel better throughout the whole next day….so….my goals this week will be to get back to my first week goals of eating in my calorie range and going to bed on time 🙂 At least I haven’t thrown in the towel yet 🙂
I love that you were able to keep up with your exercise. I have found that to be so instrumental in helping me feel stronger, and in turn, helping me feel mentally stronger, too.
Don’t throw in the towel! Stick with me here!! I need it, too!
I didn’t do so well. I got so stressed that I didn’t breathe deeply or stretch like I should have, which caused awful aching in my neck and shoulders. I didn’t walk much-maybe 3 days. My water intake wasn’t more than 2 quarts per day. So I am striving to get more walking and exercise in this week, which I did today :)! I went for an hour walk with my son and did another hour of stretching and aerobics-it felt so good! Deep breathing, lots of water, and stretching…..slowing down and enjoying life more, and getting physical exercise to combat the stress are my goals for this week.
So good, Sherri! I think those are awesome goals — slowing down and enjoying life aren’t always goals that we have, but I think it makes a huge difference in our whole approach. I hope last week went well for you!