Bea Amaya

Not too late at all. I've added you now, but need your goal weight. (So sorry if you already posted this and I just missed it!!!)

Bea's having a GOOD DAY today! For the first time in 28 years my BMI says I'm "overweight" instead of "obese"! I hit 200.0 today and could not be MORE THRILLED! I showed increases or the same weight every single day all the way up to the beginning of month 7. Now my weight fluctuates in both directions, although with a steady, but slow, decline every week. So although I know tomorrow may but slightly up again, after another week or so I can fully expect to NEVER see numbers starting with "2" again. There is something so very exciting in that! I may log today's weight as my weekly weight, not because I am interested in "cheating" (it will all come out right in the end anyway) but simply because I've hit a point that is game-changing in my life and want to log it, share it, hold on to it. Sorry for going on and on about this, but if anyone could understand what I'm feeling, it's all of you. So, I just had to share here.

It's all right..."official" check in for this challenge is on Monday. :-)

Valentine's Challenge Final Results Here's a wrap-up of how the Valentine's Challenge ended up (with some amazing team results!): Number of people reporting, by week: 106, 105, 102, 97, 86, 77Yes, there does seem to be a tendency to fall off the further we go Still, 77/106 means 73% of the original group stuck it out to the end...not bad! Total weight lost by the group: 1,104.9 lbs!!! Count and percent of those who made goal: 30/77 or 40% Start-to-finish border crossings: Bigbeaz crossed a MAJOR border from the 300s to the 290s NewNana and Evolving crossed into ONEDERLAND from the 200s to the 190s livvsmum, mickally, and Seela crossed TWO borders and into ONEDERLAND, from the 200s to the 180s Bearman99 crossed THREE borders, from the 300s to the 270s! 4MEL21 crossed THREE borders, from the 270s to the 240s Stacy_wls crossed THREE borders, from the 250s to the 220s dreamscometrue crossed THREE borders, from the 250s to the 220s Sleeveless n Seattle crossed TWO borders, from the 330s to the 310s Lynnc121 cross TWO borders, from the 300s to the 280s Nurse_B crossed TWO borders, from the 260s to the 240s Hunter and magtart crossed TWO borders, from the 250s to the 230s Ree and Sherry73 crossed TWO borders, from the 240s to the 220s Comfy_Blue, tami j, Jhealan, and Mkak crossed TWO borders, from the 210s to the 190s planetheather and EarthyGoalie crossed TWO borders, from the 180s to the 160s Lorie77 crossed TWO borders, from the 170s to the 150s Oceana crossed TWO borders, from the 150s to the 130s Fallenangel2904 crossed from the 280s to the 270s Hannah55 crossed from the 270s to the 260s Ms. Keel and kyleebean crossed from the 260s to the 250s Jdub and back2barb78 crossed from the 250s to the 240s Eyedbrown crossed from the 240s to the 230s BeeLee37 and HardWork13 crossed from the 230s to the 220s mytime2shine, Mama Spike, crosabi, Cathysleever, VSG AJH, gourmetone, and nomytx crossed from the 220s to the 210s kltklass, snochochick2005, GatorGirl72, BeaAmaya, Beach Lover, and LisaDM crossed from the 210s to the 200s onsummit, Bombs, Yoga-lady, and longtimecoming7 crossed from the 190s to the 180s JanetPRN, krtrebie, jcoklahoma, and cms213 crossed from the 180s to the 170s marywithoutsound, tddonnell67, and Busymomof3 crossed from the 170s to the 160s Wags, crowsnestmama, Anouli, Sweet_Mia, and spritedcowgirl63 crossed from the 160s to the 150s Chellemetime crossed from the 150s to the 140s Whew! Looks to me like the Valentine's Challenge was a BIG SUCCESS!

Certainly! Just post your stats here and I'll fill them out on the spreadsheet. Welcome to the challenge!

You're in. Welcome to the Challenge. Good luck!

Miss Mac, no worries at all about not "getting this". This is actually a good excuse to explain things to the challenge newcomers. All that is required on your part is to report in every Monday (or whatever day you pick...we're not really particular about that). Part of the fun is watching the changes in a visual way, especially as you can look at other challengers and see how they are doing. The "cloud" is just a web space that's available to others (like a web page is) to view. I have put an Excel spreadsheet of our progress in a "cloud" location that belongs to me. There won't be much to see until week 2 of the challenge when the comparisons start. Other data points, like how many people are in the challenge, how much is being lost each week, the per person average of losses each week, etc. are all a part of the fun. You'll know that I've updated your data to the spreadsheet when you see that I have "Liked" your update post. I think that covers most of the points, but other veteran challengers are welcome to chime in as well. For me, it just seems that when I approach losing as a kind of "team sport", it makes it more fun. The big losses give us an opportunity to shout about it, the little losses give us support from friends who understand, and the ever unpopular "gains" let us know we are only human and our bodies are not always under our full control. What better way to experience all of these phases and the emotions that go with them than with a group of individuals who TOTALLY know how we feel! Welcome to the challenge!

If you want to report in on Friday's, that's definitely fine with us. I never go by (look at) the days anyway...as soon as someone reports in, I just post the weight to the nearest weigh-in day. Whatever works for you is good for us too. Good luck!

https://skydrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=C39B86143819E4E1!1004&ithint=file%2C.xlsx&app=Excel&wdo=2&authkey=!AN-F3qei-t4olnM (Hope this works for you.)

Bea, I'm not sure you ever "liked" my post from Friday. (I'm on my phone and can't see all of the likes.) From what I can tell, I don't think my stats have been added. If they have, sorry that I've once again added more work. Thanks again so much! Looks like I missed yours...thanks for the reminder! Hopefully, it is showing up now. (Congrats on making goal!)

The sheet is posted in a shared location of mine on the cloud. I don't think you have to have an account as I think the link takes you right to it. It's already posted, so you can try the link and let me know. I really hate putting things in a place you have to subscribe to in order to see so I hope you'll give me feedback if that's the case. Welcome to the challenge! P.S. I do all the updating of the sheet so you guys don't have to mess with it. You'll know if your data has been added because your update will have a "like" by me. Hope this explains it.

Today was the last weigh-in for this one, but I've added you to the next one. Official weigh-in on Monday (although we're pretty darn lax about it...you can certainly pick a different day if you want). Check out the updates at http://www.bariatricpal.com/topic/296972-st-patricks-day-challenge/ and we'll see you there!

Grrr...growl! A GAIN when you're working so hard is just so darn annoying. Thank goodness there's another challenge starting Monday! Goal: 199.8 Today: 206.2 [sigh]

Me too, MS! I had high hopes to see it for this challenge, but things haven't gone my way. So...I'm planning on onderland by St. Patty's Day!

Oh no? Problem?

Ditto to that "overly ambitious VDay challenge goal"! Like you, I was more hoping than expecting to hit onederland before Valentine's Day. I'm close, really close (<5 lbs), but won't quite make it by the day. Thank goodness there's another holiday, and challenge, in the works. My next goal will be something like 194, a number I NEVER thought I'd see again! We can do this! (P.S. Congrats on your AWESOME progress so far!)

I try to set these challenges up so that the END on the holiday. So, the Valentine's Challenge will end on February 14 and there will be no more reporting after that. The St. Patrick's Day Challenge runs from February 17 to March 17 (St. Patrick's Day). Thanks for asking...I'm guessing some others were wondering too. :-)

That's pretty much all there is to it, Miss Mac. It's just that some of us have discovered that, personally, there might be just a bit more. It seems that in the challenges we develop a group dynamic (100 people or so) that lasts for a few weeks, which is really a perfect length of time. For that period of time we cheer each other on, commiserate when there are stalls, ask questions, share opinions, and perhaps work just a little harder to show a loss on weigh-in day. People come and go, so it's not always the same people moving from challenge to challenge. That's also kind of a neat aspect...knowing that you can drop out for one without a problem and jump back in on the next one if you think it might be fun again. But for me I think the biggest things are that it keeps me engaged and upbeat, even when I have bad week; it keeps me informed about the challenges others are facing from week to week and what they are doing to address them; and it keeps me accountable, knowing that I'll be reporting in to the group every week and working just a little bit harder to make, or get close to, my goal. So...we hope you decide to join us, but it's really up to you. Good luck in your journey!

I just posted the next challenge details...St. Patrick's Day Challenge. You can start following that thread at: http://www.bariatricpal.com/topic/296972-st-patricks-day-challenge/

Here are the Valentine’s Challenge results from Week 5: Number of people reporting in (31-JAN): 95 Total losses for the group: 141.0 lbs Average losses for the week: 1.5 lbs Total challenge losses: 822.8 lbs Border Crossings: Fallenangel2904 and Kiap82 moved into the 270s 4MEL21 moved into the 250s Jdub moved into the 240s dreamscometrue and Stacy_wls moved into the 230s Sherry73 moved into the 220s ktlass moved into the 200s onsummit and Yoga-lady moved into the 180s Wags and Sweet_Mia moved into the 150s Valentine’s Goal Achievers: back2barb78 <3 bearman99 <3 college_chick <3 EarthyGoalie <3 Fallenangel2904 <3 Healthier2day1227 <3 Kltklass <3 Mama Spike <3 Mkak <3 therockmorton <3 BIG successes all around. While a few of us won’t actually make our goal this time, the progresses are still so very AWESOME. What a really great challenge this one is turning out to be!

Here's the long version of the link, Ree: https://skydrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=C39B86143819E4E1!1004&ithint=file%2c.xlsx&app=Excel&wdo=2&authkey=!AN-F3qei-t4olnM Maybe it will work for you. Good luck!

With St. Paddy's day falling on March 17 and Easter falling in April 20 this year, I think those would be REALLY good ideas (good windows of time) for the next two challenges. Great idea!

I always try to put the links to the challenge data on the very FIRST post in the thread. Like you, I've had trouble keeping up with them when they get lost in the mix, so figured out that by putting them in the first post, they would always be easy to navigate to. Good luck, and let me know if you still have trouble!

Back home now and working on catching up with things that went on while I was gone. Thought I'd go ahead and post an overview of last week's challenge results as we get ready to sign in and update our measures tomorrow. Number of people reporting in (24-JAN): 102 Total losses for the group: 190.3 lbs Average losses for the week: 1.9 lbs Border Crossings: Sleeveless n Seattle moved into the 310s Bigbeaz moved into the 290s (Woo Hoo! Big crossing point!) MCM13 (Him) moved into the 280s kyleebean moved into the 250s back2barb78 moved into the 240s ataloss1383837833 moved into the 230s Chelenka moved into the 220s gourmetone and Mama Spike moved into the 210s Bea Amaya, GatorGirl72, and Comfy_Blue moved into the 200s livvsmum moved into ONEDERLAND! (Woo Hoo! Big crossing point!) SleevedMominNH and longtimecoming7 moved into the 180s tddonnell67 moved into the 160s Edm852 moved into the 150s Oceana moved into the 130s Big Congrats all around! As a group we are still making some AWESOME progress (which statistically means that there are some real movers in the individual ranks carrying us through, LOL). Thanks to all!!!

According to the flight map, I'm somewhere over the friendly skies of Bucarest (the German spelling) a couple of hours out of Frankfurt, Germany and a little less than 4 hours until I'm in Doha, Qatar. Funny how I can update our statistics from here (gotta love technology). This is my first time traveling since losing more than 80 lbs of weight and the differences are just amazing. When I lived overseas (2009-20012) I traveled internationally once every 4-6 weeks. It was always uncomfortable, but it was just what I had to do. Here are some of the differences I've noticed on this trip: when I buckle my seat belt and pull it snug, there is this flap of belting hanging out the end of the buckle when I walk down the aisles, I can walk straight on instead of having to turn and go sideways when I sit next to someone on the plane, I don't spill over into their space my bum is sore from hours of traveling (not enough padding anymore) I can take the stairs and not be winded people don't give me the oh-I-hope-that-fat-lady-isn't-sitting-next-to-me look I have no desire to finish off the tray of food served on the plane...can't wait to get some healthy protein down when I land Although I am still "obese", for another 8 lbs anyway, and have nearly 50 lbs left to lose, I am feeling so good about myself...healthy and comfortable in my own skin. This has been a full day of travel and I honestly feel like a "normal" (i.e. not worried about embarrassing situations with my body) person. What an awesome journey this has been...and it's still not over!