Dietbet #2 – The Fast and the Furious

We’re back for another dietbet where everybody can win! This time, though, it will be fast and furious. It didn’t go unnoticed that many of you lost momentum by week 6 or 7 so this time we’re going to decrease the amount you have lose (but not proportionally!) while making it shorter. MUCH shorter. The hope is that the short burst with higher stakes will keep you more motivated and on track to make healthy choices.

But Tanya, you say, 3.5% doesn’t seem like much. Ya, we thought so too. No excuse not to win this one, right?? But in reality, if you weigh around 200 lbs, that’s 7 lbs you have to lose in 6 weeks, which is likely to be a minor challenge and will definitely require discipline in both activity and diet. Once you keep up that kind of discipline for 6 weeks, you’re more likely to be able to keep that momentum after this challenge is done (because you’re making a long term change, right??).

The Details

Goal: lose 3.5% of your body weight

Timeframe: 6 weeks (May 24^th to July 4^th)

Cost: $5 per week for a grand total of $30 in the pot at time of entry

Benefit: losing weight and being healthier! But, of course, everyone who makes the goal (with photo evidence) will split the pot. I’m actually hoping we all break even this time!

Rules: In order to split the pot at the end, besides losing the correct amount, you must

1. Send in a photo of your numbers on the scale as well as a full length picture of yourself standing on the scale. We’d also appreciate if you submit your numbers to the form to make data collection faster and easier. Some of you got creative last time and worked both in at the same time by doing an above the head selfie – kudos! The code word for your initial picture will be Summer – have this word and your weight on the scale both legible in the photo. Photos can be submitted at any time to start the challenge but obviously if you get them done this weekend you stand a better chance of making your goal.
2. You MUST weigh in EVERY week to claim the prize at the end. Weighing in to this form is quick and easy! This is because many of you get lazy but regularly weighing in keeps you honest and more likely to succeed. I wasn’t kidding when I said I hoped we all broke even!
3. You must send $30 US to my pay pal and will not be entered into the contest until you do so. Slptanya at gmail dot com. Everyone (including me) submits US funds to keep it fair when splitting the pot at the end (cuz we’re all gonna make it!!).
4. You must submit your final photo, with a code word to be announced the last week, by no later than July 6^th. If you somehow make this goal before July 4^th, you’d best maintain it!

Email us your pictures to fit4ASHA at gmail dot com. Katie and I are looking forward to cheering all of you on in your fitness goals!!

#ASHAFit 8 in 5 Challenge

Over the past year, several SLPs and AUDs have come together to create a support system for getting healthy and staying active through various editions of what we’ve called #ASHAFit challenges. The challenges have ranged in lengths and participant number, but all have looked at who can loose the highest body fat percentage in a given time. This time around, we are doing something a little differently for #ASHAFit85. Check it out…

The challenge:

Lose 8% of your body fat in 5 months

Start Date: Saturday, September 20, 2014 (or anytime the following week or so)

End Date: Saturday, February 21, 2015

You can follow along on FB over here too – we’ll be posting info and motivation along the way. Also from Twitter @ASHAFitness.

The rules:

1. $50 entrance fee by paypal (that equates to $10 per month)
   1. All transactions to Tanya’s paypal account (slptanya at gmail dot com)
   2. All transactions should be in US funds (since the majority of participants will likely pay in US Funds). Paypal makes this very easy. The reason it needs to be the same this time is because it isn’t winner take all, it has to be equally distributed at the end. Mixing currencies will make this more complicated.
2. At the end of the game, whoever has reached the 8% goal shares the pot. So at the very least you’ll have lost 8% for free (if everyone makes the goal).
3. Starting Weight: Send in your weight via email (or fill out the form) that includes your name, preferred email, and weight numbers.
4. Weight Verification pictures are required at beginning and end to ensure a fair game. These pictures will have to be emailed (fit4asha at gmail dot com) as there isn’t a way to attach them to the form. When you submit the initial email, take a full body photo of yourself standing on the scale (Scale Selfie!), in light clothing, and an up-close photo of your your weight with feet on the scale with the starting code word (the code word for week 1 photos is ‘success’) on an index card in view. The weight numbers on the scale must be legible to us.
5. Weight is sent in at least semi-monthly to fit4asha at gmail dot com or you can submit it to the form (preferred for us). Only Katie and Tanya will see these submissions. The reason we want you to do this at least every other week is to help keep you motivated (5 months is a very long time) and on track. Weekly is preferred! Everyone involved will have access to an updated chart of who has lost what percentage throughout the 5 months. If you don’t submit, we’ll assume you’ve gained a lb and the percentage will reflect that!

Who should join?:

Anyone who wants that extra motivation to lose weight is welcome. You do not have to be an SLP or an AUD. You do not have to be going to ASHA this year. You do not have to be American (I’m not!!). You can be a computer programmer from Kazakstan and you are more than welcome!

If losing 8% of your body weight would put you in an underweight category on the BMI, however, joining wouldn’t be a healthy choice.

 Any questions, contact Katie and Tanya at fit4asha at gmail dot com!

Keep in touch via Facebook  and Twitter using the hashtag  #ASHAfit85

Submit your weight to the form:

Once we’ve started the challenge, every week (or every other week) you can submit your weight below or by clicking here and saving the link . The first time we’ll ask you for your email but after that we’ll just ask for your name and weight. Don’t submit to the form until September 20th or later since the weight you are now may not be accurate by then and will not count. Only the picture proof weight will count at the beginning (see rules above).

#ASHAFit13 FAQ

This post is brought to you by the word:

elucidate [ih-loo-si-deyt] /ɪˈlu sɪˌdeɪt/

verb (used with object)

1. to make lucid or clear; throw light upon; explain.

_____________________________________________________________

Yesterday, we started the #ASHAFit13 challenge and I did a blog post introducing it, but (and bare with us here) we’re making this up on the spur of the moment and as we go along so I thought a clarification post was in order. I’m going to try to answer most of the questions we’ve been getting so that everyone can participate however they want.

What is #ASHAFit13?

It’s a fitness challenge 4 of us made up to help support each other in getting more fit using simple calisthenics. The plan is to start very small and challenge ourselves incrementally to build muscle slowly and steadily until one day you realize you can hold a 2 minute plank or do 100 pushups/lunges. So far we’ve thought through 2 phases (phase 1 is core and upper body, phase 2 is lower body and cardio-ish) and the goal is to get toned up in major areas by the 2013 ASHA convention in Chicago this November.

We may not all actually get to attend ASHA this year, but we needed something to shoot for and we’re S-LPs and Audiologists so it made sense. You don’t have to be an S-LP, Audiologist, or planning to attend ASHACon to join up on the challenge, though! We’ll also give you ways to change up your exercise to target slightly different muscles in the same exercise and keep it from getting boring.

How do I join?

Any way that’s easiest/most natural to you. We’ve got various social media platforms where you can get updates and interact with others doing the same (or close to the same) challenge to keep motivated and accountable. You do NOT have to be on Twitter or Facebook to participate in this challenge (see below for more ways to participate and keep updated).

Twitter: Arguably the biggest place for the community and the reason there’s a # in front of the name of the challenge (called a hashtag). Follow @ASHAFit13 to get reminders and know what’s on schedule for that day, then tweet that you’ve completed your ‘workout’ and include #ASHAFit13 in your tweet. You can then follow #ASHAFit13 (by saving the search and going to it regularly) to see what everyone else is sharing for the challenge.

Facebook: We have a page dedicated to our challenge and you can Like the page to get updates and information just like on Twitter. Be sure to ‘Like’ the page and then click ‘get notifications’ in the ‘Like’ drop down menu so you see updates – we promise not to post 100s of times a day.

MyFitnessPal.com: We have a private community on this site for those who use myfitnesspal to track food, exercise, and so on. Because the group is private, you have to be invited to join. Please add your username in a comment on this page to be added to the group. From there, you can friend those who are in the group to see their notifications of exercises completed and encourage each other. The app for myfitnesspal is great, but you have to log into the online version to join the group.

How do I know what to do each day?

For phase 1 you will do planks one day, starting at 10 seconds and increasing by 2 seconds every time you do your plank. You’ll do pushups the next day, increasing by 2 pushups every time. It will look like this:

Jan 1: 10 second plank

Jan 2: 2 pushups

Jan 3: 12 second plank

Jan 4: 4 pushups

Jan 5: 14 second plank

I think you get the picture. It can get hard to keep track of where you were last so you can either check your own log, or watch @ASHAFit13 on Twitter and/or the Facebook page to know what you should be doing. Once we get to phase 2 (lunges and burpees – we’ll start really slowly again!) we’ll give you more details and you can continue to follow along. Phase 2 will happen in mid April.

How do I track my exercise/participation?

Adding a plank in myfitnesspal- make the number of reps be the number of seconds.

MyFitnessPal: You can track exercise (as well as food) with this site/app. The app and online site are set up to track strength training in reps – if you are doing a plank, just add plank as an exercise and then make it 1 set and however many seconds you held the plank as the reps (see picture). When you add strength training, it doesn’t show up in your newsfeed, but you can just add a note that you completed your ashafit13 exercise if you like. The calories you burn doing pushups, planks, and other strength training is fairly minimal so it isn’t really worth citing it under ‘cardio’, which does show up in your newsfeed, depending on your settings.

Dailymile.com: If you don’t want to track your food intake or anything else like that, Dailymile.com is a great alternative to use to keep track of your exercise and many people doing the challenge are also members of Dailymile. It’s easy to link your dailymile updates to Twitter and Facebook too so you can track your exercise and add the #ASHAFit13 tag for it to post with tag to Twitter automatically if you want (see pictures).

 

This entry into Dailymile.com ends up like this on twitter:

Twitter/Facebook: You can post your workouts to ‘check in’ if you don’t want to do any of the above.

Personal journal:   If you want to participate, but don’t want to share it via social media, just keep track of where you are with a journal of your own if you like. You can check in on Twitter and the Facebook page to know what to do and when if need be.

I’m not fit at all – can I really do this?

Yes!! This isn’t easy for us either. That’s exactly why we decided to do this challenge: to challenge OURSELVES, not anyone else. But we’re starting small and building slowly so it’s completely surmountable! If you saw me doing a burpee, you’d realize I’m no fitness guru – far from it. Everyone is in this together and there’s no need to compare yourself to others. Do what you can do (and what you know to be healthy or OK for you – with your Dr’s blessing) and that’s enough, but know that you are in this with others who are not athletes either.

Why are people tweeting more than just planks and pushups using the #ASHAFit13 hashtag?

This is the beauty of Twitter – no one can ‘own’ or ‘moderate’ a hashtag and exercise is something people really like to share in a community – for good reason. We’re only on day 2 of having created the hashtag and already others are using it to discuss and tweet other workouts. It’s great, and there’s evidence that it’ll help encourage you to keep going and possibly add more healthy lifestyle habits to your repertoire so don’t worry about other people tweeting different workouts. The idea is to have a community encouraging each other to make healthy choices – the planks and pushups part of our challenge is just one way of doing that!

You’ve already started so I’ve missed the boat, right?

Wrong. If you’re reading this for the first time on February 3rd, or even August 20th, you can still join us. Start with a 10 second plank, just like we did on January 1st, and build from there. You’ll just have to do a somewhat better job of keeping track for yourself. If you feel you can ‘catch up’, great. If not, just start where you can and begin adding little by litte.

Have you got more questions I didn’t answer? Please leave me a comment and I’ll answer your Qs below!