THE LIFE OF THE RIDDLE

THE LIFE OF THE RIDDLE

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Out of Last Years F-A-I-L Rises a Phoenix. –or- My Families super successful exercise Program.

Since January First I have exercised over 120 hours and lost 22 lbs.  The math tells me that 5.4 hours of exercise =  one pound lost.  Doesn’t it seem like it should be more?  I mean I’m sweating like a pig.  I drag my self out of bed at 6:00 a.m.  I don’t eat sugar.  But I’m not complaining.  My clothes are falling off me.  I’m getting closer toward my skinny jeans and I’m happy.   I’m so happy.  My smile gets bigger and bigger with every notch of my belt (I have to wear a belt now all the time.)

Don’t get me wrong, no one is signing me up as a stick fashion model.  I’ve still got a good 25 lbs to get back to my favorite college weight.  But I’m on the right track and I owe it all to my families exercise program. 

Like most Americans everyone in my family wanted to loose weight.  (except my sister Elise and her perfect 36-24-36 self.)

Last year we started our own the Biggest Loser program.  We all failed.  No one lost. 

Still wanting to loose but realizing that something had to change in order to get different results my favorite brother in law Marshall came up with the new 2010 program. 

We called it The Biggest Exerciser. 

The rules:

1.  Log more exercise hours than anyone else (aerobic or anaerobic.)
2.  Loose at least 15 lbs. 

The winner exercised the most and lost at least 15 lbs.
  
We keep track of everything in shared Google doc’s spreadsheet.  This has been the biggest reason for success.  We can daily see how everyone else is doing.  It is so MOTIVATIONAL to see that my little sister (who has 4 kids) has already exercised 4 hours this week.  Surely I can do better!  I only have a husband and a bird to take care of. 
 
Need more motivation than numbers?  Try seeing it in a pie chart. 

I’m Joanie the yellow-green color.  You can see that my biggest competitors are my husband (the avid cyclist) and my father (the surprisingly avid walker.)   


In the next chart you can see that I was neck-n-neck with my sister Jani and husband Marshall.  But I’ve pulled away.  I guess being a teacher on summer break will do that.  3 weeks ago I exercised 17 hours!

 (Can I get some appreciative “wow” comments?)

Each day I spend 20 more minutes at the gym, or riding my bike to the marina, or running up city creek canyon (I’ve got mace you psychos.) just so I can see the yellow line rising in the ranks.  

I’m telling you there is NOTHING like a multi media shared motivational chart to keep you going. 

And then the sweet part is:

The weight loss chart:
I’m down 22.
Jani (who had Baby #4 in December) is down 24
Marshall (who gained sympathy weight with Baby #1-4) is beating us all.  He is Down 27 lbs!

And if loose jeans weren’t reward enough: 

The winner gets $50
The runner up gets $50 (we knew in advance Spencer would win)



This has been a great family project.  And as I'm currently leading the top excerciser who has lost 15 lbs.  I'm number 1.

Now I want to hear from my readers:  What has been the most successful way you’ve lost weight?  What is your favorite way to exercise? What gets you out of bed?  Do you run?  Do you walk?  Does your family do something similar?  Do tell!  We all need motivation.  (except 19 year old Elise)

8 comments:

Evenstar said...

You've inspired me, Joanie. I am so happy for your success! I wish I could do as well.

Cal said...

Way to go girl!! I love it and am so happy to hear about your success. This kind of program sounds so fun. What a fun family to do it with!

Missy said...

Wow, so organized! The best way for me to drop pounds was to learn to LOVE vegetables. And I allow myself to eat as much of them as I want. It works, most of the time...
Keep up the great work :)

Melissa Bowman said...

My husband Ben needs a challenge and would love to go out and cycle with Spencer. We should all get together sometime too now that we are settled in our house here in SLC. :) Way to go Joanie on your workouts! That's awesome.

The Blind Spot said...

Congrats!!! I know how it feels to lose that much weight. I'm back to gaining it again, though. I need some motivation, too. I wanna see pictures of you!

josh said...

Well done, Joan! Doesn't it feel great to be fit?

Does the runner-up also have to lose 15? If so, it seems like Spencer doesn't have a chance.

BTW, as a math/science guy, I LOVE the graphs and charts!

Queen Prawn said...

Hey, you were like that when you were my age too. I want to point out that if I lost 15 lbs., I would be unhealthy. That is just how my body is. (For now.)
I joined this because I wanted to get motivated to start working out now so that I don't have to work on losing weight later. (But then my wish to have children someday definitely makes that impossible.)
Besides someone has to lose.

Kimberly said...

My family did it on the Wilson side and being able to see everyone's results does motivate people. As a whole our family lost 140 pounds in 5 months and most people are going to lose more weight.