8-Week Health and Weight Loss Challenge

8- Week Challenge/SexyMoxieMamaHow are you doing on your New Year’s Resolutions to get healthy and fit? Did you know that 24% of people making New Year’s resolutions fail at their resolutions? If you have been struggling to succeed at your New Year’s resolutions to lose weight and get healthy in the new year, you have come to the right place for motivation. Below is a fairly simple health and weight loss challenge that I am doing with a mom’s group that I belong to. I wanted to extend the invitation to all of my readers here as well.

8- Week Health & Weight Loss Challenge

  1. The 8 Week #MLIChallenge starts on Monday, January 27, 2014. You’ll need THIS 8 Week Challenge Calendar to be able to complete this challenge. Please look over the calendar and then comment on this post to let the other know you’re joining.
  2. Each week you will get points for drinking water each day, eating your fruits and veggies, exercising, logging your food/exercise, and obtaining from processed/sugary foods.
  3. A weekly point calendar is available for each of 8 weeks to tally your points. Please use it and keep it until the end of the challenge.
  4. On Week #2 there is a double point challenge (highlighted in pink) that will give you more points for that particular category for that week only.
  5. You will receive points for exercise. You can exercise each day, but you will only receive points for exercising 5 days a week.
  6. You will receive points for eating healthy and staying away from processed and sugary treats. You can choose to not eat processed/treats each day, but you will only receive points for not eating sugar/processed foods on 6 days. A processed food is defined as: “…foods that are packaged in boxes, cans or bags. These foods need to be processed extensively to be edible and are not found as is in nature. In addition to going through many complex processing steps, processed foods often contain additives, artificial flavorings and other chemical ingredients”.
  7. Complete your food and exercise diary each day for accountability. Keep track of what you eat via Myfitnesspal.com. Please also allow for your food diary to be viewed by others. My username is CBBhattacharya.
  8. Weight yourself each Sunday morning, on an empty stomach, in the same clothes/no clothes each time. Write your weight in the space provided on the week you are beginning. You will need this weight at the end of the week.
  9. Example of weight loss points: You will get 1 point per pound of weight you lose during the week, 0.5 points for maintaining your previous weight and 0 points for gaining a pound of weight. For instance, you weigh in on Sunday morning and put your weight into MFP, the following Sunday you also weigh in and put your weight into MFP. If you have gained weight you DO NOT collect any points, if you lose 3 lbs you get 3 weight loss points, if you maintain your weight from the previous Sunday you collect 0.5 point.
  10. Comment each Sunday (before 9 PM CST) on this post with your weekly points for the week. Calculate your points by adding your weekly points with your weight loss/ gain points.

*Disclaimer: This challenge was inspired by and adapted from the SixSistersStuff.com 8-Week Weight Loss Challenge. The point system is similar but not identical to the original as items were added/deleted for simplicity purposes.

5 responses to “8-Week Health and Weight Loss Challenge”

  1. Dawn Baker

    I’m going to start this on Sunday! Thanks for starting this, and good luck!

  2. Clarification of “processed foods” for 8-Week Challenge

    Baked goods and grains
    White rice
    Cornmeal
    Polenta
    Flour
    White flour
    White Bread
    Rolls
    Buns
    Muffins
    Bagels
    Bread sticks
    Pizza crust
    Pita bread
    Tortillas
    Croutons
    Flat bread
    Crackers
    Macaroni
    White Pasta
    Couscous
    Orzo
    Cake
    Cake mixes
    Pie
    Pie crust mixes
    Cookies
    Cookie dough

    Processed fruits
    Canned fruit
    Fruit sauces
    Jellies
    Jams
    Pie fillings
    Fruit juice

    Processed vegetables
    Canned vegetables
    French fries
    Ketchup
    Mustard

    Convenience foods
    Pizza
    Precooked foods
    Frozen dinners
    Breakfast cereal
    Granola
    Energy bars

    Processed meat
    Canned meat (Spam)
    Cured meat
    Ham
    Lunch meat
    Sausage
    Cured Bacon
    Fresh meat with additives

    Processed dairy foods
    Cheese food
    Yogurt other than unflavored Greek

    Processed fats and oils
    Refined oils
    Margarine
    Salad dressing
    BBQ sauce
    Mayonnaise
    Nut butters other than those that are natural w/o sugar (ie. tahini, natural peanut butter, raw almond butter)

    Drinks
    Soft drinks
    Fruit drinks
    Instant breakfast drinks

    Sweets
    White sugar
    Brown sugar
    Corn syrup
    Rice syrup
    Honey (unless raw)
    Syrups
    Candies
    Soft candies
    Pudding
    Jello
    Dessert mixes
    Ice cream
    Frozen desserts
    Whipped cream
    Chocolate
    Marshmallows
    Sugar substitutes

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  4. […] been a lot of confusion on what is considered “processed” foods. In the comments of the 8-Week Health and Weight Loss Challenge comments, I posted a list of “processed foods” not allowed. This caused an uproar and I […]

  5. […] have been participating in the 8-Week Health and Weight Loss Challenge that I wrote about a few weeks back. I thought that it would be very easy since I have also been […]