The Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans

Here we are!!! Calling all sisters in the spirit of weight-loss and fitness! It’s day one of the first challenge of the new decade!! It’s the day we’ve all been waiting for since the cheese cube reared its ugly head during that holiday cocktail party this year! (Perhaps even longer!)

Yes ladies, it’s time to “Rethink Your Shrink!”

This is the day you’ve decided to change your mind about food and health. This is the day you’ve decided to venture outside of your comfort zone. This is the day you’ve taken the first step toward becoming the person you have always wanted to be. The person you picture. No more waiting around. The change starts now and it starts with you, within you. Claim today and every day as yours starting this very minute! Because 2010 is your year.

Here at the sisterhood, you’ll find an undying support and encouragement for each other, a shoulder to cry on when things get tough (because they will), an ear for listening when you don’t feel like going on, and a hand to pull you up when you’ve fallen off the wagon. There is no judging. There is only love. When you join us, we’re sisters in spirit and we are with you through thick and thin. Literally.

Rethink Your Shrink is about changing from the inside. It’s about looking back so that you can move forward by changing the present. We will re-evaluate our eating habits, our patterns, our obstacles and our activity levels. We will take with us what worked in 2009 and dispose of what didn’t.

This challenge last 7 weeks. At the end of this, you will see a difference. You’ll have new friends. You’ll have tried new things. You’ll have changed your habits.

Each week on Monday, we will challenge you to a project, affectionately called “The Monday Project”. We will ask you to look closely at a particular area in your life and we’ll ask you to do something about it for that week. Yes, we’ll send you out into the world with your thoughts and we will ask that you come back Friday and post a link to your findings so we all can see what happened and we can grow from your words. These little projects aren’t mandatory, but they will allow you to get a glimpse of yourself from the inside and help you grow during your journey. (Plus they’re just fun! And I promise, they do help!) Because honestly, you can eat right and work out but if something from within you doesn’t change, the part of you that will allow you to get right back into bad habits after this is all over will still be there. And this is about changing your thoughts in relation to food and exercise, which will allow the weight-loss to follow and allow it to stay. Because we want the weight to come off and stay off.

Each Wednesday, like in past challenges and like today, we will weigh-in right here. You post your weigh-in weight along with a link to your blog with your post so we can all come by and leave you comments and sisterly love. The more sisters you visit, the more will visit you and vice versa. And the virtual support is key! If you don’t have a blog, that’s ok! Just leave your weight in the comments and we’ll talk to you right here.

Throughout this challenge we will have mini exercise challenges. And these make exercising really fun!! We’re here to try to take any “boring” out of this weight-loss journey and insert some “accountability!” By losing weight with my bloggy friends, I have lost 40 pounds! It works! This support system does work!

Of course we will also have giveaways throughout, well, because we roll like that! And also, tips, recipes, confessions, etc etc, well, because all of us at the Sisterhood have big mouths and lots to say! So you see? You must come here all the time, because we will post a lot and all of these posts will be really really useful and will help you to change your mind about how sucky the weight-loss journey can be.

Now before you go weigh-in, we want everyone to start off right. We want you to have the tools to be successful. We want you to have a plan. We want to arm you with resources. There are three things that will be key in your success and they are food, activity, and support. So in the coming days, try to do the following:

1. Sort out your food plan. Will you count calories? www.sparkpeople.com is perfect for that. Will you count points on Weight Watchers? (That one helped me break through a plateau.) Will you do Body for Life? Bob Greene’s Diet? Find an eating plan that you will most likely stick to. Then, go purge your pantries and your fridges. Go stock up on the good stuff. And if you’re not logging your food online, we highly recommend a food journal. It’s a big pain in the butt at first to log each calorie and each food, but it’s so worth the hassle in the end! And it helps you to pinpoint poor eating habits like snacking at night or that 3pm Mountain Dew (hubby!)

2. Get your workouts in order. Are you going to Shred? Are you going to run? Walk? Spin class? Do you have a run training plan? Do you have an athletic event to get ready for? Find one! Go sign up for a run that takes place in 7 weeks (www.active.com). Or find a DVD that takes 30 days to do, like Jillian’s 30 day shred or the EA Sports Active 30 day challenge! And then, literally write your workouts into your day and week for the next 7 weeks. Because if you don’t set aside the time for yourself, someone else will steal your time and for the next 7 weeks you have to make YOU a priority! I’ve seen it happen, everyone wants my time!!! BUT NO! I claim a 30 to 60 minute window MINE each day! MINE MINE MINE! You are worth it. Let me repeat: You are worth it.Start giving yourself back some of your worth by giving yourself back some of your own time. Find the best time for you and set it aside and let everyone know you’re serious about it because otherwise that mom/wife/sister/daughter guilt will set in and you need support at home! If you haven’t worked out in a while, talk to your doctor and get a quick checkup and physical. (Disclaimer: we are not doctors or fitness experts! We recommend things that have worked for us and we share our own experiences, that’s pretty much it. The doctors are the real professionals, we’re just here for support! But we do mean business! I’m just sayin.)

3. Finally, join join join! Have you joined our forum over at The ‘Hood? We post recipes, talk about exercising and gear, show off our pictures, cuss like truckers (just kidding. Sort of.) and chit chat. We’re also on Twitter and we tweet all day long (when do we have time for anything else!) We are also on Daily Mile where we log our workouts and send each other motivation and high fives. You can log anything from walks to rides to runs to swims and the all-encompassing “other”. And here’s a hint — we may have a mini-challenge using Daily Mile really soon!

Yes, we at The Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans want to infiltrate your entire life and mind so that we can help you reach your goal, whether it’s to run a 5k, maintain your current weight, lose 10 pounds or lose 100. We had some amazing successes and milestones here and we want you to be one of them! And when you do reach milestones, we have pretty little buttons for you to have for your blog! They’re BRAND NEW! Here, these are badges of honor. (When you reach these milestones, we will tell everyone, so make sure you let us know when you do!)

So, starting today, right now, go weigh in. Post about it on your blog. No, you don’t have to post your weight on your blog (I don’t, are you crazy!?) You can just post pounds lost on your  blog. But since we’re a “safe place”, please do leave your weight in the comments below and post a link to your blog. (We won’t tell anyone!)

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Besides weighing in, there is only one mandatory rule for the next 7 weeks: THERE IS NO NEGATIVE SELF-TALK! NONE! Did you know it takes 12 positive statements to counteract just one negative one? So whenever you find yourself talking nasty to yourself, turn it around. Find the positive. If you feel frustrated, think about something good you’ve done. If someone compliments you, ACCEPT IT! Do not say, “THIS OLD THING??” If you say you can’t, show yourself you can.

I know this is the longest post ever and thanks for sticking it out this far.

Gosh, I’m so excited I can hardly stand it. I personally want to reach goals and overcome hurdles I’ve never reached before. I want to be better than I ever have before. I want to be a superhero! And I want to be on this ride with all of you! My first foray into weightloss was post-baby, 40 pounds overweight and at my personal rockbottom. I ran a 5k using the Couch to 5k plan then kept going to lose more weight, run further and faster and try new things (like biking and swimming too!)

So let’s let it start today. When we look back on 2010, I want us all to see how hard we’ve worked and how far we’ve come. 2010 is YOUR YEAR! Don’t let another year get away from you without taking back your body and your life!

So what do you think? Are you ready to Rethink Your Shrink? JOIN THE REVOLUTION! Change your body, change your mind! Start with just one little tiny comment below.

P.S. Go check out the new buttons Christy has been slaving over. They are FANTASTIC! New year, new buttons… Grab away!