Maintain Don’t Gain Challenge-So What if you gained?

January 1, 2014 by 184 Comments

Maintain Don't Gain ChallengeHola divas! Happy New Year!  Can you believe it is 2014?  We will be finishing up our Maintain Don’t Gain Holiday Challenge in the next few days!!! How did you do in the maintaining but not gaining department?

If you did well….GREAT…you are off to an excellent start to the New Year!  If you didn’t maintain and are up a few pounds……SO WHAT! You can still be off to an excellent start to the New Year!

How can you be off to a good start to the New Year regardless of gained or loss weight?  It is simple….a good start to the New Year is not circumstantial a good start, a good finish a good middle…whatever….is a choice.

So divas, I challenge you not to sit on your loins if you did well or give up because you weren’t perfect.  Simply choose to begin to make or continue to make healthy choices right now!

Now just before you get too excited and decide to lose weight, organize your entire house, get out of debt and make your children stop backtalking all at once:

1.  Write down what you would like to accomplish in 2014…about your health or otherwise.

2.  Then, breathe and decide what SMALL, GRADUAL changes you can REALISTICALLY make right away.

Focusing on one small goal at a time you will stay encouraged and feel more accomplished.

Now before you let yourself off the hook and vow to start your healthy choices next week, here are a few things you can do TODAY to start to ease into your New Year’s fitness goals:

1.  Increase your water intake.  Sweet holiday treats are full of sugar and salt!  Jump start metabolism and detox naturally with good ol’ H2O!  If you can stand it, try to drink mostly water all day–skip the soda, and other sweetened beverages…especially diet drinks which have actually been linked to causing increased hunger!

2.  Get some support.  Perhaps it is just me but it is EASY for me to skip a workout when I am going alone!  A workout buddy or a group class with other POSITIVE people are harder to skip out on!!! Looking for a group of fabulous, positive ladies…join the DANCE FIT DIVAS!  We are starting a new Bible study called Made to Crave to help bridge the gap between a woman’s desire to be healthy and the spiritual empowerment necessary to make that happen. Join our Meetup Group to stay in the KNOW!

3.  Have Fun! New Year’s Resolutions and/or goals should be inspiring.  They shouldn’t drag you down or taunt you with all the things you haven’t done.  What are some creative and unique ways that you can come up with to get your stuff done?

The New Year just like each and every NEW DAY we are blessed with has the potential to be great.

Lamentations 3:22-23
The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease.  Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning

You will enjoy this:

Pep Talk From the Kid President (link: http://youtu.be/l-gQLqv9f4o)

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Leave the Holiday Party Un-Stuffed-Maintain Don’t Gain

December 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Maintain Don't Gain ChallengeHola Divas!  How goes the maintaining and NOT gaining?  If you have NO clue what I am talking about, check our Maintain Don’t Gain Challenge!   Otherwise, I hope you are all tallying your points or at least doing the things that the challenge asks you to do: exercising at least 30 minutes per day, eating fruits and veggies, not eating more than 1 serving of dessert or having more than 1 alcoholic drink per day!

We are down to crunch time…can you say HOLIDAY PARTIES?

Even if you are really trying most of the time, it is REALLY hard to stay on task when you are at a Holiday Party!
Here are some tips to get you through:
1. Eat Intentionally – Don’t just show up at the party and go on an eating frenzy! Take a mental inventory of what is available. Choose those things that you REALLY want. (If I am not careful, I will mindless eat things.) When having appetizers, stick with veggies but only get a dollop or a small portion of the creamy dips! If you MUST have a deep-fried appetizer, only eat one small serving. If you are at dinner party, fill up half of your plate with veggies with only a quarter of starch and a quarter of meat!
2. Manage your sweet tooth! Experts recommend that you eat low-calorie choices like: fruit, Jell-O, pudding, an unfrosted mini muffin (yeah whateva on this one) , shortbread cookies, ginger snaps or angel food cake. ( None of these types of things are EVER at the Holiday Parties that I go to. LOL!) However, if you must have a dessert with frosting, butter cream, cream cheese, or chocolate chips, limit yourself to one small cookie or one thin slice of cake. Remember, part of the Maintain Don’t Gain program is to have no more than 1 dessert per day!

3. Go slow with Alcohol! Our Maintain Don’t Gain program also stresses that you limit alcohol intake to 1 drink per day. The type of alcohol that you have is important as well. Skip the eggnog and have a light beer or a glass of wine. After that, switch off to calorie-free drinks such as water, unsweetened ice tea, hot tea or coffee.

4. Focus on socializing! Don’t stand around the food table during the party! Focus on talking to people! Talk is “calorically” cheap, Divas!

5. Enjoy Yourself! The Holidays are meant to be spent with family and friends. Get plenty of rest and perhaps take some things off of your to-do list so that you have time to get places ON TIME, prepare healthy meals at home and REST!

 1 Corinthians 10:31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Do you have any holiday party eating tips?

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Bounce Back From Holiday Over-Eating

December 3, 2013 by 2 Comments

Maintain Don't Gain Challenge

Well Divas…Thanksgiving is behind us! How did you do with your maintaining-not-gaining?

One of the main purposes of our Maintain Don’t Gain Challenge is to be mindful of what we are eating, and ENJOY the holiday celebrations at the same time. (Need more info on the specifics of the challenge? Go HERE.)

“Enjoying” sometimes may mean that we stray away from our eating plan. News flash…eating “a little more” than we intended over the Thanksgiving Holiday is NOT the end of the world. Plus, Thanksgiving is over and just in cause y’all didn’t know, there are a whole lot of other eating opportunities coming up. So what is a Diva to do?……Bounce Back and move forward of course!

keep-calm-and-bounce-back-16Here are a few do’s and don’ts to help you “Bounce Back” from holiday overeating:

Don’t weigh yourself until next week. Water retention from salty, fatty, heavy foods can cause a 3- to 5-lb increase for up to 2 days afterward, so hold off on the weigh-in until 5 -7 days post-splurge.  Better yet—don’t weigh at all–until the end of the challenge!  Look for changes in how your clothes feel.

Do drink a lot of water– Drinking more water will help you remove some of the water retention from all the delicious Thanksgiving food, aid with digestion and just plain help you feel better!

Do add more physical activity In addition to your normal fitness routine, add 15-30 minutes of brisk walking.  Just bundle up and do it…your body will thank you!

Do change your attitude.  Divas, we serve an amazing God.  A couple of days of overeating does not mean we are failures. In fact, because of how great God is, we are more than conquerors.  We can and we will bounce back!

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Romans 8:37

Here is a video of Larae Puckett, Devoted Fitness Founder, dancing to Mandisa’s Overcomer!  Get your bounce-back party started early by dancing! (click here for link to the video)

 

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Maintain Don’t Gain-Turkey Day Tips

November 24, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Maintain Don't Gain Challenge

Ok Divas, we are almost a full week into our “Maintain Don’t Gain Holiday Challenge“.  Since the BIG GAME (Thanksgiving) is only a few days away, we need to do a little “pre-game” preparation! The old saying is true……we don’t plan to fail…we FAIL to plan.

So, just like with all the football games that will be going on…we have to have our own playbook.file3091346979128

Here are just a few tips to help you avoid a fumble in your fitness goals on the biggest eating day of the year.

1.  Don’t fast all day: I am sure none of you will skip a meal since you would lose a point in our Maintain Don’t Gain Holiday Challenge, but just in case you thought you might save all of your calories for Thanksgiving Dinner…forgetabouit! Waiting all day to eat is a great way to guarantee that you will overeat and be cranky!

2.  Drink plenty of water:  Staying hydrated is one of the best methods to assure that you will not overeat.  Often, thirst is mistaken for hunger.  Plus, with a belly full of non-caloric water, you won’t have room for more pie!

3.  Load up on veggies:  When making your plate at Thanksgiving dinner, fill at least one-half (1/2) of your plate up with veggies.  Filling your plate with veggies helps with portion control and if you eat them first…you may only have room for a spoonful or two of that delicious baked macaroni and cheese!

ThanksgivingPlateResource.jpg

4.  Move your body-Go for a walk, turn on some music and dance, play Just Dance or Dance Central on the Wii, Xbox or PlayStation or work-out with the Dance Fit Divas on our youtube channel!  Just don’t sit around all day eating!  If you are in the Winston-Salem, NC area…join us for the Katina and Courtney combined work-out Monday November 25, 2013 6:00pm!

5.  Spend more time with people you love and be THANKFUL!  Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Colossians 3:15

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Maintain Don’t Gain Challenge-Write It Down

November 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Maintain Don't Gain Challenge

So we are in the first few days of our Maintain Don’t Gain Challenge! The purpose of the challenge is to keep away holiday weight gain.  The challenge is pretty relaxed and only contains a few dos and don’ts! The challenge started on November 20th and will run until January 8, 2013.  Join us!  Check it out here.

One key component to the challenge is using the tally sheet! We often think we can keep up with things in our heads.   Divas,…let’s get honest…we have a lot goin’ on in our pretty little heads:)

So, why should you keep up with your intake of fruit, veggies, and desserts on paper?

Because, writing things down is a powerful way to focus your attention! Being intentional about our eating is over half the battle!

We just may think again about getting that second piece of cake if we know we have to write it down AND lose a point over it!

I write and journal during my bible study quiet times. I found an old journal from over 10 years ago. I randomly read a couple of pages and was brought to tears from reading my one of my journal entries. I had written to God about what I wanted in a job and I was pretty specific. As I was reading what I wrote years before, I couldn’t help but cry because I have had TWO jobs identical to what I wrote.  TWO not just one. Divas, it didn’t happen right away but it happened. In fact, I forgot all about what I wrote.

At other times, writing things has helped me go back to what happened. Some of my journal entries showed me that I have a really hard head, sometimes I went through the same thing over an over before learning the lesson. Other times, my entries served as reminders of God’s goodness and helped me to hold on!

Habakkuk 2:2-3 “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.”

Need a tally sheet?  Get one on the Dance Fit Divas Meetup Page.

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Maintain Don’t Gain Holiday Challenge

November 17, 2013 by 10 Comments

Maintain Don't Gain Challenge

We all know that Thanksgiving signals the opening day of a season of overeating, stress and inactivity. (My opening day started with all the Halloween Candy that magically appeared.)Unfortunately, the season does not end until well after we ring in the New Year.

For many Divas this also means unwanted weight gain. If you have been trying to lose weight before the holidays, it is especially hard to continue to do so once the Holidays arrive.

Therefore, the challenge is to try to maintain weight and not gain any during the weeks from Thanksgiving until after the first of the year.

This year, make a promise to yourself to enjoy the holiday season with a higher level of energy while maintaining your weight and healthy lifestyle!

So let’s take the “The Maintain Don’t Gain Challenge”!!!

When: November 20, 2013 until January 08,2013!!!!

What do you have to do for the challenge? Just a couple of Dos and Don’ts…

DO Exercise at least 30 minutes per day or 210 minutes per week
DO Eat 1 cup of fruit and/or veggies per day
DO Eat breakfast daily

Do NOT eat more than 1 serving of sweets/dessert per day

Do NOT skip meals

Do NOT drink more than 1 alcoholic beverage per day

Earn up to 120 points!!! By following the simple dos and don’ts!

Track your progress with the tracking worksheet

At the bottom of the tracking worksheet, record your weight at the beginning of the challenge and at the end!

For encouragement and more info:
1. Join us here on the blog for weekly updates!
2. Join the Maintain Don’t Gain challenge on the Eat Smart, Move More website: (Registering on their site allows you to receive the free weekly newsletter containing tips and healthy recipes from the Eat Smart, Move More North Carolina program)

Filed Under: Healthy Eating, Maintain Don't Gain Challenge