HAPPY NEW YOU!

It’s January 9th and today we begin our 2012 10 in 10 Challenge.  Our goal? To lose 10 pounds in ten weeks and then, of course, to develop the habits and rituals necessary to keep improving on our new healthy and active lifestyles. As of last night we have 42 participants in this year’s challenge. That is OUTSTANDING. When everyone is successful, we will have collectively lost 420 pounds in just ten weeks.

A few tips to remember today. Whatever number shows up on the scale today, do not react, either positively or negatively. It is a number, like any other number. It is neither good nor bad, it is just a number, a starting point from which you will begin to measure your performance. Additionally, remember what you did today before your weigh-in as you’ll want to do the same thing each week, every week for the next ten weeks. Do your best to limit variety in this part of your challenge.

Chose a scale and stick with it.  If you can, pick a scale that you can control or one that will maintain stable performance over the next ten weeks. In past years, we’ve had people use their own scales, scales at gyms and even one person go into Restoration Hardware every week to get her weigh-in done. Whatever you do, recognize that scales need to be calibrated every so often, so its best to pick one scale and use the same one for the next ten weeks.

Do it at the same time of day. Your body will fluctuate a few pounds up or down throughout the day, so my advice is to weigh yourself in the morning, before you do anything else, including eating or working out.

Do it without clothes. For the lady at Restoration Hardware this might be a bit tricky, but do your best to stay consistent and not include the factor of different weights for different clothes. In fact, like most things in life, it is best to do your weigh in nekkid.

Limit any exogenous factors: What this means in plain English is reduce potential variability in your week-to-week weight at the time you’ll be doing your weigh-in from sweat loss, food weight gain, etc.

Putting all of these items together creates a scenario like this one – Weigh yourself every Monday first thing in the morning right after waking up, after using the facilities, using the locker room scale at the gym, wearing nothing, not eating or drinking anything beforehand.

That’s it. Happy New You!