Christmas Dress Countdown Challenge!

Today is the day!

As I've mentioned before I joined the Christmas Dress Countdown Challenge where I join other fabulous bloggers in a 14 week challenge to lose enough weight to fit in to a dress of our choice by December 18th, in time for the holidays. Today is Day 1.

Current Weight: 213.4 lbs (yes I was shocked that I gained 5 lbs in one week. I feel bloated which might have something to do with it, but there it is.)

Here are the rules.

Select a caloric daily limit on which you (and I) can lose weight weekly.


Seeing as I want to get near the 180's by the end of the challenge, and seeing as I've gained more weight than I expected (and consulting with sparkpeople.com) I am setting a caloric limit of 1400 calories. I know myself and know that if I try to set a caloric limit lower than that I won't be satisfied and end up binge eating. No thank you. 1400 is definitely do-able. I'll be calorie counting again in sparkpeople.com


Exercise a minimum of 3x a week.


I'm starting up my jogging routine again and I'm planning on registering for a 5k this winter. In order to keep up a routine I need to strive for a goal. Signing up and putting money on a race is definitely something I'd keep motivated for. LOL. Other than that I re-activated my gym membership for a little while. Seeing as I'm home for longer than I expected I'm going to take advantage of the gym for as long as I possible can. I'll jog 4-5 times a week. From there I'll try to work on strength training 3 times a week.


Hydrate sufficiently.


I usually drink at least 8 glasses of water. I'm trying to go back to drinking over 16 glasses of water. This was pretty normal for me earlier this year and I've been lacking so I'll strive for that right now.


Choose 1 (or more) books and work on your main obstacle-to-losing issue(s)


I am a 100% emotional eater. I've been gradually gaining since before my birthday. The reason for that has to do with a lot of emotions I've been going through and working on getting my life together. So funny enough one of the birthday presents I got was a book that will work perfectly for me and for this challenge:

This is exactly the kind of book I need to read right now. From there I've also been looking at books that deal with emotional eating and the reason behind it rather than a diet book. 

And of course the main reason for this challenge:

Get a smaller sized dress.

Here is the dress I've chosen:

This is the red (holiday festive isn't it?) dress I picked out. I had another dress but this one seemed perfect since it's that polyester spandex material that doesn't hide ANYTHING so my unflattering curves are there for everyone to see.

My goal is to get this dress to fit better and more loosely by holiday season. Another thing is that this dress is sleeveless. I'm self conscious of my flabby arms so I'm going to try my best to work on that as well.  




So there you have it! My start to the Xmas Dress Challenge. I'll be linking up my posts related to this challenge every Sunday on theChristmas Dress Countdown Challenge page.


I'll still continue my regular weigh ins on Monday and keep updating. Good luck to all challengers!


love
-w0rld