Listen up, MomSquawkers!

Are you on the fence about joining the next round of MSBL? Have you been looking for a reason to sway you one way or the other?

How about this? A new study found that when there’s a monetary reward involved, people actually do lose more weight than if they’re working toward some other, more long-term reward.

Researchers developed two different monetary reward systems, then assigned 57 obese but otherwise healthy people to one of these two groups or a control group, in which people were simply weighed at the end of each month. All were aiming to lose 16 pounds (7.26 kg) by the end of four months.

People in the incentive groups lost far more weight than those who got no pay for their efforts, with about half of the participants in each group meeting their weight loss goals.

The incentive groups lost averages of 13 and 14 pounds, while those in the control group lost an average of only four pounds in the same amount of time. Wow!

We’re human; we need motivation to achieve our goals. Not only does MSBL offer tangible rewards for weight loss, but you also have access to the most supportive group of women imaginable. I know that for the rounds I’ve participated in, I could always count on someone to help me get refocused after a bad week, or to cheer me on when I was doing well (and the thought of winning the weekly pot didn’t hurt a bit, either!).

I’m looking forward to joining the next round to have a reason to round out this pregnancy with healthy choices, and to start losing the baby weight. Save a slot for me, girls!

Because I was remiss in announcing this week’s winners in my update post, a special blip just for them:

Congrats to less-to-lose group winner mommasteph and more-to-lose group winner Tabatha for an outstanding week!

A quick update from the house of madness — the third week of our MomSquawk Biggest Loser challenge brought me another two pound loss for a total of eight pounds. I will gladly take it, as this week was full of challenges both to my stress load and physical condition — it seems my girls and I came down with some sort of influenza plague. While I think we’re pretty much beyond it now, fighting the urge to curl up with comfort food was tough. On the flip side, though, I couldn’t taste much, making the urge to splurge on tasty food a bit less than usual!

I’m still following Weight Watchers core plan, and I can officially say I’m a believer. I haven’t had bread nor cheese in a month now, and my cravings for same have substantially diminished as the result. The challenge I’m facing now is finding new food ideas that fit within the core guidelines that require little preparation time. At my last Weight Watchers meeting, someone made a crockpot recipe suggestion of boneless chicken breasts, a jar of salsa and a can of Diet Coke. I’m not sure I’m convinced… has anyone heard of this? Perhaps someone can try it, and let me know how it goes…

Posted by mctex

Week 3 brought another 2.5 pound loss for me, which I will gladly take. I had an average week diet wise — fairly successfully following Weight Watchers core program, with an occasional binge on Viactiv calcium supplements, since it’s the only thing resembling chocolate in the house. I had made the mistake of weighing myself once two days before the actual weigh-in, and it showed I’d barely lost a pound — which just goes to show that the advice about NOT weighing oneself more than once a week is dead on.

It’s not that a pound a week is a bad thing — in fact, it’s really the rate of weightloss that constitutes my ultimate goal. Which means it’s going to take me about a year to get where I need to be. So much for instant gratification… but I have to admit there’s a strange kind of peace that comes with accepting that’s the state of things. Yes, I’m still going to be fat when I go back to my hometown in two weeks. Yes, I’m still going to be fat at my friend’s wedding in March. And at another one in July. I know from before I exploded that once I hit 150 (which used to be my panic weight — that weight at which I recognized I need to make a change), I can dress strategically to not appear overweight. So at a pound a week, that’s 34 weeks from now — September 18th. Just in time for my 36th birthday on the 26th. Wow, what a present to myself that would be. Happy birthday to me!

I think by setting a realistic goal of a pound a week, the extra .5 pounds start to get more exciting. If I still keep my expectations set for September, these will just help to ensure I hit that goal. Ideally, I’d like to hit 130 again, but I don’t know how realistic that is for me at this point. 140 was a weight I could maintain fairly easily, so that’s what I’m shooting for by the end of 2008.

Same as last week, my biggest challenge is going to be finding the time to exercise. Once we get into our new house, I’ll be joining the neighborhood gym that has child care, so I’m hoping it will be a little easier. But those of you familiar with my house saga know that getting into our new house is another journey that has not brought instant gratification. At this point, if that happens by the end of 2008, I’ll be satisfied.

Anyway, enough of my rambling. Now on to my inspiration for this week: the less-to-lose Biggest Loser Chickie with a 3.13% weight loss for last week; and RockyMountainMomma, the more-to-lose group’s Biggest Loser with a 2.96% weight loss last week. Way to go, girls!

PS: Sorry for the small picture — having some personal technical difficulties. In case you can’t read it, the scale says 184.5, for a total loss of 6 lbs during the challenge.

It’s the end of the first week of the MomSquawk Biggest Loser Challenge, and everyone has certainly risen — or should I say, lost — for the occasion! Together, the women in the challenge lost a total of 94 pounds in one week!

In the Less-to-Lose group (those wanting to lose somewhere in the ballpark of 10-20 lbs), our very own mommasteph was the weekly winner with a loss of 4.59% of her total body weight!

In the More-to-Lose group (those wanting to lose more than 20 lbs), Lizzy won the week with a 3.15% weight loss!

Congrats to both ladies and all of the participants on an incredibly motivating first week.

Myself, I lost 3.5 lbs this first week, putting me on my way to my goal of 20.5 lbs for the challenge. From where does that magic goal number come, you might ask? That’s the number of pounds I need to lose to go from being “obese” to merely “overweight”.

Yeah, that’s depressing. Let’s instead say it’s an amount that seems reasonably attainable in this 12-week time frame.

I think my biggest success of the week was successfully following Weight Watchers Core program. With the help of lots of veggies and even more microwave popcorn, I was able to avoid such no-nos as bread and other-than-fat-free cheese. There’s something about knowing your fatness in all of its measurable glory is posted wide open on the Internet that keeps you from ordering dessert.

Hindering my success is going to be my relative lack of exercise. I took the girls on a few walks around Austin’s Town Lake with my parents, but given that my 4 month old was in the Bjorn, I wasn’t really able to move with purpose. As soon as I can get over the financial hump caused by an overzealous Christmas, I may pick up a BOB duallie to see if that helps.

How did you do?

For the last 28 years or so, ever since I’ve been aware of the concept of fat and whether or not it applied to me, I have frequently asked my mother whether or not I “looked fat”.

Of course, my mother — with her petite-but-matronly figure — always answered no. I’m not really sure why I even asked, as I was fairly sure I would never get an honest answer, or certainly not a discerning one. There were times when I was quite certain that indeed I did look fat — or even better, WAS fat — but I always got the same old positive answer from my mother. I was fairly certain that my mother was incapable of acknowledging that I was anything other than perfect.

Until last week.

Mom, showing me something that had a silhouette of a rather svelte and curvaceous woman (think mudflaps on a semi-truck) that was holding a child on each hip: “Oh look, honey, it’s you!”

Mom (visibly uncomfortable): “Well… it was once, and will be again.”

She put her usual positive twist on it, but it was there for the taking: my mom had admitted that I had gained weight. Was not perfect. Maybe even… fat.

The unflattering pictures, the awful number on the scale, the pre-baby clothes that don’t fit… yes, they’d hinted at the idea that things had really changed for me. But strangely, on a day-to-day basis, in situations where I had the opportunity to address the situation, I somehow deluded myself into thinking there wasn’t really a problem. Regardless of what the outward signs said, in my mind’s eye, I was still the size 6 that I’d been most of my life.

But my mother acknowledging that I might need to make a change? That was my rock bottom: I have let myself go.

Now before you think my mother an awful person, here’s the reality: I weigh exactly 50 pounds more today than I did on this day four years ago (and I wasn’t skinny then).

Yes, it’s true that I’ve had two children in that time period, the youngest born just this past September. But based on the USDA dietary guidelines, someone of my height can have a healthy weight of up to 144 lbs, and a healthy pregnancy gain of up to 35 lbs, for a total of 179 lbs at delivery.

And I weigh…

Um, I weigh…

1… 9… 0. Point 5.

And my womb has been vacant for four months. I’m way beyond overweight — I’m well into the “clinically obese” category. So there is no excuse to be had.

In all seriousness, I think typing that dreadful number is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. My husband keeps coming around me, as I’m typing this, and I keep shielding the computer from him. As if he hasn’t noticed that I’m fat, I don’t want him to read about it here.

I’m literally laughing at how insane that sounds… particularly as it pertains to my husband, who could work for a circus with his uncanny ability to peg the weight of things — especially people.

So this is why I was elated when MomSquawk’s own Crystal came up with the idea of having our own Biggest Loser challenge. (Note to Biggest Loser: Don’t bother suing us for using your name. We haven’t a dime.) The challenge kicks off today and will consist of weekly weigh-ins through April 1. If you’d care to join us, it’s not too late (although it will be tomorrow). Just shoot an email to squawk@momsquawk.com indicating your interest, and we’ll get you fixed up.

I’ll be chronicling my own journey here, as well as sharing highlights of the challenge (with participant permission, of course). I’d love to hear from you about your own journeys and struggles with weight and fitness, too.

Good luck to everyone on their own journeys, whether in the competition or not. Weight is a very personal and unfortunately highly emotional topic, and every woman deserves to be supported on her goals, regardless of the number on the scale.