Well… we made it through our first month on the healthy train!!!!! 😀 YAHOOOOOOO!!!!!

The numbers are blowing my mind…

Our top 5:

Stacey Dickey – 7.88%
Rich Foster – 7.74%
Rebecca Dryer – 7.57%
Kristi Livingstone – 6.75%
Kayla Joy Hurst – 6.51%

WOOT WOOT!!!!!!

I’ve been LOVING the #healthytrain twitter accountability stuff… it’s so motivational. Thank you to those who are participating. 😀

Now, as many of you already know… there is a Healthy Train Facebook group. You also know that I’m not the best at keeping up with it. 🙂 I noticed that one of the healthy trainee’s had taken the reigns of the page… so I asked her to be an admin! She was a bridesmaid in a wedding that we photographed… and she’s from Awesome City, USA.

I went through the archives and found a photo of us from that wedding. Meet Stephanie… she’s on the far right. January, 2007… Oh, and that’s me… pre-healthy train 😉

She’s an incredible motivator… and I’m excited to see what role she falls into with the healthy train. 😀

This week she asked me if it’d be okay to start a spark people page for us… I said HELLLLL YES!  Just do it and tell me what to tell our blog readers and we’ll make it happen. 😀 Here’s what she wrote:

A handful of people on the facebook group have mentioned their use of the Web site www.sparkpeople.com.  This site is a completely FREE resource committed to healthy living through goal-setting and lifestyle changes.  They use a positive approach and emphasize the difference that small changes can make toward building momentum and reaching your goals (it only takes a spark to start a fire…I think that’s kind of the notion behind the name).  It has a nutrition and fitness tracker, fitness videos, optional meal plans, and TONS of articles and other resources on health, fitness, nutrition, weight loss, goal setting, etc.  In addition to the many resources, they have a very active online support network made up of millions of members.  When joining, members have the option to create their own “SparkPage” and network with others on the site via message boards and “SparkTeams.”

Here’s where Healthy Train comes into play!  🙂  Due to the interest expressed on the FB group, we have created our own healthy train SparkTeam (“Bobbi’s HealthyTrain”).  At this time, the team is co-lead by Spark members/Healthy Train participants Kayla Joy Hurst and Stephanie Beck.  There’s a link to it on the fb wall, but the team is set to private (keeps random Spark members from accidentally joining if they aren’t familiar with Healthy Train).  If anyone doesn’t belong to SparkPeople but is interested in the team, it’s as simple as heading over to the site and creating an account (free like mentioned before) so that we can send an invitation.  The fab thing about SparkPeople is that you can use the parts you like and disregard the parts that you don’t.  They don’t push diets.  The site provides a whole lot of autonomy in tailoring it to your own needs.  When I joined, all I was interested in was the free nutrition tracker, but then I got completely addicted and started using pretty much everything on the site…and it’s been COMPLETELY worth my while given that I’m closing in on a 30-pound loss since I joined!  🙂  There’s something about the site that just gets me excited and helps me stay motivated.  Even when my momentum wanes (as it does for anyone on this journey), I still find my way back because I really just enjoy being a part of the site – I’m constantly learning more about myself along the way.  Yup, did you hear that?  I’ve actually ENJOYED weight loss thanks to this site!  Who knew????  🙂  [You’d think they’re paying me to promote…but NOPE.  It’s just great, and I love telling others about it.  They call it “Spreading the Spark.” ]

So, in a nutshell… to join the SparkTeam: Create a SparkPeople account and then message Stephanie there to request access. Here’s her Spark profile 🙂

As for our personal healthy trains 🙂 I’ve lost 0.78%. and Mike lost 1.33%. 😀 CHOOOOO CHOOOOOOO!!!!!!! Not a lot but certainly no gain. 😀

A couple of b*tchy business things to get off of my chest:

• For those who haven’t weighed in… that needs to happen first-ish thing on the Friday of a weigh in.
• I mentioned this when I announced the healthy train… if you don’t weigh in within two weeks of an official weigh in date…. I’ll unfortunately have to remove your name from the list. No exceptions. 😉 This healthy train is something that I, along with many of you out there, take VERY seriously… and those that aren’t taking it as seriously needn’t weigh us down. Pun intended. 😀
• If you’re not already on the healthy train, please do not ask if it’s too late. I extended the deadline more times than I’m embarrassed to admit. No more. 🙂

That being said, just looked at the google doc and less than half of you have weighed in…. many of those that haven’t weighed in were the ones BEGGING me to extend the deadline. This takes a lot of time for me to organize and put together so… time that I don’t really have. 😉 Please please PLEASE do not let me down again… because if you do I’ll send Jack Bauer to punch you in the belly. k? k. 😉

I’m SO sorry to be such a hard ass… if you knew the big picture of all of this, you’d understand. 🙂 (wow, two “bad” words in one post… I’m on a roll!)

Alright, back to being positive.  Remember… it’s allllll about big picture, not week-to-week. Don’t let yourself fall off of the train for one or two bad decisions. This isn’t an all or nothing kind of thing. Just keep heading in the right direction… that’s all you can ask of yourself.

Much love friends… and keep on chugging! CHOOOOOOO CHOOOOOOO!!!!!!

~bobbi

PS. Vegas in two weeks… wish us luck!