Accenture Live Well Challenge

My company, Accenture, has launched a four week Healthy Holidays Challenge that started yesterday.  I've explained a little bit about the program below.  But I think with this Challenge I'll be able to lose another 4 - 8 pounds on my journey.  But more importantly it is also fun that is a competition so I have a new way to keep myself motivated - to beat the other 400+ Accenture teams. 

My team, Mission Slimpossible, is made up of 5 individuals from Chicago Accenture (randomly including my current Coach #10 Liz Traines).  I plan to keep our team connected on a daily basis through humor, tips & motivation.  


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Accenture Team Challenge!

The holidays are one of the toughest times of the year to stay on track with your health and fitness. Make it easy—and fun—with a team competition!  Help your team by logging your healthy behaviors like hitting the gym and eating low-fat foods. Teams compete against each other, spurred on by online trophies and watching their points add up on the Leaderboard.

How it works: Form a team with your co-workers (2-20 people) and log your exercise & nutrition daily.  Exercise is points per activity and time exercising.  Nutrition is points for doing the following:

• Ate a healthy breakfast (e.g., high fiber cereal, fruit, yogurt, whole grain toast) (15 points)
• Ate at least 5 servings of fruit and vegetables (15 points)
• Ate healthy snacks – fruit, veggies, whole grains, protein and healthy fats (like unsalted nuts) (10 points)
• Ate lean protein, high fiber grains and vegetables with every meal (10 points)
• Did not add salt to foods/made low sodium choices (10 points)
• Drank 8 glasses of water or chose water instead of a soda or sugary drink (5 points)
• Measured and ate appropriate portions (15 points)
• Ordered a healthy restaurant option when I ate out (5 points)
• Recorded what I ate today in a food journal (10 points)
• Replaced high fat dairy with low fat alternatives (10 points)

Top prizes: $1,000 for a team of 2-10; $2,000 points for a team of 11-20 (points split evenly between all team members).

Pre Thanksgiving Plateau???

Happy Thanksgiving Week – This year I am SO VERY THANKFUL for all of you!  You have supported me (and will continue to support me I know) down this journey so THANK YOU!  I hope you, your family & friends have a wonderful holiday.

Today is 1 week since I last wrote you - before I left AZ (Sunday) I weighed in and I had no weight change.  So it could be that I didn’t eat as well as I should have last week (I definitely worked my ass off sweating) or that I hit my first plateau.  Either way I reached out to my coach Liz and she is determined to get me down 2 pounds so she is staying on board as coach!  She has been awesome in inspiring me to get to the gym and make good food choices.   So  I have a scale here in AZ and I weighed in this morning and can see how that changes over the next 10 days that I’m here. 

Happy Thanksgiving – and don’t worry I’m working REALLY HARD early this week so I can earn a nice splurge on Thursday with family.  I hope you do the same!

Tuesday Nov 15th

Today at work I asked my friend Liz to be my coach as she was sitting next to me (and is on this chain).  So she has already been standing over me inspecting my food choices and has an order to send me to the gym at the end of the day.  She has also informed me she may try to lose 1 pound with me.  So here WE Go…. Another pound to come off.

Coach 9: Sara Kuehn

Well my poor sister-in-law got stuck with being Coach 9 when she didn't even know about my Healthy Weight Loss Journey.  Since I was heading to Cincinnati for the week to meet Charlie (my new nephew) and since I was staying with Geoff & Sara I decided she should help.  With no notice - Sara rocked it!  She cooked amazing food and encouraged me to go to the gym.  We also did a fair amount of walking as the weather was nice and Charlie enjoys strolling.  One day Sara & I even got to do Jillian Michael's Shred DVD while Charlie napped.  I think she appreciated me being there to watch Charlie while she ran to the gym and I appreciated her letting me go to the gym.

Sara is a beautiful woman from Michigan who enjoys cooking healthy & working out.  She married my baby brother Geoff and they now live in Cincinnati.  I hope she will continue to follow me down this path and send me some of her great (and easy) receipts.

Thanks Sara. 

Coach 8: Becky Utz

I met Becky after we both became Theta's at Miami.  I remember one night in January right after Rush, we were linked arm in arm, skipping form a house party to a bar, signing "Be Cool, Stay in School" and holding each other up as it was icy.  We may have actually fallen too but that is just a minor detail.  Becky has never stopped holding me up almost 20 years later.  Becky and I went on to live in the same house for 2 years in college and have kept close depite the many miles that have separated us since college.  Becky now lives in Salt Lake City UT with her BEAUTIFUL daugher (Carolyn) and awesome husband (Steve) so I don't get to see her often but she is always with me.

Becky was the first (of many) to volunteer to be my coach while I was in Italy for 2 weeks for work.  This was a huge challenge!  Becky emailed me almost every day while I was there.  And despite my bad habit of not emailing back she kept at it.  She reminded me why I was doing this challenge and asked me to stay strong.  But she also recognized that this was a one-time opporunity so she reminded me to have fun and enjoy some small indulgences.  I couldn't have gone to Italy and gained NO weight without her awesome emails.  Thanks Recky Becky!

I know I didn't officially lose a pound with Becky so I'll make her Coach again!  But not gaining anything in Italy is more important then 1 silly pound. 

Lost a whole Charlie.

I'm in Cincinnati this week and enjoying some time with my 8 week old nephew Charlie.  I was telling him yesterday that to date I have lost more than a Charlie.  Charlie is now weighing in around 12 pounds and I'm down 13+.  How crazy to think I carried around that extra weight every day.  And after 15 minutes of walking with Charlie he seems so heavy.

My goal to lose another Charlie by Christmas!  Yesterday was a great day.  My sister in law Sara made healthy meals and she let me work out for an hour.  I also let her workout for an hour so I think we both appreciate the extra hands around.

I'm Back!

What a crazy 3 weeks since I last emailed you.  I am ESTATIC to tell you that I’ve maintained my weight.  This was a huge accomplishment with overseas travel, long hours, and now jet lag.  I plan to post to my blog this weekend about how I think I accomplished this.

First I want to thank my official coach Becky Utz for all her emails.  I usually didn’t reply back because I was too busy or too tired but she kept sending them day after day.   And they reminded me to make better choices.  I also want to thank a few others who sent notes to remind me to make good choices but also to have fun:  Holly Masters, Sean Hyland, and Julie Chamberlain. 

I have been back in the states for a week but have been fighting Jet Lag.  When I flew back I went straight to Atlanta to babysit my niece & nephew for the weekend.  So to say the least it has taken me all week to get my energy back.  Today will be my first real workout in awhile – heading to Yoga with Jill in an hour.

Thank you everyone for your continued support.  I’m heading to Cincinnati Sunday to help my sister-in-law out for the week with my newest nephew – Charlie.  Sara has not been a part of any of this to date but she is being volunteered as my coach for next week.  We have started to talk about healthy eating/receipts and I need her to make sure I get exercise in every day (baby pushups & baby walks). 

Looking forward to making the scale go down again!