Tah Dah! Announcing the 60-Day Challenge 2014

Hi, I’m Erin, a writer for the Trim Down Club. For some time now, I’d been saying, I want to shrink my waist. Then it occurred to me that if you don’t set a deadline, it generally won’t get done. So I set a 60-day deadline to make some progress.

Now I’d like to invite you to join me, my husband, Philip, and my co-workers Maya, Josh and Annie, on our 60-day challenge, starting today, 1 May and ending on Sunday, 29 June.

We’re at different points in our lives with different goals and different definitions of success, and we’re all writing about the experience, posing photos, videos and recipes.

Annie is 21 and has PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome) so she really battles with her weight. Short-term, she wants to look good in a bikini again. Long-term, she wants to lose weight and develop healthy eating habits to reduce her risk of diabetes and fertility problems—without taking a lot of medications.

Maya is 26 and usually leads a healthy lifestyle. However, the last 6 months have been very stressful for her so she didn’t eat properly or exercise enough. Naturally, she gained some unwanted pounds. Over these two months, she wants to return her usual healthy, athletic lifestyle so she can see her favorite shape in the mirror.

Josh is 27, sometimes practices yoga, and used to lift a lot. His 3-hour commute and work schedule mean he doesn’t have time to exercise as much as he’d like to, so he’s gained some weight. There’s a history of bad heart conditions in his family so it’s really important that he loses the fat around his belly. His fiancée would like to see that weight vanish before their wedding in August. Josh is going to do the vegetarian version.

I’m 47, post-menopausal, and want to strip off some fat and come back to a sport I love, cycling, that I’ve been away from for literally 25 years. I’m looking for muscle development. (I know that’s kind of a tough idea for many women and I’ll actually be writing a bit about it.)

Philip is 65 and he’s coming off of a 2-year battle with leukemia and another year and a half of rehabbing his spine, thanks to a Guinness-book-of-world-records spleen collapsing some vertebrae. His spine will never be the same, but he doesn’t need painkillers any more, which is fabulous. During and between courses of chemo, Philip ate everything in sight on his doctor’s advice. He’s eating less and better and walking every day, but he’s not happy with his weight.

We’ll be posting here in the forum about our experiences, what we’re doing and eating and how we’re feeling. Join us and let’s motivate and encourage each other to meet our personal goals and have fun. (More about that later.)

Here’s how to join:

Join us here in the Challenge Forum.

Email Day 1, 15, 30, and 60 photos to success@trimdownclub.com.

We’ll be blogging and posting pictures here and videos here.

If you would like to blog with us, we’ll supply the platform. Just email us at success@trimdownclub.com and we’ll send you a link, a user name and password!

At the end of the 60-day challenge, every participant who sends us Beginning and Ending pics gets a Trim Down Club tee-shirt because this isn’t a competition or about losing the most weight. It’s about becoming your best self—by feeding your body good food and treating it kindly and with respect.