PFP Challenge

As you know, we have been encouraging people to take part in the Pound for Pound Challenge because we believe it is such a wonderful opportunity to do something good for yourself, while at the same time, do something amazing for your community.

How exactly will you be helping your community? Watch this video and learn more about Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana and how the donation from General Mills for every pound you pledge to lose will help people in need.

As of this post, 18,686 pounds have been pledged by 578 people for New Orleans.

Be Fit Nola Interviews Second Harvest Food Bank from BeFitNola on Vimeo.

Our weight-in was last Sunday; we did a virtual weight-in at home and posted our results to include how many pounds each of us have pledged.  Together we have pledged to lose more than 100 pounds – that equates to a 100 pounds of food donation to the Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana.

After the weight-in, our journey to lose a pound or two before next Sunday began. Losing weight is not easy…but we’re leveraging the Be Fit NOLA Ning network and Twitter to keep each other motivated, share information, pointers and give one another support.  The first few weeks are always the hardest so it’s important for us to stick through this together.

The first couple of weeks are when the cravings are the worst and the crankiness is at an all time high.  Until the scale starts showing good downward progress and clothes get a little looser…it’s hard to find the motivation say “No’ and resist when your body craves the sugar, fat, and salty foods you’ve gotten used to.

We all know we must stick with it!  We must fight the cravings and temptations to continue to eat the same way.  We each must make the changes necessary to eat healthier and drop the extra pounds we’ve pledged to lose.

Once we start getting results, it will become all worth it and the cravings will ease up and eventually go completely away.

It’s not too late to join us.  You can pledge to lose weight at PFPChallenge.com between now – June 30, 2010.  We do our weight-in every Sunday so you can just jump in there with us.

This is a great cause, it’s free to join, and you get to lose weight, meet new people and learn lots of new things about healthy, fitness and dieting.

I started watching the Biggest Loser two seasons ago and when I heard about the Pound for Pound Challenge, I thought it was one of the most wonderful idea/program/challenge I’d ever heard…but until last night, I had not pledged in the challenge.

Yesterday was the premier of The Biggest Loser – Season 9 and when they started to talk about the Pound for Pound Challenge, I jumped on Twitter.  I need to lose 20lbs  – I really can’t think of anything more motivating and inspirational than to know that losing 20lbs will help feed those who suffer from hunger in the Greater New Orleans area.

The Pound for Pound challenge is really simple

Pledge to lose weight at PFPChallenge.com between December 8, 2009 – June 30, 2010

Lose Weight & Feed Your Community. For every pound you pledge, The Pound For Pound Challenge will donate 14¢ to Feeding America® – enough to deliver one pound of groceries to a local food bank. Maximum donation of $800,000.

Local Food bank for New Orleans: The local food bank for New Orleans who will receive the gift of pounds of food is the Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana

The one common denominator for people served through Second Harvest is HUNGER. Poor families and single parents with infants at nutritional risk face the day-to-day dilema of feeding their children. The newly unemployed find themselves in an unknown situation in providing food for their families. The elderly need a nutritionally balanced diet to maintain their health. Second Harvest Food Bank can help.

Current Status

As of 10pm last night for New Orleans – 8,406 pounds were pledged by 247 team members. Louisiana actually went from 32^nd place tonight to 30^th place – would love to see it in the top 15.

As of last night – the people who answered the challenge on Twitter are:

shercole @befitnola I pledged 25

nolamaven @befitnola I pledge 5 lbs!

BrookeAshleyB @befitnola i just pledged to lose 15lbs….i’m gonna count on you to keep me motivated

JenZenator @befitnola My husband is going to do it with me! We’re thinking a Sat or Sun weigh in.

Congratulations to all who have pledged – you are changing your life and helping feed someone in desperate need!!

It would be great to find the other 242 people who have pledged so that we can all connect, support and help each other.

I invite all those taking the challenge to join the Pound for Pound Challenge New Orleans Group and/or the Be Fit NOLA Facebook Group so we can communicate with each other.

Of those who join Be Fit NOLA to get this done – I will keep updates of our progress on this blog and twitter.  Ideally, we’ll find a way to get together once a week for weight in and in-person support, get-to-know each other, workouts etc.

I’m really excited about this and I hope you are too! If you haven’t pledged – GO DO IT and leave a comment letting us know how many pounds you’ve pledged.

I will make sure the Be Fit NOLA blog is kept with quality content to help us all make this happen!