TOPS Challenge

Cut & Burn

Making small changes produces big results!

Dear TOPS Friends:
Chapter Program 64, featured in TOPS News this month, goes hand-in-hand with the TOPS “Cut and Burn” Challenge. This program also ties in well with the section in The Choice Is Mine (Revised Edition) on making and sustaining small changes.
 

Many of us have been in TOPS for several years and have achieved considerable success for a while. Then, for a variety of reasons, some of us began slipping back into old habits. Sometimes, we undermine our best efforts by overwhelming ourselves with too many changes or by selecting changes that are too large. Looking back with the clarity of hindsight, we realize that a small, sustainable loss each year would have been an amazing achievement. Defining, making, and continuing such changes are,
together, our new challenge. How to define the success of our efforts is detailed later in this message.
 

Join us by beginning the “Cut and Burn” Chapter Program at your chapter as soon as you receive this issue of TOPS News. Spend a week journaling everything you eat and all the exercise you do. Do not make changes in your routine during this week just because you are journaling. Then, at the next chapter meeting, review your lists and select 100 calories to cut from your daily food plan. Also, decide how you will increase your activity to burn 100 calories more each day. These two small changes could result in a 10-pound loss from 2009 International Recognition Days (IRD) to the end of the year—and up to a 20-pound loss by IRD 2010
(July 15-17).
 

I am challenging our TOPS Regional Directors and Board of Directors to “cut and burn” from the first weigh-in after IRD 2009 to the last weigh-in of May 2010. We who are TOPS members will work to be at least 10 pounds lighter by the last weigh-in of May 2010. We who are KOPS members will aim to lose weight until within our KOPS leeway and stay within leeway until the last weigh-in
of May 2010. I invite all Field Staff to join us. All Field Staff who meet the challenge will receive a “Cut and Burn” ribbon to attach to their name badge and wear proudly throughout IRD as proof of the successful changes they made.
 

TOPS will also offer a special pinette that all chapters may purchase to award those who complete the challenge successfully. (Watch for more information in future TOPS News issues.) If all Board members and Regional Directors successfully meet the challenge, I will celebrate their changes and success at IRD 2010 with a little surprise just for them!
 

I care,
Barbara Cady
President, TOPS Club, Inc.