Healthy Challenge

Every other Thursday I am in charge of a photo group for my ward. Mostly it has been just a few girls every week. They all come over to my house after 8:00 we talk photography and plan a few fun photo outings. That is pretty much it.

Yesterday we had a late start and it took time for people to get here. This allowed for some fun chat time...which is usually happens anyway :) Well my friend Angie was saying how she wanted to try and stay healthy and maybe even lose weight through the holiday season. So we threw around ideas for a while about what we might do. We are all mommies and all probably need to shed a few extra pounds.

We had a hard time deciding what to do nothing really seemed appropriate with the holidays. Because if we went to extreme we would give in during the feast fest we call Christmas. Also we wanted a little incentive but all of us are students so we don't have much to offer. It was after a while of talking that I remembered something my sister Courtney did last year. It was the Healthy Challenge. It is not determined on how much weight you lose. It is just a point system of making healthy choices in you daily life. Courtney had sent me a copy in my email so I looked it up. We all thought it was reasonable and decided that we would try and do this through the holiday season and report after the holidays on Jan 7th.

The real challenge is a 12 week challenge where there is a money prize. Everyone donates some money to participate and the person who has the most points at the end of the 12 weeks wins. There might be a couple of winners but if you get a big enough group there is still incentive. As I said my friends and I are just doing it until Jan 7th. We made the decision for us that whoever looses has to be our subject for our photo group during a photo session. We seem to run short of volunteers. We would like to Start it again after the holidays with a big group. If you want to participate let me know. We want to start it on the 8th of January. Just so you know what you are in for these are the rules. They really aren't unreasonable and I think this is better than any weight loss plan. This is just trying to live a healthier life.

Here is the 'official' set of rules for the challenge.

There are a total of 8 points possible for each day and a total of 56 for the week.

Here are the points:

1 point for getting 7 hours of sleep. This does not have to be consecutive. If you don't get seven during the night you can take a nap during the day to make your total of seven hours.

1 point for drinking 64. oz. of water each day. 32 oz. need to be plain water but the other 32 can have Crystal lite or some other additive.

1 point for no carbonation each day. Nothing carbonated.

1 point for exercising 30 minutes a day. This does not have to be consecutive, just a total of 30 min. Sundays are a free day for exercise so you get the point regardless.

1 point for not eating any sweets. No candy, cookies, cake etc.

1 point for not making any un-healthy food choices each day. No fries, chips, crackers etc. Whole grain crackers and baked chips are okay.

1 point for not eating after 8:30 every night. If you get home and have not had dinner and it is 8:20, go ahead and eat dinner, just don't eat anything after that.

1 point for eating 5 serving of fruits and or veggies every day. 8oz. of fruit juice counts as a serving. 1 piece of fruit or about 1/2 cup of veggies equals a serving. 2 cups of leafy greens like lettuce equal one serving. v-8 actually counts as 2 servings!!! That is an easy way to get them!!!! You will notice that you do feel better if you actually eat fresh fruit and veggies but dried are okay.

Note: Each week we each get three 'flex' points. These can be usedto make up for a point if you lost one or to treat yourself tosomething yummy. If you use one of these points during the day you can violate that rule throughout the day. You can not carry these points over from week to weekso use them or lose them!!!!

We also get three 'free' days throughout the challenge. On the freedays you do not have to do any of the things to earn points but you getthe eight anyway. These days come in very handy so try to bestrategic. You may also need them if you get sick.