Tuesday, January 12, 2010

The Healthy Living Challenge!!


Needing a lot of encouragement, enormous support, and a huge dose of will power, I decided to join In This Small House in her Healthy Living Challenge and overcome those nasty holiday eating habits!!

There is no dieting involved, no starvation, or deprivation of all things tasty, it is simply a plan to encourage a healthier lifestyle. The challenge started yesterday and runs through February 8th. And there are even prizes involved!! So if you want to join, hurry and start today!

This is how it works. For four weeks you keep track of points you earn for different healthy choices. (Listed below) If you want a chart to help you, email Small House at smallhouse19@yahoo.com and she can send you the chart.

Point System

Drinking Water: 1 point per cup

Exercise: 1 point per 10 minutes
Veggies and Fruits: 1 point per 1/2 cup

Smile: 5 pts. for smiling throughout the day. (the power of positive thinking....VERY HEALTHY!)
Water= Fresh water. Reusable container is recommended, not required. Sorry, but juice, milk, coffee, soda, tea, lemonade etc. do not count. (It's a CHALLENGE)

Veggies and Fruit= Fresh, frozen, canned all qualify. Please do not count juice (high in calories and no fiber). What qualifies as a 1/2 cup serving? Any of the following....1/2 cup celery, 1/2 medium tomato, 1 small apple, 1/2 large banana, 6 baby carrots (you get the point). We'll just have to measure a bit. Add veggies and fruit to each meal and for snacks!!

Personally I will be walking for 40 minutes a day (five days a week) and using the food pyramid to determine how much of each serving I should have. I don't plan on eating 12 cups of vegies in one day, or exercising for two hours just to have more points.

So . . . Keep track of your points....and on February 8th, email your points to In This Small House. She will total the points and announce the winner. But seriously, if we do this for four weeks aren't we all winners anyway?!! :-)

Best of luck ladies!! And if you don't want to participate--then please feel free to send me some encouragement!!

Thank you, Thank you!!

7 comments:

Suzanne said...

I love her program and idea!! You are going to do so well in this! My favorite part is the smiling. We could all use a little more smiling in this world.

I am cheering you on all the way! Focus on the positive and don't settle for the negative things to put in your body (no matter how good they taste! Mmmmmm... eclair you haunt me so!) Anyway, enjoy the journey because you have a beautiful soul and you need to treat yourself as such! Good Luck! -Suzanne

justmeagain said...

That cartoon is hilarious!! Don't you just feel that way?! Good luck wih your healthy living challenge! I don't think I will do it officially, but I will also try to eat better and get in more exercise during this time as a way of supporting you!! You go girl!

Rebecca Irvine said...

Sounds like fun! Breaking those bad habits we all pick up over the holidays can be hard. I think I am finally getting back into better behaviors though (finally).

Momza said...

My wonderful DIL, Tisha did this last year and enjoyed it. I think this is a great idea--count me in, I'm on my way over there. Good Luck!

Dave and Camille said...

Good luck! This sounds like a lot of fun :)

Jenny-Jenny said...

What a great idea! Just remember... You can do hard things... and... You're tougher than you think you are!

Nikia, May and da kids said...

I grew up on air sandwiches and do rice cakes count as rocks?? If so, I eat those now and did it when it was "trendy" in college. I'm trying the challenge on "In This Small House" as well.

Good luck. Bad habits are hard to break but I am living proof it can be done!

May