The Rules

Ok, here are the rules.
 You'll be awarded points for each area of the challenge. You'll keep track of your own points, we're using the honor system here. Because really, if you cheat--you're only cheating yourself anyway.
The idea is to get healthy, and if you lose some weight along the way, then hey, that's a bonus.
(Although, for myself, losing weight is kind of necessary for me to get healthy).

The Challenge is a four week period in which you will try to follow the daily point guidelines. At the end of the four weeks, we'll tally up our points and find out who the winner is. What does the winner win? Recognition on this here blog for starters. I'll post your name and picture and send out some major bloggy love for your success. What else do you win? Health, well-being, self improvement, maybe even improved self-esteem.
I would love to be able to award a more tangible reward. Something like a gift card so you can treat yourself to something special for your accomplishment. That's something I need to iron out though. Perhaps if this blog gets a decent sized group of participants, we could all contribute a wee bit to a pool in order to purchase a gift card or something? I gonna' need input.

So, here's the daily point breakdown.

• 10 points - Eat your calorie range

How do you know what your calorie range is? Here's a site, http://www.livestrong.com/myplate/ you can check out. Click on the calorie goals tab. There you can enter your information, how much weight you'd like to lose per week and it will calculate for you what your daily caloric intake should be.

Note that as you begin losing weight, you'll need to readjust your current weight on there, so it can re-calculate what your intake should be. The less you weigh, the fewer calories you'll need. This site is also great for tracking your daily caloric consumption.

• 1 point - Eat your fruits and vegetables for the day (it is not a point per f/v) .

So, we all know that we should be eating 3 to 5 servings of fruits and veggies a day right?

For some reason, it seems to be so much harder to actually turn that knowledge into reality. So, give yourself a point each day if you get all those servings in.

• 1 point - Eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner

 It's pretty well known I think that we just do a better job of controlling our appetites when we eat three times a day. I think a lot of us skip breakfast, and that's the point of this point. Make sure you're eating breakfast and setting yourself up for success each day. Hey, if you need six mini-meals--that's cool. Just try to make sure you're at least getting in breakfast, lunch and dinner.

• 2 points - Drink 64 ounces of water

 We need water. Well known fact. I think the actual formula is supposed to be something like half of your body weight in ounces. Drink up! 

• 1 point - No Soda Pop!

 It's full of sugar and caffeine usually. Not great for you. Try to replace your soda intake with water. This can be tough. Trust me, I know. I'm a Pepsi-hollic. You'll be amazed how many calories you eliminate by cutting out your soda. For me, it's easily 500 calories a day. Crazy!

• 1 point- Multi-vitamin

 Pretty sure I'm not getting my daily recommended allowances of all the essentials. What about you? Can't hurt to pop a multi every day.

• 5 points/ 5 days a week- 30 minutes of exercise

 Really, just so basic. Daily activity is so important. Try to get 30 minutes a day, five days a week. Which days are entirely up to you. And it can be anything--walking, swimming, dancing, playing with your kids, hop on the Wii--whatever!

• 1 point- EACH ADDITIONAL 15 MINUTES OF EXERCISE. For each 15 minutes above your 30 minutes of daily exercise, you can add 1 point. There is no limit to the amount of points you can accumulate.

 Thirty minutes a day is the minimum we should be shooting for. If you can squeeze in more, then kudos to you. Give yourself some extra points!

• 3 points - Food journal

 I always thought this would be the hardest thing to do-logging what you eat every day. I love this site though http://www.livestrong.com/thedailyplate/. It really makes it so easy to keep a food journal. You just plug in what you ate for each meal and it takes care of the calculations for you.

If you want, go a step further and write down what you were doing, thinking, feeling when you ate. Maybe it'll help you identify why you eat.

• 3 points - Comment on the daily post, or create a post of your own.

 I don't want to be the only one posting here. So this blog is open to you. Just email me if you want to join, and I'll grant you access to post. Post about how you're doing, your own thoughts, tips about the journey. Tell us about yourself. Once we get to know you, it helps us root each other along, also seems to give us each a little more sense of purpose in this endeavor if we're accountable to each other for this challenge.

• 1 point - stop eating 2 hours before bedtime

The food we eat right before going to bed has a way of sort of sticking to our tummy, butt, thighs, hips. You know, anywhere the flab seems to linger. Try not to eat before bedtime, and give yourself a point.

So that's it. If I've not covered anything you might think is important, let me know.


**Two things to note, you get points for five days worth of exercise. So a maximum of 25 exercise points per week for exercise, not including the additional point for extra activity each day. Also, you get one slacker day each week where you may award yourself all the points even if you didn't do the work.

Try to make these simple little improvements in your daily activities and see where it takes you.

If you have any questions, shoot me an email. The link's over there on the sidebar.

Good Luck!