Monday, October 22, 2012

Fitness Challenge Week 1

THE CHALLENGE
I'm doing another fitness challenge on myfitnesspal.com.  I did pretty well with the last one I did.  And I really enjoyed it. ...and I really need a kick in the pants.  So, I'm taking advantage of another Elimination Challenge to get back on track.

We call it an Elimination Challenge because we can be eliminated for not doing everything assigned for the week.  And worse, if everyone in the challenge completes everything assigned for the week, someone will still be eliminated, either for the lowest percentage of weight-loss or for the least amount of effort.

Personally, I don't care if I'm eliminated or not.  I intend to stick with the Challenge anyway...ALL 11 WEEKS.  So I'm calling it a Fitness Challenge.  I started yesterday, Sunday, the 21st.  Each Challenge week goes from Sunday to Thursday.  The 11th week will be the week of December 30th.  So, it goes right through a couple of major holidays...AND my birthday!

WEEKLY POINTS
First of all, there are weekly points we can earn.  This is a first for me, so I'm not sure of the exact purpose of the points.  But they accumulate week to week and apparently we should accumulate as many as possible.  This is how we accumulate points and these will remain constant from week to week.
  1. Post a positive comment about yourself once a week.  (2 pts/wk)
  2. Stay below 2,500 mg of sodium each day.  (1 pt/day...5 pts/wk)
  3. Drink 64 oz each day.  BONUS POINT for an additional 8 oz each day.  (2 pts/day...10 pts/wk)
  4. Every 30 consecutive minutes of working out scores a point, up to 60 minutes.  (2 pts/day...10 pts/wk)
  5. Complete the weekly Challenge.  (3 pts/wk)
  6. Every 25 full sit-ups scores a point, up to 75 sit-ups.  (3 pts/day...15 pts/wk)
  7. Finishing the week with the highest percentage of weight-loss earns 3 pts AND gets everyone else on your team 1 pt.
  8. Being the team with the highest percentage of weight-loss earns another 2 pts.
WEEK 1 CHALLENGE
Second of all, we will get a new set of tasks to accomplish to compete with each other.  Right now, we're on teams.  I'm on the Wolverines again.  But eventually, the teams will be so small, they won't matter anymore and it'll be every man/woman for themselves.  But right now, we want to meet the Challenge individually, but also as a team.  Here's how Week 1 looks.
  1. Workout for at least 30 minutes, at least 4 days of the week.  No individual calorie goal this week.  But the Wolverines need to burn a total of 15,000 calories.  We have 10 people on our team, so that's 1,500 calories each in five days...or about 300 per day.  These workouts will also count for #4 in the Weekly Points above.
  2. Complete 300 reps of anything that can be counted in reps, but they must be in sets of 25.  This could be leg lifts, bicep curls, push-ups, jumping jacks, etc.  Anything that can be counted.  And this week, I get to choose which one I do!  Individual goal is 300; the Wolverines must do 5,000 reps. With a team of 10, that's an average of 500 reps.  Sit-ups completed here will NOT count towards #6 in the Weekly Points above.
  3. Choose a Hard Rep (HR) and determine the number you can do currently...and do it.  I chose push-ups.  My arms are weak; my shoulders are weaker.  As horrible as it sounds, I can only do 3 from my knees before collapsing to the floor.  So I must complete 3 push-ups from my knees at least 4 days this week.
  4. Give up something food-wise that I know is bad for me.  This one was easy for me to choose.  I'm giving up McDonald's sweet tea.  I grab one of these on the way to work almost every day.  That's 280 calories each.  I'll save over 1,000 calories a week by dropping this bad habit!
MY PLAN
  1. Positive comment each week.  I've already written all 11 of them. (2 pts)
  2. Watch my sodium. (5 pts)
  3. Drink 72 oz of water each day. (10 pts)
  4. Workout 60+ minutes each day by doing at least one of the following:  5k(2-3x each week), Les Mills Pump (weights), or Rockin' Body (dancing/aerobics). (10 pts)
  5. 75 sit-ups each day. (15 pts)
  6. 100 reps each day (upper body, lower body, core, and/or cardio).
  7. 3 push-ups from my knees each day.
  8. NO McDonald's sweet tea!
Feel free to join me!  You don't have to report your results anywhere.  You don't have to officially join anything.  Just print out this page and check things off as you complete them.  We can get in shape together!

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