Reflection: Eight Week Fitness Challenge

Fitness is a family affair. Looks like The Boy is ready for some higher box jumps.

Thanks to the brilliance of social media, college friend Whitney updated her status on facebook indicating the last night to sign up for the Fall Fitness Challenge was rapidly approaching. Every time I check Whitney’s blog, she has either had another beautiful baby or completed another major running event. And she has a pretty rockin’ bod, so my interest was piqued.

The rules:
Off-limits for 6 days every week: no dessert, no soda, no eating after 8 pm
To do for 6 days each week: study scriptures 15 minutes, complete the weekly challenge
For 5 days each week: 30 minutes of exercise

The weekly challenges:
1. Maintain a daily food log
2. Get 7+ hours of sleep each night
3. Eat 5 servings of vegetables daily
4. Drink 64 oz. of water
5. Complete 100 sit-ups and 50 push-ups each day
6. Eat 4 servings of fruit daily
7. Eat 5 small meals daily
8. Walk or run 13.1 miles throughout the course of the week (equivalent of half marathon) in addition to 30 minutes of daily exercise.

This seemed manageable so I signed up. And by manageable, I meant easy.

While this wasn’t the hardest thing I’ve ever done (ahem…natural childbirth), it certainly created a deeper self-awareness that I wasn’t anticipating. When I looked at the rules, there were certain areas that I thought would be a walk in the park while others would be more difficult. I was wrong on almost everything. Here’s the break down.

Daily stuff.

Initial Thought. Simple. I don’t do a lot of dessert, I haven’t taken a sip of soda since I was 16, and I meet with a group of women to do p90x at 5 am (3 times a week).

Reality. The scripture study was harder to prioritize, but I now do that at 6 while eating my post-workout meal. No eating after 8 was harder, even with the two-hour accommodation for nursing mothers. But the hardest part was the daily grind. I would finish at the eleventh hour, pleased with my accomplishment, only to realize I was starting all over again when I woke up.

Food log.
Initial thought. Easy-peasy and a good idea so I can dial in my nutrition.
Reality. I am past the stage of needing to write down what I eat and drink. I’m generally making good food choices and since I’m not a big believer in the calories in/calories out theory, the food log became a huge pain in the butt. If it had been included in the entire 8 weeks, I probably would have quit. However, when I am ready to make some serious progress in body composition/performance or work on a particular area of my health, I will keep a food log. Until then, it’s not a sustainable habit for me. Plus, I don’t want to look at fitday.com for a long time.

7 hours of sleep
Initial thought.  Terrified. My babe is not the best sleeper and I felt this challenge would be the one that made me lose since it felt entirely out of my control.
Reality. Awesome blossom. Forcing myself to go to bed earlier than the 7 required hours (because I didn’t know how long I would be up at night with the baby) was liberating. Things were left undone. I started simplifying my life. I rearranged my priorities. Only the most important stuff got done. I eliminated a lot of guilt for self-imposed projects that really weren’t that important to begin with. And I was well-rested. Rested Mama = Happy Mama

5+ servings of veggies per day
Initial thought. Easy.
Reality. Easy. Being a Paleoista who doesn’t like meat makes veggie consumption pretty commonplace.

64 oz. of water
Initial thought. Easy
Reality. HARD. What?! Why?! I’ve spent 29 years not slowing down to drink water so correcting that in a week was a pretty lofty goal. On the plus side, my perpetually chapped lips went away (apparently a sign of dehydration) and my kids started drinking a ton of water throughout the day with me. (Side note: if I were running the challenge, I probably would have changed the amount. Take body weight and divide by two. Drink that amount in fluid ounces. For me, 64 oz was about right, but someone who is 200 pounds needs more water than someone who is 110)

100 sit-ups and 50 push-ups
Initial thought. This will be fun.
Reality. It was fun. My husband and I raced on our sit-ups, discovering I can do 100 in a row without stopping (with room to spare). And the daily push-ups were a great jump start to getting better at true-form push-ups. I performed most of the 50 on my knees, but increased my regular push-ups. I can now go all the way down to my chest (rather than just halfway) and am knocking out 3-4 at a time. Push-ups were the very essence of impossible for me and now I’m hoping to get 10 by the end of the year.

4+ servings of fruit daily
Initial thought. I don’t know if I like this one….PCOS + lots of fruit = bad news.
Reality. Worse than I thought. I started resorting to olives and avocado as my fruit sources since all of that extra sugar reignited my sugar demons. Which fed well into the next challenge…

5 small meals daily
Initial thought. I can do this, but it’s going to be hard since I will be out of town at a training
Reality. I didn’t go out of town–sent my husband in my place. This challenge sort of screwed up the metabolism I’ve been working so hard to reset. Once the sugar addiction is gone, my body doesn’t need to eat every few hours. From the literature I’ve read recently, apparently that is evidence of being a sugar-burner rather than a fat-burner (and is not our body’s natural response if we are eating optimally). I don’t know anything about that. I just know for me, three meals a day is enough. But being the competitive being that I am, I soldiered through and my body took a hit for it. I can’t decide if I regret it or not since the learning experience was valuable.

Half marathon
Initial thought. This is going to be so rad!
Reality. Both kids were sick this week; fitting 13.1 miles in my spare time while the Littles needed extra mom efforts wasn’t ideal, particularly since I wasn’t comfortable taking them out into the freezing-booty-cold weather. I would actually like to complete this challenge again since it made me ask myself why I haven’t been walking more in the first place. My body feels better for it. The grocery store is only about 1.25 miles away, so I could load up the double stroller with my kids, meat, and veggies. The library isn’t far. Our church isn’t far. And importantly, Redbox is only a mile away. It’s invigorating to be outside and once we’re all on the mend, I am going to repeat this challenge to see if it’s a permanent change I’d like to make. I can see it definitely being a summer habit if nothing else.

Lessons Learned.
So what’s the take-away message for me? Quit thinking about food all the time, start drinking more water, walk to close places I might normally drive, and practice push-ups if I want to get better at them. Not a bad way to spend 8 weeks. Big thanks to Morgan for organizing the whole sh’bang.