It's a new year and perfect time for  fitness challenge.

We've just completed our 2023 fitness challenge and it was a time of reflection and a new awareness of our bodies and mindset around fitness and self-care.

All of the women who joined our challenge are 50+ years. Many are over 60. 

Our 7 daily goals for the 14 day fitness challenge:

Hydration 

Min 48 oz. of water or herbal tea. Some of us found warm tea helped us stay hydrated and still met our challenge goal.

Sugar Free 

For many of us this was one of the toughest parts of the challenge. Sugar is in so many things we eat on a regular basis. Yogurt, cereal, coffee creamers, condiments, etc. We vowed to stay away from desserts. 

Alcohol Free

Socializing made this more challenging but some reported it was doable and they felt better at the end of 2 weeks.

Exercise 

Min 20 minutes of exercise of our choice. Some chose walking outdoors or at the Mall in colder climates. Others own treadmills or Peletons and vowed to use them faithfully during the challenge.  The gym and weight training were a choice of the more active in the group.

Daily Food Journaling 

Writing down everything we eat was eye opening. Personally, I learned portion control was something I need to work on.

Daily Self-care - I asked the women in our group what they did for self-care. It was interesting to read how much this challenged them.

Allison T writes: 

"Self care for me included physical self care like exercise, getting to bed earlier, attending better to skin care, but mostly emotional investment to obtain a better mind set, set intentions, read inspirational books and focus on affirmations for the day.

Those things I let fall by the wayside usually - I stopped to address them and set myself up for a positive, productive day. The physical stuff is easy for me, the spiritual and emotional caretaking, not so much."

Nancy R writes:

Wow, this was by far the most difficult part of the challenge or me. Exercise, water, no sugar, no alcohol.... that became a regular part of my last 2 weeks. I had to dig deep to think of what to do for self care. It's not something I naturally think about. Some of the self care things I started with: Mani/pedi, massage, allowing myself time for scrapbooking, starting a motivational book, gardening.... I would like to add a face mask 1x/week, more reading time daily, and possibly meditation in the morning. 

Meat free 2 days each week

Can you retrain your mind to exclude meat from meals two days a week? Turns out it's pretty easy. 

Meat free chili included pinto beans and corn, and was super tasty. I've shared my recipe here.

Congratulations to Jacki C for winning our skincare prize and being an inspiration to us all. Jacki won a gift of our Renew Micropeel Polish and Pro-Collagen Concentrate. 

Our fitness challenge proved women over 50 are ready to change their daily habits and take their fitness to the next level.