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Live It! Challenge #6

It’s the final week of the Wellness Challenge! It’s been amazing to hear the journey that many of you have had in this 40-day lifestyle change and I’ve been very excited to share in your pride at your hard work…well done! Which brings me to our final Live It! Challenge because we want to hear more!

In these last five days, you can earn up to one point daily for taking time to write a reflection of any sort on your experience of this Challenge. It doesn’t have to be long, maybe a paragraph or so, but I’d like to give you the opportunity to share your successes, triumphs, and lessons. Whether you write a general reflection of the entire challenge, show us before/after photos, share your favorite Challenge-approved recipes, tell us about your “good deed” in Week 2 or share what new experiences you had in Week 4, we want to hear about it!

These reflections can be submitted either by email to sarah@northstatecrossfit.com or posted to any online media – but be sure to tag Northstate Crossfit in it! You can earn one point per day that you write a reflection of any sort, so if you want to spend each of the next 5 days highlighting a different aspect…there’s 5 points to finish this Challenge out! We look forward to hearing from you!

Live It! Challenge #5

We’re up and over the hump…12 days left of the Wellness Challenge! I’ve been very encouraged to hear different people’s testimonies about the progress they’ve seen and the changes they’ve made so far. But anyway, getting right to it…

Eating healthy can be bland and challenging and I know that for some of you, this challenge has lost some of it’s original excitement and maybe have even become “boring.” This week’s Live It! Challenge aims to get you to add variety to your healthy lifestyle and eating habits by trying a new meal, food item, or recipe. Whether you take up a new food-prep tip from Pinterest (really…this is a genius resource for exciting recipes) or go out on a limb and try a Kumquat (delicious, by the way) or beef liver (yuck, but actually insanely good for you) for the first time, this week is about spicing it up! Of course, these should be foods that are permitted according to your ‘level of play’ in the Challenge.

If you find something particularly awesome, please share with us so we can pass it along!

Live It! Challenge #4

I hope you all enjoyed your “me-time” last week and had a chance to chill out and spend time for reflection. Apologies for the slightly late post this weekend, but here is this weeks’ Live It! Challenge…

This week, I encourage you to try and/or learn something new. As youth and even into young adulthood, we experience this on a nearly daily basis, but as we get older things become increasingly more routine and we lose the novelty of this simple act or experience. Learning and doing new things causes us to thrive and has been shown to improve the health status of an individual in markers such as bodyweight, heart health, and diabetes, among others.

This week you can earn up to one point daily for spending a significant and dedicated amount of time to experiencing something that is entirely new to you…this could literally be anything! There is too much to be known and felt and experienced in this beautiful and interesting world to stop seeking it out. Have fun!

Live It! Challenge #3

Nice job last week, guys! Hearing your stories of your small acts of kindness and good deeds was heart warming and inspiring…thank you for making the world a more pleasant place! It was especially exciting to see how much each of you felt joy from the kindness you acted out…feels good, right?

Where we focused last week on helping others, this week’s Live It! Challenge takes a flip to now focus on you. In the midst of the chaos of getting the kids ready for school, grabbing breakfast, going to work, making a trip to the post office and picking up groceries, our lives are often missing solitude – time and space in which we are free from any outside pressures. Although our culture tends to equate solitude to loneliness, spending time alone can actually be very healthy.

This week, earn up to one point daily by giving yourself some deliberate “me-time.” This may be curling up with a book, practicing some meditation, yoga, or prayer, or even just closing the door for a bit amid your hectic day. If you feel refreshed, revived, and that you have truly taken some time for yourself on any day…award yourself a Live It! point.

Helping and serving others is important, but taking care of yourself is important, too! Be good to yourself this week and find a moment to be alone.

Live It! Challenge #2

I hope you had a good nights rest last night, because today is the last day to have earned a “Live It!” point for your 8 hours of sleep. Even if you weren’t able to earn a point for last weeks challenge, it was awesome to hear a few of you making a conscious effort to get more rest and at least sleep a little more than your average…I even heard one mom say that she slept the most consecutive hours she had in over 5 years! (Sorry moms, I know that was a tough one.) I hope that last week’s challenge helps form better sleeping habits for all of you in the future.

Wellness goes beyond what we typically think of when we think of “health,” such as fitness and nutrition. The Wellness Challenge is meant to have you target your well-being as a whole by actively making choices to live a healthy and fulfilling life – physically, emotionally, spiritually, socially, intellectually, etc. So for this week’s “Live It!” challenge, we will be taking another approach…

You can earn up to one point each day of this week (starting tomorrow, Sunday Feb. 8) by performing an act of kindness. This will be left open to your own interpretation, but I encourage that you go out and make a conscious effort to make this world a warmer, more uplifting place. If you truly feel that you have done so, you have earned another “Live It!” point. The catch is that if your act is being done for another person, it should be for someone not also participating in this Wellness Challenge. That means you can’t “exchange” good deeds with your Wellness teammates or other participants! Don’t choose the easy way in this challenge…you can’t cheat kindness!

Many scientific studies have linked kindness to good health and have proven that good deeds and altruistic actions can reduce our own levels of stress, in turn affecting things such as our immune and cardiovascular systems.  So…go out and be nice because good deeds are good for you, too!

Live It! Challenge #1

Earn up to one point daily this week (Days 1-7) by sleeping at least 8 hours. This should be a consecutive nights rest and naps do not count towards this 8 hours. Keep in mind, in order to get a full 8 hours of actual sleep you may actually need up to 8 1/2 to 9 hours of “time in bed” to make sure you’re getting an adequate amount of sleep time.

An adequate amount of rest is key to a healthy lifestyle by building our immune system, raising mental acuity, and helping in exercise recovery, among many others benefits.

Here’s an article put out by the CrossFit Journal on the importance of rest for optimal performance: http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/CFJ_Sleep_RawlsMeehan2.pdf

Wellness WODs

Make sure to complete your WOD’s before the start of the Challenge this weekend. Here’s WOD #1 and #2. When they’re completed, make sure you enter your results to your file (we are keeping these on file, along with your measurements) and note any further modifications you made to complete the workout.

Benchmark WOD #1

8 minute AMRAP:

15 Russian KBS – 53/35#

10 Hand-Release Push-Ups

5 Box Jumps – 24/20”

Benchmark WOD #2

For Time (No Cap):

15 Wallball Shots 20/14#

15 Deadlift 135/95#

200m Run

12 Wallball Shots

12 Deadlift

200m Run

9 Wallball Shots

9 Deadlift

200m Run

6 Wallball Shots

6 Deadlift

200m Run

3 Wallball Shots

3 Deadlift

200m Run

The Wellness Challenge

What is the Wellness Challenge?

Northstate Crossfit’s Wellness Challenge suits the competitive nature of our athletes in a fitness “game” to help dramatically improve your performance in the gym, in life, and to change your relationship with food in a healthy and realistic manner. This is not a diet! Whereas a diet tends to make us feel restricted and cheats have to justify our guilt, the Wellness Challenge accepts that we have free will in our lives and that this applies to a guilt-free balance in our healthful choices. Although the guidelines of this Challenge do draw significantly from the popular Paleo diet, the objective isn’t to “go Paleo” but to make a commitment to a well-rounded, healthy lifestyle.

How does it work?

You will start each day with 5 points. The choices you make throughout your day will determine whether you gain and/or lose points, depending on whether you choose the ‘Performance’ or ‘Lifestyle’ level of play. These points will be accumulate over the course of this 40-day challenge on our Wellness Scoreboard where you can “compete” with friends, family, and fellow gym-goers. You will also have the opportunity to form and join Wellness Teams where as a group, your points cumulate to compete against other teams. The competitive aspect and team component of this Challenge are intended as motivators and accountability partners in your commitment to a healthier lifestyle.

Performance or Lifestyle? Team or Individual? 

Two ‘levels’ will be offered in the Wellness Challenge. The ‘Performance’ level of play does demand higher dietary restrictions (avoiding all grains, soy, most dairy, sugar/sweeteners, artificial ingredients and alcohol) whereas the ‘Lifestyle’ level of play allows a little bit more flexibility without losing points. If you are looking for an extreme change or you already have good habits and want to fine tune your goals, the ‘Performance’ level holds you to a higher level of accountability and may be the best level of play for you in this 40-day Challenge. The ‘Lifestyle’ level of play is a great way to start a long-term, sustainable practice without having to follow everything quite to the “T”. Ultimately, the goal of either levels of play are to get you to clean up your diet and make conscious lifestyle decisions revolving around your health and fitness.

You can opt to enter this challenge as an Individual or with a Team (a Team will be made up of 3 people). We encourage that you build and form a team that will help you stay accountable to your lifestyle choices! If you’re competing/participating as a Team, make sure you fill out and submit a Team Registration Form before February 1.

Does it cost?

We are asking a $10 registration fee of all participants to offset management and supply costs of running this Challenge. Any profit made by this Challenge will go directly back to serving the NSCF family.

Getting Started:

The Challenge kicks off with a fitness test. The tester WOD should be completed before the start of the Challenge which begins on February 1, 2015. We will also help you log your measurements – body weight, body fat, etc. These baselines will be kept in a folder for you and will track your progress throughout the Challenge. If you are competing with a team, you will need to let us know before the start of the Challenge (don’t forget to come up with a creative team name!)

Earning points (The 6 Habits of Wellness) : 

You can earn up to 12 points a day based on the following guidelines:

• Nutrition (0-5 points) – You actually start each day with 5 points. You can keep all five points by following your levels nutrition guidelines, or you can choose to sacrifice a point for eating any of the “prohibited” foods. (See Food Allowance Chart on how to keep/lose your Nutrition points)

• Exercise (+2 points) – You can earn 2 points each day for spending 20 minutes or more on exercise. This could include the class WOD or could be something you do on your own. Remember, you only earn a single point a day for this so a double-day doesn’t mean more points! We suggest 3-5 “workouts” per week. Earn points for exercise on the other days by staying active – a bike ride or other “active recovery” day can still earn you points!

• Mobility (+2 points) – You can earn an additional 2 points each day for spending 15 minutes or more on mobility. Make a conscious effort to learn some new mobility exercises to increase your range of motion and flexibility, especially in the areas you are challenged. The internet is a great resource and Kelly Starret’s MobilityWOD is a great place to find new tools of mobility. Or ask a NSCF trainer!

• Supplements (+1 point) – You can earn an additional point per day for any supplement of choice. These are the only exceptions to any dietary restrictions (i.e. sugar/sweeteners) and will not lose you points. That doesn’t mean you get to have 5 protein shakes a day! Here are some of our top recommendations:
  • Fish oil (reduces inflammation/soreness, aids in muscle recovery)
  • Creatine (improves strength gains, lean body mass, and ability to create energy)
  • Branched-Chain Amino Acids (can extend/enhance workouts, combat fatigue)
  • Protein powder blend (recovery, muscle power and endurance)
  • Glutamine (major fuel for immune cells, increased hormone levels for faster recovery)

• Water (+1 point) – You can earn one point each day for drinking enough water. This will be measured by taking one-third of your body weight in ounces. Ex: If John weights 185lbs, he should be drinking at least 62 ounces of water each day in order to earn a point.

• Live it! (+1 point) – We will have a special weekly challenge to give you an opportunity to earn extra points. These won’t be revealed until their announcement!

How and where do I score my points?

The Wellness Challenge Scoreboard will keep a weekly tally and running total throughout the course of the Challenge. You will be responsible to record your points accurately! Team competitors must select a Team Captain who will add up and report the daily total of the teams scores.

If you don’t make it into the gym to report your score…DON’T WORRY. Just enter it in the next time you come in. But make sure you keep accurate track of your daily points and try to be as timely in reporting to the Wellness Scoreboard as possible.

Then what happens?

At the end of the Whole Life Challenge, we will ask you to retest your baseline WOD’s and help you retake your measurements. Prizes will be awarded to the winners!