6-Week Challenge

Life giving water

6 Week Challenge
 
What a great way to start out 2015 with a Health Challenge one step at a time or one week at a time.
 
Most of us need to change our eating habits and the more we read and learn the more important we realize this is.  Getting started can be overwhelming and can and often does lead to failure.   Maybe this is the year to take small steps and change our bad habits one habit at a time while we create new ones.  During this process we also need to change our taste buds and what we turn to when we have a weak moment.
 
I am reading a really good book called The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. and he also poses some great challenges.   In one chapter he talks about "To Succeed at Self-Control, You need to know how you Fail” In order to gain control over our health we need to get back our self-control and make good decisions.   One of the challenges is to take the 5-Minute brain training meditation.  Each day for 5 minutes mediate and concentrate on breathing, thinking inhale - exhale until you can clear your mind.  If your mind wanders bring yourself back to thinking inhale - exhale and in reality this is a good thing as this process is also helping you to regain focus if you mind wanders while performing a task.   Learning more about how will-power works and how our brain fights with us, this is one of the steps I need to learn more about.   Funny how it is hard to take five minutes our of our day to sit and do nothing... I have found I have to set an alarm to remind me to stop and take five for me.   This ties in with the Rolling Strong Challenge to create the changes needed one week at a time.
 
The first week of the challenge is to drink more water or to drink the correct amount of water for our body.   The calculation for this is to take our body weight and divide by 2 and drink that many ounces each day.  Bob suggests drinking the first cold glass of water when we first get up to start the day right.   In the first weeks challenge is to replace two sugary drinks or diet drinks with a glass of water.  A slice of lemon, lime, cucumber or even a green tea bag will improve the taste of the water if you do not like plain water. 


 
When I first started drinking a lot of water I found that I had to stop often which was not productive.  In time though my body got used to drinking a lot of water and I found I did not have to stop as often and I felt a lot better and my skin was not so dry.  When my lips start chapping I know I have really let myself become dehydrated.  For this first week drinking enough water each day is great and I think a perfect way to start of 2015 being hydrated. 
 
Week 2 is to reduce unhealthy fats and to make better choices.  Here is a diagram of a few choices we can make. 


 
Each week on Saturday morning Bob will be announcing the new health challenge on his free conference call at 9 a.m. EST dial in number (866) 951-1151 and the pin is 9720344.  Each week there is a great topic that is geared towards truck drivers and our lifestyles while away from home.  The calls last from 15 minutes to a half-hour.  
 
If you want to become involved with the challenge post on the Rolling Strong Facebook page of some examples of the choices that you have made during each day.

Rolling Strong Facebook Page
 
In 2015 my goal is to continue to get healthier by taking better care of my body the correct way.  A very dear friend said to me once "Do you want to diet or do you want to get healthy?"  the choice has always been to continue to stay healthy.   One way I am going to do this is to listen into the Rolling Strong Conference calls or to listen to the recording of the call on the Rolling Strong web page.