Day 9: Work Those Arms!

Today is focusing on weights. According to many fitness sources, you should weight train at least 4 times a week along with cardio work outs. They don't expect you to be an Olympic weight lifter, but use it as a way to tone your body.

Let's start by focusing on your arms. Today you need to work your shoulders, triceps, and biceps. Make sure to do three sets of 15!

For ideas on workouts, here is a site to look at:

http://www.clearviewinvestmentstrategies.org/arm-exercise/

Day 8: Good Old Fashioned Exercises

So today is all about the old fashioned exercising. My sister and I challenged each other to the battle of situps, pushups, and jumping jacks. Write down how many of each you can do in a minute. Then wait a few days, weeks, months, and then try it again and see what happens.

Also, to add on to the challenge, make sure that you do 3 sets of 15 of each exercise. Good luck!

Day 7: The Rainbow Challenge!

Today's challenge is to eat a rainbow! No... not a bag of Skittles... a full rainbow of fruits and veggies!

Red: Tomatoes, apples, strawberries, cranberries

Red foods are known for lowering blood pressure.

Yellow and Orange: Carrots, oranges, sweet potatoes, cantaloupe

These foods are known for helping to reduce bad cholesterol, and promoting healthy joints.

Green: Spinach, lettuce, broccoli, green beans

Green foods are known for reducing your risk of cancer and helping with digestion and a healthy immune system.

Blue and Purple: Purple grapes, plums, eggplant, purple cabbage, blueberries

Blue and purple foods are known for being good for your brain!

Day 6: Write Everything Down!

Journaling has been said to be a great way to work on a diet and exercise routine. Bill Phillips, the "Body for Life" guy, really recommends you write EVERYTHING, even bad foods you eat. So today you need to write down what you eat, even if its one M&M. Look back on it at the end of the day and see what unnecessary calories you are eating.

Also, just a recommendation. If you buy a calendar for just workouts and write down what workout you want to do for the next week, you have a commitment and something visual to look at that will make you work out. It helps me to write down the list of workouts for the whole week on a Sunday (since thats my rest day). Good luck!

Day 5: Be a Dancing Machine!

There are so many fun ways to exercise today. Zumba has been popping up at all the gyms. Fanatics show up to show off their moves and dance their butts off! Wii and XBOX have also come out with dance games that are really fun too. My personal favorite is Just Dance.

Your goal today is to dance for an hour. If you don't have access to Zumba or a Wii, grab someone and go dancing OR you can always grab an aerobics tape to get a good hour of cardio!

Day 4: Eat Your Fiber!

Fiber isn't just for the older crowd. Visions of Metamucil commericals pop up in my head when I think of the word "fiber". But don't think that way! Fiber needs to be a part of everyone's diet. According to the Mayo Clinic, a person should eat 25 grams of fiber a day.

My dad and I were talking about the whole fiber thing the other day. His doctor told him he needed to eat more fiber, but it wasn't just for digestion. He is watching his fiber levels for helping lower his cholesterol levels. Here are some other benefits of fiber:

+ Makes you feel full.
+ Eliminates waste from the body.
+ Cures diseases like Arteriosclerosis and Gallstone Formation
+ Holds water and minerals for the body to use.


Your goal is to eat 25 grams of fiber today! I predict a few trips to the bathroom today.

Day 3: Veggie Meals!

Did you know that people who eat vegetables at every meal lose 20% more weight than those who don't? Ok, I totally made that up, but it sounded good, right?

Even if it's not true... we know vegetables are good for us (and low cal!), and most of us probably don't eat as many as we should. So today's challenge is to eat at least one serving of veggies at each meal. Yes, that even includes breakfast! So ditch that cereal and milk today... every single one of your meals needs to include vegetables!

To help you along, we thought we'd share some of the breakfast ideas we came up with:

Omelet/Scramble: you can pack all sorts of yummy veggies into an omelet. Our favs are spinach and mushrooms but you could go wild and use pretty much any veggies.... zucchini, tomatoes, onions, peppers, anything you like.

Breakfast Sandwich: add a slice of tomato or even some lettuce and onions and peppers to your egg sandwich. Hey... Subway does it!

Breakfast Burrito: sautee some vegetables, scramble in some eggs, sprinkle some cheese on top and stuff it all into a tortilla. Voila!

Good luck and happy veggie-eating!