The Rules

Welcome to the Building Good Habits Wellness Challenge

**A minimum of 30 people need to sign up for this challenge in order for me to go through the effort of running it**

We've all been there before, we want to be healthier, lose weight, be more active, etc. And we've all tried, or thought about trying, those crazy diets we see all around us. I truly believe that if you want to lose weight or be healthier it's all about changing your habits. Crazy diets will work for a while but eventually you will be right back to where you started unless you change your bad habits.

If you are looking for a lose the weight quick plan you might as well quit reading now. This is NOT A LOSE WEIGHT QUICK PLAN. It requires a lot of hard work and most people only lose 1-2 pounds a week. Although those pounds tend to add up. With just losing 2 pounds/week, it adds up to a total of 16 lbs by the end of the challenge. Please make sure you read through all the rules and you are fully committed before you sign up.  Please do not ask for exceptions to the rules.  If you are unable to follow the rules outlined below, this challenge is not for you.  Talk with your doctor to come up with a program that is right for you.

THE CHALLENGE

This is a competition to motivate participants to live a healthier lifestyle. It is open to anyone age 14 or older who sincerely wants to establish habits that promote overall wellness. This is a TEAM challenge. It is important if you sign up for this challenge you are a team player and will do all you can to help your team.

DATES:

This will be an 8-week challenge starting April 14th, and ending on June 9th. You must commit to the full eight weeks and be prepared to give your health a serious effort.

COST:

Each participant will pay $30 upfront to do the challenge. I must have a firm commitment via the registration tab at the top of this website from each participant by Monday, April  10th, and the money must be sent to me no later than Wednesday, April 12th. This will give me a couple of days to get the excel sheets set up for the challenge before it begins.  Late entries will be charged a $10 late fee that will go directly to my pocket. 

**New for this challenge is the required Paypal Payment. I will not be accepting checks or other forms of payment. PayPal is a much quicker way to transfer money.  Please follow the instructions carefully.  

1. Once you have logged into PayPal, select the option to "Pay or Send Money"
2. Select "Send money to friends or family"
3. Enter the email address:   traciespencer08@gmail.com
4. Send  :)

Although it costs $30 to participate in this challenge, you may earn back more than half of your money by getting 95% of your "weekly points." For each week that you get at least 161 or more of your weekly points, you will get back $2, for a possible refund of $16, even if your team doesn't win the competition or win that week. You must earn back at least $6 for me to go to the effort to cut you a refund check. If I do not receive your $30 payment by the due date I will not be able to count your points toward your team's total until I receive it and your team score will suffer. If you drop out of the competition before the end date you will forfeit your entry fee.

The Teams:

For this challenge, you will pick your own team! Find people around you that will motivate you and get them on your team. Each person needs to register individually so I can get their individual information, but be sure to list your entire team in the teammate request box on the registration page. It doesn't matter how many people are on your team, I will take the average of all team member's scores each week as your team total. Be careful when choosing your team. You probably don't want a team full of people on the maintenance plan, or it will be hard to compete against teams that are losing weight.

WHAT YOU NEED:

You will need a scale. Weight loss can be tracked in whole pounds or down to the tenth of a pound, if your scale allows that option. You will need a method to measure your bicep, chest, waist, hips and thighs. That could be a tape measure or a string you wrap around yourself and measure with a ruler. And you will need an internet connection. I will do almost all of my communication with you through this blog. You will report your points for the previous week through the blog on Fridays, I will post the previous week's winners along with the next week's challenge on Mondays. Other questions or comments can be directed to me most easily by email. Other than that, Excel or GoogleSheets on your computer will be helpful because I will send you a spreadsheet just before the competition starts to easily track your points, weight, and inches. If you don't have Excel, that isn't a problem but you may need to ask more questions to make sure you're scoring properly.

POINTS:

There are a few ways you earn points, so read thoroughly:

WEEKLY POINTS--Each Friday you will report your weekly points in seven categories totaling 170 possible points.

1. Exercise: You can earn up to 35 points each week for exercise. You earn 5 points for doing 30 minutes of exercise and 7 points for doing 45 minutes of exercise up to 5 days per week. If you do more than 45 minutes of exercise or more than 5 days per week, WAY TO GO! But you do not get any additional points, and you can't carry the points or minutes over to future days or weeks of exercise. 7 points x 5 days = 35 points possible each week

2. Sweets: You can earn up to 30 points each week for not eating sweets. Each day that you eat no sweets, you get 5 points up to 6 days per week. Each day that you eat one sweet, you get 2 points. If you eat two or more sweets in a day, you get 0 points. What constitutes a sweet? Brownies, cookies, cake, ice cream, candy, donuts, or anything sweet that's preventing you from being healthy. HOWEVER, PLEASE NOTE THAT EACH WEEK YOU GET ONE "SWEETS DAY" THAT DOES NOT COUNT AGAINST YOUR POINTS! Special occasions do not get extra free sweets, so use your free day accordingly. If you don't use your sweets day, you do not get any additional points. 5 points x 6 days = 30 points possible each week

3. Fruits/Vegetables: Each day that you eat at least 5 servings of fruits or vegetables, you get 3 points. Each day that 3 or more of those are vegetables, you get 5 points. According to https://www.choosemyplate.gov/, 1 cup of raw or cooked fruits/vegetables or 100% juice, or 2 cups of raw leafy greens can be considered as 1 serving. 1/2 cup of dried fruits is also a serving. 5 points x 7 days = 35 points possible each week

4. Water: Each day that you drink at least 64 ounces of water, you get 2 points. 2 points x 7 days = 14 points possible each week.  This is a hard rule to follow for some participants.  Please check with a doctor if you have questions with this rule.  It is an all or nothing score.

5. 9 p.m.: Each day that you stop eating before 9 p.m., you get 2 points. 2 points x 7 days = 14 points possible each week

6. Team: Each day that you are in contact with a team member by any method (email, phone, blog, text, voice mail, telegram, Facebook, U.S. Postal Service, etc.) you get 1 point. Through personal experience I've found that encouraging, motivating, sharing experiences, and staying accountable to others helps us to be more successful as individuals and as teams.  Just saying "checking in" is not as motivating or beneficial for you.  1 point x 7 days = 7 points possible each week.  **It really helps to have someone you see every day on your team**

7. Weekly Challenge-  Every week is different.  Before the challenge starts, I will post the first weekly challenge.  After everyone has gotten started on the first week, I will post the remaining 7 weekly challenges.  As a team you can look at each of the weekly challenges and decide which one your team is going to do for that week.  Your entire team needs to be working on the same weekly challenge. You cannot repeat a weekly challenge.  By the end of the 8 weeks you will need to have done all 8 challenges.  These weekly challenges are there to push you a little further or get you thinking about your health a little bit more. The weekly challenges are not necessarily things you should be doing every day, but things to help you realize your bad habits. Each week the bonus challenge is worth 35 points. I will give instructions how to score your weekly challenge with the challenge instructions.

WEIGHT LOSS POINTS--This challenge is for EVERYONE trying to be healthy, not just those trying to lose weight. The plan you choose to be on for this challenge (Weight-loss, Maintenance, or Pregnancy) will determine how you calculate these points. This is where many people get confused. If you use the excel sheet I send out it will do all the figuring for you. Please do your initial and weekly weigh-ins at approximately the same time and under the same circumstances each week (empty/full stomach, before/after exercise, etc.)

Weight loss Plan:

If you are trying to lose weight, you will choose the "Weight Loss Plan."Each week when you weigh yourself if you are at or below your previous lowest weight you get 5 maintenance points plus, for each pound you lose you earn 10 points (2lbs = 20 points). For each tenth of a pound you earn 1 point (.4 lbs = 4 points). (If you lost one pound, you would get 5 points for maintaining plus 10 points for that pound, so you would report 15 points. If you lost 2.1 pounds, you get 21 points plus 5 maintenance points, so you would report 26 weight points.)

If you gained weight, you will report 0 points every week until you drop below your lowest previous weight.

If you maintained your previous lowest weight, you report just the 5 maintenance points.

Weight maintenance: If you are happy with the weight you are at and are not trying to lose more, you will choose the maintenance plan. At the beginning of the challenge you will decide what weight you wanted to maintain throughout the challenge. For each week that you are at or below that weight, you get 15 points. If you go over that weight, you report 0 points.

Pregnancy Plan: If you are pregnant, you will choose the pregnancy plan. Please don't worry about the scale, but you can earn 15 weight points by getting at least 153 weekly points (90%).

Calculating Inches Points

At the start of the competition and again at the end of weeks 4 and 8, you will measure your right bicep, chest, waist, hips and right thigh. For each 1/2 inch you have lost , you will get 5 points. It is important when you are measuring that you measure in the same spot. To help give you a visual of where to measure I have attached this photo.

WEIGHT LOSS % POINTS--At the end of week 8, you will report your weight loss percentage points. You will get 1 point per 0.1% weight loss. For instance, if I lost 4.8% of my body weight during this competition, I would get 48 points.

For the weightloss plan calculate your weight loss percentage take your starting weight minus your current weight divided by your starting weight and then multiplying that number by 100. You now have your weight loss percentage.

To figure out how many points you get for total weight loss percentage, multiply your percentage by 10.

Maintenance Plan and Pregnancy Plan:

Because your goal for this challenge was not to lose weight, if you earned your 15 weight points for 6 out of the 8 weeks you will earn 50 points for weight loss percentage points.

POINT REPORTING:

You will report your points each Friday via the "Report Points" tab at the top of the blog. Points must be reported by 10 p.m. (Mountain Time) on Saturday night.  If your points are not reported when I post the points on Sunday Night, your points from that week will not count at all. After you submit your points you should see a message that confirms your submission.  If you make a mistake when reporting your points, just re-submit them and leave me a comment about which points to use. Once you have reported your points, check the link I will send you of your teams point report to make sure they went in correctly and to make sure all of your teammates have reported their points as well.  If you see someone has not reported their points, send them a friendly reminder to do so.

When I declare the team that wins each week, I will NOT be posting the points each team reported. Weekly results are not cumulative from previous weeks. At the very end of the competition, you will get to see the point grand totals, and I will rank the teams and declare an overall winner.

I want to add here that the way to win this competition is not by being on the team that loses the most weight. It is to get your ENTIRE team to commit to getting perfect or almost perfect weekly points. One team member not giving his or her very best can lead to the whole team losing because of that person's low points. Also, I ask that everyone please be honest in your point reporting. Your integrity is not worth a few points, and your health will reflect your commitment to living the rules of this competition.

WINNERS:

Obviously, everyone wins when you replace bad habits with good ones. But, at the end of the competition, I will divide the pot of money equally between:

1. The person who gets the highest weekly point total

2. The person with the highest percentage of weight loss

3. Each member of the team with the highest point grand total.

ARE YOU READY TO PARTICIPATE?If you want to participate, please register using the registration tab at the top of this blog (no later than Monday, April 10th) and send your money to me right away (no later than Wednesday, April 12th). I am not limiting the number of participants, so get your friends and family involved.

I will need the following information from you for registration:

1. Your first and last name

2. The email address you want to use throughout this competition

3. Your phone number (in case I need to get a hold of you quickly)

4. Which weight plan you are doing

5. The names of all your teammates!
6.  The email you will be using for PayPal

**If for any reason you drop out of the challenge before the final date you will forfeit your entry fee and any money you earned back. Also, as a courtesy to  me and to your teammates please let us know.

MY CONTACT INFORMATION:

Tracie Simon

traciespencer08@gmail.com

A little about me:
I am NOT a dietitian or doctor.  I just put on these wellness challenges as a way to help encourage people to live healthier lives.  I have noticed a huge difference in my life since I have started these challenges.
Something that is very important for you to know is that I am a volunteer.  I do not pay the $30 entry fee to enter these challenges, I figure that all the time I spend tallying up the points is payment enough.  At the end of the challenge, I put myself in for one portion of the final pot of money as payment for running the challenge, as well as a second portion of the pot if I earn the highest number of points or the highest weight loss percentage (which has never happened unfortunately).  That is the only payment I get for running these challenges.  I just want you to know up front how I "pay" myself for running these challenges.