Back In Training: Finding Balance

I had written earlier this spring about needing to get back in shape after a long absence from the good routine I had established a couple of years ago. With everything going on in my life the last few months, I hadn't made much progress. I needed a challenge to get me back in the game.

Luckily I work for a company that is very committed to the health and overall well-being of its employees. So when I read about a company wide six week wellness challenge I seized the opportunity to get back in the game and -- more importantly get back in BALANCE.

Each week of the challenge matches up two different sets of behaviors -- one is healthy and the other one isn't. You earn points for positive things and lose points for the negative. The goal is to have a positive balance at the end of the day. It's not about eliminating EVERYTHING that's not so great for you. We're all human beings and we're not perfect. The goal is making positive choices about good behaviors to offset the impact of less desirable ones. The most important part is YOU get to choose your behavior. There is no prescribed plan to follow or set of steps someone else has laid out for you. It requires you to THINK about the choices you're making and not mindlessly follow a plan someone else told you would work.

Week one started today and balances TV minutes with exercise minutes. You earn one point for every minute of exercise and deduct one point for every minute spent watching TV.

Hello, old friend...

I set a personal goal of 50 points per day, so this week I'm trying to get 60 minutes of exercise and virtually eliminate my TV viewing other than a few minutes of news. If I did want to watch some TV one day this week -- say, tune in to Big Brother with my boyfriend -- I would have to get an extra hour of exercise to compensate in order to reach my goal. Or I could just decide the show isn't worth an extra hour in the gym!

I got off to a solid start today with 35 minutes on the elliptical and another 15 minutes of circuit weight training, plus NO TV! So I met my 50 point goal for today. One day down, six more to go!

There is a different challenge each week to keep things interesting. Some of the challenges are focused on exercise and some involve healthier eating habits.

I have a lot of choices in front of me, but I'm confident each one will get me more balanced -- and healthier -- along the way.