We completed the Whole Life Challenge!! Hallelujah!
It was tough. It was fun. It was worth it?
Tough
It took a lot of extra time (roughly an hour) each day to make sure that we were able to complete all the tasks at hand. The hardest thing was definitely the food piece (it's amazing to see that 80% of what we eat on a regular basis has some kind of additive sugar!), but it is also difficult to carve out the time to exercise, stretch, and meditate each day.
Fun
The only way it was fun was through comradery. We had about 20 people from our church join the same team and we would all post daily about what we were learning/going through. Much of the fun was commiserating together and laughing about how deprived we were making ourselves (borderline masochistic if you think about it). It definitely made the nutrition part easier when your co-workers and family were participating in the same dietary restrictions you have.
Worth it?
Overall I gained 2 lbs through the challenge. Not that I had a lot of weight to lose, but still, I thought I would surely end up putting pounds off instead of putting them on! We'll assume it is all lean muscle weight that I added. With that said, I also gained a significant range-of-motion in my arms from the beginning of the challenge to today. All said and done, the results were promising.
Today's Struggle
Katie and I have decided to keep up the general principals of the WLC: eating compliantly for most meals, exercising regularly, and stretching before bed. We just wrapped up the challenge 4 days ago and yet the thing I have been amazed at is how much self-will I have to exert to stay compliant. When there were points attached to the diet it was relatively easy to stick to the plan because there was accountability. Now that the scoring is done there is no one to hold me accountable for my decisions except myself.
Prime example: there are chocolate marshmallow eggs sitting in the office, not 20 steps from my desk. There are almost 0 health implications to eating 1 egg--it is 4 grams of sugar, which is a negligible amount. Yet, I find myself exercising more self-will to refrain a temptation when there is no accountability of scoring.
Hmm, there is probably a life lesson to learn here....
It was tough. It was fun. It was worth it?
Tough
It took a lot of extra time (roughly an hour) each day to make sure that we were able to complete all the tasks at hand. The hardest thing was definitely the food piece (it's amazing to see that 80% of what we eat on a regular basis has some kind of additive sugar!), but it is also difficult to carve out the time to exercise, stretch, and meditate each day.
Fun
The only way it was fun was through comradery. We had about 20 people from our church join the same team and we would all post daily about what we were learning/going through. Much of the fun was commiserating together and laughing about how deprived we were making ourselves (borderline masochistic if you think about it). It definitely made the nutrition part easier when your co-workers and family were participating in the same dietary restrictions you have.
Worth it?
Overall I gained 2 lbs through the challenge. Not that I had a lot of weight to lose, but still, I thought I would surely end up putting pounds off instead of putting them on! We'll assume it is all lean muscle weight that I added. With that said, I also gained a significant range-of-motion in my arms from the beginning of the challenge to today. All said and done, the results were promising.
Today's Struggle
Katie and I have decided to keep up the general principals of the WLC: eating compliantly for most meals, exercising regularly, and stretching before bed. We just wrapped up the challenge 4 days ago and yet the thing I have been amazed at is how much self-will I have to exert to stay compliant. When there were points attached to the diet it was relatively easy to stick to the plan because there was accountability. Now that the scoring is done there is no one to hold me accountable for my decisions except myself.
Prime example: there are chocolate marshmallow eggs sitting in the office, not 20 steps from my desk. There are almost 0 health implications to eating 1 egg--it is 4 grams of sugar, which is a negligible amount. Yet, I find myself exercising more self-will to refrain a temptation when there is no accountability of scoring.
Hmm, there is probably a life lesson to learn here....
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