NEW CHALLENGE: GET FIT, GET HEALTHY AND GET CONFIDENT! SET NUTRITION GOALS!

I am super duper excited! I am absolutely STOKED! And I think you, guys, are going to LOVE IT!

The beautiful {shutter}mama and I, The Art of Making a Baby, would love to present to you a NEW CHALLENGE that will change your life! It will teach you to LOVE yourself and your body, to be strong mentally and physically, to be confident and to learn how to shoot self-portraits at the same time 🙂 And all you have to do is join the PARTY!

I have not been in the blogging word for long, but one thing I have noticed almost right away is lack of self-confidence in women here. We all take photos, beautiful inspiring photos, and yet most of us complain that they can barely find one or two good pictures of themselves or their families. Virtually every single blogger, to some extent, struggles with weight and EVERYONE wants to eat healthier, be healthier, be FIT and love themselves. A lot of women here are in their postpartum period and need motivation and help in getting over the  hump that “extra 5 pregnancy pounds/diapers/feedings” is.

It’s time to stop complaining and feeling guilty and take matters into our own hands! Let’s be FIT! Let’s be HEALTHY! Let’s be CONFIDENT!

The idea of a GET FIT challenge was pioneered by Sonya from {shutter}mama. When I found out about it, I had to partner up with her. I am way to passionate about health and helping people be a better version of themselves, not to take this on with Sonya.

The goal is to get you to move, to give up bad eating habits and to take more pictures of yourself!

If you want some “girlfriend” help in getting fit, getting healthy and feeling good about your body, then YOU ARE IN THE RIGHT PLACE.

So here is how it’s going to work:

1. Go ahead and join in the linky below. Even if you’re hesitant about it, still try it out. I know we’re all busy and we all barely have time to exercise and eat well. But we’re talking about our health! AND our kids’ health, because our kids learn from us. The pace of the challenge will be determined by you and you only! So take the plunge to your new BETTER self!

2. Every Saturday {shutter}mama and I will be hosting this challenge on both our blogs, with tips on how to exercise, eat better and  help you stay motivated. In addition to that, we’ll be hosting a SELFIE SATURDAY photo challenge on my new photography blog, Selfie Magic, as a part of this effort to help women with their body image. We will go over methods of doing self portraiture and flattering angles while shooting yourself, weekly themes, as well link up with our weekly Self Portrait and a Get Fit posts.

3. Your job is to check in every Saturday with a post about your current weight (if you choose to measure and share it), your progress with food and exercise and a self portrait. They key is to be completely honest about your achivements and failures. We’re all in the same boat here, some better off than other, but we all need support. You are free to modify any part of the challenge to fit your life. Everyone is different and we don’t expect things to work the same for everyone. That is why we’ll be posting a list of fitness and food habits challenges for the first week, that you can pick from or create your own. It’ll be your first step to being a healthier you!

Be sure to check with The Art of Making a Baby and {Shutter}Mama each week since we’ll be doing separate posts every Saturday about both food and exercise,and then head on over to Selfie Magic for a Self Portrait lesson and link up.

Now onto the goals. We realize that everyone is in a different situation and has different strengths and weaknesses and  amounts of time to devote to their own well-being. Therefore you’re encouraged to set your own goals. But to get you started, here are some sample health challenges/goals that you could use.  Afterward you’ve picked a health goal  head over to {Shutter}Mama to view the fitness part of this challenge.

What you could do to improve your eating habits (suggestions):

1.  Eliminate  soft drinks/sodas.
{I am sure I do not need to list the reasons for why soft drinks are bad, but in any case, here we go: empty sugar, extra caffeine dependence, tooth decay, bone weakening ( from an ingredient in sodas) and tons and tons of chemicals.}
2.  Drink 8 glasses of water a day.
{Hydration is one of the most important things that can keep us young and healthy. Helps skin elasticity too, so drop those wrinkle creams and drink up. There’s an iPhone app for that, too.}
3. Eat at least 1 salad a day
{There’s only 8 calories in a cup of romaine lettuce, yet it contains 80% of DV for Vitamin A , 19% Vitamin C, 60% Vitamin K and 16% of Folate.}
4. Cut down fatty and/or processed meat consumption to at most once a week
{How meat is killing you}
5. DROP THAT POTATO CHIPS BAG!
6. Make only whole grain meals instead of refined grains
7. Use less salt.
8.  Start writing down every calorie you eat {recording everything you eat and counting calories helps you realize the nutritional mistakes you make throughout the day and keeps you from pigging out those cookies at 10 pm}
9. Eat no more than 1 sweet treat a day
10. Eat at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables daily
11. Make a home cooked meal using the healthiest ingredients and no oil at least 3 times a week ( mac and cheese or potatoes and steak do not count as a healthy meal)

You can pick just one challenge, or as many as you’d like. If you feel you’re disciplined enough to handle a few challenges, go for it! You can come up with your own challenge that fits your life better and share it with everyone.

Below is the format you can use to track your progress and share with our GET FIT participants in your weekly posts.

So for this week, publish a post with your “Fitness and Health Goals, a picture of your “DREAM SELF” and our Challenge buttons below, join up in our linkies {GET FIT Challenge(below) and Selfie Saturday} using the post’s URL, and get ready to GET FIT.
Your initial post and first check-in is due this Saturday, Feb 5th!

Don’t forget to display the GET FIT GET HEALTHY buttons ( code on the sidebar)!