90-Day Weight & Health Challenge: Your new life starts here!

We can’t tell you how excited we are to have you join us! Because this challenge is for all of us – including me – which means that each one of us should expect real change and be excited about where we are headed. But what I’m even more excited to share (and to give us all hope!) is that I started this a little bit ago to make sure this challenge would work. And at the time of writing this post I’m just about at 25 pounds lighter than when I began, more full of energy than I’ve been for a while, and excited for more active time with my family. In other words, its worked for me so I hope this works for you as well!

So we need to cover some ground before we actually start the challenge.  Because one thing we have tried to communicate is this is your challenge!  We all know that we have different starting places, different goals, different body types, and different exercises that work for each of us.  The point of this challenge is not to tell you what to do (although we hope to give you ideas and resources to help you select the best option for you).  The point of this challenge is to provide you a place where you can join with a group of friends and receive the encouragement and motivation to go to the next step and meet your goals – to Be Intentional in working towards your goals and seeing those changes happen right before your eyes!

And something else that we hope you see all over our site is the idea of Baby Steps!  We truly believe that true change comes from slow, incremental changes.  And this is no less true for this challenge than how we’ve incorporate those baby steps in managing your home and finances.

What should I expect?

With all that we need to pave the way over the next seven days to get ready to officially start this 90-Day Challenge.  Because if you don’t know your plan and don’t know where you are headed then you won’t know where you are going or if and when you’ve achieved your goals!

The next few days we will be helping you with the resources to help you find out what will work out best for you!  And then, starting exactly seven days from today we will start the challenge – knowing our goals and how we are going to achieve them!

Let’s set some goals!

If you are a reader of ours, you know that we love to work in baby steps and start with working towards our goals in that step-by-step approach. We have developed the same philosophy with weight-loss and healthy living.

First, the 90-day challenge is a jumpstart to a new, healthy lifestyle and hope that many reach, or at least, get much further on their weight-loss goals, but carry this over into a lifestyle of better eating, activity and health.

Losing weight is probably the #1 issue that plagues many of us – more so than financial woes. Wanting to feel better, look better and be healthier is such a popular message.  Some succeed, but many fail.

We.Don’t.Want.That.To.Be.You.

So we are going to start with goal setting and trying to get our focus, drive and motivations in place so that we can hit the ground running for 90-days and sail into a lifestyle of it! We also want to direct you to sources that will help you set some of these goals so that you can ensure your goals are reasonable!

What goals to set before we begin:

• Weight & BMI – This is probably a big one for all of us as its something many of us struggle with.  I will be sharing another free tool that I use to track my diet and exercise (My Fitness Pal).  But another great free tool that WebMD offers is their Body and BMI Calculator which will help you understand your current BMI and help you understand your end goals.  You will note that both tools recommend a maximum weight loss of about 2 lbs per week.  Obviously when we get going your results will vary – but setting a reasonable goal from the first will help you stay healthy, avoid injury, and set you for overall health in the long haul.
• Health – Essentially this goal helps you determine what and why you are participating in this challenge.  Is your ultimate goal weight loss?  Are you trying to reduce your blood pressure or cholesterol?  Are you hoping to see more energy and spring in your step?  Knowing why you are doing this helps you determine your goal on how to get there.
• Water – We all know that drinking more water helps hydrate you, flush our toxins, and promotes overall health.  We share a hydration calculator on another post and why drinking water is so important on another article we shared on drinking your daily recommendation of water.  In addition, the downloads we offer below have a water goal chart to help you get to that goal as well.
• Time – Obviously we all wish we could take off half our day, work out, make fabulously tasting, healthy meals and sit in the sauna all day to soak away our soreness.  But we just don’t have that luxury.  This goal will help you identify how much time you are willing to spend exercising and on meal management.
• Money – As one of the goals on our site is to help you stretch your budget and discourage frivolous spending, its just a fact that certain tools can really help you achieve your goals.  We’ll be sharing a few of these tools that I have used in my own journey and mention a few others that might help you get to where you want to go!
• Encouragement/Motivation – We hope you don’t get tired of us saying this, but we really are all different people.  We all require different amounts of encouragement and even know that we are all not motivated in the same way.  We welcome you to join our Facebook group (private only to our group) to encourage one another along the way.  But we also encourage you to consider what other things might motivate you.  Is this a good place to ask your family to help motivate and encourage you along the way?  Maybe even your friends?  Take this time to consider exactly what you need to make it through this challenge.
• Target Heart Rate – We will share in a few days just how critical it is to exercise in the right target zones for your heart rate.  A few years ago I kept wondering why I wasn’t losing weight – all the while working out at a more intense zone that was working against my weight loss goals.  Check out the Body and BMI Calculator to start thinking about the zone you need to be working in.  In addition, we’ll be sharing other resources for you to get you ready for when we start just days from now!
• Caloric/Carb/Fat/Sugar daily goals – We will be covering this more in the next few days, but just know that your nutrition is going to play a significant role in meeting your goals.
• Hours of nightly sleep – Think you can become healthier by cutting your amount of sleep?  Think again!  We have shared in the past just how critical a good night of sleep is to your health – both physical and mental.  Check out some different articles on setting your bed time and consistently waking up at the same time everyday.
• Workouts/exercise routine – As you probably assumed by now, we’ll be covering this over the next few days.  Each of us have different desires, physical abilities, and access to various tools that will help you decide just what exercise routine you are hoping to follow.

So your assignment today is to set these goals (or at least have these figured out over the next seven days) so when you are ready to start in a week’s time that you will know where you are headed on this challenge!

Finally, we mentioned above some downloads that might be useful as you prepare for this challenge.  We are offering them as an optional resource for you as you prepare for this challenge – or even if you stumbled upon this and just want some resources and tools to help you in your quest for improving your health and losing weight.

This set of downloads include the following:

• 5 Weeks to More Water – If you’re looking for a great way to incrementally increase your water (remember those small baby steps?) then this chart can help you mark it off each day.  We love this as you can keep it with you and cross off each glass as you go.
• Workout Days – Keep track of your workouts on a single page for each month of the year.  This will encourage you as you see how you improve and make those small steps towards whole life change.
• Weekly Meal Planner – As we are all about to find out, your diet and caloric intake can greatly influence how successful (or not) your challenge is.  Using this tool you can make simple notes about what you want to eat and keep mixing it up.  We’ve found one of the easiest ways to stop following this plan is to eat the same thing every day (no variation) and not enjoy it as you go – in other words don’t do that! 🙂  And in addition, we’ve found that eating healthier options has not only helped me lose weight but others in the family because they are eating healthier too!
• Food Tracker – Along with the meal planner, you can use the food tracker to ensure you are eating evenly throughout the day.  Keep up your goals and ensure the food you eat is healthy and within your daily range of calories.
• Fruits & Veggie Intake – Finally we all need to make sure that no matter what our caloric goals are that we need to be eating the right calories.  Use this sheet to track your weekly intake of vegetables and keep it up!

This set of downloads is normally sold for $5 for the set, but by using the code CHALLENGE you can purchase this whole downloadable set for only $2.50!

Make sure to use the coupon code HEALTH
to get this full set for $2.50.

Coupon code: HEALTH

We’ll see you tomorrow with the next set of considerations as we prepare to work together and meet our goals in our Weight and Health Challenge!

Need to catch up?  Come join us on this challenge from the very beginning by clicking on the 90-Day Fitness and Health Challenge and sign up to start receiving your automated challenge from the very beginning!

One final thing…we also have a private Facebook Group where you can engage in discussions, receive encouragement and talk to others that are participating in this challenge for more ideas! Head to the Fitness and Health Challenge with The Thrifty Couple Facebook Page HERE and ask to join us there! You can also invite friends and spouses too!

Disclaimer: We are not licensed health professionals.  We are only a couple that are excited to offer you a place where you can find encouragement and resources to help you in your quest for health, weight loss and fitness.  Any tips we share should not be construed as medical advice but is only there to let you know of other options for your health.  If you have questions or before starting any weight loss or fitness challenge please make sure to talk to your doctor.