Great in 8 Challenge Review

I’ve been working on a “Great in 8” weeks challenge. It has involved earning points for eating good foods (whole grains, lean meats, proteins, lean dairy products), fruits and veggies, water, reading scriptures, personal prays twice daily, exercising daily and strength training.

Physical and spiritual health go together. I must take care of my spirit constantly by doing several things daily: praying, scripture study, and repenting. There are things I do weekly for my spirit: attend church, partake of the sacrament, have Family Home Evening, etc. Over the years I have come to admire others who are spiritually fit: our prophet and apostles, local friends and family members. I realize that they aren't perfect, but also know they are very consistent at taking care of their spirits.

Spiritual fitness is hard to measure. We can’t measure it with our eyes like we can evaluate someone’s physical body. We don’t get spiritual reports from a doctor or test. There is no prayer monitor that would be equivalent to blood pressure monitor or a scripture reading assessment that is equivalent to a nutritional assessment. So how do I monitor my own spiritual fitness?

Must of my measuring has to go on how I feel. Do I feel happy, stressed, or burdened? Then there is the mood barometer! When I am taking care of myself spiritually—personal daily prayers, reading my scriptures, journaling, attending church—I am so much better at handling life. I don’t react in a negative way to daily challenges, fighting or sassy children, or things that go wrong. I am kinder and more patient. When I have been struggling with praying or scripture reading my mood barometer is much more likely to make wild swings: Happy then pouting; yelling and frustrated then humbly repentant, but betting myself up of losing it; more tired of being around kids.

The past 8 weeks haven’t been without normal life, but I always find it amazing how much better life is when I rely on the Lord first. Journaling is also a very helpful tool for me. I haven’t been very consistent at doing it, but I’ve been doing it more. I can see easier where I’ve been and have a better vision where I want to go. I have been recording my goals and monitoring them better. I plan to keep that up. Spiritually, I wasn’t out of shape when we started this challenge, but I found room for improvements and see where I can continue to improve.

My physical body also need constant nourishment. I must take care of my body constantly too. I feed myself daily. I must use my muscles to keep them physically strong, so I must exercise—which takes care of more than just my muscles, but also my heart and mind. I must clean and groom my body: bathe, cut my hair, brush my teeth, etc.

Now this is where things get tricky. Do I admire others who are physically fit? Or do other emotions come into play? Do I have a realistic vision of what physical fitness is? Do I recognize that being physically fit takes constant work just like my spiritual fitness? Do I think that physically fit is measured by how “skinny” I am or do you know there is more too it than that? What is the “more” to being physically fit? What is important to me when I measure my physical fitness?

The physical part of the challenge is were I have to work the hardest. It involved things that were not habits for me. I was pretty good at exercising about 3 times a week, but I hadn’t done much more that that in years. I wanted to though. I make mental plans to get out and go walk or run or to do a yoga DVD, but then I let life get in the way or I waste my time. It has been challenging. At first it seemed to consuming my thoughts constantly, but then I got better at doing it and more things were natural. There were days when I walked the neighborhood late a night just to get my points in for the day. One day I exercised at 11:30 at night. Then I did kick boxing the next morning at 8:30—I really felt that day. I learned that I CAN fit in exercise everyday.
I have a vision of myself as an old lady—I want to be a certain way as an old lady. I need to do those things now so that I really can be that way. One thing I have always envisioned is me being an old lady taking a 2-3 mild walk everyday. I guess that means I should be a 38 year old lady that does the same thing!
When I watched the Winter Olympics I loved watching seeing the athletes muscles! The luge women were my favorites! They were so fit and strong looking. Not skinny! I don’t think I measure fitness on skinness, but boy am I impressed when I can see someone’s calf muscles popping out when they are walking!

Overall I feel better than I do 8 weeks ago. Stronger and happier. I have lost a little weight. Not as much as I would like to have, but the loss of inches has been great. I’ve lost inches even on weeks where the scale didn’t change. Friday I did a full plank for 90 seconds, then 60, then 45. I can do lots of squats and they are not even that hard to me anymore. I did fitness evaluation on Saturday. I had never thought about monitoring my fitness this way, but I like having a starting point and seeing the improvements! When we started this at the beginning of February I could do 20 push-ups. On Saturday I set the timer for 2 minutes and I did 28 push-ups. I couldn’t even go for the full two minutes, but now I have a set point for measuring myself. I did the same with full sit-ups—I did 47. Then later I did crunches—73. I still need to time myself doing 1 mile. I couldn’t find a watch or timer and my cell phone was dead on Saturday, so I just ran instead. I plan to continue measuring these things so I can monitor my fitness level better. I would just like to see the push-up, and crunches numbers go up and the running and weight and measurements keep going down.

The hardest part of the physical fitness side is the eating. I seriously increased the amount of daily fiber I was getting be switching my foods to lots more whole grains. My family eats brown rice and whole wheat spaghetti without too many complaints. We tried lots of different veggies too. This is still the biggest challenge for me. Including enough vegetables in my diet. I like them, but I just don’t think about them enough. Still a work in progress to get them to be a constant part of our diet. Cutting sugar out is something that I’ve know I need to do for quite some time. That is mainly why I did this. I feel so much better without the sugar. And I’ve learned that a piece of fruit, or the right kind of veggie even helps me overcome the craving for sugar. When I did have too much sugar one day my stomach hurt. This wasn’t the first time it happened to me either. I can have 1 serving and I’m fine, but if I have much more than that, I get a bad bellyache. I need to reprogram myself into learning to be satisfied with just 1 serving. That is a work in progress too!

I would absolutely do this challenge again. I do really well when I’m having to report to others! If anyone is interested in doing the challenge with their friends I’ll happily e-mail it to you. Just let me know. I might join you too!