30-Day Fitness Challenge: 30-Day Fitness Challenge: Day Thirteen

30-Day Fitness Challenge
30-Day Fitness Challenge: Day Thirteen
| Your Active Challenge  | Your Exercise Challenge - Light Cardio  | Your Flexibility Challenge  | Your Nutrition Challenge - Examine your habits  | Your Mind/Body Challenge  | Your Day Thirteen Checklist

	from Paige Waehner If you've completed all the challenges so far, you should be feeling pretty good about yourself. You should also be more aware of what you do each day that either moves you towards a healthier lifestyle or takes you away from it. Your challenges today will help you with that, especially the nutrition challenge where you'll take some time to think about how you eat and how that affects your energy levels. In other words, are your eating habits helping you or hurting you? Hopefully, this information will give you more insight into your body and open your mind to new possibilities.
Your Active Challenge
	Your Active Challenge
	Accumulate at least 15 minutes of extra walking today. Do it all together or split it up throughout the day, making sure you keep track of the time. This can be anything including walking around the office, taking the stairs, walking the dog for extra time, etc.
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Your Exercise Challenge - Light Cardio
	Your Exercise Challenge
	Do a steady, light-medium cardio workout for at least 20 minutes or more. This can be any activity as long as you can get your heart rate into the lower end of your target heart rate zone. On this perceived exertion scale you would stay around level 4-5.
Your Flexibility Challenge
	Your Flexibility Challenge
	Perform the following stretches at least twice today. For the dynamic moves, do each for 10-12 reps. For the static stretches, hold each one for 15-30 seconds. Dynamic Standing Cat Stretch Hanging Back Stretch Warrior I Spine Twist Seated Hamstring Stretch Quad Stretch You can find instructions for these exercises at Morning & Evening Yoga and Total Body Stretch. As always, feel free to do your own thing or choose a different flexibility workout.
Your Nutrition Challenge - Examine your habits
	Your Nutrition Challenge
	Examine your diet and eating patterns. Without changing your normal eating habits, take some time to write down everything you eat today, what time you ate and then rate your energy levels after each meal from 1-5 (1 being very energetic and 5 being not energetic at all). At the end of the day, answer the following questions in your journal: How many times did you eat today? How many meals did you eat? How many snacks did you eat? How long did you go between your meals/snacks? How would you rate your overall energy for the day? When were you the most alert and energetic? How do you think what you ate affected your energy levels? Take some time to read through your answers and ask yourself if what/when you're eating is helping you or hurting you. Would you feel better if you ate smaller meals more often or do larger meals with small snacks keep you going? Sometimes the way we eat is simply a habit that's become ingrained so ask yourself - is there a better way? If so, write down a different way of eating you'd be willing to try for one day and what you would need to do it. Keep this handy - you'll need this information for tomorrow's nutrition challenge.
Your Mind/Body Challenge
	Your Mind/Body Challenge
	3-Minute Total Relaxation Lie down in a quiet place and close your eyes. Begin by tensing and contracting your muscles starting with your feet. Curl your feet and toes, then hold that as you move up and squeeze the calves, then the quads, then the glutes. Hold the lower body and feet very tight and move up, contracting the abs and then the arms, curling your hands into tight fists. Keep holding everything tight as you squeeze your shoulders up towards your ears, clench your jaw and squeeze your eyes shut tight. When everything is tight and tense, hold it for 5 seconds, feeling your muscles start to burn. Then on a long exhale relax everything, letting your muscles melt and your body sink into the floor as the tension drains away. Continue relaxing and breathing for at least one minute or longer.
Your Day Thirteen Checklist
	Your Day Thirteen Checklist
	How'd you do with your challenges today? Use this checklist to cross off everything you accomplished or make notes on what you didn't accomplish and why. You can also use the checklist to make substitutions for any challenges that didn't work for you or create even more challenges for yourself.
Paige Waehner
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