Welcome to home base for the 2014 Winter Shape Up!
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My friend Gina and I have partnered up to bring you this fun 4 week challenge to inspire you to kick off the year on the right foot in terms of fitness and nutrition. Gina is a personal trainer, so on her site, you’ll find the weekly workout plans for the challenge, including videos, and here on mine, I’ll be sharing the weekly meal plans. Gina has hosted Winter Shape Ups on her blog for a couple years now, so I’m excited to join in on the fun!
This year’s winter shape up will run from Monday, January 27 to Sunday, February 23. Here are links to all the content (this page will be updated as the new pages are published). {As always, check with your doctor before making any exercise or nutrition changes.} More details and the answers to some questions you might have are below!
#WinterShapeUp Glossary:
Before I get into all the details, I’d like to say a big thank you to our Winter Shape Up sponsors! They will be donating some awesome prizes that you can win simply for participating, the details of which will be in each of our weekly posts.
Sponsors: White Plum | Sabra | Reebok | Cabot | Sizzlefish | Stonyfield | FitFluential
Here are some tips for getting the most out of this fun 4 week challenge:
- Visualize a goal. What’s your intention behind joining in on the Winter Shape Up? Looking to shake up your routine? Feel more energized? Get stronger? Eat more veggies? Whatever it is, write down what you’d like to accomplish and remind yourself daily for the next 4 weeks. Keep in mind: this isn’t an extreme weight loss plan, but simply a challenge to inspire you to get (and stay!) healthier and happier this year. Don’t focus on weight, but rather the foods and habits that will encourage weight loss, if that is your overall goal. Let weight loss (or maintenance) be a side effect of behavior change. And above all, aim for feeling healthy and happy. A number on the scale will not make you any happier than you are right now. But strength, confidence, feeling great, and living healthier will.
- Consistency. The greatest way to achieve a new fitness or health goal is consistency. Stick with it and remember that the little things definitely add up! Be gentle with yourself throughout the challenge, and endeavor to be consistent in your actions, but don’t beat yourself up if you have an off day. Also, be patient with the long term changes. They will come if you focus on making your healthy changes an everyday lifestyle.
- Engage with your fellow participants! Please consider joining the private Facebook group for the Winter Shape Up! It will be a welcoming place where you can be a cheerleader for yourself and other Winter Shape Up participants. Just request to be added and we’ll approve you so you can share your successes and challenges and encourage everyone else along the way. We want to make this a fun and helpful community for everyone involved, so please make sure to check in each day with your workout, pictures of your healthy eats, and to cheer each other on!
- Get social with #WinterShapeUp ! We’d love to hear how you guys are doing with this challenge! If you share updates or photos on social media, please include #WinterShapeUp and, if you have space, tag both myself (@fANNEtasticfood– follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram!) and Gina (@fitnessista) so we can see! 🙂 You are also welcome to snag this graphic to put in your posts or on your blog sidebar, if you want! Simply copy the code under the graphic and paste it into an html widget on your blog sidebar or into the source/html code section of your blog post and the graphic will appear!
Do I need to sign up to participate?
Nope! That’s the beauty of this challenge – it’s flexible! Just join in anytime you want, and consider joining the private Winter Shape Up Facebook group to support and share with your fellow participants.
How do I enter for prizes?!
We’ll each have giveaways going on each week from our awesome sponsors, ranging from athletic apparel to food and coupons. Each weekly page on both of our sites will have a giveaway. You can comment once per day on the pages to enter (when you comment, please share updates on how you are doing with the challenge that day!), and at the end of that week’s challenge (on Monday), we’ll both randomly select a winner. So for example, the week 1 workout page on Gina’s blog and the week 1 meal plan page on my blog will both have giveaways going on. Simply comment up to once per day on each page with how things are going as your entry! That will give you up to 7 entries on each of our giveaways, and you’ll find out who won on Monday of the following week.
How do I keep track of all of the info?
This page that you’re currently reading will be your home base for all things Winter Shape Up-related. Each week’s meal ideas and workouts will all be linked here. If you’re joining in, keep this page in a safe place (bookmark it, Pin it) so that you can easily access all of the info. I’ll also add the Winter Shape Up graphic to my right upper sidebar and will link it to this page, so you can find it in case you lose it. The new meal plans will be posted on the Friday before, so you have time to grocery shop over the weekend!
So – who’s in?? 🙂
Have a healthy, happy #WinterShapeUp, friends!
