Welcome to home base for the 2017 Winter Shape Up!
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My friend Gina and I have partnered up again this winter to bring you this fun 4 week healthy living challenge. We hope it will inspire you!
Gina is a personal trainer, so on her site, you’ll find the weekly workout videos (we filmed them together this year, so I’m in them too!) and plans for the challenge, and here on mine I’ll be sharing the weekly meal plans and grocery lists. {As always, check with your doctor before making any exercise or nutrition changes.}
The 2017 Winter Shape Up will run from Monday, January 30 to Sunday, February 26, 2017. Here are links to all the content; this page will be updated as the new pages are published. More details and the answers to some questions you might have are below!
Before I get into all the other details, I’d like to say a big thank you to our sponsors who made it possible to offer this 4 week challenge to you for free! They will also be donating some awesome prizes that you can win simply for participating, the details of which will be in each of our weekly posts.
Sabra Spreads | Vital Proteins | Wild Blueberry Association of North America | Passion for Pasta | Nekter Juice Bar
And now, 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 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 a 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 2017 Winter Shape Up! It will be a welcoming place where you can be a cheerleader for yourself and other 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, Pinterest, and Instagram!) and Gina (@fitnessista) so we can see! 🙂
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 on both of our blogs from our awesome sponsors. 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 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.
Also: the new meal plans will be posted on the Friday before, so you have time to grocery shop over the weekend! Any questions or concerns, let us know. Have fun! 🙂
