Forward 45 Challenge!
🎉Officially starts Thursday, February 1st! 🎉
This email will lay out everything you need to know about our Forward 45 challenge. Our hope is that everyone will join in on the challenge! If you read through the challenge and counted yourself out for some reason or another, we ask that you challenge the reasonings you've come up with.
Often you see challenges that aren't created to be long term but we hope that you will find some of these daily habits worth while and continue to pursue your health and wellness beyond this challenge. For only 45 days (6-ish weeks) you will focus on daily movement, increasing your water + protein intake and creating good habits.
Let's talk about the details.👇🏽
🏋️MOVEMENT: 45 minutes of daily exercise. Your 1 mile walk/run counts towards this. Our goal is to MOVE our body every day. This could look like a JD class, a walk with friends, spin class etc.
🥩PROTEIN: This may seem like a lot, but its actually on the lower end of how much protein we need to fuel our bodies through our workouts and recovery. Work on adding protein into every meal. If you are within 10-15 grams of your daily goal - count it. We are looking for progress, not perfection!
Ex: 140 lbs x .7 = 98 grams protein
Tip: Adding a protein shake or protein rich snack into the mix will help you hit your goal easily. We will give you a protein cheat sheet for easy tracking.
🥤WATER: We all know we need more water. When we sweat, our body is losing water and minerals such as potassium, magnesium, calcium and sodium. If you need to buy a cute new water bottle, do it. Set reminders on your phone. Whatever it takes! Eventually it will become a habit. Here are some tips:
Drink a cup of water before you have coffee
Add electrolytes: we like nuun, LMNT or you can be cool like Jacob and just put straight himilayan salt in there.
Fill up several water bottles the night before and keep them in different locations: your car, office, gym etc.
Try to drink a good chunk of your water in the first half of the day so you aren't up all night going to the bathroom.
🚿COLD:We know some of you saw this and immediately opted out. Let's talk about why you shouldn't.
You can do hard things.
Cold immersion is shown to boost immunity + dopamine, improves circulation, soothes muscles and inflammation, burns fat, reduces stress/anxiety and it gives you a caffeine free energy boost. That is only touching the surface.
What you need to know about adding cold immersion to your routine:
Start warm and for the last 30 seconds of your shower turn it to cold or vice versa.
If you're cold plunging - you could get into a sauna or warm shower immediately after.
Put on a good song and know that when a certain part hits, you get out!
Ideally you want to let your body warm up naturally. This means getting dressed and moving around to allow the blood flow to heat you back up instead of hopping into a hot tub or soaking in the shower for another 5 minutes. BUT, this will get you started.
🤰PREGNANT LADIES: We did some research and we will leave it up to you to decide what you feel comfortable with. We are not doctors so we can't advise one way or the other. It looks like it is safe to take cold showers as long as you aren't in for longer than 3-5 minutes, the water isn't ICE cold and you move your body around. Audrey will be doing the cold showers for the duration of her pregnancy and will continue through post partum. We have an alternative if you decide you don't want to go this route!
--This was a good article for pregnancy and cold immersion!
Cold Baths and Showers During Pregnancy | ariel-butterflymama (goodformama.com)
🍷📱GOODBYE: No alcohol and/or no social media. We gave people the option because there are certain jobs that require a presence on social media. Never ending scrolling takes away from being present in our real lives. It has its pros/cons, but consider taking a break and see how it feels. As for alcohol, take note of how you feel without it. You may find you sleep better and have more energy.
💓COMMUNITY: It wouldn't be a true JD challenge without our HIIT classes. At the end of the 45 days you need to have completed at least 20 classes. If you are out sick for a week or vacation, this gives you the flexibility to spread out when you take class. We wanted to make this attainable for ALL of our members regardless of the type of membership you have!
This challenge will be ongoing. This means you can start anytime and repeat as many times as you'd like (encouraged actually). Your first card is free and every card after is $5.00. All funds from completing the Forward 45 Challenge will go to the National MS Society.
"I'm in, what next?"
Sign up at the gym.
Grab your card.
Get started!
We didn't want to just mimic a generic challenge that had no long lasting impact. Our hope is that when you complete this challenge, you come away with some tools that help you feel good on the outside and within. Let's keep moving forward and make a difference together.
Have any questions? Respond to this email or reach out to any of our team.
-Audrey + Jacob
