Additional Info

The MyPyramid.gov website has some great insights to helping us get healthier. At this link you can put in your information and it will give you specific pyramid for your needs. If you're not at a healthy weight it will give you suggestions for progressively getting to a healthy weight. It also has some great tips for adding these good things into our diets. So if you're concerned about getting all your fruit and veggie servings in, check out the tips on your pyramid. It's pretty cool, they even have a link for those of us who are pregnant or breastfeeding. And if you'd like to get the kiddos involved they have a pyramid for them too.

Dave was asking me how much of something is considered a serving of fruit. Inside the Pyramid lists several different common fruit and how much is considered a serving. There is a chart for each pyramid option as well. I didn't realize that beans were considered vegetables, but according to the vegetable link from the same page linked above, they can be protein or vegetable. That's awesome, I use beans in a lot of my cooking!

Dave also asked me to define "treat" for purposes of the challenge. I don't want to do that, I think that it needs to be a personal decision for each person. The basic idea is to exclude high sugar/fat/calorie foods. Some ideas you might try to exclude: candy, cake, cookies, soda... you know treats. :) Whatever you deem as OK for you will go since you'll be awarding your points each day. Just keep in mind we're trying to get healthy. :)

So, I was thinking about 30 minutes of exercise and sometimes its really hard to get it all in one shot. If you get 30 minutes in increments (three 10 minutes workouts, for example) you can award yourself 1 point rather than 2.

I will post weekly points on the blog as well as total points for everyone involved. At the end of the challenge the person with the most points wins.

OK, any other questions or concerns. Now is the time to figure it all out.