Hi folks! Well it has been a month now since we were last updating about the My Heart Challenge, and it has been a busy month. We have been running all over. It has been good for the kids and their screen time to be away from the screens. I sit here now writing this after the challenge has finished, and I have some interesting thoughts about it. Those will be later. First, lets talk about what we have been doing this past month!
First up, was the Twilight Walk 5k. We went to Murray park with everyone from the Heart Challenge and covered 5 kilometers! Leatha and I sped walked, while Tristan and Cameron decided to run. Cameron did great and finished first in the family, while Tristan ended up Second! We thought that Tristan would have to be carried at the end, but he ran the whole way. They had a drawing afterwards where the kids won some fun prizes and I won the $50 gift card to Harmons, which I promptly used to buy the rest of the groceries for our camping trip.
We left the next morning for Fish Lake. We spent another whole week at Fish Lake, and we were active the whole week, well most of the week. Brenda and I averaged over 12000 steps a day, most of those were upwards of 15000. Brenda went with Cameron on a 10 mile hike around the lake to fulfill a merit badge requirement and they both made it the whole way! We not only had much walking, but lifting boats and fishing, and “cardio wood choping” where we set up several logs and chopped and chopped. The kids got to saw up some of the logs and we all moved a bunch of trees.
One of the most interesting things about our camping this year was our food. We always have the kids take a day that they are in charge of the food. They decide the menu, and help to cook. This year we didn’t have hardly any of the “normal camping food”. Leatha had Parmesan chicken, Cameron had fish scheduled, and Amelia had oriental noodle bowls. We had a bunch of vegetables with all of our meals as well as following the my plate guidelines; for the most part. We did really good not having anything deep fried and avoiding most premade foods.
We definitely kept up with working out, just by being outside and going the whole trip. The only day we didn’t get our 10000+ steps was Friday, when Grandma rented a pontoon boat that we spent 10 hours on. Not a lot of steps on a boat. Maybe we should have jumped in and swam back across the lake….
We also got in some Geocaching! It had been a while since we had gone, so we decided to take a challenge and get all of a series of caches up around Fish Lake. We ended up getting all 50 of the “rock and roll” caches and then 10 more just to round it out. We even left 3 new ones for others to find. That is a fun get out and walk for a bit activity that we really like. One of the caches we found was quite a way off of the road, over fields of cactus and rocks. At least we missed the snakes!
Anyway, we got back and Cameron headed out for Scout Camp for a whole other week. We worked in the heat cleaning up camping stuff and trying to rest from the week before!
The 25th of July brought a holiday, and we went up to the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers museum. We got our step workout and our stair workout for the day looking at all of the pioneer artifacts. It was a fun way to celebrate Pioneer Day, and wonder just what kinds of things our Pioneer ancestors brought with them to Salt Lake.
Wednesday the 27th we did our final stress tests for the Heart Challenge. With all of the moving and working over these past 100 days both Brenda and I noticed the difference in the test. We were able to go longer and not be so worn out during the test. And the test is not easy on the treadmill. But we had both improved and it shows us that we are healthier and stronger than we were 100 days ago.
So now, the challenge is over. We are getting ready to go to the final luncheon on Friday of this week and find out who won the challenge. Personally, I think our family won in many ways. We may not get the grand prize at the end, but we are all healthier. We like to eat our fruits and veggies. We like to be out and moving. The super hot days lately have put a damper on the nightly walks until it is dark, but we are excited to get back to walking in the daylight. It is nice to see the differences in all of us, from weight loss, to endurance to strength. We don’t like to just sit around anymore. We don’t watch nearly as much TV as we used to, and we like to move! Tristans favorite thing lately has been finding new parks to go play at. This heart challenge has been really good for us. Not that we couldn’t have done all of the same things on our own, but we had support and accountability with the challenge that has helped us make some really good lifestyle changes that will continue on, even though the challenge is finished.
Now, we just have to get the kids to school and get ready for the next 3 weekends of camping. We are heading outside away from electronics yet again, because fishing video games just don’t beat the real thing in any way, shape, or form.
-Justin.