I recently committed (again) to getting healthier and someone suggested making a contest out of it. You can check out the post HERE. So lets see if anyone else would be interested.

Here's my goal! Looking like the photo...well kinda

Sorry to milk the photo again, but it would be great to get that body back, but I'm also worried about longevity, health and staying functional to engage with my children. The most worrisome think I've noticed, is how quickly I tired when I'm crawling around or playing outside with the kids.

My goal isn't just to loose weight but increase my fitness level and also improve my health.

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I'm going to get a bit medical here

In the past I've had markers of metabolic syndrome and borderline hypertension. My BMI and waist circumference are once again sitting right at the tipping point. Currently my blood pressure is still good and I haven't had a lab panel drawn recently but I'm sure my cholesterol levels would once again be trending up. I'm very interested in tracking this stuff and will likely end up pursuing some labs now that I'm embarking again. Lastly I've seen my resting heart rate increase to around 65BPM and although this is still pretty good I used to sit around 50-55BPM when I was consistently running.

I remember clearly the moment when I first made the commitment to improve my health in the past. I wasin my mid 20s and just starting work as a Nurse Practitioner, I let myself go and was facing alot of stress with school. Unfortunately I used to consume alot of alcohol back then too (but that's a whole other story/issue). I was counselling a guy around 40, with pretty much the same build and lifestyle as me. Ticking all the boxes regarding his own metabolic syndrome and hypertension. Letting him know he would likely have Diabetes within 10 year and we should be proactive in treating his hypertension now. He was shocked and didn't release the path he was on. After he left the exam room I had the realization that he was exactly me in 10 years and also though why would patients be listen to me, sitting there across from them setting a shitty example. That's when I got serious, I started running and training. Stopped snacking and starting improving my diet. (the drinking stopped later, but once again that's another story).

I was on a pretty good path for almost 5 years, but I have to admit over the last 3 years since starting my family I've let me own health and fitness start to slip. So now it's time to refocus again and start setting a better example for my children as well.

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The Health Challenge Proposal

Here's my idea for the challenge and I'm looking for people interested in taking part and any feedback or changes people want to suggest. I want to focus on health and not just weight loss. I would like to base the final results on 3 metrics all equally weighted.

Percentage Weight Loss

We would just use the total amount lost, divided by starting weight to determine everyone's percentage of loss for comparison.

Resting Heart Rate

I think this is the simplest marker of health and fitness for everyone to use, we would just once again use the percentage of change over the course of the competition.

Running/Exercise Time

I was thinking of lastly using a percentage of improvement to a few standard options for exercise. Like a 5km walk/run (outside/treadmill) or something we decide is equivalent in a swim, bike or any other stationary equipment.

I know there are some different options as well , but these are pretty simple and straightforward for everyone. If anyone has other ideas or wants to propose changes or run a few parallel contests with added metrics I'd be fine with that too

I think this would be great so that pretty much anyone that's currently sedentary would have a chance to participate and hopefully improve there health and win. Maybe even people with a moderate fitness level could enter as well.

Other Details

I would like to run it over at least 3 months perhaps ending the start of March, once again I'm not set on this and would be happy with any changes people want to discuss.

I think we should each right a check in post every 2 weeks at least, maybe you don't have to report all the metrics but at least a little update. Something I wanted to incorporate was for everyone to include one positive change over that 2 week period. Maybe something they are starting to notice or like more about themselves. It may help to keep everyone more aware of the importance and stay motivated.

As for motivation, I've read that people are more motivated to avoid loss then they are for potential gain. I would like to see people pledge maybe 50SBD to contest, you would keep it till the end, but if you post a zero improvement or you get worse over that period or you fall out of the contest along the way you would forfeit the entire amount, but if you make it till the end you get to keep your 50SBD. Then lets also each put in something like 10SBD each, maybe into some sort of third party holding account, that would be awarded to the winners at the end. We could also each contribute a portion of the post payout on the check in posts to the pot at the end.

I think we could also let people join all along the way as they are likely at a big disadvantage due to the loss of time they had to make the changes.

Anyways this is just a call out post, I'd love feedback and suggestions. I also hope to determine if there is enough interest to proceed with this, so please share the post with all your friends that may be interested. Would be great to use steemit to help improve everyone's health, just another benifit from this great platform we have to connect each other.

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