Disclaimer: This is a Sponsored Post for Bupa Family Challenge.
With another three weeks of the school holidays looming before us I thought it might be fun to mix things up a little and while I was wondering what to do I received an email about the Bupa Family Challenge…which seemed like great solution to my mixing things up problem.
Before the holidays we had been working on reducing the girls electronics time to 1 hour a day. In theory once school holidays started that would go up to 2 hours a day…. however it has been more like 4 hours a day, not great. We’ve been spending lots of time swimming, but once we get home both girls head to their electronic toys by default and I’m hoping the 7 day challenge might prove a helpful reset and give them some new default activities. I also like that the challenge is tied in with Harold and the Life Education team who visit at school.
The Bupa Family Challenge is for the whole family which means that we can all keep each other motivated as well as us parents showing the girls that making positive changes is something adults do to.
I did consider choosing the “give up alcohol” aspect of the 7 day challenge as that would have been super easy for hubby and I, neither of us drink any alcohol… but that would be cheating. Instead the whole family is giving up fizzy and fruit drinks for the week. That is a bit of a killer, after my Christmas indulgence I’ve cut back to one Pepsi Max a day but I really really love my daily Pepsi Max which gives me the caffeine kick to get through the afternoon. However we ALL need to drink more water so I think that is a change for the better, both health and budget wise.
Honestly a little scared, how am I going to cope without that daily Pepsi Max and encourage the children to reduce screen time. Husband at least should be able to continue to drink his soda water because it is just water, we have a soda stream at home that he uses to add the fizz, he informs me it is really good with slices of lime added. Still not Pepsi Max though :sad face:. One Week, I can do this!
The other big thing is that we are all going to be reducing our electronics time and reintroducing the electronics free family walks after dinner. We were doing those last year but winter put paid to the walks and we didn’t restart once the weather warmed up.
We start our challenge next week, Monday 14th and I’m hoping that these small changes will become permanent changes, maybe life without my afternoon Pepsi Max wont be so bad.
and less of this:
and more of this, is good for everyone:
** CLOSED ** GIVEAWAY TIME – Bupa have kindly offered a $100 Visa Gift Card to One Lucky Reader. ** CLOSED **
- To enter – leave a comment below telling me what changes from the Bupa Family Challenge you are going to tackle with your family and why you chose those particular changes.
- Best reason for making a change, as chosen by my family (husband, Annie and Heidi) wins.
- Australian entries only please.
- Competition closes 6pm Friday 25th January 2013 AEDT
** Winner **
And the lucky winner as chosen by my family is….
{ 28 comments }
The sprogs never let me win anything when they have a say so I am going to give up buying them presents. That should save me much more than the giftcard over time :p Can I have any spare pepsi max? I’ll love and care for it!
(I love the idea and support you completely in shaking things up in a good direction)
Challenge 1: I will introduce a new healthy food each day, whether it be a new vegetable or grain or juice. This should make our meals more interesting, create conversation at the table, and expand my childrens’ palates more.
Challenge 2: I will enforce a half-hour walk each day with my children. Less time in front of the TV equals more exercise, more fresh air, more exploring and more family conversation time!
My family is going to do beachy stuff each week together, walking on the beach, swimming (my kids love his best!), fishing, having a picnic at the beach, maybe even have a “crazy faces” family photo at the beach, who knows?
We had a crazy busy uear last year, so I think the whole family will benefit from this, glad I read about the challenge here…
I think we could all give up sugar ( my worst vice!)
A walk after dinner sounds fabulous,although I would need to be pushed in my wheelchair.
Organising a picnic sounds like fun,with homemade goodies and some sports toys.
Charlotte’s Challenge- Not eating any foods with added sugar and exercising everyday (walks, runs, tredmill. etc)
Nathan’s Challenge- To eat the least foods with junk food and exercise as much as Charlotte will!
Louise’s Challenge- To stop eating mnm’s every night and to work out 3 times a week and exercise everyday (walks, runs, tredmill etc)
I chose challenges such as making healthy breakfasts, taking walks, reading together, playing board games because these would bring us together as a family.
Lets eat healthier, get moving & have fun as a family. I like that. It’s too easy for everyone to do their own thing all the time. Isolated & cut off.
Eating two pieces of fruit and a vegetable/s with each meal to increase our fruit and vegie intake. Walking to the park every second day and/or playing outside kicking a ball with my toddler.
It’s important for our family to eat healthier and exercise more because we’ve all overindulged for the last 8 months as I am expecting a baby in February 2013. Living healthier means we will be less tired and have more energy for each other!
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We’ll be focusing on less screen time as both a family and individual change.
Too often we are so consumed by our TV’s and computers that it comes at a cost of not only health but family relationships too.
I’m hoping switching off will result is better communication, better mental stimulation from other sources and lead to a more active lifestyle as we will be encouraged to ‘think outside the box’!
No sometimes foods should have us all reaching for healthy foods & to read for at least 20 minutes each day…a real book too, reading on the internet doesn’t count!
My family has dinner together every night but now we will introduce creating dinner together and creating meals to incorporate different cultural recipes.
We have also made the choice to take 30 mins out of every day to just catch up with what each other has been up to and talk about any fears, tears or any achievements.
This challenge is awesome and pulls the family together.
We have three children aged 4,5 and 6. We also have a 1 yr old dog. We have decided since Christmas to take the kids and the dog to the beach one day every weekend. We have found an awesome leash free beach which is also great for families (have been there two weeks in a row and always loads of families with their young kids and their dogs). Our kids love playing on the sand, building sandcastles and swimming. They have made new friends everytime we have gone and are more than happy to share their buckets and spades with their new friends (which is a nice change). We have also found that when we are outdoors, our kids don’t tend to fight which is also a welcome relief:)
Our family is going to build and maintain a vegetable garden in our back yard together and get some chooks.
I’m looking forward to making changes in 2013 for a healthier lifestyle and making the most of our time together as a family.
With a new vegie patch and 3 chooks to look after we will be spending more time together outdoors in the fresh air, less time on our devices and infront of the TV and eating way more healthy, pesticide free vegies and eggs!
gardening every morning and every night.
I am going to get my son involved in cooking and preparing our evening meals in the school holidays.
First we will go through my recipe book and select a meal, then write a list, WALK to the shop, don’t buy anything that is not on the list, prepare the meal, and then talk about the meal over dinner.
We are going to make our evenings (from 5pm onwards) totally technology free for 3 nights per week, that includes no TV! Instead we’ll cook yummy dinners and eat them by candlelight, spend more time together working in the veggie garden, and play card and board games that we haven’t touched in some time. Hubby and I want to show our toddler son (and the soon-to-arrive baby!) that we can spend time together without technology and still enjoy ourselves, and make it a habit from when they are very young. Plus it’s just lots of fun!
I’m trying to get my family to go for a walk together three times a week as a a family. It’s hard but I think it’s a great way to get some excercise and relate to eachother.
SOCIAL
I hardly talk face-to-face with my family anymore. It’s always either Facebook messaging or SMS. I would love to turn that around. It’s quite sad when social media takes over your life. Social media and technology has destroyed my family -too much bitching, backstabbing and fighting. I really hate when I receive a text to say a family member has died, or when I receive invitations via text message. I find it rude and unacceptable. I want to go back to the days of receiving phone calls and receiving letters/invitations in the mail. Banning social media/technology for a week will be the hardest challenge ever
Ours will be less time inside. The kids got a slip and slide and a pool for Christmas, so we will be making the most of them!
I just signed up to the family challenge – thanks for the push.
I selected “read a book every day for 20 minutes” but was told I could only select items from the nutrition section? So I chose to replace fruit juice and fizzy drinks with water. I’m conscious of our poor choices but sometimes think it’s better to pick your battles with kids. 7 days, eh? Wish us luck!
Our challenge is to become a biweekly vegetarian as we love meat too much to give it up entirely but we’ve set a more realistic and achievable goal (fingers crossed). Also on those evenings, dessert will be prepared by the kids and must contain at least 2 fruits. Thus far, the kids have enjoyed being their own mini chefs.
P.S. Annie and Heidi might enjoy a game of treasure hunt where you place the electronic games into a ziploc bag and hide it somewhere around the house and if they can find it in less than 15mins. they get to play a game on each device but you’ll find that they will ask you to hide the gadgets again. Enjoy the rest of the holidays.
Healthy food is a must especially with children to set a good example and walking for half hour
Build a family vegetable patch, lots of reasons for picking this;
- I want my kids to know where their food comes from (no the answer isn’t the supermarket)
- I want greater control over the chemicals used on our food.
- The price of veggies at the shops, means we will be saving money by growing our own.
- It’s a great form of exercise.
We are really looking forward to it!!
We are slowly removing all sugars from our diet which is a challenge indeed as all processed foods and fruit (fructose) contain it and we are a sweet-toothed family.
My family want to live a more eco-friendly life, by growing herbs, fruits and vegetables, cycling daily and ensuring that we recycle whatever we can rather than letting it all fall in the trash.
My family talked about what we could do togther as a family and we agreed on the challenges we could do to make our lives better.
No 1 was soft drink, lollies and chocolate are banned from our house.
No 2 We now go on family bush walks several times a week, not only health exercise but great for conversations.
No 3 Technology is banned on the weekend, even for Mum and Dad!
The first 2 challenges were fairly easy to incorperate into our lives and we’ve enjoyed them, the third though was difficult, we all did sneaking mobile phones at first, withdrawal was hard, now we’re on the right track though.
Healthy Activity will be our goal,
To get our family working as a whole.
At the moment everyone’s fixed on their screen,
It’s not a very happy scene.
My dogs would love us to get going,
They’re energetic and it’s showing –
So to save our yard from giant holes,
We’re starting to take many more family strolls!
We as a whole family need to improve our fitness and our eating. We decided to:
Go for a walk to the park each day to get half an hour exercise
Drink only water
Introduce new vegetables at dinner.
We have both hypertension and diabetes in our families and so we want to teach our children good habits early in life to help prevent them from getting such diseases.
I’m going to replace my fizzy drinks with water… I just saw a video that shows a man eating 16 teadpoons of sugar, which is the equivilent of a 600ml drink of Fizzy… I am not a complete saint though and am going to replace it with some plain tap water and some soda watervwith a twist of lemon for the bubbles! Also wsnt to spend more time doing family things, so will eithet go fora walk after dinner or play board gamed after dinner! I see some summer picnic dinners at the park in the very near future!
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