What is the Whole Life Challenge?

I have had a few messages and comments asking to explain what the Whole Life Challenge is.  The Cliff Notes version is this: It is an 8 week challenge focusing on overall health.  It is not just a diet.  You don’t have to buy $500 worth of supplements for 2 weeks.  Eat clean and exercise is the mantra.  Here is a video of them explaining how it works if you want to watch it. 

You kick it off with measurements and a baseline workout.  This gives you a starting point.  From there, you focus on several areas throughout the day and have a certain number of points to work with.  Every day you log into the WLC website and enter how you did for the previous day. 

Here is what you log:

• Nutrition: 0 - 5 points. Start the day with 5 points. For each infraction of a rule, lose a point. You can’t get less than 0!  For nutrition, you can chose to follow the challenge as it was written or “scale” it.  I am opting to go strict, which means no grains or starchy carbohydrates, no sugar or sweeteners, no dairy, no alcohol/soda/fruit juice, no artificial ingredients or processed foods.  But if you have these, you subtract the points.  To me this is close to real life in that you have a cheat meal one week.
• Exercise: Did you workout for at least 10 minutes? Yes or No. A workout can be defined as hard and intense, or easy and gentle (what we call “active recovery”), but you must do something every day. Yes = 2 points, No = 0 points.
• Mobilization: Did you physically stretch your body for at least 10 minutes? Yes or No. This can be broken up over the course of a day. Yes = 2 points, No = 0 points.
• Supplement: Did you take your supplement? Yes or No. You may choose the supplement that you are going to take over the course of the challenge (our favorites are fish oil, vitamin d, pro-biotics, multi-vitamin, etc.). Yes = 1 point, No = 0 points.
• Lifestyle: Did you do the identified lifestyle habit? Yes or No. Every 2 weeks we will introduce a new lifestyle habit for you to take on. These will be in the areas of drinking water, sleep, mindfulness, and making a difference for others. Yes = 1 point, No = 0 points.

This continues until the end when you do final measurements and the baseline workout again.  The challenge winner is based on leaderboard ranking (determined by points), workout ranking improvement, and improvement in your measurements.

If you are considering doing this, I would highly encourage you to wait until they start this again so you can get going from the very beginning.  If you belong to a gym, talk to them about doing it.  Your gym can setup a team so that you can compete globally but also against fellow members.  When my wife went through this at our box, they gave a prize to the winner on our team.  It was really cool and she has seen amazing results from it.

When Gina was doing this, the first week was horrible for her. I had to listen to her complain about how hard the challenge was and how it didn’t make any sense.  That changed after the first week.  This challenge changed her outlook on nutrition and fitness.  She frequently said “I can see myself doing this for the rest of my life”.  I thought she had lost her freaking mind, honestly.  I viewed it as a challenge, something temporary, just to grab some money or another trendy thing for gyms around the world to do.  Or just some stricter Paleo challenge and with me already eating pretty close to strict Paleo I didn’t need something like this.  But I saw her change right before my eyes.  I did it by proxy but still had my doubts.  When they did the final measurements/results/baseline, I knew it was legit.  Ironically, I have found myself in the same cycle that she went through.  I can now see myself following this the rest of my life.  Sure, if I want a cheat meal I will have it, but as for the day to day eating, my body has responded quite well to this.

But you tell me, these results are convincing right?