PUSHH Challenge: Pick Up Some Healthy Habits

So what is this challenge? We are going old school with a fancy star chart at the gym. You get to add a sticker to the chart every day if you are able to abide by the following:

• Make fitness at PUSH.

• Hit your assigned protein gram intake.

• No alcohol.

The whiteboard at Sunday's PUSHH Challenge talk.

Now we understand that 30 days in a row is not feasible for most, so let's say that anyone who can hit at least 21 days out of the 30 days will be eligible to win some pretty sweet prizes. For those who missed Sunday's talk, below is more detailed information about the three main criteria of the challenge.

Fitness At PUSH

This topic actually received the most questions both at the talk today and leading up to the challenge. We understand that everyone has a different set of circumstances in their day-to-day—childcare, working on the East Side, new office hours, and other physical endeavors. We by no means are trying to discredit or say that the work that you put in outside of the gym isn't important or doesn't benefit your health, but it isn't quite a PUSH challenge if we aren't with each other at PUSH, right? Also, this is the only element of the criteria that we can actually track and make sure that is happening. We don't expect or assume that people will cheat the other two, but we don't actually know if people are following the protein or the no alcohol aspect of this.

A part of this challenge is to also create, well, healthy habits. This means setting time aside in your days and schedules to come to the gym and make some sweet fitness with your friends. As someone who has coached and personally trained for 15+ years, I have heard the phrases "if I find time", "in a perfect world", or "if everything goes as planned today" far too many times. This usually leads to those clients and members not showing up and wondering why stretches of time go by without attending the gym. The gym and fitness shouldn't be something that you try to cram into the daily pie chart and hope it sticks. It should be something that you build your routine and schedule around. It may be a cliche, but this is a lifestyle. This includes outside and inside the gym.

Our plan is to run multiple challenges like this, all with slightly different criteria. So in future challenges, we will have different goals for fitness—travel, in the gym, and at home. For now though, especially being right after the New Year, we want to get back into the habit of getting into the gym as often as we can.

Making fitness at PUSH is neat. It makes you smile.

Hitting Your Assigned Protein Intake

It's hard for us to rank or emphasize one of these three goals more than the other, but this one is pretty damn important. According to the most recent NHANES [National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey] data, most adults consume about 16% of their calories from protein daily. It can be difficult to determine how much protein you need, in part because of the way health authorities structure their recommendations. The RDA [recommended dietary allowance] for protein is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight. But this is the minimum amount of protein you need for your basic nutrition requirements, meaning enough to keep you in fair health and to avoid malnutrition. We are not attempting to hope to hover right above malnutrition. We are active individuals. Many variables factor into protein intake for people—age, activity level, any medical conditions, and someone's health goals.

To give everyone a little more understanding of what this looks like, I will use myself as an example. I just took my Dexa scan and weighed in at 202.5 lbs (92kg). If I consumed what was "recommended", I would consume .8g/kg of body weight. That would be 73.63g of protein. Every gram of protein has 4 calories. This totals 294.5 calories. My RMR (resting metabolic rate) is 2234 calories. Your RMR is how many calories your body burns at rest. This is a component of your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). Essentially, I need these many calories to pretty much not wither away and be me. This doesn't factor in the other components of TDEE—thermic effect of food, non-exercise activity thermogenesis, and exercise activity thermogenesis. So if I did the .8g/kg equation above, that would only be 13% protein of just my RMR, not even factoring in the daily movement I did, the energy required to eat and digest food, and the sweet sweet fitness that I make. What we are asking is that you consume .7-.8g of protein per pound of body weight. For me, that would be a range of 142-162g of protein (568-648kcal) a day. This range now puts my protein intake between 25-29% of my RMR. Now I do more than this personally. I have tinkered with this for years. This is a very individual journey. I've gotten older. I work out 5-6 days a week, some of which are two-a-days. As mentioned above, there are many factors that come into play here, but we felt like this was a range that was hard enough to justify this being a challenge, but not to the level that should feel impossible.

Now for those who may initially think, "Wow, that seems like a lot." To simply respond, it's not. And again, for those who are reading this, we are active individuals. We throw around weights, we do burpees, we rock climb, we play soccer, and we train for marathons. We do dope shit. We need to take care of our bodies. This isn't to get people "jacked" or any other Bro Science reasoning. Protein plays a huge role in weight management, muscle growth and repair, bone health, metabolic health, cognitive function, stress levels, recovery from injury, and even skin, hair, and nail health. Don't get me wrong, I need to keep this toight so Trysh still looks my way, but I love to move. I love to see what my body can do. I feel happier when I move my body. Endorphins, anyone? I love working out with everyone at the gym. I need to make sure I'm putting the TLC into my body to continue all of this. And nutrition, especially protein, is a huge component of this.

Keep in mind as well, outside of protein, we eat carbs and fats. All of this consumption does add up to a daily calorie intake. Now if you know what that number is or not, is another thing, but we either gain or lose weight due to the intake versus output equation. And what our total weight may look and feel like, is a direct correlation between our body fat percentage and lean body mass ratio. So if I know I'm going to need or want to eat anyway, I might as well make sure I get it from good sources of protein, and not processed carbs or easy-to-go food when I'm out and about.

For those who have more personal questions about this, please come find me (Aidan) or Sarah, and we can further help you with this. We also just started a WhatsApp group chat specifically for this challenge, which you can join HERE.

Protein, it's like science or something.

No Alcohol

We want to keep this one simple and to the point. Objectively, this does nothing good for us. This fight and struggle will simply be a personal one that each person has with their relationship with alcohol. You take away the comments on needing a glass of wine at night, or it helps your stress, or what else would I drink at a tailgate, etc., etc., etc., no one has anything that shows that it's something you should have that helps the body.

Alcohol pretty much F's your sleep in the A. Pardon my lettering, but it had to be said. As someone who wore a Whoop every day for 1599 days straight, even one old-fashioned drink completely messed my sleep up and screwed with my HRV (heart rate variability) the next day. And we haven't even gotten to a challenge with sleep, but spoiler alert, it's the mostessesst important thing for us. We recover when we sleep. Physically and cognitively. Alcohol also dehydrates us, depletes our vitamins/minerals, impairs our muscle repair, increases our risk of injury, and causes hormonal imbalances.

This isn't a part of the challenge to judge anyone or cast shame. We all do all things for our reasons. I would personally suggest looking past the vice and into the reasons why we may think we "need" them in the first place, but again, the point of this goal of the challenge is not to go down a philosophical rabbit hole and start a chatter of opinions. We understand that this part may be easier for some and harder for others. But it's a very important one for the sake of how the body looks, moves, feels and heals.

No thanks shawty, I'm doing the PUSHH Challenge.

The main reason we were hesitant in doing something like this for so long, is that we are not really big fans of challenges with end dates. Especially healthy things. We don't want people doing things like this just for a prize or a competition, but rather because they want to make real changes to have real impacts on their lives. This can be a big cause of these yo-yo diets, binges, and overall highs and lows. However, we accept that we can't control everything for everyone. Some people thrive on these types of challenges. Some start with the motivations of prizes, but then retain 80% of these habits. So even if this is just a fun thing for most people, we wanted to do it because it could be a game changer for the other few. And it brings us together towards a common goal. And if the saying is "Life is a habit", then we need to start somewhere for something to become a habit. Trysh and I did a Whole30 challenge years ago and in the beginning, it was a real kick to the nards. But then we found our groove. It opened our eyes to the fact that just because we worked out and fit well enough into our clothes, that didn't make us healthy. So we have kept about 85% of those habits. We feel better. Our energy is different. Our appreciation for food and the process of cooking has changed. So even though we don't do 15% of it, the 85% that we do is a hell of a lot more than we used to. So I call that a win.

Keep in mind, this is only 30 days. This is not about being "good" or "bad". This is about effort and trying to execute on that. Some days will be hard and others will be easy. But that's life, right? We pinky promise some dope things will happen when you truly put healthy habits into play for a consistent period of time. So come make fitness with us, eat your protein, don't drink the booze, and you get to stick a sweet sticker on the board. Best of luck team. You will crush it!