It’s HERE! Yes- I’m back with the 5th annual “Living + Active” Challenge! 5 years! Every time I think that one through it blows my mind. I had no intention of this being an annual thing when I first started so the fact that we’re sitting here 5 years later is amazing! Last year we had almost 900 of you start off the challenge and ended with over 300 of you going strong by week 5! (Can we increase the amount of finishers this year? I think we can!) And just as each year grows in what we do, I’ve got some new adds for us.
But first, a little history. Knowing that I wanted to do a challenge for you, yet being conflicted on how I would do it, one day in church God gave me my answer! We were reading in Hebrews and came upon 4:12.
“For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
It hit me square between the eyes and gave me the inspiration to start this challenge: “Living and Active”. My goal and passion is to get you into God’s Word which holds the keys to getting us Living and Active!
First off, I’d love to share with you some feedback from last year’s challenge!
“Disciplining myself to do just one thing faithfully has had a big impact in other areas. God is giving me strength, peace, and rest through this challenge! Thank you, Clare!!”
“It was really tough this past week. Satan tried to draw me away, but as always, our Jesus wins!!! I feel better spiritually than I have in a few years just by digging deeper into His word. Physically, I’m not as sluggish, and have lost a few inches. “
“This challenge came at a very busy time in my life, where it would have been easy to say “No time for that”, but because of the challenge I MADE the time for the exercise and the scripture, which I needed to do! I found that the scripture fit perfectly into my daily needs, it seemed, during the weeks I was working on them. Crazy how God works like that! And this last week…”And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do NOT GIVE UP!” Galatians 6:9……Perfectly timed for this last week – I DIDN’T GIVE UP! Thank you, Clare!”
“This was the first time in this challenge and getting 2 scripture verses made me feel like the bible was attainable and not overwhelming. I love my time in the bible now!!”
“Through this challenge and other ways God chose to move during these fie weeks, my perspective has been realigned. I have never been able to look at health as anything other than my selfish desire to look good and be well. During this challenge I have better in every way.God has shown me that I was using things like sugar and wine as comfort in times of distress. During the final week I decided to fast completely from these foods and activities (social media being one of them) that I had bene giving too much attention and time in my life. The rewards have been wonderful. God is truly good.”
And the testimonies go on and on! I actually am sitting here re-reading last year’s feedback with tears in my eyes. Lord help me if I ever lead you to a physically fit body, yet starve your spiritual one. I love seeing your love for the Lord renewed and knowing that God will and can use your physical body is why I keep on keeping on with my message! Thank you, Lord!
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There will be many things similar to last year’s challenge (same verses and key points), but some new additions to it. Remember, those of you who check-in with me every week (on this blog!) and meet both requirements will be eligible for one of the GRAND PRIZE PACKAGES! (and let me tell you–they are some awesome packages!)
Here are the challenge basics:
Physical:
Many of you are already in an awesome routine with your workouts, so I want you to keep that up. But for those of you who need a little guidance, I’m here to help! I will provide a set of workouts you can do from your home (or take to the gym!) All you need are one or two sets of weights, an exercise band (similar to this), and a big exercise ball. These are great basics to build your home gym. They are also fairly cheap!
CHALLENGE GOAL: Exercise (with your routine or mine) 4 days a week for the 5 weeks we are in it. (25 minutes is minimum time)
Spiritual:
My faith lays the groundwork for everything I do and the upkeep of my body and health is included in that! So I want to take us through some key principles to get us “living and active” in both our physical and spiritual lives. I’ll provide a small devotional and insight to each principle along with a challenge for us to consider each week. Scripture memorization is also a great discipline, so we will be adding that on too! (I call that our “Soul Food”) *If you have been doing this challenge for a while, I have a “new twist”, below!
CHALLENGE GOAL: Memorize the new weekly verse/Soul Food (as well as maintaining prior weeks) and do the key challenge.
Accountability:
This all is great, but if we don’t have accountability, then chances are we won’t stick with it. I have a few ways this is going to happen:
– Facebook: Periodically through the week, I will check in with you who are a part of this. This is your chance to check in, ask questions, claim victories, express frustrations etc. so make sure you “like” me on Facebook! I’m also going to get on the FB live video bandwagon! I’ve been slow to it, but last year I had periscope and that’s kind of faded, so back to FB we go! I also encourage you to create your own facebook accountability groups. (For those of you who don’t have FB, I’ll try and get the video up on a blog post if I can)
– Twitter: I’ll be doing the same thing on twitter with hashtag #livingandactive. Follow me there
– Instagram: I know there’s a lot of you out there! I post a lot of pictures of my food during the week on there and will continue to do so. I would love for you to join me–it’s great accountability! Make sure to tag #livingandactive and #claresmith
– Snapchat: This is more of a “fun” app! You might think it’s for the young kids (probably) but it has been a unique way to connect with those of you who might have an account and want to see a peek into my personal life! Find me under: claresmithlive
-Blog: Weekly, you’ll come here and get the new info as well as check-in. I’m hoping to expound a little on the new scripture which leads me to….
The NEW layer to the challenge!
This is year 5 and some of you have done this challenge multiple times! In year 3, I added some new verses to memorize but it’s time to add a little more! After reading through your feedback and praying over it, I am adding 2 new things for those of you who want to choose it!
– MEMORIZE one FULL chapter of scripture! So if you’ve already memorized all the given verses in the past, here is your chance to take it up a notch! I have a scripture passage in mind that we are going to memorize and let me tell you, it’s lofty for 5 weeks! However, I keep praying over it and it’s the passage I really feel the Lord leading me to. There are more than 5 verses to it which means that we’ll be memorizing more than 1 verse a week.
– Food Challenge: This is perhaps the one area that everyone asks me to add onto the challenge. I’ve gone back and forth with this every year because I want to keep it simple and work on the 2 disciplines of exercise and scripture memory, however, I hear you and want to offer a food aspect to the challenge. Each week, I’ll provide something for you to add or remove in regards to eating. The goal is to progressively add on as the 5 weeks go on. So what I tell you to do for week 1, you’ll also do for week 2 and so forth! This will NOT be part of the weekly check-ins because the area of food can be really hard and I don’t want you to drop the rest of the challenge because you weren’t able to keep up with this part.
This is a TOTALLY FREE challenge! I will have all the basic info you need to do it as we’ve done for the past 3 years, next week, but, for those of you who want to take it up a notch, you can grab my “training guide.” IMPORTANT: This guide is NOT MANDATORY to do this challenge!
Everything that you’ve received from the challenge over the past 5 years will stay the same (free scriptures, devotionals, suggested workouts) but this will be an enhancement and a spot where everything is in one place for you! Note: The “added layer” of the scripture passage and food challenge is NOT in this. The format is the exact same as last year!
Included in this 44 page training guide is:
- weekly scripture memory
- weekly devotional
- weekly journal/non-scale victory spot
- weekly tip (a recipe, playlist, or tip!)
- 2 BONUS workouts
- weekly calendar check-off to keep progress of your workouts and scripture
Full disclosure: The scriptures and devotionals are part of the FREE material you can get on here, but the beauty is that it’s all in one spot which is kind of nice so you don’t have a lot of papers all over the place!
You can purchase this training guide on AMAZON for $11.99! Give yourself enough time to order it so you can get it and start the challenge on Monday, October 3rd! The other cool thing about this guide is that it will ALWAYS be for sale which means you can do this 5-week challenge on your own or with a small group of ladies anytime throughout the year! Click here to purchase!
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We officially start Monday, October 3rd which means you have some time to prep! , but you have some things to do now!
1.) Order the book! OK–you don’t HAVE to because as I mentioned above, most of the material will be online but I think you’ll love it! (Free material goes up next week!)
2.) Grab a friend, sister, daughter, roommate…whoever…and ask them to join us! (HINT: Headstart to Key Principle #1!)
3.) Take your before picture(s)
4.) Get an idea of which 4 days a week you’ll work out. (I’ll provide a calendar next week)
5.) Pray through your commitment! I want you to really be successful over these 5 weeks. If this is a bad season in life for you, then maybe this isn’t the time to join as it would leave you more discouraged than encouraged. But if you need a kick in the rear, get focused, dust off those weights or gym membership card and let’s get going!
So, are you with me? If you are already receiving my email posts in your inbox, you don’t have to do anything, but for those of you who don’t, make sure to sign up here so that you don’t miss a thing!
I’ll be back in a few days with some more info and updates! I’m so excited! Leave any questions you may have, below!