Live Healthy Iowa 10-Week Wellness Challenge begins January 26

Registration for Live Healthy Iowa's 10-Week Wellness Challenge is entering its final week, as the competition runs from January 26 through April 3 this year. Iowans have the opportunity to join the challenge and commit to a healthier lifestyle in 2015, and local participants have an opportunity to maintain the leading role that Allamakee County has taken in its participation in the Community Cup Wellness Challenge since its inception four years ago.
For each of the past three years since the Community Cup Wellness Challenge became part of the Live Healthy Iowa program, Allamakee County has topped the field of entrants in percentage of population participating and completing the Wellness Challenge. The code for participants in Allamakee County to register under to become part of that Allamakee County effort once again this year is LHIALLCO.
Over the course of 10 weeks, teams of two to 10 people track activity minutes and/or weight loss through the Live Healthy Iowa website. Each team member has a personal online dashboard to report progress, monitor progress and access resources.
The challenge kicks off January 26 and encourages Iowans to team up with two to 10 friends, family members or co-workers, commit to making healthy lifestyle choices, support each other and track their progress. For the registration fee of $20, each participant will receive an official 10-Week Wellness Challenge T-shirt, a one-year subscription to a magazine of choice, participation specials in Live Healthy Iowa and Iowa Games events, and chances to win a four-night tropical cruise and other team and individual prizes!
Challenge participants will also have unlimited access to an abundance of wellness resources on Live Healthy Iowa's website, such as healthy recipes, workouts and a personal tracking page where they can track their progress, message teammates, set goals and much more.
There are two ways to register teams for a Live Healthy Iowa Challenge:
1. Multiple teams from a worksite or organization. Live Healthy Iowa’s wellness challenges can be easily administered in worksites or organizations registering multiple teams for participation. Each team captain within the worksite or organization will use the Group ID during registration to link their individual teams together. Worksites or organizations who choose to use a Group ID will have the opportunity to monitor participation and track progress of their participants, as well as communicate through the internal message system.
2. Single teams of friends or family members. Live Healthy Iowa challenges are perfect for a group of friends, husband-wife teams or even co-workers. The fun, friendly competition provides a great opportunity to motivate and support each other in making healthy choices a priority.
Teams may register in the Minutes of Activity Division, the Weight Loss Division or both. In either case, individuals track and record minutes of activity and weight loss which is used to calculate your team's percentage weight loss and total activity minutes. Friendly competition among teams is encouraged.
Minutes of Physical Activity Division - Each team member reports the number of minutes they are physically active. Activity minutes recorded should be a result of intentional physical activity, rather than just daily activity. For example, walking to the elevator does not count but intentionally taking the stairs instead of the elevator does count. The goal of the challenge is to increase the time you spend being physically active each day.
Weight Loss Division - Teams are assessed based on the combined weight of all members. Individuals can report their weight online or have their captain submit it for them. Team totals are viewed as percentage lost or gained. Individual weights are only viewable by that individual.

Live Healthy Iowa, formerly Lighten Up Iowa, was created in 2001 by the Iowa Sports Foundation as a strategic health initiative to address the state's growing obesity problem. Live Healthy Iowa brings together friends, families, businesses and communities in team-based wellness challenges designed to promote positive lifestyle change. To learn more, visit www.livehealthyiowa.org, call 888-777-8881 or e-mail info@livehealthyiowa.org.