30-Day Health & Fitness Challenge! (More steps, fruits/veggies & water)

I kicked off July with a health & fitness challenge to start off the month. While it kicked my butt some days, overall it was an awesome experience in making me feel healthier, more energized, and boosting my confidence! I wanted to start off August strong with a new & improved 30-day health & fitness challenge for y’all. 🙂

The 30-Day Health & Fitness Challenge

The part of my July challenge that I kicked ass in was the daily walking. I made a goal to walk 2 miles a day and ended up walking 3+ most days! So I was proud of myself for that. 🙂

I also did really well with drinking enough water (most days). I have to stick to that one pretty seriously because living in Florida (and being hot 24/7) shoots my hydration needs through the roof. So I’ll continue to throw that goal on the monthly challenges since hydration is incredibly important for everyone.

Related: Check out our post on 7 reasons you should be drinking more water & the benefits of hydration!

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How Did the July Health & Fitness Challenge Go?

As far as how the rest of the challenge went, it didn’t go so great… I had planned to work out 2-3 times per week, but at the beginning of July our apartment gym closed down again.

I tried to stick with the goal by doing home workouts but had a hard time staying motivated to do those. Now I’m not trying to make excuses, home workouts are great at times, but it just didn’t work well for me this month. Naturally, I have a lot more motivation to work out at the gym, so this was a bit of a struggle.

Another goal in the July challenge was to eat 5 servings of fruit/veg a day. While in the first week or two of the challenge, I was doing this pretty much every day… It went downhill a bit after that.

My birthday was July 21 and we were eating a lot of sweets for that. Jeremy & I got bundt cakes, and they brought me MORE cake and lunch at work. 😋While this is in no way a good excuse for not fitting in enough fruit & veg, I just ended up choosing sweets over more nutritious choices for a lot of my snacks.

*I want to mention that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with eating sweets and I don’t feel bad about it. The point of the fruit/veg section of my goals was to eat MORE fruits and veggies, not to cut back on anything else (including sweets & junk food). I just mention this to try to explain why I was not meeting my goal for 5+ servings of fruits & veggies a day!*

So when it comes to the August challenge, I want to make sure I’m setting attainable goals, that still challenge me.

That being said, let’s get into the new & improved 30-Day health & fitness challenge!

August 30-Day Health & Fitness Challenge

To kick off the challenge, I want to start off with bumping up my walking goal from last month. I just got an Apple Watch (which is one of the best purchases I’ve made in a while), so I’ve been tracking my miles & steps every day!

I use my Apple Watch to set daily goals for steps/miles, movement/calories burned, time standing, and exercise. It allows me to track every exercise I partake in, even walking! This has been a huge motivator for me to get my steps in every day because I want to see that green exercise ring fill up. 😉

You can get an Apple Watch on Amazon (right now on sale for $160!). Or if you aren’t an Apple gal, they have options for Androids and other phones (Fitbit Versa), which Mary goes into more detail on in this post (#9)!

I would highly recommend either of these watches if you’re interested in improving your health & fitness. What I love the most is seeing how many steps/miles I’ve gotten in daily. This keeps me in check to make sure I’m completing my daily walking goals. 😊

It’s also great for tracking exercises like HIIT workouts, yoga, strength training, cycling, and much more. I feel like I’m failing myself now if I don’t fill up all 3 of my rings: movement, exercise, and standing. So it really holds me accountable!

So anyway, back to the challenge! My walking goal for August is to walk 3+ miles a day. I’ve been doing this most days anyway, but definitely not every day. Now that I have my handy watch to track my miles, it will be a no brainer that I’m going to complete this goal!

Fitness Goals

Besides the above-mentioned goal of walking more, I want to try to fit more workouts in as well. I majorly slacked on that part of the challenge in July, so I want to do better this month.

I’m going to shoot to fit in at least 2 workouts a week. While this doesn’t seem like a huge goal to achieve, it’s much better than what I’ve been doing for the past few months.

At the beginning of quarantine/Covid-19 life, I was sticking with my workout grind and getting in 2-3 at-home workouts weekly. After the first month or so, that decreased a lot. (You can read all about my fitness rut throughout quarantine here.)

So, for the August challenge, I want to slowly but surely start getting back into a regular workout routine! It’s not always easy since I have a really busy schedule right now, but I am making the commitment to getting it done this month.

Related: How to Actually Start Working Out When You’re Crazy Busy!

I also plan to stretch for 10 minutes daily. I’m a major slacker when it comes to stretching, but I always feel 100x better after I do it! So I want to set aside 10 minutes every day in August to get a lil stretch sesh in.

Health & Nutrition Goals

Now, on to the fun part: FOOD! Since I didn’t quite hit my goal in July of eating 5+ servings of fruits/veggies a day, I want to shoot for a slightly lower goal this month, to make sure I can hit it every day.

For August, I’m going to shoot for 3-5 servings of fruits & veggies a day. On days when I have smoothies and/or salads, this is normally pretty easy to accomplish. So I’m going to aim to eat at least one of those options every day!

We have been going to the farmer’s market every weekend this summer, so we’re always stocked up on fresh fruits & vegetables. The problem I’ve run into is actually eating them when they get ripe. I lose track of which fruits/veggies are going to be ripe, when, so they end up going bad often before I remember they’re there… SMH.

To solve this problem, I’m going to find a recipe or two at the beginning of each week that will incorporate the fruit/veg I buy. So I will have that in the back of my mind that I want to make a certain recipe and know that I have to keep checking up on my fruit/veg’s ripeness status.

Another goal that I mentioned earlier was wanting to continue my water intake goal. In general, you should aim to drink between 0.5 oz and 1 oz of water, per pound of bodyweight, per day. So if you weigh 140 lbs, you should drink between 70 oz and 140 oz of water.

This is going to be my goal for hydration in August (generally on the upper side of that range). I’ll use my Hydrojug most days to make sure I’m getting enough water! (Use code: MERRILL for 10% off).

30-Day Health & Fitness Challenge Calendar/Check List

If you want to do the August challenge with me, I’ve created another calendar & checklist to print off & fill out! I’ll be using this calendar to keep track of which goals I’m accomplishing every day/week.

You can either print out the calendar and check off the goals you complete (I’d recommend doing this). Or you can just download it and check off/strike through daily goals on the computer.

Up to you, I just prefer checking things off with a pen! It gives me more of a sense of accomplishment that way. I may be a little Type-A. 😜

Here’s a link to the August 30-day health & fitness challenge that you can download and print!

PS: There is a key on the print out version, so you can keep track of what all the checklist items are!

In Conclusion

So this month I’m shooting for goals that are a little more do-able than last month while increasing my walking goal! I’ve been really loving walking every day and think that’s the best possible thing I can do right now for my health. This is just my preference and not everyone needs to do this challenge exactly how I am!

If you have tweaks you want to make to the challenge, let me know in the comments! I would love to hear everyone’s individual goals for August.

If you’re going to do the 30-day challenge with me, please reach out and let me know! We can be in it together. :)) You can always reach me in the comments of any post, through email, or on Instagram.

Comment below with:

1. Are you going to do the 30-day health & fitness challenge with me this month?!

2. What is your biggest goal for the rest of the summer?

3. Have you done anything fun, new, or exciting this summer? (I know it’s been quarantine and shut downs, so if your fun/new stuff is just a new show on Netflix, I’d still love to hear it!)