🧮 Countdown & Pre-Challenge Activity #1: CHALLENGE INFORMATION and YOUR INPUT & PARTICIPATION! 🧮
On behalf of the overall leadership team (Barb @ladyluk1 ~ Ceri @Ceriusly1 ~ Diane @Dianedoessmiles1 , and Heidi @hicim705 ) as well as the leaders of our eight individual challenge teams (Fit Force ~ Mission Slimpossible ~ Positively Strong 4 Life ~ Rain Dancers ~ Red Hots ~ Shape Shifters ~ Tenacious GR8TERS ~ Thinner Winners) …
👋WELCOME👋 to our 🆕newest🆕 5% Challengers and WELCOME BACK our returning 👫friends👫!
This marks our third (out of four) Seasonal Challenge of 2025. Please join us in celebrating our 5% Seasonal Challenges … Cheers to 15 more Happy & Healthy Years!!
We hope that you take some time to read about and take part in the pre-Challenge activities, as they are designed to help you prepare for success!!
The Summer signals longer days and schedules that seem a little less rigid. For many of us, the Summer Solstice arrives signaling the longest day of our calendar year. In the Northern Hemisphere, it arrives on Friday, June 20, 2025 at 10:41pm. I hate to say it folks, after that day, our daylight hours shrink by a small amount of time per day as we march toward our next Season. For now, however, let's concentrate on: ‘Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer’.
I found a list of things to do during the summer months ~ I’m sure that many of us have quite a few of them on our ‘must do’ list for the summer of 2025 as well … how many are on YOUR summer checklist?
The beginning of a new season (or new year, month, or week) is the perfect time to make some new resolutions (either 📢loud and proud📢 or 🔕🔇silently, as a promise to yourself🔇🔕). Whatever you choose to do ~, please remember that you are doing this for YOU, your health, and your well-being. Jump in and join us to be the BEST YOU that you can be and make that wonderful commitment to YOU!
For the several hundred of us who join the Seasonal 5% Challenges from one season to the next, we come here because we are looking to make a change or to stay on course. We are seeking support, cultivating our long-time friendships, and looking forward to connecting with new members. We also look for structure and continuity. Most of our 5% Challengers followed us from SparkPeople after they closed in the summer of 2021. Many of those Challengers have been with us for 15 YEARS!! Our sense of community and support helps us to welcome new friends and Challengers from the MFP site who are now regulars to our seasonal Exercise and Healthy Habits Challenges. Our longevity is a testament to our commitment to ourselves and to one another.
In doing research to write our Pre-Challenge activities, I once again turn to an older article was found on the internet that discussed Team Challenges, and our own 5% Seasonal Challenge was highlighted (It is the 2nd item). Lynn, @kaliswalker (one of the original founders of the 5% Challenge) was interviewed ~ the link to the article is below. Please read it as the writing discusses the importance teams and support. The 5% Challenge model provides such support and camaraderie. The article was written in 2016: https://www.sparkpeople.com/blog/blog.asp?post=memberrun_challenges_can_help_you_find_success
(As of this writing in June, 2025, this article still shows up, and it is still worth the read.)
Our story continues to grow: When SparkPeople closed, we, the current Overall Leadership Team, realized that without SparkPeople and its team spirit, we (and hundreds of our 5% Challenge friends) would be lost and struggling. We sprang into action and searched for an alternate site where we could continue our journey and continue to write our story. Although many sites were considered, MyFitnessPal was ultimately chosen as our 'new home' with the start of the 2021 Autumn/Fall 5% Challenge. Bringing the 5% Challenge to MFP was a true labor of love, and, with full disclosure, it was not smooth sailing as we had hoped, but the Overall Challenge Leader Team put their heads down and worked hard to MAKE IT WORK! At this point, our Challenges are enjoyable and are doing what they were intended to do ~ to provide a space where you can practice healthy habits and where you can chat with other like-minded MFP members, and where you are encouraged to meet a new friend or two! We continue to have faithful 5% Challenge ‘followers’ from SparkPeople and are fortunate to have been able to spread our message to MPF and its members and welcome them into our 5% Challenge Community!
2024 presented its own set of Challenges. Due to circumstances beyond our control, we decided to change the 8-week format to a 10-week format. After a few rounds, however, we decided to settle back into our tried & true 8-week Challenge format. 2024 also reminded the Overall Leadership Team that we are mighty despite having been presented with our own share of real-life obstacles. As a result, we were not the mighty fabulous five that we had once been and struggled to find time for ourselves, never mind the demands of our volunteer time here running the Challenges. We quickly developed strategies to work together to continue to forge ahead. We collaborated with one another by sharing thoughts and ideas to stay on track and we revamped our 5% Challenge ‘travel/LTGL’ format into a more exercise-based and healthy habit (HH) focused format. Switching to this new format gave the Overall Leaders a chance to flex their creative muscles. We are proud that we were able to keep the Challenges going and even more proud that, in the end, 2024 was still a successful year!
In 2025, we are celebrating 15 years of 5% Challenges and we continue to grow and thrive. We are listening to our 5% Challenge community members are embracing their ideas; attempting to incorporate some of them into our current model to keep our Challenge(s) fresh and engaging.
🗬🤔 Now that you have been provided with a bit of a background of the 5% Challenge, please think about what YOU need and how YOU are going to be approaching the 2025 Summer 5% Challenge. Will you continue to practice healthy habits that you have already learned and are working for you? Are you looking to begin something entirely new? Are you still trying to identify where you are right now and what you would like to get out of the next 8 weeks? There are no right or wrong answers here as everyone’s healthy lifestyle goals/journeys are unique - like we all are. 🤔🗭
😊Your FIRST Countdown Activity for this Challenge will be for YOU to decide where YOU would like to go on YOUR Seasonal 5% Journey (as an added bonus, how would YOU would like to begin to write YOUR HEALTHY LIFESTYLE STORY?). Everyone's reason for joining this Challenge is different. We would like you to dig down deep to share what your motivation is for coming here. We would like you to share what brings you here and, even more importantly, what keeps you coming back! Perhaps there are things that you would like to get out of your personal 5% journey that we haven't discussed and/or researched. Why don't you write down some of YOUR ideas ~ we might even be able to incorporate some of those things in this or future Challenges!😊
✍️Feel free to add your comments to this thread outlining your exercise and healthy habits plan for a successful 2025 Summer 5% Challenge (if you blog, please consider writing about this topic. You may add the link to your blog here or you may simply wish to copy/paste your writing here - or do both!), but please consider sharing!!
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NOTE:
The 5% Seasonal Challenge Teams are very active.
You will be expected to participate to the best of your ability.
ALL challenge weeks run from Saturday through Friday - you will be expected to record your exercise and ‘Healthy Habits’ (HH) points based on weekly Challenge themes. You are expected to record these points daily or at least as often as you can during the week but no later than 11:59 pm each Saturday (your local time). In addition, you are expected to weigh in one time per week and report your results by 11:59 pm every Saturday (your local time). Your individual team leaders and/or teammates will help to answer any and all questions about where to record your points.
🔮 Our 2025 Summer 5% Challenge Teams are currently being set up! 🔮
✉️You will be invited to your individual team soon, giving you enough time to get to know your team leaders and teammates. Until then, get to know some of the Challengers in the 5% Challenge Community who will be participating right along with you.
📢Announcements will be made when invitations to your individual teams are sent. Please visit this team, the 2025 SUMMER 5% COMMUNITY TEAM, often, as this will be the best source for up-to-date information.
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Registered dietician referred us here earlier this year for logging. Switching over to a food exchange DASH program now instead. Appreciate the daily active group here.
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@yakkystuff Dash is highly promoted by Penn State. When I retired they were using it in their diabetes programming.
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Thx @Ceriusly1 - heart health/cholesterol, blood pressure, so many things - almost sounds too good to be true.
First we focused on how much (cico) and our preferences - now, wants us to focus on food choices (mediteranean bent), mostly whole/unprocessed foods, freggies, healthy fats, certain proteins and sodium. It's a bit overwhelming, so, am glad to hear there's mainstream people pushing it.
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My 5% Journey Destination:
I want to arrive at a place of joyful discipline, where my daily choices consistently align with the vision I have for my health, energy, and longevity. I’m not chasing perfection—I'm pursuing wholeness. I imagine crossing that 5% finish line stronger in body, steadier in mind, and sweeter in spirit.How I’d like to begin writing my Healthy Lifestyle Story:
With intention, grace, and consistency. I want this chapter to read like a redemption story—where I stop negotiating with excuses and start honoring the body God gave me. A story where I nourish myself well, move more freely, and speak kindly to the person in the mirror.My Motivation for Joining:
I’m here to reclaim my vitality and deepen my self-respect. I'm doing this for the version of me who wants to hike without fatigue, dance with joy, travel with ease, and serve others from a place of overflow—not burnout.What Keeps Me Coming Back:
This community. The steady encouragement, the wisdom shared, the grace-filled reminders that one choice doesn't define the journey. And the wins—big and small—that remind me change is happening.Ideas I’d Love to Explore in Future Challenges:
- A “Grace Day” where we reflect on progress rather than perfection
- A “Movement & Meditation” week: short workouts paired with 5-minute mindfulness/devotional moments
- Recipes or hacks for people who are busy but still want to eat whole, real food without overcomplicating it
- A "Mindset Reset" day to challenge limiting beliefs we carry about our health journey
This journey is deeply personal, but it’s also communal. I’m excited for this season—and for all the ways we’ll rise together.
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