Tanner News

For those who worked hard to drop a few pounds for the summer season, Get Healthy West Georgia is offering a fitness and nutrition challenge to help residents in Carroll, Haralson and Heard counties keep up the good work through early autumn.

Through July 28, Get Healthy West Georgia is holding free registration and initial weigh-ins for the second round of the initiative’s “Maintain, Don’t Gain” challenge. The challenge allows individuals to compete to lose weight, maintain their weight, get more exercise and make lasting, positive changes in their nutrition and fitness levels.

To participate, residents must register at www.GetHealthyWestGeorgia.org and attend an official weigh-in to have their height and weight measured by a Get Healthy West Georgia staff member. Participants will be encouraged to log into www.GetHealthyWestGeorgia.org weekly to log their weight. Points can be earned for regularly recording participants’ weight, as well as for losing or maintaining weight from week to week. Blogging on Get Healthy West Georgia’s Web site, reading fitness and nutrition articles and completing various challenges also enable participants to earn points. Participants can earn additional points for losing weight during the 12-week challenge.

“For a lot of us, the idea of slimming down for summer is plenty of incentive to lose weight,” said Millie Davis, a coordinator with Get Healthy West Georgia. “With this ‘Maintain, Don’t Gain’ challenge, we’re hoping to provide some extra encouragement to help people keep up their weight loss and fitness efforts into the fall. The health advantages to losing even a little weight are tremendous—aside from helping you fit into a bathing suit.”

Participants in the challenge will be eligible to win a Fitbit digital fitness tracker—a device that can be worn to help monitor your daily activity levels and syncs wirelessly to Apple and personal computers, as well as the exercise tracking feature at www.GetHealthyWestGeorgia.org. The Fitbit will be awarded through a random drawing of all individuals who maintained their weight—or lost weight—from the first official weigh-in to the final official weigh-in during October.

With the official weigh-ins for the upcoming “Maintain, Don’t Gain” challenge on July 22 to July 28, Get Healthy West Georgia also is wrapping up its first “Maintain, Don’t Gain” challenge of the year. More than 200 residents participated in that challenge. The weigh-ins to conclude the first challenge and begin the second will be held concurrently. Participants in the ongoing challenge also are encouraged to sign up for the upcoming “Maintain, Don’t Gain” challenge to keep up with the progress they’ve made losing weight and improving their health.

For more information on Get Healthy West Georgia and the “Maintain, Don’t Gain” challenge, visit www.GetHealthyWestGeorgia.org or call 770.836.9761.

2013 Maintain, Don’t Gain Final/Initial Weigh-in Schedule