Move60 Challenge: Team Anthros Gets Moving!
The Anthros team is greeting spring with a wellness challenge! For the second year in a row, we’re participating in Healthy Central Florida’s Move60 challenge along with over 1,400 participants in our community. We’re challenging ourselves to be more active, whether that is running, biking, walking, swimming, or yoga—whatever gets us moving! Over 60 days, March 1st through April 30th, we’re tracking our steps and fitness activities.
We’re also using Move60 as an opportunity to talk about our overall wellness, both mind and body, and explore ways to promote health and wellness in the workplace. Each week on “Wellness Wednesday” we’ll tackle a different wellness-related topic. And, because we like a little friendly competition to get us motivated, we’ve split up into two teams and are having an internal competition as well. Meet our teams:
Team Mission Slimpossible: Ed, Bailey, Carleen, Tiffany and Erin
Team Die Lard: Helen, Anurag, Jamie, Lisa and Dyannah
Follow along with us as we share highlights from our health and fitness challenge and journey over the next few weeks!
Week One
For our first Wellness Wednesday we hosted Holistic Health Coach Shanna Windle, who led an interactive workshop about taking an integrated approach to health and the primary “foods” needed to create a nourishing life.
We also have some exciting fitness highlights from this week! Congratulations to Brand Manager Dyannah, who ran a half marathon PR (personal record) in Best Damn Race Orlando. And our Office Manager, Bailey, wins this week for most interesting exercise activity: baby goat yoga! Because, as far as we can tell, everything is better with baby goats.
Week Two
In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, our wellness focus this week was all about GREEN! Green eating, that is. Each of our two teams drew a healthy green ingredient—Team Die Lard drew asparagus, while Team Mission Slimpossible drew kale—and went head to head in a salad cook-off featuring their selected ingredient. Our judging panel was presented with an Emerald Kale Salad created by Team Mission Slimpossible and a Salmon, Asparagus & Lemon Vinaigrette Salad from Team Die Lard. Both were delicious but the Emerald Kale Salad was voted the winner. Congratulations!
Along with healthy eating, we’re also getting in our steps and exercise while we participate in Healthy Central Florida’s Move60 Challenge. Our team walked down to visit the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival, one of Winter Park’s premier arts event of the year and just a few blocks away from the Anthros office. With this beautiful sunny weather, it’s hard not to get outside and get moving.
This week’s team member spotlight is on Jamie, who spent the week in Alaska visiting friends stationed at the Air Force Base. Even though it was the end of winter with lots of snow and ice, Alaska never stops exploring, and many of the state and national parks remain open for hiking, skiing, sledding, etc. Flattop Mountain in Chugach State Park just outside of Anchorage had beautiful trails that overlooked the city below. With all of the hiking and exploring Jamie did during her trip, she was the Anthros leader for most steps taken last week.
Weeks Three & Four
The Anthros team had an impressive finish to the first month of our 60-day fitness challenge! Over the past 30 days we’ve logged running, yoga, paddle boarding, hiking, roller-skating, kayaking, cross fit, barre, snowshoeing, and tennis. We’ve kept up with our fitness challenge here in Florida and even on vacations to Alaska and Mexico!
With the challenge halfway over, it’s Team Die Lard—Helen, Anurag, Jamie, Lisa and Dyannah, shown here on the right—that’s currently leading our internal team challenge. But with an entire month still to go, there’s plenty of time for Team Mission Slimpossible to come from behind and claim victory!
Meanwhile, we continued our exploration of wellness topics with “Wellness Wednesday” sessions focused on gratitude and meditation. Holistic Health Coach Shanna Windle guided us through a mindfulness meditation and discussed the positive effects meditation can have upon our brains and bodies. We also created an Anthros Gratitude garden, which was a unique, creative way to identify the things we are thankful for in our lives and express our gratitude visually.
And then some of us (Anurag) were worn out from too much exercise while traveling, and needed a lift.
Weeks Five & Six
Meet Anthros team member Erin, who is a new mother to twins! In December she and her husband Vince welcomed Sasha and Mason, and she has been motivated by the Move60 challenge to begin the process of getting back into shape. With her commitment to fitness, including hot yoga and barre classes, and of course long walks with Sasha and Mason, she has been an inspiration to our entire team!
To complement our fitness challenge, we tackled an important nutrition topic: sugar. Did you know the USDA recommends we get no more than 10 teaspoons of sugar per day, yet most Americans eat about 30 teaspoons per day. In fact, the average American consumes more than 100 pounds of sugar and sweeteners each year. Compare that to the 8 pounds of broccoli we average per year.
To discuss sugar’s impact upon our bodies and brainstorm healthy substitutes, we welcomed back Holistic Health Coach, Shanna Cockman Windle of Shine Wellness. Our Wellness Wednesday session included a tasting of healthy snacks to reach for at work when we start craving something sweet. We sampled: raspberries, hummus, carrots, blue corn & quinoa chips, dark chocolate Kind bars, celery and peanut butter, and cranberry-nut trail mix.
Another Wellness Wednesday topic: ergonomics. Dr. Christina Cuellar of Revival Chiropractic joined us to discuss how our spine is connected to the rest of our bodies. She reviewed the best seating position for those of us who spend our workday primarily at our desks: feet flat on floor, back supported, computer directly in front of us. Much thank to Dr. Cuellar for sharing her knowledge and insight with our team.
