The Obesity Rebel Challenge

If you follow me on social media networks like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter you probably already know about the Obesity Rebel Challenge.

If you don’t follow me on social media, you should, follow the link I just gave you and take care of that.

But I want to take a moment out of the Sex Love and Obesity blog series to talk to you about the Obesity Rebel Challenge, why it is important to me and why I am personally asking you to step up and take some steps in the fight against obesity.

The Obesity Rebel Challenge is a fitness fits everyone event.

Anyone CAN do this challenge. There is no distance requirement, no time requirement and no pressure as to when, where or how you decide to get your Obesity Rebel steps in. All it takes to complete this challenge is you, your own two feet and the will to finish.

The only rule in the challenge is that you have to complete the distance and submit your distance by September 30th, 2018.

Because there are no distance or time requirements you can complete the challenge in any fashion you wish. You have the choice of signing up for a 5k, 10k, half marathon or 36k challenge distance.

For those that don’t know a 5k is 3.1 miles, a 10k is 6.2 miles, a half marathon is 13.1 miles, and a 36k is 22.4 miles.

There is a training plan for a 5k, a 10k and a Half Marathon included with your registration for the Obesity Rebel Challenge. Let’s say that you decide that you want to complete your first 5k or 10k as part of the Obesity Rebel Challenge. That’s awesome! What a neat thing to knock off your bucket list.

The training guides included with your registration are geared to help you meet that goal. Each one is designed for a beginning walker/runner to slowly progress you from not walking or running much at all to achieving the total distance you’ve selected by September 22, 2018. The 5k Training Plan begins on August 5th and the 10k training plan begins on July 15th.

If you decided that you wanted to take on a half marathon distance and build up to completing 13.1 miles in one day, the Half Marathon Training Plan is designed to get you there. The Half Marathon Training Plan begins on June 24th.

The Obesity Rebel Challenge allows for combined distance totals.

If you’re not an avid walker or runner, if you have a medical issue that prevents you from doing a total distance of 3.1 or more miles all at once, the Obesity Rebel Challenge is still a very doable event for you.

I have a client that has lymphedema and just recently had knee replacement surgery. To get her 3.1 miles in she is doing 10 minutes a day on a treadmill 2-3 day a week between now and September, tracking her total distance each day and building up to a 3.1-mile distance.

I have another client who has two bad knees and is bone on bone in both knees. She has a trip to Ireland coming up. She’ll be using her total distance walked each day that she is in Ireland touring the country to accumulate her miles and is hoping to achieve a half marathon total distance of 13.1 miles.

I have another client that has decided that she and her daughter are going to do her first half marathon together. She is going to be following the Half Marathon training guide to get her distance in. That training guide will be building up her distance and she’ll be using some of her training runs to get her 5k and 10k distances in and submitting those. By the time she is done, she will have accumulated the 22.4 miles for the 36k challenge total and then some.

No matter where you are in your weight loss or fitness journey, you can accomplish and complete the Obesity Rebel Challenge.

Let’s talk about WHY participating in the Obesity Rebel Challenge is important.

A “Rebel” is a person that rises against opposition. We live in a world that marginalizes people who are affected by obesity. Those that are affected by this disease are taught that they are less than worthy. They face bias and stigma in the health care they receive, in how they are treated by medical professionals, in what kinds of treatments their insurance companies will provide.

Obesity is still commonly accepted as the punchline of the joke. People affected by obesity are often ignored or even ridiculed by clothing manufacturing companies.

They are mistreated and judged in industry standards when it comes to fitness and fashion.

They are stereotyped when it comes to mental health, and emotional stability.

Because of all of this, those that are affected by obesity or have been affected by obesity often worry about what others are thinking about them in almost any environment.

Will this doctor figure out what is wrong with me or will he blame everything on my weight? Will this nail salon charge me more to sit in their pedicure chairs? Will people stare at me in this fitness facility? Will the person on this dating site look at my photo and decide not to talk to me? Will someone yell out horrible things or make animal noises at me if I walk down the street to get some exercise in?

NONE of these things SHOULD happen. NONE of these things should be things we have to be afraid of or fear. But right now, THAT is the sad truth of the world we live in. The only way we will ever change that is by fighting back. That’s what an Obesity Rebel does. They fight back. They fight obesity and they tell the world, this sort of treatment, this sort of stigmatization, this sort of bias, this sort of judgement is NOT OKAY.

The world isn’t going to change without people teaching and educating it on how it needs to change. We are stronger together. We must rise to the opposition. We must be the Rebels leading the charge. That, in my mind is why your participation in the Obesity Rebel Challenge is so important.

If you’ve ever sat there wondering what you CAN do to help make a difference and change how the world sees and treats those effected by Obesity, I have a question for you…

Why WOULDN’T you participate in this simple fitness event?

By being an Obesity Rebel you can do exactly that. You can be an individual standing up in opposition to how the world treats and sees obesity. All you have to do is click the link register and put some steps in.