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Two head ‘Onward and Upward’ with getfit@mit

Walking, gardening, and core-focused yoga were some of the ingredients, but simple “stick-to-it-ive-ness” was the winning recipe for the two “Onward & Upward” prize recipients in getfit@mit 2009.

Participants SharonLeah Brown and John Davis won "Onward and Upward" prizes -- iPod Shuffles -- for their diligence and steady increase in minutes from week to week during the challenge.

John Davis, a Beverly attorney whose getfit teammate and partner works at MIT, and SharonLeah Brown, administrator and outreach coordinator in the Space Systems Laboratory, were chosen at random from getfit participants who were eligible for the “Onward & Upward” prize—meaning everyone who recorded exercise minutes during every week of the challenge and demonstrated a steady and consistent increase in exercise minutes from week to week. Each will receive an iPod shuffle.

What was his motivation for keeping up with the increasing exercise-minute goals? “Looking down at my belly, and refusing to let the body succumb to the effects of gravity,” Davis said with a laugh. He accumulated his minutes through yoga, walking, and biking, adding that the improving weather and “being in a little bit of denial in terms of my age” (he turned 59 this week) also helped. “It definitely required some mindfulness, but I made time for exercise—it’s a priority. And the whole daily minutes-logging process was very helpful.”

Exercising in manageable blocks of time was key for Brown. “If I had 40 minutes of free time, I knew I could exercise for 30 of those minutes” before washing up and getting back to work, she said. Those minutes might take place in the gym or outside taking a walk; later in the challenge, she spent longer periods of time gardening and spring cleaning, “which was great because you’re getting something else accomplished at the same time,” she said. Like many getfit participants, she also found shoveling snow was a great way to log minutes early in the challenge. “It really burns calories and eats up a great deal of time,” Brown said.

For the final two weeks of getfit, the weekly exercise goal was 300 minutes, “so towards the end it was hard, but having some accountability really works. There are other people on the team and you don’t want to let them down,” said Brown, who has participated in getfit every year it’s been held.

This was the first time in getfit for Davis, but he’s hooked. Although he didn’t keep track of his weight during the challenge, he noticed that he can now wear trousers he couldn’t fit into three months ago, and he also managed to kick “a bad hot-chocolate habit.”

“This was a really good program,” Davis said. Will he do getfit@mit 2010? “You bet!”

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