The Community Fitness Challenge Kicks Off in San Angelo

The TLCA gymnasium was full of people of every single age group on Friday evening as San Angelo kicked off the "It’s Time Texas Community Challenge." The statewide competition is a way for “Texas communities to compete and see which communities can demonstrate the greatest commitment to healthy living,” according to the website.

“Tonight is a kickoff event just to get everyone excited about the community challenge that started January 1,” said Stephanie Reisner, who was in charge of the event. “All of the communities in the different categories log onto a website, ittcommunitychallenge.com. You go to that website, register, and log health activities, or you can upload pictures of yourself going to the gym and working out. You get points every time you log activities and every time you upload a healthy selfie.”

At Friday night’s event, the attendees were shown different activities they can do to help earn those healthy points, and popular classes such as Zumba and P90X were demonstrated.

Camille Martinez, a YMCA fitness instructor, came to the kickoff event to demo P90X. Although this will be the first time she has participated in the community challenge, she is very excited about it.

“I am always trying to learn as much as I can about the fitness industry because it is what I do," Martinez said. "I am just always striving to be better, stronger, push harder, and learn more so I can teach people more. I think stuff like this is amazing. Anything that brings the community together and promotes health and fitness is just awesome.”

As a way to help get the community more involved in the fitness challenge, Martinez noted that she will be teaching P90X classes at the YMCA every Monday through the month of February at 6 p.m. More information on this can be found at www.ymcasanangelo.org or www.balancedmamafitness.com.

Currently, San Angelo, has 28,150 points, 12 organizations and businesses involved, 4,354 individuals, and 17 pounds lost. For the challenge only starting a week ago, Reisner stated that those are wonderful numbers.

“It’s not about whether you do or don’t lose weight, although that’s a benefit for some people,” she added. “It’s about trying to make healthier choices and coming together as a community to do it; getting the community activated, not just individuals.”

The Community Challenge will run through March 31 and Reisner encourages everyone in the community to register on the website. It is free to sign up at www.ittcommunitychallenge.com.