How are you being active this month?

Three teams have been selected by the City of Surrey to participate in the Be Active Challenge during the month of October, which is Healthy Living Month.

Each team has received a month of healthy lifestyle coaching, including healthy eating tips and eight personal training sessions.

Each team has also received a one-year free facility pass for use at all city-operated recreation centres and facilities.

The teams' progress during October will be tracked online, in video and in a weekly update in the Now newspaper. Join us every week to hear how the teams are doing.

At the end of October, each team's story will be featured on the City of Surrey website and residents will be asked to vote for their favourites. The winning team will receive a $500 active getaway to Whistler.

Read our write-ups about each team to learn what they want to achieve and how they plan to "Be Active" this month.

And residents can get their fitness on for free this month, too. The City of Surrey is offering free fitness drop-in classes throughout the month of October.

For more information, visit www.surrey.ca/beactive.

JULIA AND LORI

Wow - Week 3 already!

The house is a little messy but everyone is more active, energetic and upbeat so it's worth it! It's also nice to see our kids and husbands get more active with and without us - playing ball hockey, bike riding and quading.

Some of the activities we did this week included swimming (with five kids), walking, biking and even a Zumba class! Three days a week with our personal trainer Rose is paying off. We are sore and we're finding muscles we never knew we had but we have more energy, we can breathe easier, move faster and we're down eight pounds between us!

We are increasing our water intake, watching our eating habits and this is the first year in a long time there hasn't been an extra box of candy purchased before Halloween!

Next week, our goals are to continue working out three times, go for a 20-km bike ride and take the kids for a two-hour hike.

MALA

This week saw the transformation of motivation, to discipline. Being involved in this program has seen me become really disciplined about fitness. Nothing can deter me from being active, no matter what extraneous circumstances there are.

And, guess what? I'm actually seeing results! I've gone down one size - YEAH!

The morning walk to Holland Park has become a daily ritual which I don't forego - even when there are other fitness activities scheduled for that day. And if it's raining, I get out the umbrella! This certainly starts my day off in a great way.

I try to practise some of my yoga poses in the park with the calming sound of the beautiful fountain as a backdrop. I find that training with Dan has improved my yoga abilities too. Likewise, when I've had a yoga class and I come back to train it's easier. I'd hazard a guess the two are complementary.

NOEL, ROXANNE AND ASHANTI

This week has been a productive one - lots of biking, a couple of swim classes, our first spin class together and yoga.

Biking has been the norm for us, and we are increasing the amount of time spent swimming for our lowimpact cardio.

Our trainer, Kerry, gave us our first spin class ever, and we spun to '80s music! We were all sweating quite a bit from that class.

Roxanne was amazing as she toughed through the class. She is a cancer survivor amputee, and she does not let that slow her down.

Ashanti has tried out for basketball this week and she made the team.

As for me, I took up a little more weight lifting this week, and am feeling more balanced. We almost had a slip up this week on our food, but we staved off the temptation and had a nice healthy meal instead.

Wish us luck this week!