By Amanda Webster

RECentral is kicking off the fall semester at CCSU by issuing a campus-wide lifestyle challenge to students and faculty.

Starting September 10, RECentral will be promoting the healthy lifestyle challenge to all of CCSU, the goal being a collective weight loss of 5,000 lbs. The challenge will end the week of November 19.

Assistant Recreation Director Liz Urcinas explained how the challenge is going to be set up.

“Each week will have a different theme,” Urcinas said. “Each week on Wednesday we’re going to have a workshop in Kaiser that runs with that theme.”

The workshops will run from 5 p to 7 pm in Kaiser and according to Urcinas, they will teach students helpful ways to enforce the theme of the week. The first week’s theme will be, “Eat a healthy breakfast.”

In order to keep track of how much weight is being lost RECentral will have an email set up for students and faculty to email in how much weight they’ve lost individually. The email does not need to include the name of the person and the weigh-ins will run on an honors system.

“We think 5,000 is definitely an attainable goal and we hope to surpass it,” said Urcinas.

Recreation Specialist Ken DeStefanis pitched the idea for a campus based challenge. DeStefanis came across the idea while talking to his daughter who works at Boston University. The city of Boston had a challenge to lose 1 million lbs. so DeStefanis said he borrowed the idea and adapted it to fit the CCSU program.

We really want to stress that it’s not about losing weight,” said DeStefanis. “The weight reduction will come by adopting a healthy lifestyle, our slogan is: it’s not what you lose, it’s what you gain.”

In order to help students maintain a healthy lifestyle RECentral offers many different fitness outlets on campus. Fitness classes such as zumba, yoga, and spinning are offered throughout the week along with the pool and the three gyms located in Beecher, Sam May, and Kaiser.

“Fortunately we’re able to have the gym open until 11 p.m. again,” said RECentral student employee Matt Harris. “We try to accommodate the students the best we can.”

Hours for the fitness centers and the schedule for fitness classes can all be found on RECentral’s website.

In addition to the fitness centers, RECentral has also requested the help of other resources on campus to aid in the healthy lifestyle challenge. Sodexo and Health Services will also be doing their part to enforce the idea of healthy living on campus. A table will be set up in front of Sodexo to remind students to make healthy choices and will coincide with the theme of the week.

“The idea is just getting people healthy in any way possible,” said Urcinas.

Prizes will be offered to the students who participate by sending in pictures of them acting out the theme of the week.

“If you take a photo of yourself eating a healthy breakfast we might contact you and say ‘Hey great participation, come down to the office and get a T-shirt,” explained Urcinas.

Students and faculty will be able to show participation by tweeting to #healthforCCSU and by posting on RECentral’s Facebook page.

“The staff is really excited to start,” said Harris about the upcoming program.