Welcome to the Hive!

Before changing daily food choices or activity routines in the Healthy Hive challenge, you must measure where your body stands right now. A baseline gives you a starting point to track actual physical changes over the next eight weeks and beyond. Gathering these measurements helps identify hidden health risks early, particularly for prediabetes and type 2 diabetes.

Hemoglobin A1C is a simple blood test that measures your average blood sugar levels over the past two to three months. When sugar enters your bloodstream, it attaches to hemoglobin, a protein inside your red blood cells. Higher sugar levels in your blood mean more sugar attached to hemoglobin. Because red blood cells live for about 120 days, the A1C test gives an accurate picture of your overall blood sugar control over time rather than a single moment.

CLICK HERE for a quick YouTube video to summarize A1c.

Daily blood sugar testing, often done with a glucometer, measures the amount of glucose in your blood at that exact minute. Fasting blood sugar is checked first thing in the morning before eating or drinking anything other than water.

Normal

A1c level: Below 5.7%
Fasting Blood Sugar: 99 mg/dL or lower

Prediabetes

A1c level: 5.7% to 6.4%

Fasting Blood Sugar: 100 to 125 mg/dL

Diabetes

A1c level: 6.5% or higher

Fasting Blood Sugar: 126 mg/dL or higher

Monitoring your A1C allows you to catch prediabetes early when lifestyle changes can reverse it.

Tracking both numbers helps you see the complete picture. A single spot check shows how specific meals affect your body, while your A1C shows whether your overall routine is moving your long-term health in the right direction.

Blood pressure measures the force of blood pushing against the walls of your arteries as your heart pumps. The top number, systolic pressure, measures force during a heartbeat. The bottom number, diastolic pressure, measures force when the heart rests between beats.

Your weight, Body Mass Index (BMI), and waist circumference give context to how your body carries mass. BMI calculates a height-to-weight ratio, while waist circumference measures abdominal fat. High abdominal fat surrounds internal organs and directly increases the risk of insulin resistance and heart disease.

Blood Pressure

Target Range: Less than 120/80 mmHg

Why It Matters: Reduces strain on the heart, arteries, and kidneys.

Body Mass Index (BMI)

Target Range: 18.5 to 24.9

Why It Matters: Provides a general indicator of weight status relative to height.

Waist Circumference

Target Range: 

Men: under 40 in.
Women: under 35 in.

Why It Matters: Indicates visceral fat levels linked to higher metabolic risk.

Lowering blood pressure and abdominal fat directly reduces your risk for type 2 diabetes and heart complications.

Daily hydration and physical activity directly influence your baseline blood sugar, blood pressure, and metabolic rate. Establishing clear numeric goals for water intake and daily steps ensures you are building habits that support blood sugar balance every day.

• Water Intake: Aim for half your body weight in ounces of water each day as a standard benchmark. For example, a person weighing 160 pounds would aim for 160 / 2 = 80 ounces of water daily. Staying hydrated helps your kidneys flush excess blood sugar through urine.
  
• Daily Steps: Aim for a baseline target between 7,000 and 10,000 steps per day. Muscle contractions during walking pull glucose directly out of the bloodstream to use for energy, which helps lower blood sugar independent of insulin.
  

Knowing these numbers gives you concrete, measurable targets for the entire Healthy Hive challenge. Track your starting values carefully so you can measure actual progress as you introduce new habits in the coming weeks.

Access a credible website, diabetes.org, for more information about diabetes and the prevention of it.

CLICK HERE!

Before making lasting changes to your daily routine, you need a clear starting point. Recording your baseline habits shows you where your health stands today, giving you an honest foundation to build upon over the next eight weeks. Rather than comparing yourself to others or aiming for immediate perfection, capturing your actual starting habits allows you to measure real progress as you move through the Healthy Hive challenge.

Creating an accurate baseline requires looking at what you currently do in four specific areas of daily life: movement, eating, drinking, and social-emotional well-being. Write down your typical patterns for a full three to five days without altering your behavior.

Movement

What to Record: Daily step counts, structured exercise minutes, active chores, or sitting hours

Baseline Example: 3,200 steps per day; no formal exercise sessions

Eating

What to Record: Daily servings of fruits and vegetables, frequency of processed snacks, and home-cooked meals

Baseline Example: 1 serving of vegetables daily; daily afternoon packaged snacks.

Drinking

What to Record: Total ounces of plain water versus sugary beverages, sodas, or sweet tea

Baseline Example: 2 glasses of water daily; 2 cans of regular soda daily

Social-Emotional

What to Record: Daily stress levels, sleep hours, downshift practices, and time spent with supportive friends or family

Baseline Example: 6 hours of sleep per night; no deliberate stress-management routine

Having these numbers on paper removes guesswork and prevents you from setting unrealistic targets that lead to burnout.

Research suggests that repeating a simple health action consistently for roughly 21 days helps turn that behavior into a automatic habit. In the Healthy Hive program, the first three weeks serve as your foundational phase to establish momentum.

During Weeks 1 through 3, your primary goal is to show up every day and repeat your chosen daily actions, even in small ways. Passing the 21-day mark builds the neural pathways and routines necessary to sustain your effort through the remaining five weeks of the challenge and long after the program ends.

The Healthy Hive platform uses a weekly points system to reward consistency across both physical movement and social-emotional health. Tracking points helps keep you accountable while recognizing that well-being involves more than just physical activity.

You can earn points each week by completing and logging specific actions:

• Movement Points: Earned by accumulating active minutes through walking, chores, line dancing, or structured workouts toward the 150-minute weekly goal.
• Social-Emotional Growth Points: Earned by engaging in daily stress-reduction practices such as deep breathing, journaling, prayer, meditation, or spending dedicated time with your supportive community group.
  
• One activity = one point!
• Goal is 5 points a week. 
• 40 points by the end of the challenge = t-shirt and prize drawing!

Tracking both physical activity and emotional wellness ensures a balanced approach to long-term health.

With your baseline documented, choose one or two primary goals for each of the four areas. Effective goals focus on daily actions you control rather than immediate final outcomes.

To ensure your goals are actionable and measurable throughout the eight weeks:

• Keep them specific: Swap vague intentions like "move more" for clear targets like "walk for 20 minutes five days a week."
• Build on your baseline: If your baseline shows 2,000 steps per day, set an initial weekly target of 4,000 steps rather than jumping immediately to 10,000.
• Define tracking methods: Decide exact measures, such as logging water in ounces, counting daily servings of vegetables, or recording minutes of daily downshift routines.
  

By establishing an accurate baseline today and selecting achievable goals, you create a personalized roadmap for the Healthy Hive challenge that leads to sustainable health improvements.