Great News About Your Health!

I have some great news!


Last week I attended a workshop on the seven benchmarks of creating an effective corporate wellness plan so I can try to make my office wellness program a little (okay a lot) more legit.  As the board president of a non-profit worksite wellness organization (check us out at Working Well, Inc), I kinda feel like the program I implement for my coworkers needs to be top-notch. So I went.


Two slides really stood out to me. To give credit where it is due, these are from a national worksite wellness organization called WELCOA: the Wellness Council of America. 
 Here's the first one. 

One of my favorite Daily Doses is encouraging people to be their own healthcare plan. When we think about what we can do to control health care costs, how much thought goes into changing our own behavior to make ourselves less expensive to insure? Take a look at how much of our health care costs are determined by high-risk lifestyle choices. Choices. Just to make that part clear. :)

And here's the second one.

So what's the good news?  Here you go: today, you can lift that burdensome yoke of excuses off of your shoulders and live free from them. You're free! Get out there and become your own health care. Get out there and get healthy!

And, oh yeah, if you're not sure where to start, I can help with that. :)

I hear about genetics a lot.  Hell, I've used genetics as an excuse for my own weight gain and slow metabolism, when in reality I became fat by eating too much and screwed up my metabolism with fad yo-yo dieting!  It's true that our bodies have a set point but it's not as much a role as we think.  The vast majority of what determines our health is our health behaviors. Again, our choices. Take a look at where genetics falls: 20%. And even more surprising, access to healthcare is only 10% of health determinants.  We blame genetics and lack of access to resources for a lot of what ails us, but in reality, the choices we make determine the majority of how well our bodies function.

Food: Not a Recreational Sport

People have been telling me lately that since I am preggo (officially half way! woo hoo!) I should "relax" and "let go" and loosen the nutritional purse strings a little bit. But since when has incubating another life, which by the way is completely dependent on you for nourishment, been a good time to develop a heavy hand with the chocolate syrup?  If anything, it's time for increased attention to the quality of nutrition!

Now, okay: I can't profess to being a perfect eater 24/7 nor can I deny that I can be rightfully accused of taking nutrition a little too seriously at times. I have my diversions like anyone else (three birthday celebrations in one week will do that to you!) but 90% of the time, while I'm eating more than I did before I wasn't pregnant, the quality of the food is still the same. 

Here's how I keep it clean:

1. A good half of my plate is veggies and/or fruit at almost every meal.
2. I keep the meat to lean turkey and skinless grilled or baked chicken.
3. I keep my dairy to non-fat or low-fat unsweetened greek yogurt.
4. I keep the grains to 100% whole grain 100% of the time, period.

Everything that doesn't fall into one of those categories...well, I just don't eat much of that stuff! That's the 10%.

I appreciate the sentiment but from where I stand, eating healthfully and knowing I am getting a great bang for my nutritional buck is fun. Food is not a recreational sport. It's FUEL for our bodies so we can run, jump, play, work, and have fun!  So no worries: I'm cool.

Good nutrition is an every day thing, and it's the kind of thing that gets better every day. Give it a try: get out there and get healthy!

Fitness: You get what you expect!

A couple of athletes here locally have been training for The Death Race, and I've been following their training thanks to the video updates of their workouts uploaded by their gym, Boot Camps to Go.  The Death Race is held each year in Vermont and is so named because it's supposed to be insanely hard not just physically but mentally as well.  It's an adventure race with obstacles like navigating a barbed-wire forest in the dark, assembling your own transportation after searching for the individual components in a murky pond, carrying a portion of your body weight up a mountain only to be faced with logic puzzles to complete at the top, and memorizing facts, figures, and objects so you can recreate them at a later time. It requires participants to be prepared for and willing to try just about anything and is proud of its 10% average completion rate. I usually roll my eyes at the "we're so tough" mentality of some endurance athletes (usually the ones I am trying to convince myself I am not jealous of) but I have to admit, I can't wait to hear how they do and what they encounter. They've been working very hard and I admire them! Go Megan and Ricky!

I love to tough it out with something that is trying to beat me; the sense of accomplishment after achieving something really brutal is beyond euphoric. It reminds me that difficulty is relative, and we can all do more than we think.

Every single time - every single time - I have set out to accomplish something new in health or fitness I have been met with the reality that I can do way more than I thought. We all can, including you.  It's just a matter of what you decide will happen.

My Daily Dose today was about how success favors the prepared mind. If Megan and Ricky hadn't prepared themselves for the Death Race, their chance of completion would be dismal. The same type of focus can be applied to the things we do every day to prepare ourselves for even the most minimal health success.

Here's what I'm saying: expect fitness to be impossible and it will be. Expect eating healthy to be a chore and it will feel like one. Expect your life to be adverse to a healthier routine and guess what?  You will never get your act together.

The reverse is true as well!  But you already knew that.

A whole world of amazing is waiting for you, and the golden ticket gets placed in your hand as soon as you start assuming you can achieve it. It's not always easy, but it's a lot easier when you expect the best. I'm on pins and needles to hear how the Death Race goes, and I expect to be thoroughly motivated to get out there and kick some fitness butt when I do! 

Get out there and get healthy...and start expecting it to be awesome!

Birthday Fun!

Today is my birthday!Woot! I have the best birthday because its right smack dab in the middle of the year, so it's the perfect time to:
1) buy myself gifts
2) re-asses my goals

First the gift part. My birthday present to myself is to FINALLY register for my WellCoaches Wellness Coach certification exam. It's expensive, yo! And since we live debt-free I have been saving my pennies so I could have it and this time next month I should be certified to mess with people's heads.  Well, related to their health and wellness goals anyway. :)

Now the goals part. I always see my birthday as a mid-year New Year's Day just for me (and my lifelong friend Cathy who has the same birthday as me. Happy birthday, Cathy!).  So for the next 365 days I have a few things in mind that I want embrace:

1) Live the 95210 philosophy. 9 hours of sleep a night, 5 servings of fruits or veggies a day, 2 hours or less screen time, 1 hour of exercise, and 0 sugary drinks every day.  Nine hours of sleep might be next to impossible once my bambino makes his arrival but hey, it's a goal. :)

2) Clean and Lean living. Over the past year my husband and I have made some serious strides towards the true American dream: living within our means and free from debt. We're there now, and it's mighty fine. I'd love to see this be a constant in our lives and not participate in the national pastime of debt wading. Come live Clean and Lean with me!

3) Plyometrics. I want to become a plyometric phenomenon. Enough said.

A few other birthday side notes:

yes I have already eaten cake (my lovely co-worker and friend made a clean eating cake for me!)

yes I have already eaten ice cream (all natural, thankyouverymuch)

yes I will have more of both later.

Have a fantabulous Healthy Heather's Birthday and as always...get out there and GET HEALTHY!

Eat Simple Challenge: Days 4, 5, and 6

So I totally dropped off the planet and didn't post anything else about the Eat Simple Challenge. It was a very busy weekend! But I still did Days 4, 5, and 6, which were about looking for packaged foods in my diet that I can eliminate. Since most of the packaged foods I eat are bread or yogurt, that's pretty simple. I can make both of those myself. How about you?  Were you surprised by the number of packages you opened, or did you feel like you were doing a pretty good job eating clean?  I'd love to hear about your experience.


Now, will I actually make my own bread and yogurt? Yes and no. My husband said, after reading about our naan being on the list of packaged foods, "please don't get rid of our naan. I love our naan."  LOL  So we'll keep that. But the rest of my bread I can definitely make at least once a week.  Yogurt is really just a casualty of convenience and cost-effectiveness. I have a yogurt maker and have made my own, but I haven't found that it is cost-effective (or time efficient) considering that I like really thick Greek-style yogurt. Chobani is just fine with me!


The challenge was a great one for awareness. I am definitely more tuned in to the packages I open each day, and when I did my weekly shopping at the grocery I was proud of how clean my buggy was. Over the past month I have gotten right back on my regular routine of eating lots of veggies and few packaged foods.  Take that, pregnancy appetite!  


Oh, and the result? Awesomeness all around.  Almost every time I've started seeing muscle definition, it's a direct result of eating spinach. Popeye was right!  After just one week of eating more vegetables, my muscles are back out and I feel like myself again. 


Give it a try! Eat simple: chuck the packages, eat lots of veggies, and tell me if you don't feel great as a result. It's really easy...just get out there and get healthy!

Eat Simple Challenge: Day Three (and when to buy organic)

It's Day Three of the Eat Simple Challenge and I am still keeping tabs on my package-opened ratio when I eat. Yesterday I did pretty much the same as Day One except I added:

• Olive-oil Mayonnaise. I know, it's a pregnancy thing.
• A package of Naan that I use for pizza crust.

Obviously I can do without mayonnaise and I can make my own pizza crust!  I'm realizing that for the most part, the packages I open are mostly based on convenience. With a little time in the kitchen, I can easily eliminate these. Hmmmm....a flip-down tv in my kitchen permanently tuned to HGTV sounds good about now. :)

As you're thinking about the pros and cons of tossing packaged foods and eating more produce, consider this update from the Environmental Working Group's 2011 Shopper's Guide to Pesticides. How many of the fruits and veggies on the Dirty Dozen list are faves of your family? Print it out and bring it with you the next time you shop so you can be aware of when to spring for organic produce!

And as always, get out there and get healthy!

Eat Simple Challenge: Day Two

A weekend at the beach.
Parents in town.
Father's Day.
My birthday (woot).
Two restaurant lunches for work.
In-laws in town.

Those are all opportunities for nutritional haywire, and that's just June!  Next month there's the 4th of July picnics, a work trip out of town, and vacation!  Egads, it's worse than the holidays! Needless to say, I've been making a plan for eating clean and healthy despite all of these distractions!

Okay, it's Day Two of the Eat Simple Challenge! How is it going? Here's my list of packages I opened yesterday.

Toufayan Low-Carb Wrap (twice)
Arnold's 100% Whole Grain Bread
Chobani Low-Fat Plain Greek Yogurt
A gallon of milk
Publix Greenwise Vanilla Protein Powder

Not too bad! Technically, I could make my own bread and yogurt. I have a breadmaker and a yogurt maker and both are easy to make. So there are a couple of candidates for package elimination right there.

On to Day Two: more data collection. As you record your packaged foods today, think about possible alternatives to what you've opened. Be creative!

And get out there and get healthy!