Wow. It’s February! How did that happen? I don’t know about you but it really snuck up on me. Seems like it was just New Years Day. Well, here we are in February and today is #WearRedDay for heart health awareness. Yay! Which brings me to my first of today’s favorites.
Favorite Heart Health Awareness Video: Sometimes women, myself included, care for everyone else while ignoring their own needs. If we aren’t putting our mask on first – our efforts to help others can be completely sabotaged. It’s not until we can love and care for ourselves, that we can truly do the same for others.
Favorite Heart Healthy Dessert: Sometimes fruit just doesn’t cut it and we need a little chocolate in our lives. I love that Trish at Mom on Time Out made these brownies without oil or butter so they are low in saturated fat. I would take it a step further and try this with almond flour or whole wheat pastry flour and opt for dark chocolate chips to increase the fiber, protein and antioxidant level.
Favorite quote this week: If you follow along you know that we don’t encourage regular calorie counting at Well Balanced Nutrition. When you embrace more natural foods and adopt a healthy mindset around eating it’s just not necessary. So when I came across this, I was nodding my head in complete agreement.
I hope you all have a fun and healthy weekend doing what you love with people you love.
So after making through the holidays without gaining a pound (!) the next 2 weeks proved to be more challenging. I gained a couple pounds – which Lucy told me was actually very normal. But here’s the great part – I knew which of my choices were problematic and I knew I was probably going to keep stress-eating for another few days. As often as possible, I made the right decision – clean eating, proper portion size, and more exercise. Sure enough, after another week I was back down to my pre-holiday weight and feeling much less stressed out.
Despite having eaten poorly for a couple weeks, one week back on track and my weight was back down and actually a smidge lower. I realized that all these months of eating properly had set me up to go right back to my new weight. Because I didn’t continue stress-eating, my weight didn’t continue going up. Like Lucy says “don’t make it up, make it back”. Rather than over-react to my slight weight gain, I just went back to what I know are the right choices for me and by golly, it worked!
Lucy has been saying for years if you want to lose weight, track what you eat. So last May I finally decided to get serious about dealing my pants size creeping up. She suggested Weight Watchers and I gave it a try.
Tracking my food was a pain but worth it. I learned so much about what I thought was healthy vs. what really is healthy for my body. It was not fun at first giving up things I love like bread, French fries and double-stuffed Golden Oreos but the results were worth it. I lost 15 pounds in 6 months but more importantly learned how to maintain the results.
Food for thought:
There’s no such thing as dieting. Every day you wake up and engage in your daily diet. Food choices are a lifestyle. Are you making the choices that will give you the lifestyle you know you’re capable of?
Do you know about this SIMPLE way of improving your overall well-being? There is one medicine that when taken regularly is proven to…
Be an effective antidepressant in mild to moderate cases of depression
Protect an aging brain against memory loss and dementia
Defend your heart against heart disease and stroke
Lower your bad (LDL) cholesterol while increasing good (HDL) cholesterol
Keep your blood pressure in check
Slash your risk of diabetes, asthma and some cancers
Increase bone density and help prevent osteoporosis
Support Vitamin D levels
Boost your circulation and increase oxygen supply to the brain
Increase muscle mass and tone
Burn more calories
Now you might expect this medicine to cost you a fortune. I hate to tell you this but insurance does not cover it at this time. Lucky for you and me… this medicine doesn’t cost a thing.
So what is this medicine?
Walking. That’s right. The simple act of putting one foot in front of the other is proven to improve our well-being in many, many ways. All those benefits sound great, right!? So, why aren’t we all hitting the pavement more often? Although it requires no equipment or gym membership, walking just isn’t as easy as swallowing a pill. It takes a little more effort. That’s why I am sharing Peggy’s story with you today.
For her, walking went from a chore to “I can do more!’
Peggy was noticing that her weight was starting to creep up and results from a recent doctor’s visit prompted her to think about incorporating exercise into her days. She had tried going to the gym, taking group exercise classes, and doing exercise at home on her own. Nothing seemed to stick. She knew that exercise would help her cut back on medications, but it was always such a chore.
Then she made it a goal to walk one mile outdoors most days of the week. Sometimes she would think to herself, ‘if I can’t walk a mile, I might as well not walk at all.’ She didn’t realize it then, but this was a limiting belief that was getting in her way. One day she had a “lightbulb moment” when she read this quote: “It doesn’t matter how slow you go, as long as you do not stop.” It was then that she realized if she were to make walking aregular habit, she would need to do it nearly every day, even if her walk was short. She started walking 15 minutes at first and built her way up to 30-40 minutes most days of the week. Ten weeks later, walking is part of her routine, and she doesn’t feel right without her morning stroll.
“The first 2 weeks were the hardest. It wasn’t easy to get out there and get going. But once I started walking, I would feel the benefits and that motivated me to continue. Some days, I surprise myself. I’ll get out there for a short walk but then I end up going further then I planned! So to others I would say, “It’s okay to start small.” Just get out and be consistent.“ – Peggy Cole
Food for Thought
The moral of her story is this: You need to build momentum to make a new habit stick. The only way to build momentum is to get out there and go – no matter how slow, how short or how sloppy the result. Simply get out there consistently. Once you’ve done it a few times, you’ll feel motivated to keep going and before you know it you’ve built a habit.
If you are persistent, you will get it. If you are consistent, you will keep it.
I spend my spare time at the YMCA of Durham or Chapel Hill. I like to tell people if I’m not outside playing in the woods, I prefer to be playing at the YMCA.
Given my regular presence at the Y, I have the opportunity to see and get to know other people that workout there too. Some of you might rememberBendy Al, who typically works out between 1 – 3 PM. Then there are the highly motivated morning folks getting their sweat on between 5:30 – 8 AM – y’all are crazy and I love it! Not surprisingly, there’s quite the rush around 5 PM for people coming in after work.
If we’ve learned nothing else about making habits over the last 6 weeks, we know the most important part of establishing a habit is consistency. The people that regularly include exercise are the ones that show up around the same time at least a few days per week.
Steps to workout success
Step 1
Identify your energy peak zone – Do you feel energized in the morning or afternoon? What’s your most productive hours of the day?
Step 2
Pick together or flying solo – Decide if you enjoy exercising with a friend, in a group or prefer to use it as your “me time” to listen to some jams and zone out.
Step 3
Decide inside or outside – Some people are highly unmotivated to go to the gym but really enjoy walking in the park or around their neighborhood. That counts too! There are plenty ofhiking trailsaround these parts in North Carolina to explore.
Step 4
Put it on your calendar – Most appointments we put on the calendar become priory. Take a look at yours and find a time to schedule the workouts.
Step 5
Track your awesomeness! My secret reward at the end of the day is to check my iPhone health apps and see how many steps I got that day. If it’s less than 10,000 I can usually take a walk around the block to get there. Maybe you have a Fitbit to keep you motivated? Or perhaps you’d prefer to track based on how your clothes fit or how much weight you can bench press now versus 3 months ago.
Food for thought:
You can’t wish or hope your way into regular exercise or a fit body.
Using the steps above you can create your ideal workout plan and make it happen!
Recipe of the Week: Mason Jar Greek Chicken Salad
It’s moving week!!! (I’m not going far, just back towards SouthPoint)
That means I’m going to need some easy grab-and-go meals. These mason jar salads can be prepared at the start of the week and will stay fresh 5-7 days in the fridge.
“What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.” -Gretchen Rubin
(This week’s post is courtesy of our new Chief Creative Officer, Kristen Norton)
Wouldn’t it be nice if healthy decisions didn’t have to be so hard?
Some healthy choices come only after spending lots mental energy. It takes effort to plan, willpower to stay the course, and emotional energy too. But what if you could just make the healthy choice without all that work?
I bet this morning when you brushed your teeth, you didn’t have to think about it. And when you drove to work, you probably let your mind wander or enjoyed your favorite morning radio station.
Most of us brush our teeth and drive to work without much thought or decision-making at all. We’re on autopilot. We’ve done these things so many times that it just happens.
Building a new habit tends to include hard work up front, but done right you can rely on autopilot to sustain the change.
In the beginning, it’s important to be consistent and never miss a beat. You must make up your mind to give it your all. It will require a lot of mental energy. The payoff, though, is that the grit and the effort won’t be required forever.
In other words, your goal is to make healthy habits something you just do automatically. You don’t have to make the decision to eat a healthy breakfast – you just do.
Think about your current routines and habits…
What things do you do automatically? _________________, _____________________, _____________________, _________________, _____________________.
What healthy habits do you want to put on autopilot? 1. _________________________________________ 2. _________________________________________ 3. _________________________________________
What hard work would you have to do upfront to make this happen? _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________
Food for thought:
Whether it takes 21-days or 6 months, when you put your mind to making a new healthy habit you will succeed.
So what is this medicine?
“The first 2 weeks were the hardest. It wasn’t easy to get out there and get going. But once I started walking, I would feel the benefits and that motivated me to continue. Some days, I surprise myself. I’ll get out there for a short walk but then I end up going further then I planned! So to others I would say, “It’s okay to start small.” Just get out and 
