by kelsey | Dec 13, 2016 | Cooking Tips, Diet, Food, Holidays, Wellness/Health
Holiday parties are in full force right which poses a challenge to your efforts of healthy eating. You can always bring your own dish to share and use substitutions to lighten your recipes, but if you can’t bring your own dish to share, you may consider using these behavior strategies to help you enjoy the parties in a healthy way!
- “If you plan on treating yourself later, start your day with a small meal that includes whole grains, fruit, low-fat or fat-free dairy and protein, such as eggs, ham or peanut butter.
- Don’t starve yourself beforehand. Rather, eat a small, lower-calorie meal or snack including fruit or a bagel so you aren’t tempted to overdo your calorie intake for the day.
- Choose carefully between foods you definitely will eat, those you will sample and those you will skip.
- Don’t rush to eat. Socialize and settle into the festivities before you eat.
- Move your socializing away from the buffet or appetizer trays. This will minimize the unconscious nibbling.” http://www.eatright.org/Public/content.aspx?id=11644
The holidays are a great time for celebrating with friends and family and food is always involved. Allow yourself to enjoy, but in moderation. You can keep the extra holiday pounds off, while still enjoying the holidays and festivities in a healthy way with these tips!
-Kelsey
by Dan | Dec 11, 2016 | Diet, Exercise, Family, Goals, Motivation, Wellness/Health
We are all busy with our lives, always having things to do. But are they always the most important things? Are they things that need to get done? Maybe. The priority of how fast it may need to get done is probably the debatable part. If we take a step back and really think about the things that we need to get done, all of a sudden, there may be more time that will become available.
What is it you value most? What is important to you? And if you want certain things to take on a higher priority, then what are you doing about it?
If you keep focused on those things that truly are important to you, then things become easier to handle, and the order of the things that need to be done are also more manageable. We all have 24 hours in a day. We all have 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. So why then are some people always seeming like they have their life in order, and seem to manage thins much better, and with much less stress? Part of it may be that they hide their stress very well. But more to reality, they have their priorities arranged in a order that is more important to them, and they keep their focus on this.
Some of us may think we are too busy, but the reality of it is that they are no busier than anybody else!
Your priorities need to be adjusted over time. The main focus of where you place your priorities needs to be clear, but how you go about getting there will change. You have to make it a high enough priority in order for it to push out something else in life that really is not a priority…it is more just a time waster, and never really helps you accomplish anything. That is where the exercise, and your diet, come into play. If you make it a high enough priority, and work on these things, the amount of energy, and how well you will feel will take over, and it is amazing how much energy you actually have to get those other little things in your life done faster, and more efficient. And still have time for what is really important…your family and friends!
It is not just going to fall into your lap. You need to plan. You need to adjust. You need to make adaptations. You need to make and continuously rearrange your priorities!
Now is the time to really sit back and think about it. What is important to you? Why is it important to you? How are you going to make sure it remains important enough to you to keep working on it, or making sure that you are going to be around longer to be able to enjoy those things in your life? It is up to you. All of us have different priorities. Keep focused. It is not that hard for each of you to decide what really matters to you.
I have said over and over again…my family is my central focus point, and everything I do centers around this. I want to be around longer for them, to enjoy their lives as well. That makes my life more fulfilling. It helps make me a better me! Enjoy life to the fullest. Don’t take anything for granted. Work on your priorities, and above all, make them a priority! Enjoy the ride along the way!
Keep moving everybody!
Dr. Dan
Consecutive Exercise Day #: 3362
by Dan | Dec 4, 2016 | Exercise, Goals, Motivation, Wellness/Health
Life is all about choices–both good and bad. You can choose to be happy, sad, grumpy, depressed, or whatever you choose. Or you can be excited like our run club group is when we go out on a run on Sunday mornings. The choice is yours!
By no means does this mean that our choices are easy. Far from it. We make a decision, and then have to work at it so as to make something of it. It is not just going to fall in our lap because we want to chose something. Same thing when it comes to our health. We have to work at the diet and the exercise. Just because we may want to be more healthy, the choice is ours as to how we are going to achieve it.
It is a two way street! You choose how you are going to work at something to achieve what you want. If it is worthwhile, then be prepared to work at it. As I have said before, anything worth having is worth working for…the benefits come later.
Here is our group as we were getting ready to start the Twin Cities Marathon this past October. We spent the last 4+ months training together, encouraging each other, pushing each other. We were working together to accomplish a goal of completing the marathon. We may have all had different goals as to how we wanted to finish, but we were all working on finishing. It is great motivation working as a group. We each put in the miles individually, but we were doing it together. Words don’t describe that bond that is achieved when you are working as a group on a similar goal. You take a chance, make a choice, and change comes about.
The 3 C’s of life. What better way to sum it up! Things in life in general are about this. You take a chance because you made a choice, with the hope of making a POSITIVE change. Are those changes always positive? Probably not. But, that does not mean you don’t learn from them. We learn from everything we do, both the positive and negative. If something good happens, we keep doing similar things. If something bad happens, or some outcome we did not like, then we learn from it, and change!
You rely on not only your friends, but those closest to you…namely, your spouse. Sarah and I motivate each other, push each other, depend on each other! This too is a two way street. You take chances, and work on the things you choose together, which brings about continuous change. It also brings about consistency, dependability, a bond that can’t be broken…love!
Your attitude goes a long way in regards to how changes in life will affect you, and the resulting choices you make. Keep your goals in mind, and the purpose for which you chose them as goals. It was a choice made by you for some reason…a reason important to you. So keep reminding yourself of them. This too will help motivate you, and keep the attitude you have more positive than negative.
Important to remember! There will be bad choices at times. Learn from them, and figure out how to make another change, a change you make based on a choice you make, because you were willing to take a chance! Take a chance on you! Make a choice and do what is right for you! Your future depends on it! Next week I will expand on this further when I talk about priorities…how the choices we make are dependent on our priorities.
Keep moving everybody!
Dr. Dan
Consecutive Exercise Day #: 3355
by kelsey | Dec 1, 2016 | Etc., Exercise, Family, Heart Health, Weight Management, Wellness/Health
We had a fun afternoon at the Boys and Girls Club yesterday! We were able to be a part of a great event that promoted wellness and activity to the children of the Club! Dr.Dan Reiffenberger and Dr.Jon McAreavey talked to the kids about activity and wellness and then we had a jump rope challenge! The kids received some goodies to take home and we donated about 200 jumpropes for the club to use with their kids. What a fun way to promote activity and wellness to the kids in our community! You can read more below from KXLG’s press release and if you click the link, it will bring you to their website where the audio links from Dr.Dan’s and Dr.Jon’s talks can be found. Keep moving everyone!!
“Brown Clinic’s Jump Start Your Health Promotion came alive at the Watertown Boys and Girls Club Wednesday afternoon where more than 200 backpacks with wellness books and jump ropes were handed out to the kids at the club to help jumpstart their wellness. Among the gifts in the backpacks were Subway coupons for all the boys and girls. Among the nearly one-dozen employees from Brown Clinic who were at the event was Dr. Jon McAreavey who is a family physician at the clinic and Boys and Girls Club Board member.” http://www.mykxlg.com/40252-2/
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Dr.Jon giving his talk.
Dr.Dan giving his talk.
Great presentation and talk to the kiddos.
Jump rope challenge!
Practice what you preach!! Dr.Jon and Dr.Dan jumping rope with the kids!
-Kelsey
by kelsey | Nov 29, 2016 | Cooking Tips, Diet, Food, Weight Management, Wellness/Health
Breakfast is one of the most important meals of the day! Yes, you have probably heard this before, but are you a breakfast eater!? Having a good breakfast is a great way to start out the day. It’s not only important for our body, but our mind too. Many times we’ll have excuses such as I was running late, I didn’t feel like eating, I’m not hungry in the morning, and this actually accounts for about a 1/4 to a 1/3 of the population! Starting the day without breakfast is like driving your car on a low tank of gas. We know we can’t go on forever on a low tank of gas, so we shouldn’t do that to our bodies either! Those that skip breakfast tend to snack more on high fat and lower nutritious foods…and are more likely to overeat at lunch because they are over-hungry. Studies have also shown that those working on weight loss are more successful when they eat breakfast as this really jump starts their metabolism and starts their day off right. In addition, eating a healthy breakfast helps our kids excel in school as it helps fuel the brain!
So what should you eat for breakfast? It’s important to get a balance at your meals and especially include a source of protein and a whole grain as these provide satiety. Here are some examples for you:
- Ready-to-eat cereal (>3g fiber, <2-3g fat, a ratio of greater than 4 g carbohydrate:1 g sugar)
- Hot cereal (oatmeal)
- Bagel with low-fat cream cheese or peanut butter
- Yogurt Parfait
- Fruit and yogurt smoothie
- Peanut butter or hummus on whole-wheat toast
- Breakfast quesadilla with low-fat cream cheese and sliced fruit
- Breakfast burrito or taco
- Toasted whole-wheat English muffin with lean ham and low-fat cheese
- Toasted pita with scrambled egg and low-fat cheese
- Low-fat milk and 100% fruit
If you are one who is not a fan of breakfast but understands the importance of it, I encourage you to try a variety of these options and see which one works best for you. I also encourage you to plan ahead. You may need to wake up 5 minutes earlier to fit breakfast in or make your smoothie the night before so all you have to do it pull the bottle or container out of the freezer or fridge in the morning and drink it on your way to work. Starting your day with a full tank will provide long lasting benefits to you and your body!
-Kelsey
