A tasty treat

 

 

 

 

 

One of my favorite parts of our STRIVE lectures is the treats County Fair provides. Jeff Gamber and his staff do an excellent job showcasing their produce and healthier products. On Tuesday, we had veggies, oranges, and low sugar hot chocolate. I will talk about the hot chocolate in another post as I didn’t feel it was very fitting on such a WARM (and beautiful) January day like today! Rather today, I want to focus on oranges. As you should know by now, we need at least 5 servings of fruits and veggies a day. Since we live in a more northern state that is land-locked, produce can be more expensive. To reduce costs, I try to select the produce that is in season and right now the oranges are awesome! Oranges are an especially great source of vitamin C, but also include many other great vitamins and minerals. Instead of grabbing the chips or candy, try treating yourself to a tasty orange for your next treat.

-Kelsey

Zumba!

 

 

 

 

 

Last night was an awesome start to our winter STRIVE program. We are thrilled to have such a great group of people to work with! As always, Dr. Dan kicks off our first lecture discussing the importance of adequate exercise and ways to get more. I usually leave the exercise talk up to him on this blog, however I wanted to share one exercise topic he hasn’t: zumba! As a dietitian, I am the food/nutrition expert, but I also spend a portion of my visits discussing ways to be more active as you really can’t just do one or the other…you have to do both in order to be more successful with healthy living. 

Jogging is usually my preferred activity of choice, but I get tired of it after a while so I asked for a Wii Zumba video for Christmas. When I tried it out for the first time a few days ago, I was amazed. I was in a full sweat in the first 5 minutes! It’s not only a great workout…it’s even FUN! Zumba is a great aerobic activity that involves dancing and aerobic type moves for all parts of your body. If you are looking to spice up your activity routine and still burn a good deal of calories, I’d highly recommend checking out Zumba.   Adding variety to your workout will not only keep you interested and motivated, it will keep your metabolism going!

(The picture I included is a snapshot of my Wii video).

-Kelsey

There’s still room!

We are excited to kick off 2012 with our winter session of STRIVE 2 Survive tomorrow (Tuesday, January 3rd)! If you are interested in learning more about eating healthy, getting more activity, and improving your health and wellness, we’re here for you! Our 12 week program is a great way to learn more about all aspects of health and wellness with two main components diet and exercise. There’s still room, so if you are considering it and/or would like to learn more contact us at strive2survive@brownclinic.org or 884-4226. The clinic is closed New Year’s Monday (today), so we will get back to you as soon as we can Tuesday morning.

Hope everyone had a wonderful New Year’s!

-Kelsey

Happy New Year!

Once again, we have finished out another year, and ready to begin another.  Hope 2012 will be good for you.  New Year’s is also a time for people to set new resolutions.  They are determined to do better with exercise and their diet.  What it really boils down to more is a re-organization of our time.  We need to reset our priorities.  The time is there, but it may not always be the most convenient.

We often times just need to make adjustments to our daily schedule, making time for it.  Adjustments on how we are going to make the time to accomplish our goals, without making them such a burden or chore that we can’t stay committed to them, often leading to more frustration, and even less attempt at trying to make a change or difference, are not always easy.  Focus on things that have worked well for you before, and then continue to “fine tune” these even more.  Make the time.  We all have the same 24 hours in a day.  Good luck!

Dr. Dan

Consecutive Exercise Day #:  1557

Reflections of the Past Year

The holidays are always a good time to sit back and reflect upon this past year.  What went right?  What went wrong? What do we need to change?  What do we need to do to improve?  This is particularly true when it comes to ourselves, our health, and trying to do better with doing more exercise, and watching our diets/food intake.  Setting new goals, or adjusting old goals can be good, but instead of making ourselves commit to another goal, often times unrealistic, how about if we work on trying to improve upon what we have already done well.  This is also a time to take advantage to learn from what we have not done well.

This was my daughter, Molly, and her response to what she thought of her christmas presents this year.  This should actually be our response to what we have accomplished this year, and realize that we are not going to do everything right.  What is more important out of all of this is to realize what we have done right and appreciate it, and to keep moving forward and learn from what we did wrong.  We can all do a better job when it comes to our own health.  We can all do better with exercise and diet.  It is a continuous committment we must make, and we can do it, but it does take effort.  Anything worth having in life does not come easy.  So remember as we get ready to go forward to 2012–Stay active, spend time with family and friends, and continue to take care of ourselves.  There are a lot of people out there that would miss you if you were gone. Have a happy upcoming New Year!

Dr. Dan

Consecutive Exercise Day #:  1556