Leading By Example!

This actually goes along well with my previous post, so if you have not read that one yet, I would.

We are in the last 4 weeks of my weight management class and in an effort to keep the women on track I have asked everybody to write a goal statement.  I decided I would share it with all of you.

It is August 16, 2011 and I am celebrating my weight management success with my Transitions class.  I have decreased my body fat by 1% and lost 4 inches overall since May 24, 2011.  This was possible because of my commitment to overall health.  I did this by blogging my food journal to stay accountable.  I also did my dumbbell circuit 3 days a week and took 10,000 steps 4 days a week.  On top of how great I look, I also have more energy and feel AMAZING!



As you can see, you will be getting more posts from me because I am going to be telling you basically everything I am doing; good or bad.  I really like the idea of increasing the amount of steps I take to 10,000 steps because it is an easier way for me and for most people to gradually increase daily activity.  That is one of the most important things.  Gradually increasing your daily activity so you almost don't even realize you are doing it, which makes "making a change" that much simpler.

You Cannot Lead where you will not Go...

“You cannot teach what you do not know.  You cannot lead where you will not go.”

This is one of my favorite quotes that I remember hearing at a business training this past year and it really resonated with me.  I bring this up because it seems like more and more we are hearing about the rise of obesity in our country and the worst part is that it is not just us adults.  It is our children too.  I realize that this is not necessarily a positive, fun topic, but I believe it is something that if each of us takes the time to enrich ourselves with the right knowledge, we can make a difference starting with ourselves and move that to our families and from there to our communities.  As parents, coaches and mentors it is our duty to teach our youth about proper nutrition and exercise.  This is where my quote from earlier comes in.  I just read this article about children and obesity and there were some tips in there.  I realized that a lot of the reason kids have these habits is because we are allowing them to do it or we are doing it ourselves.  Therefore, why would your child do something you are not willing to do?  I have read quite a few articles recently and am going to start posting them and commenting on them.  I am going to improve my knowledge and pass that along to you for you to pass it along to your family.  It is important to remember that when reading anything you need to take it at face value.  One of the things I like to do is to take 1 or 2 things from the article and incorporate it into my life.  Be open minded, but don’t take everything too serious.

What do you think of this article?  Do you have any bad habits that you see your kids picking up on?

Late Night Munching...Sleepless Night

Have any of you had a restless night before?  Do you struggle to get a good night’s sleep?  There might a simple “cure” or answer to why. 

A few weeks ago I had a weak moment.  I got home from practice one night and Jarrod wasn’t home yet so I turned on the TV.  After sitting there for a few minutes I decided I wanted something to snack on.  Unfortunately, we had chips in the house, so that is of course what I grabbed.  There were not very many left so I just took the whole bag and sat on the couch with it.  Before long, I was there with an empty bag of chips (This is one reason why I try to keep junk food out of the house: no temptation).  Then after that salty snack I decided that I needed something sweet.  So what did I do…I grabbed 2 pieces of chocolate and ate them.  At the time I was definitely disappointed in myself, but I have been trying not to be too hard on myself because that usually makes things worse.  So later that night, Jarrod got home, we brushed our teeth and went to bed.

I woke up the next morning feeling very tired and groggy and had not gotten a good night’s sleep.  I didn’t really think too much of it.  I am usually a good sleeper so I was a little perturbed.  Later that day at work I was journaling my food from the previous night and it all of a sudden clicked…I probably slept like crap because I ate like crap before I had gone to bed.  It all started to make a lot of sense. 

Now, I have no science to back this up, I did not do some study, all I know is that I did not eat well before bed and that directly affected me not sleeping well.  Isn’t it crazy that eating healthy and living a healthy lifestyle really does affect all aspects of your life, not just your weight?

Do you have trouble sleeping at night?  What have you tried to get a better night sleep?

I recommend writing down what you are eating, especially at dinner time and thereafter and see if you find a correlation between to two.  I would love to hear your results and compare notes!