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Why do I need to exercise, isn't eating healthy enough?

9/29/2014

So how did you do with the week detox? I have had reports from several women that did the week detox with results of 5 to 10 pound weight loss, that's a great start. Now you want to keep your body moving in the right direction so you need to add exercise.

Many of us don't like it, but this is one of those times where I can't give you an easy remedy and tell you not to do it, you're body needs it. I am 52 years old and I realize how important exercise is for my body. Since working out on a regular basis, I have better muscle tone, which you need to help maintain a healthy body weight. Exercise helps you maintain strong bones, this is something we need even though we don't think about it. Some people use different means to lose weight and my get the pounds off quickly. However if you are not exercising and toning your body, you can be setting yourself up for gaining that weight back.

I have found that working out keeps me limber and flexible. And finally I realize the older we get the more we need to work out for the health of our bodies. My gynecologist told me she encourages pre-menopausal women to work on getting a strong abdominal area as it becomes harder after menopause to tighten those muscles. Having a small waistline is more that for vanity purposes, many problems can be linked to bulging waistlines. So there are more reasons for us to work out other than losing weight or to simply look good in our jeans, when we get older we will need our bodies healthy to keep us going strong.

So where do we start? If you are trying to maintain your weight, 30 minutes a day for at least 3 to 4 days should be sufficient. You will need to make sure you are changing up your routine, because our bodies learn to adjust quickly and doing the same routine without any changes will result in us plateauing. Add weight training, walking and/or running or some other type of aerobic workout. If you are trying to lose weight you will want to increase that to 5 days a week and depending on your body and ability increase the workouts from 30 minutes to 45 minutes to an hour. Again, you have to determine for yourself how much you can do and what is working for you. I am at the weight I want to be but I need to work out at least 6 days a week for 30 minutes because it helps to keep my body lose, it helps me with energy and I simply like the way I feel. Since I am not trying to lose weight, I simply increased my caloric intake to maintain my weight.

So if you are starting what do you do? I suggest if you can only do 10 or 15 minutes then do that, it's better than nothing. Start where you are and over time begin to increase what you are doing. You can find workout DVD's at Walmart or any where DVD's are sold. I created a workout playlist on (even check YouTube for workout videos for free). Get the YouTube of some of the videos I found. One video is for abs. Find ones you want and when you make a play list you can have all of them play back to back, it turns in to a 30 minute workout.

If you purchase the videos that give you the 10 minute target workouts, try those to help you get started. Or you can walk on your treadmill if you have one. Walk in place. I walk while I'm watching Biggest Loser. When the commercials come one, I run in place until the show comes back on. Without thinking about it, you've gotten in almost 2 hours.

Some of the workout tapes I used and liked where ones by Leslie Sansone. I still do her walking tapes from time to time. They are great for people that may not be able to do the floor exercises but still need to move. My friend had back surgery and some knee problems, but she is able to walk with Leslie (making adjustments where she needs to make adjustments). Once you realize a workout routine is not giving you the same results, that means it's time to move up in what you do. I did Shaun T's T-25 and then the Insanity. The Insanity was just that, Insane. But I am glad I did it. I realize after doing it I am able to run where I wasn't able to run before because I would get winded. So it has helped my endurance. However, I would not suggest you try something super intensive if you haven't been working out. That will only set you up for disappointment, which you will surely quit. So start small and work your way up. I probably won't do the insanity again, but I will do the T-25 and the 21 Day fix several times, alternating when I do them. I like them because they are only 30 minutes max and that works for my busy schedule. I am currently doing the 21-Day Fix. You can purchase all of these items from Beach body. My coach is Nicole.

I would also suggest you getting some weights, start with one or two pounds and then as you are able, increase them. I want you to remember something, this isn't a quick fix. You don't lose the weight and then go back to what you where doing. When you diet, it has a start and finish date. You start when you want to lose weight. You quit when you reach your goal. The problem is as soon as you quit you generally go back to things you where doing before not realizing those where the same things that got you to the place you didn't want to be in the first place. What I am talking about is a life change. You have to change how you eat, how you take care of your body and how you deal with your emotional health (that's what we will talk about next week). So the challenge is for you to start working out. Pick whatever you like. Walk, run, join a gym, workout at home or with a buddy, the key is to simply get moving. Let's Go!

Back to School Healthy Meals (part 4)

Okay, I have to say I am proud of myself. Normally by now I would be snuggling back under the covers after my teenage children were out of bed, allowing them to fend for themselves. Truthfully, they can fend for themselves. However, I am looking at this in a totally different way. In about four years all of my children will be out of the house, either away at college or living on their own. That time of being able to give them a healthy start to the day will be gone, so I don't mind taking the time to send my family off well for the day.

Veggie Bake
Garlic
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Carrots
peppers
Olive Oil
seasoning

Preparation: Cut up your veggies into bite sizes. In the picture I only used cauliflower and broccoli. Drizzle olive oil to coat. Put in fresh garlic cloves whole, season with whatever seasoning you like. I play with different seasons to try new taste. I have used a barbecue season and it taste great. Put in the oven on 400 and roast on a foiled pan until slightly tender. You don't want them mushy. You want them to keep some crispness to them. Eat with whatever meat you like.

Mango Smoothie/Dessert
1/4 cup Frozen mango
1/4 of fresh pineapple frozen
1 banana (frozen)
1/2 lime
1 small orange
water

Preparation: peal your lime (it takes some time) and small orange. Blend them first to get them finely chopped. Add in the mango, pineapple, banana and water. Blend until smooth. I used a NutraBullet, but you should be able to use a blender. I wanted something sweet one day, so I looked to see what I had, this is what I came up with. It was really good. If you want it sweeter, put in some agave nectar to sweeten. My fruits where sweet so I didn't have to add anything else.

Garden Salad/w Salmon
Assorted lettuce
cuties
strawberries
mushrooms
peppers
cucumbers

Baked salmon (or chicken)

Preparation: Mix your assorted lettuces together. I like butter lettuce, spinach and anything green. Cut up your strawberries, mushrooms (peppers if you like and cucumbers as well, add in whatever you like). I baked some salmon and served over the lettuce. My kids will eat this. I change it up sometimes and use chicken/chicken salad, or salmon salad. I even make a different version of the salad and serve ground turkey taco meat over it with a little cheese. I think the reason many people don't like to eat salads is because they can become boring. Get creative, add different things and try them with different meats.

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What did I learn about myself?

9/22/2014

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Last week I said journal your weekly eating and activities. What did you learn about yourself? Do you workout as much as you think you do? Did you stress about a lot of things and if so, how did you handle that stress? Did you eat to deal with it?

Did you deal with upsets, hectic schedules or endless task? Did you find you don't have a lot of time to eat well (so you think)? Did you find it has been easier for you to pick something up than to prepare and cook things at home?

These are just a few of the many possibilities you gathered while journalling this week. I believe the overarching theme in most of your journals is a lack of self-care. As women, especially moms and wives, we don't always put our care as a priority. As I was writing that line I thought about the instructions you get on the airplane about putting on the air mask. You are told to put yours on first, and then assist the person next to you. It is true in the care of ourselves. We need to make it a priority, without guilt. In doing so, then we are better able to take care of our families, our jobs, ministries, even our friendships and the many other things needing our attention.

So now that you have this information what's the next step in the journey? If you remember in my earlier post I mentioned that you will have to take things step-by-step. I am not going to tell you to do a complete overhaul in one day, you won't be able to do it and it will only discourage you.

I have been noticing this trend of the "21 day" throughout many things I have been reading about health. What does the "21 day's" mean? I think many are using the 21 days because that's about how long it takes you doing something before it will become a habit. In essence, we want to try and have "healthy habits" and it will take time to develop them.

My suggestion for you for this first week of our 21 day challenge is to try working on changing your diet. For the next seven days I suggest you eliminating all meat. Don't leave me yet! What I have found is before you can lose weight or even try to get on track for better health, you need to detox your body. There are many ways to do that (last post I suggested one program from a certified instruction on the website mywellnessmylife.com). I do not state I am certified, but I have walked with a few people through doing a week long detox. If you go longer than that I would suggest someone certified or trained to deal with people because different medical conditions require adjustments in what things you eat.

My suggestion for this week is to eat mainly raw fruits and veggies. At dinner time you can saute a veggie dish (but also eat a salad with it). I have heard testimonies from women that have lost 5 to 10 pounds just doing the detox for the first week. No it's not just water they are losing. What is happening is the raw fruits and veggies are helping to draw the stored foods in their bodies and are helping them to eliminate better than they have before (trying to be delicate here).

I know we now have a different problem, what do I eat then? One suggestion is for breakfast you can make smoothies. I would include some spinach, fruit of your choice and you can either use water or coconut or almond milk. My favorite is the coconut milk at Trader Joe (I should get money for all the endorsements). For protein you can use Chia seeds or Flax seeds. I like Chia seeds because they don't change the taste, Flax seed has a nutty taste. I grind them up (or you can by them that way) and add a tablespoon to my veggie stir fry. It gives it that nutty taste and you don't have to use any other sauce with it. You can find smoothie recipes by searching the internet. I found a website that had 50 Detox Smoothies.

For lunch make you a salad with as many colors as you like. I would suggest colorless dressings. Making your own is even better and they don't always take a long time to prepare. Ask the Cleanse Expert had some salad dressing recipes. I have not made any of these, yet some really looked good. If you try any, let me know! For snacks, take some almonds, and raisins or make yourself a fresh fruit salad (like the one I shared last week). You can also look online for recipes for vegetable dishes or vegan style dishes. Remember you only have to do this for a week to allow your system to get a rest from digesting the meat as well as to help it get a kick start to healing and losing weight.

I would suggest no exercise this week. Just allow your body to detox. You may feel sleeping, you might even be a little irritable or sluggish. Your mind wants to tell you its the food and for you to go back to the way you use to eat. No, it's your bodies reaction to getting the toxins out of your body. Make sure you drink plenty of water and get your rest.

Just a few more points before we finish. I believe even when we try to eat well, we still need some additional vitamins to supplement our health. In fact, studies show that when your body has all the vitamins it needs, it works better at losing weight and staying healthy. There are many vitamins you can purchase what I have found that I like is the Isotonix vitamins. They come in powder form which you can add to water and drink. The powder form is found to enter your system quicker and you get more of the vitamins absorbed into your body. The link above is to the daily packets which are convenient to use. I'll talk more about some of the other vitamin supplements you can use to help as you get healthy. Also, each morning start your day with a glass of water with lemon. This is great for cleansing the liver and also helps with weight loss.

Some things you may need to add to your cabinet for this week of detox:

agave nectar (make sure it is the raw kind)
Coconut oil (look for organic) - use this to stir fry your veggies
Almond or coconut milk (this is a taste and see which one you like best type of trial and error)
fresh ginger
Chia & flax seed
asst. veggies and fruits (for your detox, make sure you have assorted colors)
asst. nuts (almonds, salt free cashews)

Finally, if you are feeling uncomfortable you can make some fresh ginger tea. Cut and peel some of the ginger and boil it. Once it comes to a boil, add to you cup. Add lemon, cinnamon, raw honey or some agave to taste. Great tea.

Next week we will begin incorporating exercise and making those small steps into creating a healthy kitchen. Let's go, you are on your way, we will W.I.N. in health.

Back to school healthy meals (part 3)

We continue with some tips for healthy eating during the school year. The first dish is some pre-packed ravioli (spinach) that I cooked and made my own sauce. My girls loved it.

Spinach Ravioli:
Ravioli (spinach pre-packaged. Note read the package, I made sure the ingredients where what I wanted to feed my family)
Ricotta cheese
spinach
asparagus
red or yellow peppers
mushrooms
Cheese for topping (I like to shred mine from the blocks, you get a better taste, I think)
olive oil

Preparation: While the ravioli is cooking, saute your spinach, asparagus and your other veggies in some olive oil (about a tablespoon). In a separate bowl mix your ricotta and your cheese (I shredded Parmesan). Once your veggies are cooked add the cheese. You will only lightly turn it into the veggies because you don't want the cheese to burn. Add a little of the veggie sauce over your drained ravioli and add some shredded cheese. Serve with a salad. I did not put the exact amount of cheese, because it depends on the amount you want. I would start with a few tablespoons of ricotta cheese and then as you mix it into your veggies, you may want more. It's easier to add than to take away.

Spinach Ravioli with spinach & ricotta sauce

This is a salad for an event, but you can make it smaller for serving your family.

Salad Mix-up:
Romaine lettuce
Spinach
Butter lettuce or another kind you like
strawberries
cutie oranges (or small seedless oranges)
mushrooms
cucumber
peppers
apple
tomatoes

Preparation: Prep all your veggies, cut them up in bite sizes. You can put in the ones I suggested, or pick your own, that's why it's called Salad mix up. Add all your ingredients together. One of my children can't eat nuts or seeds so I don't put any in the salad, but if you don't have nut allergies, put in some sunflower seeds for a little crunch. Use whatever dressing you like. For alternatives I bake some chicken or fish and serve over the salad, great as a dinner.

Zucchini Brownies w/chocolate chips

Zucchini Brownies

This is an easy recipe, I used the recipe on the back of the Baker's Chocolate. You can use your favorite homemade brownie recipe. The only addition is to add to the mix one finely diced zucchini. (NOTE: I substitute all ingredients with organic or raw ingredients). Bake and enjoy knowing you got some veggies in your kids belly. They love them! I added chocolate chips to my recipe. The recipe above has nuts, but I don't use them because of allergies. For easy backing, line your pan with some parchment paper. Makes for easy clean up!

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Where do I get started?

9/15/2014

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Trying to get healthy is often a scary endeavor for many because we don't really know where to start. If you have ever talked to someone about getting healthy you are bombarded with so many things you need to do; eat better, work out, change your attitude, clean out your kitchen to make it a healthy place, just to name a few. As soon as we hear these things we get discouraged and quit. I understand!

So what should be the first things you do? Before you can change something you need to really understand where you are, where is your starting point. The first thing you need to do is take an assessment of where you really are, and that might mean something as simple as taking your weight. Do you know how many people really don't know how much they weight because they have been hiding from the scale? It's a mental thing, if we don't know we believe we can deny the truth. The best thing is to start there, weight yourself.

Then after you do that for a few days (I suggest at least a week) journal everything you eat, everything you do to get as accurate an assessment of yourself as you can. Don't cheat, be honest. Don't leave off the extra cookies you had or the fact that you eat seconds. Write it all down. This will be helpful to you as you begin the journey. As a matter of fact, if you are not really ready to be honest with yourself, then don't start because you will continue to sabotage yourself.

Also remember as you are journaling to write down how you where feeling. Did you eat because you were bored? Did you eat because you were craving something sweet? What was the reason, where you upset, watching television? Put all those details down to help you later.

So after you have gone through the process of journaling it is now time to look at the results. What do you notice from what you have written? Do you find you eat often when you are lonely? Or do you eat out of habit? Did you eat when you were upset a lot? What were some common behaviors you noticed in yourself? This path of discovery is important if you want to deal with the emotional and behavioral aspect of why you eat. This process helped me to see I ate sweets often because there were some "bitter" places in my life. I still had some hurts and disappointments from different times in my life, stemming as far back as from my youth and some of the sexual assaults that happened to me.

This week make this your first step to your new life to W.I.N. in health. If you never want to go on a diet every again, then it is time to really begin the step by step journey of discovering why you are in the place you now stand. Join us next week as we discuss what to do with the information you gathered from your time of journaling.

Healthy Start to the School year (part 2)

My kids got off to a great start to the school year. My kids were just telling me thank you this morning for preparing them healthy lunches. I know they were trying to "butter me up," but that's okay, I am thankful that I have been getting up with them in the morning to make sure their start to the day is a successful one. Not only do we have breakfast together each member of the family shares a scripture and an encouragement to help us through the day. I wanted to share some of my healthy choices this week.

Chicken Wrap:

1 - tortilla shell
1 - baked chicken breast strip
1 - tablespoon of sauce (either hummus, avocado, dressing of choice)
fixings - (placed in a small sandwich bag for one wrap) 1 mushroom diced, carrots shredded, lettuce, diced tomatoes

Preparation: The chicken was prepared previously. I cooked the chicken breast on Sunday. Season however you like, pepper, herbs, etc. I took out one strip per family member and diced it. I took the shell and spread the sauce. You can use hummus; I took a avocado and smashed it and added a few drops of hummus dressing that I purchased at Trader Joe. This helps the wrap not to be dry. Spread about a tablespoon on the shell and place the chicken on top. You can add a little cheese if you like. I wrapped them in foil and placed them in a sandwich container. I didn't put the fixings on the wrap so that the veggies would be fresh, in case the kids wanted to heat the wraps up. The kids loved it. You can change this up. You can do it as an all veggie wrap if you don't want meat.

Breakfast egg cupcake:
1 egg per person (or you can use egg whites only)
spinach
mushrooms
asparagus
(or you can use peppers or any other veggies you want)

Preparation: Saute your veggies in a little olive oil (a tablespoon or less should work). I like to saute the veggies first because if you put them in fresh in the egg mix, it can make it watery. Once you saute the veggies add them to your egg mix after the veggies have cooled. Add a little pepper (you can add salt as well, I don't). Once you have the mixture mixed, pour it into a mini cupcake pan. Bake for 20 minutes or until the egg is firm. Make sure you spray the pan for easy removal of the mini egg cupcakes. The pan I used was small so we each had 3 small cupcakes. We served this with fruit salad.

Fruit salad:
Several cuties/small oranges
strawberries
blue berries
Agave Nectar (raw)

Preparation: Dice your fruit into bite size pieces. Separate your cuties or small oranges into slices. Mix together with about a tablespoon of agave nectar for sweetening. This is better than using sugar. Agave nectar is a low glycemic food that keeps your blood sugars from spiking. Also make sure you get the agave that is raw. After mixing serve.

Chocolate cashew candy:
2 - tablespoons coconut oil (I use the Trader Joe organic brand)
2 - tablespoons cocao powder
1 - tablespoon of sunflower seed butter (I use the Trader Joe brand)
1 or 1/2 tablespoons of Organic Raw Blue Agave Sweetener (Trader Joe brand, but you can use any raw brand)
pinch of Himalayan Pink Salt Crystals (grinder)
handful of cashews
handful of raisins

Preparation: Mel the coconut oil,after melting remove from heat. Add the cocao powder and mix it until it is blended. Then add in the sunflower seed butter and the agave sweetener. Put in the sweetener slowly. Add more to your own taste. Add the pinch of salt. Then add your ingredients, cashews and raisins (if you like you can use almonds instead). (Note: I adapted a recipe from Doreen Germany who has an e-book available with other great recipes to use while detoxing your body. You can find her information mywellnessmylife.com) Once you mix your ingredients, place the mix in small cupcake holders and freeze until ready to eat. I take them out of the freeze and put them in ziploc bags. So when I want something sweet, I have my own candy that actually has something good inside for me. Makes great snacks.

See pictures above for how the recipes look.

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Healthy start to the school year

9/8/2014

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I know many of your children have already started back to school; mine start today. While it was easier to oversee my children's eating during the summer vacation, the challenge is how to make sure they are eating healthy during the school year. We made progress during the summer, and I want to make sure we continue to keep moving in that direction during the busy time of the school year.

One tip I came up with is, preparing my kids lunches and snacks just like I prepared during the summer. The only difference is preparing meals that travel. I find that it is easy to get frustrated and give up if you don't have a plan. So where do you start?

I think this is a great time to include your family in the planning. By doing so, you allow them to have input into what they will eat, which I find they are more likely to then eat it. So here are my steps to creating a healthy start to the school year for your kids (this can also be beneficial to you even if you don't have kids but need to have lunch and snacks for yourself).

1. Prepare a menu - I asked my kids what they wanted to eat during the school day. You might be surprised how helpful they can be (now this may or may not be useful information if your children are really young, you can't pack candy for the entire lunch). The suggestions they gave me where wraps. What a great idea for the first week of school. We talked about the different kinds of wraps. They suggested Hummus wraps, veggie wraps, and chicken wraps. Once you have some suggestions you can create a menu around those suggestions to make your lunches and snacks. Also, you are going to have to bring variety, because we know how easy it is to give up if you have to eat the same thing all the time.

2. Shopping - I involve my family in our shopping trips. I tend to go shopping right after church on Sunday because that is the time we are all together. The Trader Joe we go to is only minutes away from our church and this helps me in the preparation time. My kids are older, however I love watching the families with the younger children pushing their own carts. So don't let your kids age keep you from allowing them to get involved in the family shopping trip. This cuts my time because everyone is given an assignment on what to get. This allows us to get in and out of the store in less than 30 minutes. If I was by myself I know it would take longer. And as a mother with limited time that extra help is useful.

3. Prep time - This takes some time, but it is well worth the effort. What's prep time? Once you get home and unpack your groceries, that is the best time to begin to prep your snacks for traveling. Make sure you invest in sandwich and freezer bags, you'll go through quite a bit. I take whatever my fruits and veggies are that I will be packing and clean them and cut them up and/or separate them into small sandwich bags. You can even prep some of the items you will use for the lunches, like the shredded carrots, diced mushrooms that I will use for the wraps. I would shred some of the carrots and put them in sandwich bags so the kids could grab some and put it on their wraps. Or if you find the shredded carrots, get that and the work is already done for you.

I separate the grapes into snack bags as well as broccoli, or baby carrots. This makes it easy for the kids to pack a lunch in the morning or even for me to grab a snack when I desire one during the day (I work from home). One thing we often don't do is get something to eat if it isn't easy and convenient. If we have cookies on the counter, we'll grab the cookies instead of washing the grapes or cutting up the broccoli. So if you have those items already in snack bags you'll eat them (additionally have less cookies or other tempting snacks on the counter). I know that works for my family. When I bring grapes in and forget to sort them, I can guarantee that I will probably be throwing some away because they went bad. However, if I sort them, I never have any left. That's the goal.

4. Pre-cooked meals - I am also taking the opportunity to cook some of the items that we will have for lunch. For example, I had my daughter make two homemade cheese pizzas. We had some for dinner and the rest was packaged for lunch. These are so much more healthy than ones they would get at the school cafe. I also baked some chicken breast strips that can be used in their wraps during the week. This is a great way to cut cost (buying lunches out) and a great way to cut time (doing the prep ahead of time).

Some people feel it doesn't make a different in the grade and quality of your meats and veggies. I have to say I was one of those that believed that before I changed my eating habits. I find that getting organic meats, cage free/organic eggs, and other organic products does taste different. Yes, they may cost a little more, but I find the cost worth what I'm getting as a result, better health. I purchased these chicken strips from Trader Joe (my favorite store). The cost was $8.25 for the 8 strips, about $1 a strip. Think about the difference. I could go to one of the fast food chains and get a chicken wrap that cost me a few dollars, but the amount of fat, sodium and carbs that is in it is too much (example: one wrap I checked had 510 calories, 1,300mg of sodium, and 54 grams of carbs). The one we make at home doesn't have nearly as much as the store purchased one. And depending on your dieter needs, you can adjust things to fit your need.

I baked two packs of the chicken. Just season them with what ever season you like. I also put several gloves of fresh garlic on the chicken and baked it. Once it was finished I put them in a large Ziploc bag so that my kids can pull out a chicken strip or two to use on their wraps. Great time saver! The wraps I purchased to use with lunch are healthier choices as well. Be creative. And if you didn't know, you can try something out at Trader Joe and if you don't like it you can get your money back. That's a great incentive to try out new things. So we tried two flour tortillas. We purchased the Chia Seed (which has omega, protein, 1 wrap is 130 cal, 260mg sodium, 2g fiber and 3g of protein 20g of carbs) and the spinach tortilla (100 cal, 160 mg sodium, 20 g carb, 2 g protein). The girls can be creative how they make their wraps. They can use a chia seed wrap one day with hummus and veggies and or chicken. Or they can do a spinach wrap with chicken, shredded carrots and a little cheese.

The key to a balanced lunch and/or snack is to make sure you pack color. If your lunches and/or snack are all one color, or lack color you aren't eating as healthy as you can. The more color in your meals the better. So I purchased some containers at Target that have great storage for different types of lunch items. The kids packed their pizza on one side and they put their fruit in the other compartment in the dish. They have their veggie bags (broccoli). I also have small containers they can use to carry a dip or dressing for salads or to eat with their veggies. The key is make sure you have all the tools you need to pack you or your kids lunch. The better you prepare and start off, the better you'll be for the long haul.

So I'm getting my kids ready for a healthy school year. I also suggest you make sure your kids are getting their vitamins every morning. As much as we want to make sure we are getting good nutrients, I believe adding vitamin supplements to your diet isn't a bad thing. You want to set your kids (and yourself) up for a healthy year. Taking vitamin C and a good multivitamin is a great way to help your body fight off the germs, virus and colds coming our way. I happen to give my kids (and take as well) vitamin supplements from Market America. I like the vitamins because they are in powder form. For those that have problems swallowing pills or that have reactions to the coating on pills, these are great. Partly because they also go to work faster because they don't have to break down in your system. So with these tools, my kids are off to a great start for the upcoming school year!

I'd like to hear from you! What tips do you use to help your kids eat healthy (or for your family in general) during the school year? Share your tips so that we can encourage each other. If you are interested in learning more about the vitamins I mentioned you can go to:
http://isotonix.marketamerica.com/jewelwilliams/USA or you can e-mail me @ Williamsinnovativenetwork@gmail.com for more details. Next week, I'll begin to share my actual health journey and some of the things I found that helped me along the way. Until them, keep striving so that you can WIN in health!

Back to school for our Junior in high school

Our Freshman in high school, books in place, now ready to learn! And A healthy lunch and snack helps!

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The beginning Journey

9/6/2014

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Where do I start? Today I sat talking to my eldest daughter and she reminded me of the many individuals that are always asking me for help on how to get healthy. It came to me that maybe it was time to share my story and how I learned how to WIN this battle for health. So Let me start it with my struggles.

In January 2013 (the first picture above) if I wasn't 200 pounds I was just inches away from it. I was feeling tired all the time and I was always sick. My vision was getting worst and my blood pressure was uncontrollable even with my medicine. I remember praying fervently and asking God to help me lose the weight.

He showed me a picture of myself. I was standing there with my hands up praying and holding Twizzlers!

What God was trying to show me is I was asking Him to change something for me, but I wasn't willing to change anything for that to happen. In fact, what the Spirit of God spoke to my heart was this, "Why would I heal you when you aren't doing your part?" WOW! What a blow. I realized, truthfully, I wanted somethings but I hadn't been willing to make any changes on my part.

So why this blog? Several of my sister in Christ came to my house a few days ago and said, sister you need to do some how-to-videos or something to help us out. That was God speaking to that teacher in me. I am always willing to help someone out. So for the journey of this blog, I will share my story on how I lost 45 pounds, feeling better, staying well (I haven't been ill since January 2013), and how so many things in my health have improved. The after picture above is before I reached my goal, where I am currently. I was a size 8 above, I am holding at a size 6/4. I'll share the internal journey you have to take along with some tips to help you get started. This blog was simply to introduce myself to you and invite you along for the journey of how to WIN in health, so that you can WIN in life.

Let's get started....

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I am a wife, mother, Pastor and the owner of Tri-Production Publishing, Inc., just to name a few of my many hats I wear. But like many of you, I was so busy doing all these different roles that I forgot to take care of myself. I had to learn how to WIN with my healthy so that I could help others WIN their battles.

Why do I need to exercise, isn't eating healthy enough?

Back to School Healthy Meals (part 4)

What did I learn about myself?

Back to school healthy meals (part 3)

Where do I get started?

﻿Healthy Start to the School year (part 2)﻿

Healthy start to the school year

The beginning Journey

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Healthy Start to the School year (part 2)