Archive for February, 2009
Week Seven- Knowing Your BMI
This week we are going to calculate our BMI (body mass index). It used to be that in the doctor’s office, they would have a height and weight chart, and people were forced to fit into the compartmentalized height weight ratios. Now, we use the Body Mass Index which is a more accurate measure of body fat based on height and weight. We are figuring out our BMI so we can be aware of our own weight and how it affects our health.
According to National Heart Lung and Blood Institue, being overweight can increase the risk of high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and certain cancers. They also say that even losing 10% of our current weight will help lower our risk of developing these diseases. This first step is to calculate our BMI. The second step is to determine your waist circumference. (Do this by holding a measuring tape snugly around your waist). Third, determine if you are at risk. If you find out that you are in fact at risk, I would be more than willing to help you develop your own personal action plan over and above our 3 Month Healthier Living Plan. If you want to check out how you can control your weight, check out the National Heart and Lung’s Information for Patients and the Public. For a review, these are the challenges we have already had and continue to work on, including this week’s challenge.
1) Take the stairs
2) Park far away
3) Look at the nutritional info
4) Keep portion sizes down
5) Have no more than 2 helpings
6) Drink lots of water
7) Calculate your Body Mass Index
The optional fast/challenge for this week is: to track the amount of calories you eat in a day in a note book at least two days this week.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )Assessment for Week Six
1) Did you drink at least a cup of water a day? Y/N
2) Did you carry a water bottle around with you, or keep a glass of water at your desk at work? Y/N
3) Did you deliberately drink water at meals instead of pop, juice, coffee, tea or milk?
4) Did you notice any effects when you drank more water? If so, what were they?
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )Week Six- Get Hydrated
This week’s challenge is to get hydrated! Our body is made up of more than 70% water, and when we don’t get enough water, it doesn’t function the way it was meant to function! The website I added to this page has some great ideas about how we can drink more water and why. Give it a read. Before I finished writing this post it has convinced me to get up and drink some water.
http://www.dumblittleman.com/2007/07/9-great-reasons-to-drink-water-and-how.html
The optional fast/challenge for this week is to drink more water! I think that this is such an important thing that all our energy can be devoted to this one thing.
Here’s our review for the past weeks. Keep up the good work!
1) Take the stairs
2) Park at the end of the row
3) Look at the nutritional info (I am not doing so great at this one, but it will come into play again in these next few weeks, so try and be conscious about it this week.)
4) Portion size no bigger than your hand
5) No more than two helpings
6) Drink a lot of water- I am linking a hydration calculator just in case you want to know what is suggested for you to drink. I like this calculator because it considers all factors not just your weight.
I have linked portions and drinking water because of this article
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )Assessment for Week 5
1) Did you limit your portions this week?
2) Did you try to keep portion sizes down to the size of your hand?
3) Did you try to limit yourself to no more than two helpings per meal?
Optional challenge/fast: Did you watch TV over 5 days this week?
Did you watch TV 3-5 days this week?
Did you watch TV 1-3 days this week?
Did you completely neglet TV this week?
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 3 so far )Week Five- Cutting down our portions
Congratulations on making it to week five of the 3 month healthier living plan. It has been over a month, and hopefully your will power is getting stronger and you are learning to become more healthy in all areas of life. This week we will be continuing off of last week’s portion size challenge.
1) Take the stairs
2) Park far away in the parking lot
3) Look at the nutritional info
4) Don’t take portions bigger than your hand
5) Try not to have more than 2 portions
The optional fast/challenge for this week is to avoid all television. Good luck!
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )Assessment for Week Four
1) Did you daily try and keep your portions down to the size of your hand? Y/N
2) What meal was the easiest to keep to smaller portions?
3) What meal was the hardest to keep small portion sizes?
4) What does this tell you about your meals/snacks/hunger?
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )
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