Need some motivation?

Challenge: JUST DO IT!

Five Good Minutes....

So as I was wandering in the library last night I came upon this book...

I haven't read a lot of it but I find it interesting. One thing that the author pointed out is that your body is always with you, wherever you are, you can't get away from it. So the relationship you have with your body is important. Wellness helps you have a positive outlook about yourself, others, and life. I will probably post some other things that I find intriguing later, but I just wanted to get you thinking; what kind of relationship do you have with yourself?

Challenge: Answer the question above. Is it a positive one or does it cause you to be upset? Figure out the answer and stay posted for some ways to improve your mindset!

Life is precious

I have been reading my friends blog lately. Long story short, her husband was diagnosed with cancer and they have been at the Huntsman Institute getting treatment for a while now. At the end of her last blog post she wrote, "Life is precious. Everyday is a gift." It really hit me hard. It is a gift. I hope you realize that too. We really don't know what is going to happen to us. We may get another day to live and become better, or we may not.

I have been studying Gerontology (the study of aging) in school and 70% of diseases we get are because of our lifestyle. 70 percent!! If you think about it, I would say we have a pretty good chance of how we want our lives to end up. I mean, there is always genetics that play a big part, too, but I just want to encourage you to be better. Live each day as if it were your last.

What are you going to change? Think of your goals...

Do you want to climb to the top of the world?

Do you want to run a race?

Do you want to play with your grandchildren?

What are you going to do? I would love to hear from you!

Challenge: Make a change for the better!

Nutrient Density

Have you ever seen the movie Nacho Libre? Well there is a line in the movie where Nacho says that the eagle eggs didn't give him any nutrients. This reminded me of something I learned a while ago and relearned today... Nutrient Density! This means that you are measuring the nutrients provided in a food per kcalorie of that food, or in other words, how much nutritional value you are getting from the food you are eating.

1/2 cup of cooked broccoli is considered to have a high nutrient density because it is high in nutrients relative to its caloric value. In comparison a chocolate cupcake with frosting has many more calories and few nutrients making it a low nutrient density. These foods are sometimes referred to as empty calorie foods because they aren't providing you with the nutrients that you need.

Fruits and Veggies are going to have a high nutrient density whereas fast food and candy will have a low nutrient density. You can choose what you want to eat. I am not saying never to eat "junk food" again--I actually just put a dove dark chocolate in my mouth :)--I am just hoping that you become aware of what you put in your body.

Challenge: Write down everything that you eat for one day and go to choosemyplate.org and see how many empty calories you ate that day. Then figure out what you can improve on. Good luck!

The Principle of Summation

What you hear the word summation, what do you think of? If you go back to the basic math that you learned in Elementary, you'll remember that it is the sum of something. Try to guess how this plays into our wellness.

Let's say you are walking down the street and see a bright, shiney penny. Do you pick it up? I do! Why? Because if I pick up 100 of them, I have myself a dollar! :)

This is called the principle of summation. It can be good or bad. First let's loog at a good example:
If you want to increase the calories you burn, just increase the amount of work you do. You can do various things throughout the day to do so--walk briskly to class or down the hallway, park far away from the front doors of the store, use the stairs instead of the elevator.

Now to the bad example. Think about those crunchy, crisp triscuts. I personally like the Cracked Pepper and Olive Oil ones, but for this example I will stick with the original. 5 crackers equal 80 calories. If you do the math, each cracker comes out to be 16 calories.

Let's say that you are on a 2000 calorie diet and you aren't doing any exercise. Everyday you eat your 2000 calories but decide you want just one triscuit. This puts you at 2016 calories that day. You may think it's not that big of a deal, but it will be...

Since you are not exercising, you don't burn off that extra 16 calories. If you continue this for 10 years--eating an extra 16 calories a day and not exercising-- you will gain nearly 17 pounds! So those extra calories really do add up:

1 pound of fat=3500 calories
(16 extra calories x 365 days x 10 years)/3500 calories per pound= 16.7 pounds

I don't want to scare you, I just want you to be aware of this principle. And remember, the principle of summation works both ways!

Challenge: Each day think about how much you are doing. Make a list of the good and bad ways of how the Principle of Summation may be affecting your life. Hopefully it will open your eye and you can make goals on what you want to improve on! Good luck!

Inspiration

Another inspirational movie to motivate you to accomplish your goals. It has some of the same speeches as the clip before, but new ones, too!