Monday, August 8, 2011

Week 4 of the 8 Week Healthy Habit Challenge

For the past 3 weeks, we have been working on identifying and changing our worst habit, eliminating added sugars from our diets, and removing the processed foods from our pantries and refrigerators.
Since you have purged your home of most of the ugly foods, I bet you are wondering what you CAN eat!
Speaking from experience, I know how hard it is to change eating patterns. It’s easy to reach into a box and pull out a couple of crackers; it takes a little more planning to reach for a healthier snack. However, once you have found some healthier snacks that you enjoy, you won’t even miss those crackers!
Choose fruits and vegetables as easy grab-n-go snacks. Apples, bananas, sliced veggies, nuts, grapes, cheese cubes – are all easy to grab and are transportable. Hummus, home made guacamole, cottage cheese and Greek yogurt make great dips for sliced vegetables such as peppers and carrots. Keep snack size, low-sugar yogurts, real-cheese string cheese, and grapes in the refrigerator for the kids.


Food Group Color: Orange
Foods that are orange in color bioflavanoids, carotenoids, limonoids, which promote heart health, eye health, lower the risk of certain cancers and boost immunity.

Foods to try: oranges, apricots, cantaloupe, mangoes, cantaloupe, peaches, sweet potatoes, carrots, orange peppers, butternut squash, pumpkins and pumpkin seeds.

Serve cantaloupe with cottage cheese as a snack, or sprinkle some pumpkin seeds (pepitas) on your salad.

Fitness Challenge:
Beginners: Begin adding intervals into your walking program. Walk at a fast pace for 30 sec, or 1-2 blocks, then recover at a slower pace for a min. Repeat this cycle during your walk. Increase 2 walking sessions to 40 min. and continue doing bodyweight resistance training twice a week.

Advanced:  Add an extra round to your strength training routine, and add 2 sessions of HIIT sessions to your cardio program. Set a goal and join the 1200 Ab Challenge, (see Ab Challenge blog post).

Here is this week’s challenge recap:
Eat breakfast every day this week. Eliminate all sugary drinks. Cook dinner at least 4 times this week incorporating some of the new foods you have read about in this challenge. Pack your lunch and snacks for work at least 3 days this week. Find healthy snacks for you and your family.

Incorporate fitness 5 days a week.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

great post, I am happy to report we do all you recommended!! always a good thing!!

Unknown said...

Great Post! Great Tips! Thanks for linking up to Fitness Friday! I hope you'll consider joining in the "Most Miles" fitness challenge. :)

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