Healthy Living in Connecticut Blog

The United Healthcare Walk-A-Thon began four weeks ago. So far, I have walked nearly 400,000 steps in four weeks. Last year, I had over a million steps, but this was for a ten week challenge. The challenge I'm currently in is for eight weeks.

I figure my steps are now at approximately 5,720,000 since April of 2012, during the first challenge I was in at the YMCA. As many of you know, I only missed one day of 10,000 steps, when I was too sick one day. That means I've walked almost every day, a minimum of 10,000 steps, for about 18 months.

A while back, I wrote an article about Papa Joe Avaiance. He lost over 250 pounds on a budget and reached his goal without surgery. He is truly an inspiration and I'm so happy he agreed to do an interview for the healthylivingct website. Papa Joe has kept his weight off by eating right and exercising every day. Papa Joe, thank you so much for the interview! I think Papa Joe will motivate those of you who are thinking of losing weight and for those who get discouraged, he offers some great advice. Check out the interview below. For more information about Papa Joe, go to his website by clicking here.

I weighed in today for my 3rd completed week of the YMCA's Corporate Wellness Challenge. I came in just under 250 at 249.8lbs.  I was worried that after the jumpstart period of my diet and I got my carbs back, my weight-loss might drop off completely. It appears everything is moving on course since I am still losing.  I plan on picking up on my activity by exercising 1 hour a day for 6 days a week.  Let's see if I can push 2lbs per/week to 4lbs per/week over the upcoming weeks.

So now I am down a total of 14.2 lbs since I started the challenge 3 weeks ago.  I started the challenge at 264lbs. The thing is... my heaviest, less than 1 year ago, was 283lbs. So in reality I am down 33lbs!  My target weight is 180lbs by March 28th.  I need to average 3lbs a week.  So far so good!

I know there are some people that get offended if you don't take the food they offer you. There are others who simply don't understand healthy eating and will criticize the foods that you're eating. Some people expect you to eat junk food or they won't stay your friend.

Peer pressure is usually tied in with talk about drugs, but can very easily be applied to food. There are relatives or co-workers who will beg you to eat certain food and when you tell them you don't eat that, they don't let it go. They hound you and hound you, as if they will convince you to partake in the food. I remember one job a while ago where I was pressured to eat junk food all the time. "Rich, have another candy..." "Finish this bag of candy..." Of course, I would always eat the food offered as I was obese and didn't care or think about the effects of eating too much junk food.

Doctor Oz did a segment about aspertame on his show recently. I'm happy he finally acknowledged some of the problems with aspartame, but I don't think he went far enough about the dangers of this chemical.

That's right, aspertame is made of chemicals, nothing natural about it. Do you know how aspertame was discovered? A scientist was working on a new medication back in the 1960's and accidentally had a taste of what would become known as aspertame when it landed in his mouth. Doesn't sound too good for you, does it?