Healthy Living in Connecticut Blog

Somebody please remind me… why do we live in New England? I forgot the reason… maybe I don't remember why because it's like 0 degree temperatures outside right now. Maybe it's because we warm up for a day, go back to severe cold weather, then warm up again, then the snow melts, then we get extreme cold, then we get snow again, then it warms up again, then back to freezing cold! I guess there's a lot of good reasons to live in New England… I just can't think of them right now!

I thought I would offer some tips on shoveling snow and staying warm. Remember to take it easy when shoveling. Every now and then we hear of people having heart attacks while shoveling snow. According to the American Heart Association, those that are at risk are people who are in poor physical condition, or those with existing heart disease or a personal history of stroke. We also have the danger of the extreme cold weather.

You know how it is near the holidays.  Life overwhelms you to the point that everything becomes a fire fight and somethings fall by the wayside. I've neglected my weight-loss updates so here we go!

In my last post... about a month ago I had announced that I won the weight-loss challenge held at the Torrington YMCA from mid September through mid November.  In that time I lost nearly 30 pounds in 8 weeks.  As of today I am down an additional 12lbs.  That is a total of 40lbs since mid september when the challenge started.  The holidays have made it tough with my new eating habits as I find myself indulging frequently.  But I am still losing.  I will fall back into my routine after the holidays are over and hope to see some more aggressive weight-loss as I still have 44lbs to go until I reach my goal.

As Rich pointed out in his last post, goal setting is a key to success and achieving one goal can allow other goals to be met at the same time without much effort. So why don’t people achieve their goals? Well one reason is people are not correctly setting their goals. The simplest way to create good goals is to make your goals S.M.A.R.T.

S = Simple. Specific.

The new year is approaching, and everyone that wants to lose weight will begin to think of their resolutions. Some people will get gym memberships, others will try the latest fad diets. Instead of diets, you have to remember that true, sustainable weight loss only comes from lifestyle changes.

To achieve your weight loss goal, I think you need other goals too. You know what helped me lose the weight? I didn't only concentrate on the weight as I was trying to find foods to lower my blood pressure. I was on a mission to not be on hypertensive medication and I changed my diet because of it. The result was weight loss! Of course I knew I needed to lose weight… my doctor told me to lose 90 pounds, after all. But I don't think I would have made all the necessary dietary changes if it weren't for the other goal of lowering my blood pressure.

The last tip to maintain your waistline over the Christmas holiday doesn't even have to do with food or water. Love Everyone. Here is an extremely common occurrence for a lot of people. Food = Love. Right away its easy to assume I am talking about the person eating the food but it also includes the person preparing the meal.