Start! Eating Healthy Day

Did you know that today is Start Eating Healthy Day?  This was posted by the American Heart Association.

 Start! Eating Healthy Day
11/04/2009
12:00am
Location:
Everywhere
123 Your Street
Everytown, KY 40000



One way to your heart health may be through your stomach

So the American Heart Association urges you to take another look at what's on your plate. Especially on November 4, Start! Eating Healthy Day.

That Wednesday is a time to pay a little extra attention to food choices and make any dietary changes appropriate to form heart-healthy eating habits. The American Heart Association stands ready to help, offering healthy eating resources online, including health tips, articles and recipes.

Start! Eating Healthy Day is for you. And it's for your company--which can support employees in their efforts by stocking drink and snack machines with healthy choices, providing a heart-healthy menu in the cafeteria, bringing in nutritionists or dieticians to speak, or treating staff to fruit or other healthful snacks.

Start! is an American Heart Association campaign to help protect or improve cardiovascular health by building more physical activity into daily life. Designed as a workplace-based walking program, Start! encourages companies to urge their employees to walk during the business day. Start! Eating Healthy Day adds another dimension to the initiative.

In a nation where being overweight or obese has reached an epidemic level, it's necessary to start somewhere to improve cardiovascular health. Start! Eating Healthy Day is a good beginning.

Start! is sponsored nationally by Subway, Healthy Choice and AstraZeneca. In Kentucky, it is supported by the University of Kentucky and Western Baptist Hospital

You can check out their website for a great walking program.  Find out if there are any walking paths in your area.  I also found that they have a grocery list builder under resources.

Need Fitness Ideas? Try Workout Generator

This is one of the features on spark people and it suggests workouts based on your fitness level and time constraints.  Give it a try.  You will have a few options to choose from.

Walking Route Planner

This is a great site to plan your walks and know how far you have been.  Just type in your zip code and it brings up a map of your area.  It gets so specific, I was able to find my own street and measure the distance around the block.  This is fun to play with and see how you can change your route to make it just the right length. Click here to map your own route.

Webwalking USA Walking Program

I came across this site on the internet the other day and it seems like a fun thing for the family to do together.  You can virtually walk across the United States and chart your progress using their printable map.  If you have a pedometer, you can track your steps.  It takes 504,800 steps to walk from coast to coast.  If you want to count minutes, it takes 5048 minutes to walk from coast to coast.  You can print out your own copies of the map and logs at http://walking.about.com/cs/measure/a/webwalkingusa.htm .  It will be fun to see how long it takes us.

Keeping Kids on Task

There is a great site called Handipoints which  lets you create chore charts for your kids.  It also has catergories such as exercise and health, so they can make sure they are accomplishing all their goals for the day.  Plus you can customize your own chart.  This part of the site is free.  They have other parts where you can pay a fee and utilize more things they have to offer.  For example, your kids can get online and check off the things they completed and earn items to create a virtual world.  I have only used the parts that are free and have found it very benefitial.  Here is an example of my child's chart.  If you would like to sign up, go to Handipoints and create your own account.

Sparkpeople

There is a wonderful FREE resource for people who are trying to live a healthy lifestyle. The website is http://www.sparkpeople.com/ . Our family is on a strict budget so it's nice to find something that is this useful for free. When you join this site (which is free), you have access to their nutrition tracker. You search for the food that you eat and it will put it on your plan and will include calories, carbs., fat, and protein. You can also keep track of your water consumption here. They offer meal plans and a fitness tracker. Using the fitness tracker you can keep track of strength training and cardio. as well as view the exercise demos. You have the ability to keep track of your weight and measurement if you so chose and it will give you a time line for your goals. There is also a place where teens can keep track. You have the ability to join groups based on your age, interests, weight lose goals, health issues and so much more.