Bad habits! I have plenty of these. Today I looked up this subject and was surprised by how much information was out there! Everything from it taking 3-4 weeks to change them and even people saying you can never change once set in your ways. I think the best information I found said you can start new habits, so there is still hope for me yet!
So, I started to wonder how long would it really take to start a new habit. I think the best information I found came from the UK Health Behaviore Research Centre . They came out with some research saying it took 66 days to form a habit. I think I like this better than the idea of doing something for say only 30 days. The longer we do something the more it will stick…right?
Okay, so now I am wondering how to go about starting new habits. Should I pick one or maybe several and give it a go? I think with me I should do this in baby steps. I’m thinking one at a time would be more realistic. Where to start and what habit seems to be best? I think making a list would be a good start. Here are some that seem important to me.
1. Walking 3-5 days a week
2. Drinking 8 glasses of water a day
3. Doing those pesky dishes every night before bed. (some days they end up being done in the morning :o)
4. Eat breakfast every morning!
5. Take my vitamins every day.
6. Floss twice a day even when once seems enough on busy days.
7. Go to bed at a reasonable time.
8. Eat something green every day.
9. Read for 15 minutes a day. I know its not long, but with six kids it is!
10. Remember my prayers every night.
Okay so there is a list of ten. A good start for sure. Now I need to pick one and go at it! (like how I am figuring this out as I go?) I think I will use a very scientific method and please feel free to use it if ever not sure when making choices off a list. Going to close my eyes now and see where my finger leads me. Okay number 5 and the vitamins!
To make this legitimate I am going to take all the vitamins I like to use and put them into 66 individual bags. I will also take my supplements and put them in the same area. I guess I need to go buy extras tomorrow. I will also enlist my husbands help to make sure I have support and don’t fail at this. I think a photo log would be another good idea. Maybe it will make it kind of fun….for me at least. Oh, a picture before and after 60 days also. I want to see if they really make a difference in my skin and hair. I have never been good at taking them with any kind of consistency.
Well, as silly as this seems I am excited to give it a try. If it works I will work on this list of ten until I get them all into my habits! :D Now step one is getting these vitamins in baggies and taking that dreadful before photo. 66 days doesn’t seem so bad, well for now it doesn’t! Wish me luck!!!
Monday, December 19, 2011
Sunday, September 11, 2011
PB&J
Peanut butter and jelly is a classic! One thing all kids and most adults love to have. I find my children eat this for lunch and snack whenever they can. The trick to this tasty sandwich is putting a little extra power into it. By power I mean making it as healthy and nutritious as possible.
Don’t get me wrong you can always go for the white bread, Smuckers and Jiff, but I do it a bit different in our house. I try to make sure we are getting the healthiest foods we can. I have found a few products at our commissary that the kids actually like and will eat. I enjoy it very much myself. Using organic jams and jellies ensures their bodies are getting the sweet stuff they love without all the extra pesticides that can hurt them later in life. I also like to switch up regular peanut butter with almond butter. It has more vitamin E, iron and calcium than the peanut butter. I also like to use different breads. Bleached white flour is lacking in just about everything. I go for stone ground whole wheat when I can find it. When I cant I go for the next best thing. Anything with whole wheat flour listed as the first ingredient is the runner up when I am left without my first choice.
Don’t get me wrong you can always go for the white bread, Smuckers and Jiff, but I do it a bit different in our house. I try to make sure we are getting the healthiest foods we can. I have found a few products at our commissary that the kids actually like and will eat. I enjoy it very much myself. Using organic jams and jellies ensures their bodies are getting the sweet stuff they love without all the extra pesticides that can hurt them later in life. I also like to switch up regular peanut butter with almond butter. It has more vitamin E, iron and calcium than the peanut butter. I also like to use different breads. Bleached white flour is lacking in just about everything. I go for stone ground whole wheat when I can find it. When I cant I go for the next best thing. Anything with whole wheat flour listed as the first ingredient is the runner up when I am left without my first choice.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Answering a child’s question
Mommy what does this say?” I take a moment to look at the box with the littlest pet shop animals inside my daughter is holding. I have the baby trying to get out of the seat in the shopping cart and her sister underfoot telling me about the Barbie she wants. Its in these moments I just want to tell her and move on. I know inside this is an important moment to help her with her reading. I pick the baby up, ask Amelia to see if she can count how many Barbie boxes there are and sit down with the baby and Emma. Yes right there in the aisle of the store. I ask her to sound it out while putting my finger up to the letters. After about 30 seconds she read the words on the back she was having trouble with.
I think as a parent it is so important we find every opportunity we can to teach our children. A lot of people feel that school is where they learn and home is a break from that. I don’t think you have to pull out a bunch of workbooks and dictionaries and have them sit at the table all day. However, I do think there are so many moments where we can teach them above and beyond what they are learning in the classroom. I find simple ways to do this throughout the day.
If I am cooking dinner I have them help and we discuss measurements when we are following a recipe. We start out with needing a cup then discuss breaking that down to half a cup or a third. By the time we are done they know how many teaspoons are in a tablespoon and they also walk away with a better understanding of fractions. If we are outside playing and they ask about the plants we talk about photosynthesis. They even learned about condensation when asking why the underside of the pool was wet when it didn’t rain.
.There are so many examples I could give, but these were just a few. The best part is these weren’t long drawn out conversations. It only takes a few moments of every ones time. When we stop and take a moment to help educate our children we are giving them a gift. Not something they even notice, but we are increasing their knowledge and helping them with important life skills. One more important thing here I feel noteworthy, we are also letting them know we love them. We are taking time to talk with them. I see so many parents push their child aside because they are to busy. Yes, sometimes we are, but every time hurts the child and the parent in the long run. We only get them little for a while. Before we know it they will be gone. I think we will wish we took even more time with them.
I think as a parent it is so important we find every opportunity we can to teach our children. A lot of people feel that school is where they learn and home is a break from that. I don’t think you have to pull out a bunch of workbooks and dictionaries and have them sit at the table all day. However, I do think there are so many moments where we can teach them above and beyond what they are learning in the classroom. I find simple ways to do this throughout the day.
If I am cooking dinner I have them help and we discuss measurements when we are following a recipe. We start out with needing a cup then discuss breaking that down to half a cup or a third. By the time we are done they know how many teaspoons are in a tablespoon and they also walk away with a better understanding of fractions. If we are outside playing and they ask about the plants we talk about photosynthesis. They even learned about condensation when asking why the underside of the pool was wet when it didn’t rain.
.There are so many examples I could give, but these were just a few. The best part is these weren’t long drawn out conversations. It only takes a few moments of every ones time. When we stop and take a moment to help educate our children we are giving them a gift. Not something they even notice, but we are increasing their knowledge and helping them with important life skills. One more important thing here I feel noteworthy, we are also letting them know we love them. We are taking time to talk with them. I see so many parents push their child aside because they are to busy. Yes, sometimes we are, but every time hurts the child and the parent in the long run. We only get them little for a while. Before we know it they will be gone. I think we will wish we took even more time with them.
Monday, August 15, 2011
water water water oh and some Caffeine
Several weeks ago I posted a 7 day water challenge I was doing on my face book. I had many people ask me to let them know how it went. I haven’t gotten a chance to update anyone with my results. The challenge was for seven days to take half your body weight then drink that many ounces of water a day. Well for me it was around 70 ounces daily.
It was very hard for me to complete the challenge, but I did it. Silly as it seems when your not a huge fan of plain water it isn’t an easy task. At the end of the week I felt I would float away. I also had more bathroom trips then one should make in a day or night for that matter. I think mostly, because I was also trying to drink all of my other favorite beverages on top of that.
The positives were I lost two pounds that week , I didn’t feel as tired by early afternoon like I usually do and my mouth didn’t feel dry like it usually does. I have to say I didn’t even notice my mouth felt dry until I started the challenge and realized a mouth should feel more moist. So over all it was a great thing to do and has changed how I choose to stay hydrated,
I don’t drink the full 70 ounces in water now that the challenge has came and gone, but I am drinking around 32 ounces of plain water daily. I have grown to like a nice cold glass or bottle. Anyone who knows me would be in shock, because in the past I never drank any! I have other beverages I refuse to let go of during the day to make up for lost liquids. I know they aren’t the best, but that said I will always be me and I do enjoy my caffeine. Again I think that’s where my ideals of half and half come in as I explained in an earlier post. So, my other beverages if you may wonder…well I will post a picture so you can see what helps keep me fueled during the day.
It was very hard for me to complete the challenge, but I did it. Silly as it seems when your not a huge fan of plain water it isn’t an easy task. At the end of the week I felt I would float away. I also had more bathroom trips then one should make in a day or night for that matter. I think mostly, because I was also trying to drink all of my other favorite beverages on top of that.
The positives were I lost two pounds that week , I didn’t feel as tired by early afternoon like I usually do and my mouth didn’t feel dry like it usually does. I have to say I didn’t even notice my mouth felt dry until I started the challenge and realized a mouth should feel more moist. So over all it was a great thing to do and has changed how I choose to stay hydrated,
I don’t drink the full 70 ounces in water now that the challenge has came and gone, but I am drinking around 32 ounces of plain water daily. I have grown to like a nice cold glass or bottle. Anyone who knows me would be in shock, because in the past I never drank any! I have other beverages I refuse to let go of during the day to make up for lost liquids. I know they aren’t the best, but that said I will always be me and I do enjoy my caffeine. Again I think that’s where my ideals of half and half come in as I explained in an earlier post. So, my other beverages if you may wonder…well I will post a picture so you can see what helps keep me fueled during the day.
Friday, August 12, 2011
First week of school and the snacks that help fuel them
School has started once again. It was a short week as they only went yesterday and today. I think it’s better this way. They are able to ease back into it rather than having to deal with the whole five days. I’m getting older, but not so old as I don’t remember how exhausting those first few days are for a child.
Seeing how it is Friday and there is no homework they spent a larger part of the day in the back yard playing. The boys like to jump on the trampoline while the girls play in their rather large kiddy pool. I tend too find myself in there with them. Only of course because the baby wants in…yeah sure that’s it. Everyone is settled in from this long day now and getting ready for sleep. Well, at least I am for sure!
I just finished cleaning the kitchen and taking something out to thaw for tomorrows dinner. I also wanted to make sure I had enough things to survive the weekend such as milk and snacks. Things that seem to go rather quickly in this house. I started to wonder what other parents give their children between meals to stave off the hunger. We all know children can eat most of the day if allowed. At least mine can and they are skinny as can be!
I remember a time when I would give mine a bag of chips or cookies almost every time. This past year I have really cut down on those things. Don’t get me wrong they still get them. Maybe once or twice a week now and that’s about it. The rest of the week I try to give them things that are good for them and things they will actually like. I decided to take a picture of what my children will eat as far as snacks over the weekend. Some of the things may seem rather odd like sardines and smoked oysters, but they like them and they are very good for their little bodies and minds. As you can see there are cookies!
So, what are your children eating at snack time?
Seeing how it is Friday and there is no homework they spent a larger part of the day in the back yard playing. The boys like to jump on the trampoline while the girls play in their rather large kiddy pool. I tend too find myself in there with them. Only of course because the baby wants in…yeah sure that’s it. Everyone is settled in from this long day now and getting ready for sleep. Well, at least I am for sure!
I just finished cleaning the kitchen and taking something out to thaw for tomorrows dinner. I also wanted to make sure I had enough things to survive the weekend such as milk and snacks. Things that seem to go rather quickly in this house. I started to wonder what other parents give their children between meals to stave off the hunger. We all know children can eat most of the day if allowed. At least mine can and they are skinny as can be!
I remember a time when I would give mine a bag of chips or cookies almost every time. This past year I have really cut down on those things. Don’t get me wrong they still get them. Maybe once or twice a week now and that’s about it. The rest of the week I try to give them things that are good for them and things they will actually like. I decided to take a picture of what my children will eat as far as snacks over the weekend. Some of the things may seem rather odd like sardines and smoked oysters, but they like them and they are very good for their little bodies and minds. As you can see there are cookies!
So, what are your children eating at snack time?
Thursday, August 11, 2011
A start
What do you do when given a second chance? Well, this is where i find myself at this point in my life. I remarried a little over a year ago and found myself a bit scared and confused. I am not in my twenties just starting out. I had five children at the time and had a pretty routine life for the most part.
My husband happens to be eight years younger and full of life and energy. Lets face it when you hit your thirties you tend to slow down a bit. My initial quest was to do any and everything I could too look and feel younger with him. Along the way it became something for me. I wasn’t just trying to make myself look younger and prettier to keep up anymore. I was enjoying how I felt and how the changes in my body and mental outlook were affecting me and my family. I was alive for the first time in many years.
The reason I am writing this is to share with people the changes I am making. There have been so many and it gets hard to sit and explain all that I want in a single conversation! I receive so many questions from weight loss, how to choose earth friendly and organic products to what skin cream I use. Keep in mind I use the 50/50 approach. That’s 50% good for the earth and me and 50% I’m only human and will use things that are processed and not so healthy! A good realistic balance I think. Besides we all know honey and oatmeal make a good facial, but cant touch what a little retinol can do.
My husband happens to be eight years younger and full of life and energy. Lets face it when you hit your thirties you tend to slow down a bit. My initial quest was to do any and everything I could too look and feel younger with him. Along the way it became something for me. I wasn’t just trying to make myself look younger and prettier to keep up anymore. I was enjoying how I felt and how the changes in my body and mental outlook were affecting me and my family. I was alive for the first time in many years.
The reason I am writing this is to share with people the changes I am making. There have been so many and it gets hard to sit and explain all that I want in a single conversation! I receive so many questions from weight loss, how to choose earth friendly and organic products to what skin cream I use. Keep in mind I use the 50/50 approach. That’s 50% good for the earth and me and 50% I’m only human and will use things that are processed and not so healthy! A good realistic balance I think. Besides we all know honey and oatmeal make a good facial, but cant touch what a little retinol can do.
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