Teaching Your Children Healthy Habits

Parents are role models for the next generation, so we need to be practicing good habits to pass down to them. You can help your child have good habits by having them start them early in life. This will bring them lifelong benefits. You can encourage them to evaluate food choices and physical activity habits.

Here are some tips and guidelines to start.

  1. Be a good role model.
    If your kids see you eating right and doing physical activity, they will notice and will get the message that good health is important.
  2. Keep things positive.
    Tell kids what they can do, because they don’t like hearing what they cannot do. Everyone likes to be praised for a job well done, so keep things fun and positive.
  3. Get the whole family moving.
    Plan times for the whole family to get moving together. Take walks, ride bikes, go swimming, garden or even just play hide-and-seek outside.
  4. Be realistic.
    Setting realistic goals and limits are a key to adopting any new behavior. Taking small steps and making gradual changes can make a huge difference in your health over time.
  5. Limit TV, video game and computer time.
    These habits lead to a sedentary lifestyle and cause excessive snacking, which increases the risks for obesity and cardiovascular disease. You should limit screen time to two hours per day.
  6. Encourage physical activities that they will enjoy.
    Let children experiment with different activities until they find something they really enjoy doing. They’ll stick with it much longer if they love it.
  7. Pick exciting rewards.
    Don’t reward your children with TV, video games, candy or snacks. Find other ways to celebrate, such as a day going bowling or mini-golfing, or a day at the beach or pool.
  8. Make dinnertime a family time.
    When everyone sits down together to eat dinner, there’s less of a chance that children will eat the wrong food or snack too much. Get the kids involved with you by letting them help cook and plan meals. Everyone will develop good eating habits together. (An added bonus is quality time with the whole family!)
  9. Make a game of reading food labels.
    The whole family can learn what’s good for their health and become more conscious of what they’re eating. .
  10. Stay involved.
    Become an advocate for healthier children. Insist on good food choices at school. Make sure your children’s healthcare providers are monitoring cardiovascular indicators such as BMI, blood pressure and cholesterol.

We offer nutrition counseling, so stop in today if you want some help along the way! Making the healthier choices are often tough and it can be nice to have a support system to help. Challenge your friends, family and children to change with you and enjoy the benefits.

Stomping the Battle with Weight Loss

An important part of weight loss is setting aside extra time in your day to exercise. Finding the right exercise for you is an essential part to living a long, healthy life. Every person, their body type and their workout preference is different, so the amount and type of exercise varies. Summer is the time of the year for backyard cookouts and celebrations. During these gatherings, it’s hard not to consume all the delicious foods that your family and friends bring.

As summer ends, we start to worry about ways to maintain our diet during the holiday season. Thankfully, there are many weight loss plans out there that people are always promoting. We are constantly hearing word of a new weight loss phenomena that seems to sweep the country in a short period of time. While there are plenty of weight loss solutions out there, a numerous amount of people are continuously asking if there is a magic “pill” out there that can help with this battle. This blog highlights a few weight loss solutions that have recently been in the news and ways to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Garcinia Cambogia is a tropical fruit that is native to areas of Asia, Africa, and Indonesia. It apparently helps block your body’s ability to make fat. A component called hydroxycirtic acid (HCA) is extracted and put into tablets for weight loss. This component is supposed to help by suppressing appetite and preventing fat storage at a cellular level. However, there is not a lot of research behind these claims, but there are individual reports of success using this product. It has even appeared on the Dr. Oz show multiple times. It is recommended that this tablet be taken with each meal to help suppress appetites. This product proves to be one of the safer weight loss solutions on the market today.

Stimulant Products: Are they really a good thing?

Stimulant Products have flooded the weight loss market for years. These products are pretty successful in suppressing appetite. This treatment overrides how your body functions and allow it to carry on without thinking of your hunger. The only problem with these products is that they have side effects that can affect individuals in a variety of ways. They can increase your blood pressure and create long term cardiovascular issues. For these reasons, stimulant products are not recommended because of the uncertainty of the side effects.

Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HGC) is another diet agent that has become a popular topic in recent years. However, these products are not regulated by the FDA and are highly scrutinized. HGC can be obtained through prescription – guaranteeing the quality of the product that you receive. This program can be successful if used properly, but in order to ensure success you must consult your doctor.

These are only a couple of the popular diet trends that have been in the media recently. That being said, there are literally thousands of different tactics and products available for weight loss. Although some of these products are not very safe, others are proven to help you shed the weight in a healthy way. However, the easiest way to make long term gains on your weight is to set a proper diet. There are many resources available – apps, websites, etc. that can help you manage calories and keep you healthy.