Good Habit # 2 Eating Veggies

When you shop for leafy dark green vegetables, opt for those on the top of the produce bin for the biggest health boost. Reports have shown that greens on top contain significantly higher levels of vitamin B, C and E than those hidden on the bottom! the reason? Even after veggies are picked, photosynthesis (a process where plants use light to create nutrients) continue to occur whenever they're in any kind of light.

Also smart: Add Lemon!!!
Squeezing just half a lemon over salad is enough to boost its antioxidant levels by a whopping 80%!!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!

For those of you eating healthy and trying to loose weight here is a great tip:
 

Be smart when you are planning your Thanksgiving meal because you only get ONE cheat meal! The next day should not be spent reliving the feasting experience, instead it should be business as usual with your healthy diet and exercise! To avoid any problems, be mindful of your portions and don’t pile on more than you need. If you have leftovers, portion those out into proper servings. If you have more than you need, send the extras home with your guests and get the food out of your house to avoid any temptations. The holidays can be one of the most challenging times of the year for healthy lifestyles, especially if you are just getting started. Taking these steps will really help prevent setbacks! Also serve fresh fruits and vegetables for your snack dishes before the big meal so you don’t load up on calories before dinner which will be the biggest amount of fat and carb intake :) Happy eating!!!!!

Good Habit #1 Sipping Green Tea

You've probably heard that regularly drinking green tea is a smart health move:It's brimming with the health-boosting compounds that prevent cancer, improve heart health and rev your metabolism-but what if you could double its power? You can!! Researchers have discovered that letting the tea steep for a minimum of five minutes provides a stronger, more concentrated brew that boasts a 100% increase in these health-boosting compounds.....enjoying and stay healthy!!!!

I haven't posted on here in a long time...I was using this blog for my health and wellness class but now I am using it to help people better their lives..I have lost over 60 lbs, no more blood pressure meds and cholesterol is down due to changes Ive made in my life...if can be done..I cant believe how I looked and felt back then compared to now...complete turn around for me and where I am and it is b/c of applying healthy choices into my life ...you will notice each unit and how we worked on topics, powerpoint presentations and class assignments surround on how we can be physically, spiritually, and emotionally  ill and it is due to life circumstances. Feel free to read them they are interesting to learn new ways of improving your health and how we discuss the things that were causing us to lead unhealthy lives...In this class we were able to learn ways to improve our health beyond basic medical treatment...Health and wellness starts within ourself..we must put religion first and foremost and maintain healthy eating, exercise, and behaviors that will stimulate and promote wellness to our bodies and look deeper into why we are sick..is it stress? smoking? all of these things can make you ill and increase our chances for disease.I believe that some people need medication to prevent disease but making sure we eliminate "bad" things out of our life will keep us living stronger and longer lives.Each day I will post health tips and medical treatment that will help you become motivated and jump start a new path for better living :)

Unit 10

Psychological I rate myself a 5... I feel this is an area I need a lot of work in ... Throughout my life my relationships and well being have always been unhealthy.I place people in my life that take advantage of me and cause me so much stress. I always thought to myself that this is my life and I became use to it, but since this course, I have learned that this is not normal. I have been trying to make sure at night that I watch a comedy or something that makes me laugh, when I watch something sad I seem to reflect on negative emotions. The loving kindness exercise helped me to release some negative emotions that I have held onto for so many years for people from my past that hurt me. I have learned through my spiritual development that I must forgive that person for my well being not for the other person. I have always been the type of person who has done for others before even thinking about myself, and I have stopped to realize that I need to think of "me" every once and a while.. I had let myself go.. forgot what mattered to me.. who I was ... and when life wasn't so chaotic I was bored? it was because my body was so use to be stressed, overwhelmed and exhausted that I didn't know what normal felt like... I felt weird lol.. I think my scores have changed some since I started the course but I would like to see this score increase over time. Physical I rate myself an 8.. I have always been active and ate a healthy diet.. In the past year I have lost over 20 lbs. ... I can't believe how much this changed my life.. I have so much more self esteem and just to be able to fit in normal clothes and wear stuff I haven't been able to wear in a long time .. make me so happy. I don't think there is much I would change here except that I want to continue what I am doing.Spiritual I rate myself an 7... Throughout some of the most difficult times in my life... it brought me a lot closer to god.. there were times that things were happening in my life and I caught myself repeating scriptures in my head or my heart that made me stay calm. I even do a daily spiritual devotion and keep a journal of what I learned to help me reflect on what that scripture means to me or what part of my life it applies too... I have improved a lot in this area and it seems the more that happens the more I seek religion. I feel I have made a lot of progress by taking this course... There is so much I have learned and I was able to do some self exploration of myself of what I need to fix and in 10 weeks I have realized there is a lot.. I will never be perfect but there were things that I have been dealing with that I should not have been dealing with .. years of unwanted stress and drama. My goals are set and I am working toward them... I would have to say that out of all the classes I took from Kaplan .. this one has focused on "me" and fixing things in my life that before I did not even realize was a problem. I believe over all I have improved a whole lot even though I lack in one area.... My goal is to continue to implement the exercises that I learned in this course and focus on overall health and well being

Unit 9 Final Project

        The importance for health and wellness professionals to develop psychologically, spiritually, and physically is beyond typical medical treatment. Health care professionals should help patients with overall healing, happiness and wholeness. Modern medicine has proven that holistic healing can change a person’s outlook on life emotions, help them to heal faster and even control chronic conditions such as hypertension, stress and anxiety. A doctor will usually hand a patient some medication and say “take this” and usually it doesn’t get further than that. Physicians should look deeper into that person’s history, maybe it is an addiction such as smoking or unwanted stress in that person’s life that is making them sick, and they focus on treatment and prevention but not ways on dealing with the emotions that sometime comes with a diagnosis. The area that I need to focus on is my emotional well-being, exercising and incorporate a daily spiritual walk with God. I do all of these activities but I need to make them daily instead of every once and a while. I have spent my whole life taking care of someone else, whether it’s my kids, husband, friends etc. and I don’t take the time to fix myself. For years I have struggled to rid myself of stress, harbored bad emotions about others that have hurt me and giving so much of myself to only have those people take advantage of me. By doing the exercises assigned in this class, I have learned to have loving kindness and was really able to step back and do some self exploration. My goals are to start to make time for myself, pay more attention to my health, and to set 15-20 minutes each day dedicated to my spiritual devotion. These goals are realistic and I feel it is something I can do for myself; I just need to make sure that I set aside the time in my busy schedule.

            How do you score your wellness spiritually, physically, and psychologically?   Overall I feel that I am doing really well spiritually and physically, but need to improve on the psychological part. I believe in God and started diet and exercising a year ago and have lost 28 pounds. The psychological aspect of my life is that I need to rid myself of bad people and learn ways to better deal with my emotions when going through trials and tribulation. My relationships have always been difficult and one of them ended in divorce, being so young at the time, I moved right into another relationship and now it is ending the same way. The good thing is that I have been in therapy and learning why I place these people in my life and it comes down to issues that I went through in my own childhood, but with help I am learning to change these patterns and making better decisions.

            In goal development, physically I plan to get back to the exercise routine that I was doing all year, except I slacked off a little during the holidays. My exercise routine consists of 3-4 days a week of 30-40 minutes of cardio. I could be so stressed out and go workout and feel so much better, when I get done I take a deep breath and can feel such relief. By losing so much weight it has boosted my self esteem, I feel better in my skin and love being able to wear whatever I want too. My spiritual goal is to join my church. I have been attending for several years, but have never been dedicated like I should be and I need more spiritual support. It seems as things have happened in my life, it has brought me closer to God. I would also like to join a small group to be able to socialize with other Christians and be able to be more active in my community. A psychological goal is to try to learn ways to which I can build healthier relationships and friends that do not create excess anxiety and stress in my life. I want to continue to work with my therapist and incorporate my spiritual and physical goals to create happiness, health and wholeness for my life.

            Practice for personal health is so important to me. Some of the strategies for physical growth are to keep exercising and eating a healthier diet so that I don’t have to take blood pressure medication and reduce my cholesterol levels. For psychological practices, I want to be able to be happy and create a new life for myself. How I have been implementing this strategy is by finishing the last two classes that I have to graduate, make a career change and starting to develop new relationships with more positive, less destructive individuals. My spiritual strategy would be to read a section of the bible everyday. I have even started a journal that I write in when I do my spiritual devotion, that way I can read over it and reflect of the importance of what the scripture means and how it applies to my life.

            How will you assess your progress or lack of progress in the next six months? By starting to see changes physically, spiritually and psychologically. I try to weigh weekly to see if I am losing weight, maintain annual checkups to see if there are improvements in my health such as my cholesterol, and try to watch movies that make me laugh; these things will let me know that my integral health is getting better. I want to continue practicing the loving kindness exercise; I found it to be so effective in releasing some of the negative energy and emotions that I have held onto for a long time. Just doing the exercise once, I was able to feel a weight off my shoulders. If I see lack of progress I will strive harder. I didn’t lose 28 lbs in one week, it took weeks and months of working out and dieting, I guess you can say staying dedicated and not giving up, change doesn’t happen over night and we will never be perfect, but implementing spiritual, physical and psychological practices can help us to deal with the stressors of life and create happiness, health and wholeness.

Unit 8

The most beneficial exercise for me was the loving kindness and meditation. The loving kindness really helped me to release some negative feelings, hurt and pain that I was holding onto. Visualizing those individuals and being able to take there suffering in and giving loving kindness has freed me from them and allowed me to forgive. Through the trials in my life, I can look back and be thankful I am still alive, have grown so much closer to God and over the past year really focused on changing my mind, body and spirit. We all go through storms and processes in our life that help to evolve into who God wants us to be and with help from the exercises I am beginning to understand happiness, health and wholeness and what it means to overall well being. Spiritual meditation is something I practice daily and when I am having a bad day or feeling overwhelmed, I speak within myself that everything is going to be ok, read verses that pertain to what I am feeling or going through at the time and trying to retrain my mind to try not to think about it, but that can be hard at times though. Now that the holidays are over, I am going to get back to my exercise routine, which was 30 mins a day 4 days a week, eat healthier and utilize the practices that we learned . This class has been so helpful and I plan to implement these exercises to improve and began my journey to human flourishing and have a more integral approach in life.