Monday, March 24, 2008

Spring Has Sprung – Have you?

Appraising Your Success
The end of the week is a good time to review the past week of your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals for the week, then next week, focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently.
How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll experience all of these feelings!

Topic of the week --Spring Has Sprung – Have you?

Daylight Savings Time means it’s lighter later, which gives us more time for outdoor exercise! The wonderful spring weather is a reminder that now is the time to tone up your body for summer’s skin-revealing clothing.

Shorts & short-sleeved tops show off your calves, thighs, biceps, and triceps. To tone those muscles, you’ll need to do a variety of exercises. Do heel raises for your calves. Any exercises that cause you to bend and straighten your knees will tone your thighs, like leg extensions and curls, squats, or lunges. Any exercises that cause you to bend and straighten your arms will tone your biceps and triceps, such as bicep curls and triceps extensions.

Sleeveless tops reveal your shoulders, in addition to your arms. Add any kind of exercise where you lift your upper arm, such as overhead presses, front raises, and lateral raises to tone your shoulders.

Tank tops, spaghetti straps, halter tops, etc. also show off your chest and upper back. To tone those muscles, you need to do exercises where your arms are up at shoulder height and you are pushing them forward (for the chest) and pulling them backward (for the back). For example, you can do flyes and reverse flyes or chest presses and high rows.

Swimsuits additionally reveal your hips, glutes and abs, which means you need a full body toning workout. However, the most important thing you need, in order to look good in a swim suit, is confidence. I’ve seen overweight women look great in a swim suit because it was the right suit for their body, in a great color for their skin tone, and they had a lot of confidence wearing it. I’ve also seen women who had good bodies but didn’t look very good in swim suits, mostly because they lacked confidence, although swim suit style and color also played a role.

Therefore, start springing into spring, toning up, and building confidence in yourself, your body, and your swim suit.

Suzanne
Weekly Encouragement history: http://sweetlifeweekly.blogspot.com/
The SWEET Life of Suzanne blog: http://thesweetlifeofsuzanne.blogspot.com/
Website: http://livingthesweetlife.net/

Copyright © 2008 Suzanne Fong. All rights reserved.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Adding More Food Groups to Your Meals

Appraising Your Success
The end of the week is a good time to review the past week of your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals for the week, then next week, focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently.
How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll experience all of these feelings!

Topic of the week– Adding More Food Groups to Your Meals

I try to eat from 3-5 food groups in each meal and at least 2 food groups per snack. Here are some suggestions how to add more food groups to your meals and snacks:

Breakfast is more difficult than other meals, but I still try to include 3 food groups. For example, cereal with milk and fruit, toast with peanut butter and juice, or a fried egg sandwich: egg, cheese and toast.

Lunch is a great time to eat all five food groups in one meal. For example, a turkey and cheese sandwich with a piece of fruit and a handful of baby carrots or cottage cheese (protein and dairy) heated on cooked pasta (it’s like a healthy alfredo sauce) with a small salad and piece of fruit.

For snacks, I try to eat at least two food groups. There are different possibilities depending on whether I’m home or out of the house. Out of the house I have non-perishable snacks, such as peanuts, crackers, pretzels and raisins (or other dried fruit). At home, there’s carrots dipped in hummus, apples slices spread with peanut butter, yogurt and fruit, pretzels dipped in cottage cheese or cheese and crackers.

Dinner is my last chance to catch up on any needed food groups. I make sure to include at least protein, grains and vegetables, which are all typical dinner foods. Adding fruit can be done by adding fresh or dried fruit to a salad or having a fruit salad for dessert. Dairy can be added by topping chili, noodles or other foods with cheese or by adding yogurt to your fruit salad for dessert.

It’s not difficult to add more food groups to your meals; it’s just a matter of thinking about it, and sometimes getting creative.

Have a SWEET week!

Suzanne

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Weekly Menus

Appraising Your Success

The end of the week is a good time to review the past week of your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals for the week, then next week, focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently.
How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll experience all of these feelings!

Topic of the week -- Weekly menus

Spending half an hour a week planning your menus for the next week is a great way to eat healthier all week long. I start with two pieces of paper: one for dinner menus and one for groceries. The following is what works for me:
Menus:
1. I write the days of the week, spaced out, down the left side of the paper.
2. I write any plans I already have that will affect dinner next to the days they will occur.
3. Of the days without plans, I pick three days when I will cook dinner.
4. I choose two days when we will have leftovers.
5. I choose two days when I will cook something quick & easy, like frozen meals, boxed or packaged meals, or pasta served with jarred sauce.
6. I check my pantry, fridge and freezer for what dinner foods I already have, such as frozen meat, frozen dinners, rice, potatoes, pasta, etc.
7. From there, I start to fill in my menus of what quick & easy foods I could make. If I don’t have much, then I add some quick & easy meals to my grocery list.
8. Using what foods I already have as a start, I decide what meals I will cook this week. I make sure my dinners include protein, grains and vegetables. Adding dairy and/or fruit is a bonus.
9. In addition to writing my cooking menus on my menus paper, I add whatever ingredients I will need to my grocery list.
10. To my grocery list I also add any breakfast, lunch or snack foods we need.

I don’t get around to doing this every week, but when I do, my entire week runs more smoothly. I never wonder what we’ll have for dinner tonight, and my family eats healthier all week long.

Have a SWEET week!

Suzanne

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Creating the SWEET Life Habit

Appraising Your Success
The end of the week is a good time to review the past week of your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals for the week, then next week, focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently.
How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll experience all of these feelings!

Topic of the week – Creating the SWEET Life Habit

If I had to say one word about living the SWEET Life (instead of 5 words), it would have to be “consistency.“ Follow through is the key to success. To know what the SWEET Life stands for (i.e., Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise & Tranquility) is the first step. To adapt the SWEET Life to your own lifestyle is the second step. To create the habit of living the SWEET Life is the third step. This is where consistency starts to play a role because creating a habit is, necessarily, following through regularly.

How do you create the habit of living the SWEET Life? How do you get consistency? Start by making “good constraints,” which are good, little rules to live by. These little rules should have a time associated with them to work most successfully. Here are some SWEET Life examples of “good constraints:”

Sleep: I go to bed as soon as I got home from work (9:15 p.m. or 10:00 p.m., depending on the day). I constrained myself to the fact that as soon as I leave my house for work in the evening, my day at home is done; there’s no evening time at home after work, only bedtime. The good part is that I slept better.

Water: I fill a pitcher in the morning with 2 quarts of water with the “constraint” of finishing it by the end of the day. The “good” part is that I have a limited amount of water sitting there looking at me all day, beckoning me to drink it.

Eating: Simple observations tell me that (1) people eat too much, and (2) what they eat isn’t nutritious. At the same time, people feel a diet is extremely constraining, which is why they don’t last long. I view it in the opposite way. I don’t call it “diet” I call it “eating,” the point being to EAT, rather than restrict your eating. That said, my “good constraint” is to eat mostly nutritious foods. The “good” is that there is a huge variety of nutritious foods. The “constraint” is that they have to be nutritious.

Exercise: My “good constraint” is that I plan to exercise first thing in the morning Monday through Friday, and I go to the gym with a friend a few times a week. The constraint is that I have to be home before my husband goes to work. The “good” thing is that by the time I eat breakfast, I’ve already exercised and don’t have to think about it the rest of the day. However, if I don’t workout every weekday, I can still workout on the weekends.

Tranquility: My “good constraint” was that my girls took naps every afternoon. That was “good” in that it gave me time to relax and do my own thing, but I was “constrained” by the time they woke up. My problem now is that I need a new “good constraint” because my older daughter is out-growing her nap.

Another benefit of the “good constraints” is that they are, by nature, limited. For example, I feel free not to exercise both weekend days because I’ve already exercised 5 days a week. I feel free to eat a piece of chocolate every day because I know that almost everything else I eat is nutritious. I feel free to wake up extra early to get stuff done because I already got a full night’s sleep.

Think about what “good constraints” will work for your personality and lifestyle. Then, you can create the habit of living the SWEET Life. It takes time to create a new habit, and some parts of living the SWEET Life will be easier than others. Persevere and be consistent, and you will be living the SWEET Life!

Sources:

Maymin, Senia. (March 1, 2007, 11:59 pm) Create New Habits: The GOOD Constraints. Positive Psychology News Daily, NY. http://pos-psych.com/news/senia-maymin/20070301137

Pollan, Michael. (January 28, 2007). Unhappy Meals. The New York Times Magazine. http://www.michaelpollan.com/article.php?id=87

Have a SWEET week!

Suzanne