Healthy Lifestyle, Healthy Heart

It's February and time to evaluate your New Year's resolutions to eat healthier and exercise more. Plus its American Hearth Month, many of  the same guidelines apply. Hopefully you made great progress in January, so let's get a plan for February since the month is filled with food (mostly unhealthy) related events: Fat Tuesday and Marti Gras, Super bowl (a food and beverage day long event) and Valentine's Day noted for chocolates and special dinners. Then for Houstonian's the Rodeo and all its supersized fried foods starts February 27, 2024.  

Yes you can be successful during the shortest month of the year, you need to plan. Here are five easy ideas.

1.  Write down your plan for the month. If you fail off for one day- just jump back on your plan the next day.

2.  When you don't have time for the full workout- instead of skipping entirely, do a short version so you maintain the habit. 15- 20 minutes is better than nothing at all. Pus it keeps your heart healthy. 

3.  Make sure you eat healthy, lower calorie foods before you go any of the above events so you are not hungry when you arrive. If you arrive hungry to the Super Bowl party, you will most likely over do it on chips, dips, high calorie drinks and fried finger foods.  Remember to put all the food you eat on a plate so you actually see how much you are eating- fill it ONCE!

4.  As always, drink plenty of water each day, at your events and meals.

5.  Fill up on fresh fruit, vegetables and leafy greens.

Oliver Foundation Healthy Choices Grant

Next Deadline April 15, 2024

Apply Now

Jack Brown, Teen Board Member

Memorial High School - Houston, Texas, 

Tee Board Member 2023 - Present

Jack is a freshman at Memorial High School. He believes in service and loves helping others. Jack enjoys volunteering at his church in a variety of outreach ministries. He serves on the Texas Children’s Food Allergy Teen Board. Jack was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease at the age of four. He believes the hardships he faces with his health daily make him more empathetic and compassionate towards others with hardships. Jack hopes to become a doctor to serve others and help them live a better and longer life. In his free time Jack enjoys running, playing board games and reading.

Improving Your New Year’s Resolutions

     Happy belated New Year everybody. The new year is already off to a great start. I know that New Year’s Day was around a month ago, but I wanted to talk about one of the most well-known traditions of New Year’s Eve: writing your resolutions for the upcoming year. Some resolutions are health-related and go along the lines of “eat healthier,” “drink more water,” or “exercise more,” but those resolutions are not specific enough to promote any benefits. According to the graph below from New Year’s Resolutions Statistics (2024) – Forbes Health, you can see that 53% of people do not stick to their resolutions longer than three months and that increases to 80% after six months. 

Less than 1 month 1%

1 month 8%

2 months 22%

3 months 22%

4 months 13%

5 months 9%

6 months 5%

 7 months 2%  

8 months 2%

9 months 2%

10 months 2%

11 months 1%

12 months 1%

Still sticking with it 6%

Setting goals with specific requirements that are also reasonably achievable are key to following through the entire year. Another good idea is to add on to the resolution throughout the year. For example, you could have started January by taking a 20-minute walk every day. Then in February, you continue to walk every day and you also commit to drinking half of your body weight in ounces of water, and then in March you could add on limiting yourself to only having desserts twice a week and so on and so forth for the rest of the year. These resolutions have specific goals to accomplish and are not too demanding while helping you increase your health by building healthy habits throughout the year. Eating healthy by skipping the sweets and remaining active by moving around are great ways to keep your body in-shape to ensure that you can live long enough to live life to its fullest. So, all in all, make a good resolution, stick to it, live a great life, and have a happy rest of your year.

Jack Brown

February 2024

Teen Board Recipe

Jenna Chuan

Co-Event Coordinator

Chia Seed Pudding

Ingredients:

- 1 cup almond milk or milk of your choice

- 1/4 cup chia seeds

- 1 tbsp maple syrup or honey

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- Toppings! (Optional but can include sliced fruit, granola, jam, and/or nuts)

Instructions:

- In a bowl, mix milk, chia seeds, maple syrup or honey, and vanilla extract

- Cover and refrigerate until thickened, at least 2 hours or up to overnight

- Serve with toppings of your choice!

Credit: https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/a28929331/chia-pudding-recipe/