What Kind of Adventures Are You Headed on This Summer?

Well here we are one of the most exciting times of the year: SUM SUM SUM SUMMER TIME!!! The time when cookouts and time spent with family and friends abound! Vacations and staycations are on the calendars! This summer for me is a little... OK a LOT slower for me than last summer! Last summer was 6 straight weeks on the road!This summer...not so much travel. Traveling can be a hazard to your eating habits! There are the infamous fast food stops because a sit down place takes up to much time and we just have to get there like yesterday! Can I challenge to you make wise choices in your stops along the way? A couple of our favorite places to stop on our journeys are Chick Fil A and Cracker Barrel. Cracker Barrel always has a WIDE variety of choices and plenty of veggies to choose from. Chick Fil A offers a great grilled chicken sandwich and a wonderful fresh fruit option for your side instead of fries (although..I do splurge at times and get the fries) When you make stops at rest areas make sure you give your body a break as well as your bladder! Take a little bit of time and walk around. There are times that we will "race" back to the car with the kids. It gives your body a little bit of movement after riding for so long in the car! Make sure that the hotels that you are staying in have a pool and a fitness room! The pool is a great way to get some wonderful low impact exercise in!! I love to get in the pool and do water walking, swim some laps. If you happen to have a noodle...those are great to do crunches with and a wide variety of exercises with. Every summer the girls in my family go on a vacation together. When we arrive at our condo, there are a few of us that will look and see if the complex that we are staying at has a water aerobics group. We have at times been the youngest ones there...but really enjoy getting our exercise in!!! This year, I plan on taking my exercise DVD's, hand weights, and yoga mat with me and exercise first thing in the mornings. Make sure to get your water in as well! That will help keep you hydrated! Do your best to get some exercise in and make wise choices with your food so that you can either maintain or surprise yourself and loose weight on vacation! Just remember...it is OK to splurge every so often while on vacation...but not EVERY meal EVERY day! Have a wonderful summer...Take care of yourself..because you are the only you there is! Keep on keeping on!

Routine Maintenance Along the Way!

Every one knows (or at least I hope that everyone knows) when driving a vehicle, you have to perform routine maintenance on your vehicle to make sure that it is running in proper order! The same goes for your body as well! That means going and having regularly scheduled checkups/physicals etc. Well I have started the annual checkups and have heard that all of the lifestyle changes that I am making are really making a difference! Recently I went for my yearly vision test. I told my eye doctor that my newer glasses just hadn't been working right and that I could see better out of glasses that were a few years old. She ran all of the tests and was excited to tell me that my vision had improved! That is something that NEVER happens with me! My eyesight has progressively gotten worse over the years to where we were going to have to consider bi-focal lenses soon. I wasn't too happy about that thought. So I was able to go back to a prescription from like 3-4 years ago which was amazing to me! Today I went for my annual mammogram. One of the ladies in the room asked if there had been any changes in my weight in the last year. The other lady in the room, Susan, smiled when I said yes. Because Susan has seen a majority of my transformation to getting healthy because she has been assisting with my mammograms the last three years. I was able to talk with them about how much better I'm feeling and how much weight that I had lost etc. It was the most enjoyable visit (if a mammogram can be enjoyable :o) )that I had! As I was leaving, the lady told me that I was truly an inspiration to her and that I was just an inspiration. That was hard for me to hear because this was the Breast Cancer Center and I see people there that are battling breast cancer every time that I am there. She then told me to keep on going and continue to keep getting healthy! No matter if you are just thinking about trying to get healthy or you have been, like me, on this journey for several years, make sure that you are having regular doctor visits. That is a huge indicator and such an exciting thing to see as numbers that were once border line high or high dropping down into the normal ranges! Make sure you are taking care of yourself! You are the only you there is and this world would be lonely without you! Keep on keeping on!