Day 4: April 3rd

Wooo! Four days straight of starting off with the 30 day yoga challenge! It’s always quite fun. For some reason my 1-year-old son loves when I do yoga and he thinks its time to climb all over me. Apparently when I do yoga he think I am his personal jungle gym. It cracks me up every time, though. He is so funny. He also helps to keep me going and trying to be healthy. He is so active and has so much energy. I want to be able to keep up with him, so I do this in part for him and my future children. After I took Spencer to work, the little guy and I went to the park and we went on a nice walk around the park. And then we played for a little while. It makes me so happy to be active and play with my son. We have so much fun together when we do.

A large part of being healthy is not just being active and exercising, but what you eat is soooo important! You can’t just eat whatever you want and then exercise to work it off. That’s not totally how it works. You need vitamins and minerals that good, healthy food gives your body. And putting in excess sugar and highly processed foods is going to negatively effect your body and your health. I am going to be perfectly honest and say that this is something I sometimes struggle with. I love sweets. I love things high in fat-mashed potatoes with sour cream, cheese, and milk. Mmmm. But it’s horrible. And I know I need to be better. So I have to say how proud I am of what I ordered when we ate out for dinner.

We went to Cracker Barrel, which I love. But I usually order something fried, mashed potatoes or fries, or other unhealthy things. But when we went this time, I exercised self control and ordered something different. I was ecstatic to find that they actually had a low-calorie menu with healthy side options. So I ordered a baked chicken meal instead of fried chicken. It came with steamed broccoli, and for the other side I ordered green beans. It was actually soooo delicious! I added a little bit of salt to the vegetables because they were slightly bland, but with the little salt I added I was perfectly happy eating those. I thoroughly enjoyed my meal and was reminded that good food can still be delicious.

So if you’re looking for another way to get slowly healthy, try adding a vegetable in to your meal. It’s those little things that will help you to feel better!

Day 3: April 2nd

Again I started my day off well with Day 3 of the 30 day Yoga challenge. I cannot tell you how much I love yoga. It is amazing! I had class that I needed to get to by 9am, so I didn’t have a chance to go on a walk, but while I was on campus I decided to take the stairs every where, so I could get a little more exercise. It is small, healthy decisions that ultimately make a difference in the long run. I know it’s a very little thing, but instead of asking my husband to grab something for me when I’m sitting, I just get up and grab it myself. It may not be much, but those little things will add up. And it does make me feel better getting up and doing things myself. If you want to get healthy, start with something simple. Make small decisions that are healthy, and they can lead to much bigger decisions later.

Day 2: April 1st!

I started my day off with doing day 2 of the 30-day yoga challenge. I feel so much better when I start my day off well with a little exercise. It makes me want to be better all day long, which is always a good thing. I went on a little walk, too, which felt great. Spring has definitely sprung in Provo and the trees and flowers are beautiful! I thoroughly enjoyed a little brisk walk, even though the wind was biting and I couldn’t handle it for long.

Now I said that I started my day off well, and I didn’t want to give in and eat a bunch of crap. I don’t know about you, but I often crave sweets. CRAVE them! But I know that sugar is terrible for you, and is often the cause of extra belly fat. So I decided to try to make some healthier cookies. Notice I said healthier and not healthy. I want to try to cut sugar out of my diet, not all together, but cut it down. I firmly believe that if you try to do something cold turkey, you’ll often fall and end up binging. Hence the healthier cookies. I think they actually turned out pretty well! I was pleasantly surprised. There’s room to make them even healthier, but also room to make them less healthy. Give them a try if you want something you can have, not guilt free, but less guiltily.

½ cup coconut oil

½ cup coconut palm sugar

¼ cup honey

-Cream these together. For all of the following ingredients, mix well after each addition.

1 egg

1 overflowing tsp vanilla

¼ cup and 1 Tbs all purpose flour

¼ cup and 1 Tbs whole wheat flour

¼ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

1 ½ cups quick cooking oats

2/3 cup (heaping) chopped pecans

1 Tbs flax seeds

¼ cup butterscotch chips

¼ cup extra dark chocolate chips

I used a small cookie scoop to make the cookies. Bake in preheated oven at 325 degrees for 12-15 minutes. Let them set up for awhile before eating them-they are gooey!

I actually would have preferred them to be a little less gooey. When I make them again I will probably add an extra Tbs of all purpose flour and an extra Tbs of whole wheat flour. I might even add more flax seeds.

Day 1-March 31st

I've been wanting to start getting healthy for a long time, but as I said before, I didn't want to set a lofty goal that I knew I wouldn't accomplish. But on this day I stumbled upon a YouTube video that I decided to start with. There's a 30 days of yoga series that I decided to start. I've done yoga in the past and absolutely love it! So when I saw this I gave it a try and I loved it! The yogi is fun and helpful and I enjoy doing the video.

I particularly enjoy yoga because I think it helps with all of the 'healthys' I mentioned before. Physical, mental, and emotional. Yoga is about listening to your body, being grateful for and to your body, and giving goodness out to the world. I feel so much better in all areas when I am consistently doing it. Not to mention that yoga, specifically yoga breathing, really helped me to get through a natural childbirth. Yoga has more benefits than I can say! If you want to see if it will help you, give it a try! Below is the link to day 1 of the 30 day yoga video series I am doing.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oBu-pQG6sTY

Finally starting!

I made this blog a little while ago, but never actually started it. So I am going to catch up so I'm up to date. I guess I should start with why I started this, and why the name.

 Slowly Healthy. For me at least, I find myself setting this lofty goals that I will never be able to reach. And when I fall off I get so frustrated with myself that I don't want to start up again. Hence slowly. I think that if you take things slower and be patient with yourself, you have a much better chance of achieving your goals. Also, I used the word healthy for a reason: not skinny, or toned, or losing weight. Healthy. This gets mixed up a lot in our society. People sometimes equate skinniness with health, but that is terrible thinking. People who bigger may be healthier than a skinny person. It depends on how they take care of themselves. So my goal is to be healthy. I have come to the realization that I probably won't ever look like I did in high school (like I would want to anyway, my boobs have grown and dare I say that I love it?), because I'm a woman, not a teenager. And I've grown a baby inside of me, so I have extra fat and skin, stretch marks and all, and my body will never be the same as it was. And that's okay.

Healthy also encompasses more than physical health. There is mental health, which is a also a problem in our society, and emotional health. I want to be healthy in all of these aspects. I'll probably talk about that more later.

You might wonder how I'm going to measure health. Weight and inches are very easy to measure, and I understand that. But I am going to measure on how I feel. When I feel better, I'll know I'm doing well. When I can walk up flights upon flights of stairs and not get winded, I'll know I'm doing well. When I feel good about myself physically, mentally, and emotionally, I'll know I'm doing well.

Now, on to what I'm doing! I'll start another post for that...