Thursday, September 15, 2011

That Awesome-NESS

My Stella & Dot Director sent this out this week. It's sweet and a must share with all the fabulous people in my life, YOU! :) 


Enjoy!


I hope all of you are waking up FULL OF AWESOME!!!There was a time when you were five years old,and you woke up full of awesome.
You knew you were awesome.
You loved yourself.
You thought you were beautiful,even with missing teeth and messy hair and mismatched socks inside your grubby sneakers.
You loved your body, and the things it could do.
You thought you were strong.
You knew you were smart.
Do you still have it?
The awesome.
Did someone take it from you? Did you let them? Did you hand it over, because someone told you weren’t beautiful enough, thin enough, smart enough, good enough? Why the hell would you listen to them? Did you consider they might be full of shit? 
Wouldn’t that be nuts, to tell my little girl that in another five or ten years she might hate herself because she doesn’t look like a starving and Photoshopped fashion model? 
Or even more bizarre, that she should be sexy over smartbeautiful over bold?
Are you freaking kidding me?

Look at her. She is full of awesome.
You were, once. Maybe you still are. Maybe you are in the process of getting it back. All I know is that if you aren’t waking up feeling like this about yourself, you are really missing out. 

Monday, September 5, 2011

Motivational Monday


I found this image and quote so motivating last week. I was having a hard start to the week and adjusting to a new work environment and the stress even reflected itself in my workouts. But not in it's usual powering way. I was just frustrated. Feeling weak. Feeling slow and not up to the expectations I have for myself...

Then I saw this.

I'm back and motivated to do the impossible. I AM POSSIBLE.


So are you my friends. Keep working hard! Keep celebrating the 2lbs lost; the extra mile you walked this week (that you didn't "have to do"); the self control to not eat the whole bag of m&m's while you were home alone.

You're doing good stuff! It is POSSIBLE!

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Soda Guzzle?

A handsome friend of mine, Paul, sent this interesting article to me this morning "for the blog". I suppose I should do as he suggested and post this tid-bit on the ridiculousness that is America's obsession with soda.

I do admit - I'm a Diet Coke girl. I don't drink tons of the stuff... but I do allow myself one of the tiny (cute) 8oz cans on work days and maybe for an added afternoon "pick me up" after a long run. I've tried to break this personal affair many times.... then I went to Nursing School.... and then I became a nurse. I know it's bad and it's terrible for my teeth and bones, BUT I'm sorry!

Quick and easy caffiene is at times, a must.

But this article has a few valid points. I'm not sure soda drinking will ever be as taboo as smoking as the article suggests.... Worth noting though. :)

My mom swears she (and my sisters) have stopped their soda habit. I'll be home this weekend to see if she's really telling the truth or not... Shall we take bets now?

I'll put in $10 mom's got a secret stash of mini Diet Cokes stuffed between the couch cushions. :)

Happy Reading!

Soda guzzling spurs call to cut back

ATLANTA - Half of Americans drink a soda or sugary beverage each day - and some are downing a lot.
One in 20 people drinks the equivalent of more than four cans of soda each day, even though health officials say sweetened beverages should be limited to less than half a can.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the figures Wednesday in a report said to be the government's first to offer national statistics for adults and kids.
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Sweetened drinks have been linked to the U.S. explosion in obesity and related medical problems, and health officials have been urging people to cut back for years. Some officials have proposed an extra soda tax and many schools have stopped selling soda or artificial juices.
But advocates say those efforts are not enough, and on Wednesday, a coalition of 100 organizations announced a new push. The effort includes the American Heart Association and the some city health departments that plan to prod companies to stop the sale of sugary drinks on their property or providing them at business meetings - as Boston's Carney Hospital did in April. There will also be new media campaigns, like one starting soon in Los Angeles that will ask, "If you wouldn't eat 22 packs of sugar, why are you drinking it?"
The new CDC report may be ammunition. It found:
- About half the population drinks a sugared beverage each day.
- Males consume more than females, with teenage boys leading the pack. On average, males ages 12 through 19 drink the equivalent of nearly two cans of soda each day.
- Poor people drink more than the more-affluent. Low-income adults got about 9 percent of their daily calories from sugary beverages; for high-income adults, it was just over 4 percent.
- Blacks get more of their calories from sweetened beverages than other racial and ethnic groups.
The study is based on in-person interviews of more than 17,000 people in the years 2005 through 2008. They were asked to recount everything they ate and drank in the previous day. However, diet sodas, sweetened teas, flavored milks and 100 percent fruit juice did not count.
Healthy-eating recommendations call for people to limit sugary drinks to 64 calories per day. That's a little less than half of a 12-ounce can of regular Coca-Cola, which is 140 calories.
In other terms: An average can of sugared soda or juice has 10 to 12 teaspoons of sugar.
There have been efforts to reduce children's access to sodas and sports drinks in schools, with beverage companies agreeing to remove full-calorie soft drinks. But the CDC study found more than half of the drinks are consumed at home. Less than 1 percent are bought at schools or day-care centers.
That's why some members of the coalition argue that parents shouldn't drink sweetened beverages, so they don't serve as a poor example. They hope drinking soda will become as unfashionable as smoking.
A spokesman for Carney Hospital, the 149-bed Boston facility that stopped allowing full-calorie soft-drink sales, said the approach made sense. When the policy was implemented in April, sales of beverages dropped, but have gone back up, as more people apparently are adjusting to water and other non-sweetened drinks.
The hospital's Dorchester neighborhood has high rates of diabetes and other weight-related illnesses, said spokesman Joe Burnieika. "We can't afford to feed people's bad habits if we can give them a healthy alternative," he said.
In a statement, the American Beverage Association on Wednesday suggested that the coalition's effort was misguided. Citing sales data and some other research, the industry group said sales of full-calorie soft drinks had been declining, which they credited to soda makers offering more no-calorie and low-calorie options and improved calorie labeling on the front.
These initiatives "will contribute far more to solving complex health issues like obesity than (the coalition's) sound bite solution that offers plenty of hype but no substance," the statement said.


Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/09/01/20110901soda-guzzling-spurs-calls-cut-back.html#ixzz1WkWm7Tqe