challenge

Mindful Eating Tips

Every February (the shortest month of the year) we run a Mindful Eating Challenge. We already made it through this year (phew)! The purpose is to pick any food related goal/challenge that you feel would benefit you. I always try to give up processed sugar. Others try to incorporate more vegetables or reduce alcohol. Some people try to reduce snacking or only have dessert twice a week. The options are broad. But they are all linked to mindfulness.

What does mindful eating mean?

Trying to eat mindfully simply means that we try to notice anything we can about the food we eat. Maybe that involves being present during the act of eating. Or maybe it involves noticing our process with food—how we plan our meals or how often we think about food during the day. But mindfulness isn’t only about being present and noticing. It’s about accepting and not judging what we notice. Sometimes that can be the tough part. We can be so discouraging to ourselves when we feel we failed. When practicing mindfulness the fact that you even noticed shows you didn’t feel.

Mindfulness is the first step in figuring out […]

Mindful Eating TipsMaggie Downie2022-04-01T21:43:03-04:00

The No Pain, No Gain Fallacy

We’ve all heard the phrase, No Pain, No Gain in relation to exercises. It’s a popular expression but it is not true. Actually, it’s potentially harmful.

When we think No Pain, No Gain in terms of exercise we tend to think that either our workout should be grueling, or we should be sore the day or two afterward. If we aren’t then we presume we haven’t done enough. The problem is working out and pushing through pain increases our risk of injury. Once we are injured our whole workout plan can be derailed. Plus the Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) we feel 24-48 hours after a workout isn’t practical or functional. We are more likely to get injured then because we have to alter the way we naturally move to work around how sore we are.

While you can choose to only do an upper body workout every other day, you can’t not use half your body for a whole day. We need our arms to pick up our children, reach for something off the top shelf, and open the refrigerator. We need our legs to go upstairs, get in and out of […]

The No Pain, No Gain FallacyMaggie Downie2021-10-15T16:20:14-04:00

Adult Swim Lessons

I had to take adult swim lessons because my swim lessons were a total failure the first time. When I was a little girl, my parents signed me up for swimming lessons. They were a nightmare. I was most afraid of jumping off the edge of the deep end or even worse the diving board a mere foot higher. The instructors claimed they would catch me, but they lied. When I came back up for air alive, I had to swim to the edge of the pool like my life depended on it. This may have been a useful learning tactic for some kids, but it wasn’t helpful to me. Luckily, the water provided chronic ear infections so I had to miss more lessons than I attended.

For a time my mom would bring me to watch the lessons and see what I could learn from the bleachers of the pool. Not much. After years of lessons, I never actually learned to swim. I could doggie paddle, but much beyond that was beyond me.

Mini-Tri

When I signed up for a mini triathlon I knew I’d be doing the breast stroke with my head […]

Adult Swim LessonsMaggie Downie2021-08-23T16:03:33-04:00

Mindful Eating Challenge

Playing with my food.

After tracking the workouts of millions of people, a fitness app tracker claims most of us will fail at our New Year’s Resolutions on Jan 17th. That means we are mere days away from needing to think about a reboot. If you’ve already derailed from your workout routines or healthy eating goals, it’s not to late to press the reset button. (It’s never too late.) This is precisely why we hold the Mindful Eating Challenge every February. I tend to have derailed on all my good intentions around this time. Also, February is the shortest month of the year.

What does the Mindful Eating Challenge Entail?

That’s entirely up to you. You pick what your goal is…no sugar, a specific diet, less alcohol, no (pick a food or food category) Monday-Friday, eat a veggie at every meal, chew more, eat slower, drink more water. You pick what you think you need. Try to pick a manageable goal. Maybe even one that pushes you little. If you err, that’s okay…the goal is to notice and be mindful. How do you feel when you meet your goal? How do you feel […]

Mindful Eating ChallengeMaggie Downie2020-01-14T18:07:29-05:00

Six Tips for Eating Healthy

Playing with my food.

After a yet another month of mindful eating, I’ve come up with six tips for eating healthy.

Distraction

Being busy definitely helped me stay on track. It is much harder to eat right on the weekend when there is no set schedule, but lots of fun activities. In some ways that’s a sad statement. It is almost like saying I eat when I’m bored. But there is one tool I’ve always used that sometimes works and sometimes does not. If I want to eat and I think it’s just for the sake of eating, I take a walk or start doing some exercise. If afterward I still want the food I can have it. If nothing else, at least I’ve added more movement before eating something I perhaps should have skipped.

Planning & Prep

Having healthy snacks ready and on hand makes all the difference in the world. Junk food is very easy to grab. The good news is if pressed for time, there are locations that we can buy premade healthy options. For me, nuts was an easy snack to have around. But if you are a cheese lover maybe […]

Six Tips for Eating HealthyMaggie Downie2018-02-09T14:25:38-05:00