Quality of Life
Today is National Wear Red (for women) Day.
Heart disease (which includes heart disease, stroke and other cardiovascular diseases) is the number one killer of women, causing one in three deaths (more than all forms of cancer combined) and affecting an estimated 43 million women in the U.S.. But only about one in five women realize that heart disease presents such a threat to their health and since the symptoms that we experience with heart attack differ from those men experience (and that most of us are familiar with), women can have a heart attack without even realizing it. In fact, sometimes even medical professionals can miss the signs of heart attack especially if the patient doesn’t seem to ‘fit the profile’, as Jen Thorson shares in the Huffington Post with her compelling article We All Fit the Profile.
Knowing and reducing the risks for heart disease are great steps in the right direction. Eat right, exercise, minimize stress, and don’t smoke. Get regular check-ups and follow your doctor’s advice. And if you even think you’re having a heart attack call 911 or have someone drive you to the emergency room.
For more information check out goredforwomen.org
Mental Health, Quality of Life
I’m willing to bet that just about everyone knows at least one person who constantly posts photos of their meals, weight loss progress, and let’s don’t forget those check-in’s at the gym. You might just ignore those people after awhile but according to this article in The Herald (Scotland), sharing photos of our food and weight loss can become extreme – and extremely dangerous.
Apparently there are people with disordered eating who have created websites dedicated to ‘thinspiration’ – typically supporting the lifestyle of disordered eating, often in order to track their own ‘progress’ as did Miss Holly Temple in Working, Surrey who felt ‘It was just very important to me to document my weight loss – and ensure I wasn’t putting on any weight’. Miss Temple started a blog, which she used as a diary and as motivation to lose weight, which she certainly did – she weighed as little as six stone (84 pounds) before she started recovering from her disease. Unfortunately other people find these websites and are encouraged in their disordered eating as well.
Now, as the mother of two teenagers, this concerns me and I am committed to being aware of the warning signs of disordered eating in my children and their friends (both male and female). But I think that I also have to consider the dangers of such attitudes seeping into my own life. I’ve said before and I’m sure I’ll say again (and again) that Minute Movement encourages healthy, sustainable choices NOT drastic dieting but I won’t pretend that the message that my worth is directly reflected in the number on my bathroom scales doesn’t seep into my own thinking from time to time.
The article in The Herald states that eating disorder treatment is rising in the UK and not just with the teenagers. One treatment center for eating disorders reported ‘a 15 per cent rise in adult patients admitted with eating disorders over the last year,’ and while ‘most patients were aged 18 to 25 the largest increase was among adults aged between 36 and 45, with admissions in this age group almost doubling’ possibly more alarming is that they ‘admitted 139 children and young people between the ages of 11 and 17 last year for treatment, up from 87 in 2013’.
Take a minute to think about those numbers the next time you see those selfies your ‘perfect’ friend posts (or before you do so yourself). Maybe you don’t have an eating disorder (I sure hope you don’t) but you may want to consider the message that you could be spreading to others who might be on shaky ground.
Signs of disordered eating that can seem innocent include:
- Poor body image / negative self talk
- Excessive exercise (even when sick or injured)
- Strange habits or obsessions about eating and food – like refusal to eat with other people, designating some foods as ‘safe’ or ‘unsafe’ and rituals surrounding food like cutting food into tiny pieces, counting, excessive chewing, and strange food combinations.
- Dry skin
- Feeling cold
- Swollen cheeks (which can be caused by self-induced vomiting)
If you or someone you know has an eating disorder, please get help. There are resources here.
Quality of Life
How much time did you spend planning your last vacation? Did you research where you would stay, which local restaurants to check out, and which activities and sights were not to be missed? Or did you just say, ‘Hey let’s go to Greece next Thursday’ and buy a plane ticket? Many people spend hours planning their vacations, down to the most obscure detail and one week of vacation represents only about two percent of your year.
What if you spent as much time planning for how you will reach your goals as you spend planning a week away?
The things we resolve or set goals about at the beginning of the year are the things that we claim to want the most out of lives:
Health
Financial Security
Success
Strong Relationships
Don’t the things that determine your happiness and satisfaction with life deserve as much attention as your free time? Our goals need to be planned for, mapped out.
We’ve talked a little about setting goals (or resolutions) the past week or so but we haven’t really looked at how are we going to accomplish them. Setting a goal (especially if it’s a SMART goal) is a great first step, unfortunately it’s where many people stop and that’s why they don’t reach their goals. You have to take the next step, breaking the goals into smaller tasks and achievements. What will you do and when will you do it each month, week, hour, and minute – what actions and behaviors will you take to help you reach your goals? What mindset will help you reach your goals?
Now put those actions in your calendar as appointments – and KEEP THEM, or assign blocks of time to different behaviors, make a list – – – whatever you need to do (and WILL do) to keep yourself on track.
Quality of Life
I won’t normally share links to slideshows since they usually don’t keep my attention long enough for me to finish them. But I did finish this one (because I’m ALWAYS looking for ways to save time) and there were a couple of great tips that I hadn’t heard. So, since Minute Movement is all about helping you find ways to get more accomplished in less time. I thought I’d share. The list includes ideas for keeping paper clutter under control, and deciding which clothes to pass on to your favorite charity.
I was especially interested in number 16, which says ‘always load the dishwasher in an organized way. So instead of throwing all of the silverware into the utensil box, put the forks in one area, the spoons in another, and the knives in another, and then when you’re unloading you just grab all the spoons and put them in the drawer’. I LOVE it – now I just need to get the family on board!
Some people reject organization as being too restrictive but I’ve found that being organized as much as possible actually gives me more space and time to have fun and be spontaneous (or go for a walk). Did you see anything in this list that you might want to try or was it missing something big? Let us know on our Facebook page!
Make Your Minutes Matter!
Lifestyle, Minute Movement Philosophies, Nutrition, Quality of Life
As the year winds down my thoughts always turn to the the improvements I want to make in my life. I’ve found that grand resolutions at the beginning of the year don’t typically work well for me because I end up feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of ‘never again’ and sabotage my own plans. You know what works best for me? I set smaller goals for myself (throughout the year) instead of making huge, sweeping resolutions.
For example, I really want to improve my nutrition but I haven’t found a magic diet that works for longer than a few weeks – tops. The extreme deprivation, the innumerable salads stretching into my future, the stress of never having chocolate again. It doesn’t take very long for it to destroy my good intentions. Instead, I like to break down the larger goal – of ‘good nutrition’ – into more manageable steps like drinking 64 ounces of water daily or eating 7-9 servings of fruits and vegetables each day. I track my progress and celebrate my successes (but NOT with food – usually). And before I know it I REALLY AM eating better – without feeling deprived!
So maybe you’re a fan of the grand resolution at the beginning of the year -lots of people are. But if you feel like that’s not been working well for you why don’t you try setting small, manageable goals instead?
Make Your Minutes Matter!
Lifestyle, Motivation, Quality of Life
The past couple of days I’ve been exploring the impact of which activities we choose to spend our time pursuing on effectiveness. Now I’m gonna put on my Minute Movement hat.
Personally (and I’m sure for a lot of you can relate) when I feel overwhelmed one of the first things that I give up is exercise. When I stop being intentional about living healthfully I find myself caught in internet rabbit-holes, watching more television, and eating too much (especially snacking on high carb garbage late at night when I should just go to bed). Those indiscretions make my energy drop and I get less done and before I know it I’m stuck in a vicious cycle of ineffectiveness (yet again).
When Aaron first came up with the concept of Minute Movement I wasn’t exactly a willing participant. Even though I could see that his shape was changing drastically while he still got to sleep in and get things done, I felt that I was too busy to interrupt MY tasks every hour to exercise. I insisted that my way of doing things was to put on my blinders and focus completely on one task until I was finished and that even one minute’s deviation would drastically damage my effectiveness. Don’t even get me started on how many times I told Aaron that I would NOT stop in the middle of the grocery store to do one minute of squats (seriously, sometimes I don’t know how he puts up with me). Every time my timer sounded I’d simply dismiss it with mounting irritation.
Then one day Aaron and I were running errands together and his timer sounded (I’d deactivated mine by that point) and Aaron invited me to take one minute for myself.
A minute for myself.
Seriously?
Could I DO that?
what if I did that?
So I did the exercise with him, sitting in the car, before we ran into our next appointment (envisioning a mini beach vacation for some reason). And from that point on I looked at Minute Movement differently. Instead of piling it with all of the other things that I should do (but didn’t) I could just do this one thing little to improve my life (well, two things actually, one was opening my mind a little bit).
If you don’t actually do your movements – that’s okay (I hope you start doing them at some point but it’s okay today) but please take care of yourself. Walk around the block, play with the kids, take the stairs, whatever it takes to move your body.
Doing that one vital thing will change your life.
Make Your Minutes Matter!
