Quaker Journey of Wellness

I’m sure at some point in your life you’ve stopped and thought about how you can make improvements to live a healthier lifestyle. But have you ever thought about what wellness means to you? At Quaker, they believe that wellness does not need to be an all-or-nothing endeavour. It’s not about becoming a gym monkey, marathon runner or obsessive calorie counter. It’s more holistic than that. It involves being better to yourself and your family, becoming more mindful of things like stress management, quality family time and taking care of your body.

Quaker realizes that wellness is a goal for many families, which is why they’ve invited Lynn from http://www.walkingwithsissors.com/ to document her family’s journey as they challenge themselves to make lifestyle  improvements.

For the past month Lynn has been blogging from her new home at quakerjourney.ca. The Quaker Journey to Wellness blog follows Lynn and her family as they make simple changes in a quest to live a healthier lifestyle. The best part of all - there are lots of different ways that we can get involved and possibly even win awesome prizes during this project. Each week you could win simply by engaging with the blog: voting on a weekly poll, commenting on a post or suggesting a tip for Lynn.

There are larger monthly prizes to be won by voting on the challenges that you’d like Lynn to take on.
Since I am promoting this Journey to Wellness project, I was asked to identify what we can do as a family to like a healthier lifestyle. 

We our journey started about two years ago when I had surgery on my right foot to remove a bunion.   Not a fun thing to do.   But I was overweight and I decided that as soon as I would be able to do exercises, I would try to loose some pounds.    I was motivated.   Results:  I lost over 23 pounds.   But for about a year now, I have hit a plateau.   Do I still exercise on a daily basis.  I have to be completely honest with you – the answer is no.   Somehow I think I overdid it and I lost motivation at one point.   The good news is that I haven’t taken the pounds back.  OUF!   But I need to get back on track for various reasons.   One of them is to be able to be more active with my kids.   As a homeschooler I need to make an extra effort to ensure that my kids are involved in physical activities.   The Wii Fit is great for that during rainy days or cold ones.   We also have swimming lessons which are a must for our family.   We consider it important to know how to swim and survive in the water.   Consequently, the kids have been involved from an early age in swimming lessons.  

  

 

Another important thing to do while you want to reach an healthier lifestyle is to watch the quantities of food in your plate.  There is no point of putting tons of food when it is supper time.   Seriously, the meat portion should be about the size of  your palm and the vegetables should be about half your plate.   And we try as much as possible to do that.  

Cooking together as a family is something we do as well.  This year we also decided to do a little bit of canning.   We did strawberry jam, raspberry jam, chutney, salsa, diced tomatoes, tomato base for spaghetti sauces, and red onion jelly.    What we like about doing our own canning is that we know what is in the jars.    The kids also participated to this fun time of cutting tomatoes (which we had about 150 lbs to do and onions).   We had a wonderful time doing this and now we enjoy the fruit of our labour.   Yummy salsa.

Watching what you eat is not enough.   I know it since I am stalled on a plateau since a year.   It is important to include exercising in your weekly schedule.   Now mind you, even though I know this I still have to figure out when I can do it.   *sigh*    Being an homeschooler who blogs on the side has its advantages but it also has its inconvenient.   There is only so much time during the day and honestly at night I am well to tired for exercises. 

If you want to win prizes by voting, commenting and/or simply sharing a tip to Lynn, you need to go to quakerjourney.ca. There are weekly and monthly prizes to be won.  Quaker Journey to Wellness has also a facebook page. 

TWITTER PARTY
Join the Twitter party TOMORROW, November 3 at 8:30pm EST. Make sure to follow @QuakerJourney and @MC_Canada and use the hashtag #QuakerJourney to follow along. There will be lots of great conversation and prizes up for grabs!

Details of the party

Where: Twitter
When: Wednesday, November 3 at 8:30pm EST.
How: All you have to do is follow (and use!) the hashtag #QuakerJourney in your tweets to follow the action.
Why: 'Cause we want to chat with you and give away awesome prizes!

No RSVP necessary. Just come as you are! We'll be chatting about health and wellness as well as giving away several really great prizes.

Disclosure - I am participating in the Quaker Journey to Wellness program by Mom Central on behalf of Pepsi Co. I received a gift card as a thank you for my participation. The opinions on this blog are my own.