TGIFF – Thank Goodness it’s Fun Friday! Let’s Dance!
It’s been a terrific week and we have arrived at Fun Friday! Keep it simple, get the whole family involved and make it fun. Make a quick, easy and healthy meal, how about tacos! Healthy tacos are a good option. Use lean ground beef or maybe try the “non-meat” hamburger crumbles. Use low fat cheese, add lots of lettuce, chopped tomatoes, stuff your shells and then your mouths!!!
You could even do something fun, like playing salsa music and dance!! If you follow my Friday blog, you will see a recurring theme of dancing…..I like dancing! Dancing with your family and friends is fun, creates connections, laughter and maybe even a little sweat!!
It’s about keeping things light and receptive, the atmosphere and energy at home. Use this time on Fridays to reconnect with your kids. Start this healthy habit of planning every week with you family for TGIFF. Take turns in deciding the healthy, yummy meal and the music to go with it. Take a trip around the world without ever leaving your neighborhood!! It’s fun, adventurous and affordable – BONUS!!
You could try foods from different cultures and add music from that culture. Just be sure your food preparation stays healthy and light. Try to use foods that are locally grown and produced, you support your local economy and reduce your “carbon footprint” – BONUS!! You know I love bonuses!! 
Let us know where you have “traveled” with your family by following these suggestions. It creates a fun theme night and something to discuss and look forward to, during the week. Hey, you could even invite friends and neighbors…..Let’s Dance!
Making Positive Decisions, the YoPoweR! Way!
Hey it’s a party and your invited, get to know us better…the YoPoweR! Way! With great care and passion, we developed this philosophy and formula to empower and inspire kids to live confidently, boldly and brilliantly!!! Try this with your kids……see them become, YoPoweR-ful! And by the way, all of us can do this too!!
YoPoweR! for Life Philosophy (YPR)
Create personal confidence, empowerment and fortitude through thoughtful decision making; resulting in sustainable whole health balance, wellness and the joy of life at our personal and collective best. YoPoweR! for Life!
Making positive decisions can be as easy as 1, 2, 3….REALLY! The YPR Formula can be applied to any situation and helps kids make positive, safe, YoPoweR-ful decisions!! It gives our kids an easy to remember formula and quick scoring system to use at home, in school and when we’re not there to give them direction.
Be sure to check out the YPR example below to help you understand how it can be applied to everyday situations.
YoPoweR! for Life (YPR) Formula
Applying YPR to any decision gives children, and ourselves, the formula to make sound, responsible choices.
Y
Is this YOUR decisions? Are you being influenced by others or have you made this decision yourself?
P
What is the PURPOSE of your decision — Is it for fun? Does it benefit someone or you? Could it hurt someone’s feelings or does it make you feel good in your heart?
R
What will be the RESULT of your decision — Will it be something you are proud of and feel good about? Would your parents be proud of your choice?
YPR Scoring System – How many did you get for your decision?
3 out of 3 Very good choice. Keep it up. Be a role model for your friends. Tiggily Wiggily, Way to GO!
2 out of 3 May need to rethink your choice – You can do better! Okily Doekily, Go SLOW!
1 out of 3 Not a good choice. How can you turn it into a positive experience? Oogily Boogily,Oh NO!
Role play with your kids!!
YPR Example: See how your decision-making scores for this real life situation. You are at a party. Everyone has had pizza and soda. After running and playing, everyone is offered soda, juice or water to drink. You see most of the other kids are taking soda and juice.
You decide to take water. Tiggily Wiggily – Let’s GO!!
You choose to take juice. Okily Doekily – Go Slow
You decide to take soda. Oogiliy Boogily – Oh NO!!
**You choose to take the water. You are positively committed to your health, a real leader! YoPoweR-ful!
Y-Your decision, P – Positive purpose, R – Result/decision you can be proud of
3 out of 3 – Tiggily Wiggily Let’s GO!
As I said, it’s easy as 1,2,3…YOU Can do this with your kids! As you go through your day, help them to understand how they can use this formula to be confident of their choices and proud of themselves. Next Thursday, we’ll have another example of applying the YPR Formula to every day life. Thanks for checking in with us and choosing to make positive decision making a part of YoPoweR! for Life!
Send in a suggestion/situation you would like us to apply to the YPR Formula. We may use it in the blog as our example for the week. Let us know how the YPR Formula works for you and your family. We’re all in this together!! Join us on Face Book and follow us on Twitter, see you next time!
Make Wellness a Way of…YoPoweR! for Life! It’s easy and fun!
Ok, dear friends, let’s continue to Make Wellness a Way of…YoPoweR! for Life! We are currently up to our afternoon, so let’s ease into it. Be sure to refer to my previous Wednesday blogs for easy, fun wellness suggestions to make mornings through lunch, YoPoweR-ful!
We are up to the afternoon now, in our journey to invite wellness into our day. If you can get up and go outside, great, if not, just do it where you are. Let’s take a breath! You’re really starting to get the hang of it, I can tell! Is that a smile on your face? Yes, no, either way….take another breath…. 
Follow these simple suggestions:
Make your breath deep, feel your breath as it moves in and out
Quiet your mind, notice if you feel tense or tight anywhere
As you breathe in, let your belly and chest expand (stop holding in your tummy)
When you breath out, release any tightness in your body
Relax and Smile! REPEAT!!!!
The simple act of pausing and connecting to your breath can work wonders!! It’s easy, may seem a bit goofy, but who cares…and the benefits can be felt immediately! Best of all, it’s free – BONUS!! You will feel better, more relaxed and reconnected to You!
Guess what friends, you’re making Wellness a Way of…. YoPoweR! for Life! You can do this, it’s easy, fun and you can do it anytime, anywhere!! Share this practice with your kids too! It’s a great way to calm down and connect in a meaningful way! What a gift to share, that’s YoPoweR-ful!
As always, we want to hear from you…let us know how these suggestions are working for you and your family. Join us on our Face Book page, follow us on Twitter and share your stories! We’re all in this together!
Tuesday Treats! Learn how to read a food label.
If you want to help your child avoid childhood obesity and have them eat healthy childhood nutrition then go to your pantry and collect a few food items with labels on them. We are going to have a lesson on reading food labels today. Don’t worry, it is not that hard.
The food label lists nutrient amounts in grams. Grams are difficult to understand for many people, so let’s make it simple. One teaspoon of sugar (a form of carbohydrate) or fat is equal to 5 grams of sugar or fat. For example, one 12 oz. can of Coke contains 38 grams of sugar, that is = to 8 teaspoons of sugar! If an order of French Fries has 15 grams of fat, that is = to 3 teaspoons of fat on your potatoes. By converting grams to teaspoons, you can better understand the amount of sugar or fat in that product.
By looking at the food label you can pick items that have lower amounts of sugar and fat. Go through some of your favorite foods and check the labels. Choose foods that contain lower amounts of sugar or fat. Grab a teaspoon out of the drawer and do some demonstrations with your child. This will be a great learning tool for you also. Have fun with this. Ask your child what would be better options or ways to decrease the amount of sugar and fat on food. This is just a sampling of some of the great stuff you learn when you participate in one of YoMedics programs. Check out our website at www.yomedics.com today.
Moving Monday! Get out and move.
Many times we talk about the need for proper exercise for kids to fight our childhood obesity epidemic. In reality, all kids need to do is just move to help lose weight and become more fit. There was a “Sports Skills and Fitness” study that came out of India that found if kids just had the opportunity to “play” 3-5 days every week for 9 months the percentage of fit kids increased from approx 55% to 68%. The children in this study were between the ages of 5 and 9 years.
What I feel is so upsetting about this study is that it brings us back to the reality that many under served children do not even have a safe place to play in their community. Then there are those children who have a safe place to play, move and get exercise but don’t have the support, encouragement or guidance to help them understand the importance of taking care of their health.
Children need role models. They need someone to show them that it is OK to play and have fun. They need someone to play with them. If your community is not safe for your child to play outside alone then play with them inside. Play hide in seek, see who can do the most sit ups or jumping jacks or have them help clean the house. All they need to do is move their bodies. If you have the financial resources to drive or take the bus to a park or community center in a safe area of town then make a day of it. Take a sack lunch and water, enjoy!
It is not the difficult to improve childhood nutrition and fitness. It just takes commitment. That is our biggest hurdle. This is why YoMedics blogs, offers free newsletters and develops curriculum for schools, health care providers and communities. All you have to do is take the time to apply the basic principles that we teach. Check out our website at www.yomedics.com and see for yourself. Look at our sample guides and start teaching children today how to be healthy in mind and body.
Science Stats Saturday! A healthy heart makes a healthy mind.
I love the new research that just came out showing that the healthier the heart pumps the slower our brain ages. A slow pumping heart leads to decreased blood flow to the brain. This decreased blood flow may speed up aging of the brain and potentially compromise cognitive function. The medical community is seeing increasing amounts of atherosclerosis in pre-teens and adolescents due to poor nutrition and exercise habits. This atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, leads to decreased blood flow to the heart. Hence a child’s cognitive function may be affected by poor childhood nutrition and lack of exercise.
We already know that poor nutrition and lack of eating daily breakfast can affect academic performance in school. Now we are starting to see how continued poor nutrition and lack of exercise can affect one’s ability to achieve an optimal academic potential. This is frightening when studies show that less than 30% of adolescents participate in gym class or an after school physical activity. How will childhood obesity affect our future leaders of the world? How will our children be able to financially support themselves in the future? These are questions that are being asked as we watch children and adults become larger and less healthy.
So start making sure your child gets a minimum of 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day. Have them drink more water and less sugar sweetened beverage. Limit their screen time to less than 2 hours per day and get them outside and play, exercise or just move for 60 minutes a day. These are all basic principles that YoMedics teaches in our YoPoweR! for Life programs. It isn’t hard, you just have to decide that you are going to make positive changes in your families lifestyle. YoMedics is here to help you. You can do it! Who knows, you may be helping your child to achieve higher successes in life by simple healthy lifestyle habits that you do when they are young.
TGIFF – Thank Goodness it’s Fun Friday, make it YoPoweR-ful!
Congratulations, you made it through another week! TGIFF, Thank Goodness it’s Fun Friday!! Hopefully, you’ve been trying to incorporate some healthy lifestyle practices into the regular routine for yourself and family!! Remember, you can make small changes that have big health benefits!!!
So let’s make the start of this weekend fun and healthy, YoPoweR-ful!! For this fun Friday activity suggestion, how about family game night?! We always want to begin with a yummy, light dinner. Everyone feels better after a nutritious, light meal. You don’t want to get “stuffed” and plop down on the couch, feeling Oogily Boogily, right?
If you are not, yet, familiar with the Oogily Boogilies, be sure to check out our YoPoweR! Programs storyline for details of our characters. Click on the curriculum button of our home page to locate the storyline, share with your kids. Quickly, though, Oogily Boogilies are grouchy, grumpy uncomfortable feelings and the foods that make us feel that way!
SO, let’s leave them out of the plan and eat Tiggily Wiggily foods that make us feel how?…..That’s right, Tiggily Wiggily all over!! Making that very simple, yet powerful connection for yourself and family is tremendously important. When you eat fresh, healthy foods you really do feel nourished, positive and replenished! The opposite choices result in the exact opposite outcome – heavy, unhealthy foods make us feel weighed down and sluggish.
You know it’s true…help your kids to recognize this correlation between what we eat and how we feel, PLEASE!!! Making this simple connection can change the direction of their choices and health for a lifetime, it’s that important!!!
OK, so we are clear on the type of food choices for dinner. Let the games begin!! One of my kids’ favorite games to play is the Animal Game. We do this while all sitting down to dinner together. You may have heard of it, it’s lots of fun. Someone begins by thinking of a type of animal and then tells the group what is the first letter in the name of the animal. So for example, if you are thinking of the animal, camel, you would say the letter C. Then everyone starts guessing what the animal could be that starts with the letter C.
They can ask certain questions, like, does it have four legs, does it live on land, what does it eat…..you get the idea. Whoever guesses correctly, gets the next turn. If no one guess the answer, you get to go again or can pass your turn, It’s a great way to interact with your family, get everyone involved, have fun and even make it educational, BONUS! A great way to make this even more fun and healthy is to play this game while you are all taking a family walk or bike ride.
This is just one game suggestion, there are lots of really fun games to play together….How about hide and seek or freeze tag!! It will get everyone moving, laughing and playing together. Whatever game you decide to play, get outside, move and have fun with your family!!! You all will feel Tiggily Wiggily, all over!!! That’s YoPoweR-ful!!!
Send us your thoughts about these suggestions and share with us some games your family likes to play. Be sure to join our Face Book group and follow us on Twitter. Continue to check out our blogs for more suggestions of easy, fun and creative ways to make healthy choices for a life time of wellness!! Remember, we’re all in this together. Have a wonderful, fun, healthy weekend with your family, YoPoweR-ful!!
Make Wellness a way of…YoPoweR! for Life!
Welcome back for, Make Wellness a way of…YoPoweR! for Life! If you have been following us recently, and I hope you have, you know we are now up to lunch time in our day. For those who have not been following or who need a refresher, read the previous Wednesday blogs on our website, www.yomedics.com. This will bring you up to date on our journey to Make Wellness a Way of…YoPoweR! for Life!
Ok, so we are heading into lunchtime. Remember, it is super important that you take time for yourself. It is a time to renew, refuel and energize yourself. If possible, remove yourself from your “work” environment and find a place to reconnect with yourself, your breath. Take a few deep breaths, quiet your mind, follow your breath in and out. Think of at least three things or more that you are grateful for in your life. When you are grateful for what you have, you will find more things in your life to be grateful for, promise!! Are you smiling yet?
If you can, try to get some exercise. Bring your walking shoes to work and get out and move for a bit. If going for a walk is not possible, then do some stretches and think about releasing tension in your body and mind!! Just taking this time for yourself will improve your mental attitude and you’ll feel more relaxed and rejuvinated.
Be sure to save enough time to enjoy some healthy food, preferably brought from home. It is so much easier to eat nutritious, yummy food when you bring it yourself. When we try to do things “on the fly” it usually does not work out well. Planning your own meal gives you the control and balance you need to stay healthy and well!!
As we have discussed previously, these are things we have all thought of doing for ourselves before, so why now? Because you are worth it, because doing these things will result in big benefits for you and those around you!! Start by trying these suggestions a couple of days a week and notice the difference from the days you do not. It will make you a believer, you will Make Wellness a way of…YoPoweR! for Life!
Be sure to check in next Wednesday, as we continue through our day of wellness practices. We will be up to afternoon break time! Please let us know how these suggestions are working for you and your family. Check out our Face Book page and the group, follow us on Twitter. We’re all in this together!!
Tuesday treats! Healthy childhood nutrition and preventing childhood obesity starts in the womb.
Many studies are now showing that your child’s risk of obesity may start before they are born. A study coming out of Children’s Hospital Boston and Columbia University found that women who put on more than 53 lbs during pregnancy were twice as likely to deliver a baby who had a high birth weight compared to women who gained 18 to 22 lbs during pregnancy. Doctor’s recommend that normal weight pregnant women gain 25 to 35 lbs during pregnancy. There is already an association between babies who have high birth weights and later obesity and diseases like cancer. There have also been some very interesting studies showing that infants whose mother’s diet during pregnancy included large amounts of sweetened foods and beverages prefer those sweetened tastes after birth.
So what does this mean? It means that healthy nutrition during pregnancy is the building block of healthy childhood nutrition. Women who are pregnant need to focus on a healthy diet consisting of fruits, vegetables, dairy, lean meats and whole grain. Of course indulge in that occasional treat of pickles and ice cream, but make it a treat, not an every day occurrence. Drink lots of water and avoid the sweetened beverages. Try to get some form of exercise in daily. Even a simple walk in the evening will improve a pregnant mom’s overall health and assist with a smooth delivery. Many gym’s now have exercise classes for pregnant women. Exercise and a healthy diet will also improve mood and help avoid those “baby blues” that sometimes occur after delivery.
Maintaining a healthy diet and exercise habits will be easier to continue on once the baby is born. Having a baby of normal birth weight starts your infant off on the road to health for their life. Childhood obesity needs to be prevented from day 1 and this is the best way to start fresh. What a great feeling for a mom to have knowing that she gave her unborn child the gift of health.
If you have a friend who is pregnant try these simple early baby shower gifts. Sign them up for an exercise class for pregnant women at a gym, buy them a fruit of the month gift basket or a yoga for pregnant women DVD. Let them know that you are purely trying to help them give their baby a healthy start to life.
So now you have it! Healthy childhood nutrition and preventing childhood obesity starts in the womb. YoMedics has been talking about this concept of early education for a while now. Start teaching your children when they are young the importance of a healthy lifestyle. YoPoweR! your child to have a healthy body. Sign up for our monthly newsletter at www.yomedics.com to learn more great tips for health.
Moving Monday! The How to…’s of proper strength training for children and adolescents.
Strength training, also called resistance training, is a common component of sports and physical fitness programs. Strength training programs include the use of free weights, weight machines, elastic tubing or a child’s own body. Unfortunately, most gym’s have equipment that is designed for adults and have improper weight increments for children.
The benefits of strength training are abundant including improvement of sports performance, prevention of injuries, rehabilitate injuries and enhance long-term health. The improvements in long-term health can include cardiovascular fitness, body composition, bone mineral density, blood lipid levels and mental health.
Strength training can be of great benefit for children and adolescents. This is a great mode of activity to improve our current childhood obesity epidemic. Done under direct supervision and with proper technique, strength training can easily be part of a fun family activity.
Before any strength program be started for your child make sure they have seen their pediatrician or family practice physician and are medically cleared to participate. Of utmost importance is to remind your child that strength training is only a small part of an overall fitness program. Healthy nutrition and lots of fluid intake is key to properly fueling muscles, energizing the body and helping muscles heal from strength training. Please also stress to your child the health risks of and discourage the use of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing substances.
So what are some basic guidelines to follow for strength training for your child or adolescent?
1. Make sure they are medically cleared by their physician prior to the start of the program. Most children do not have the balance or postural control skills needed for proper strength training until after the age of 8 years, so wait until your child is developmentally ready.
2. Look for places that have proper equipment for children and adolescents or consider working with elastic bands and small free weights at your home. ALWAYS make sure their is adequate supervision and use of proper technique. Instructors or personal trainers should have a certification reflecting training and qualifications in pediatric strength training. Never leave your child unattended with free weights or exercise machines.
3. Make sure your child avoids explosive and rapid lifting of weights during routine strength training. This will only lead to poor technique and may cause stress on muscles.
4. Begin with no or low-resistance exercises until proper technique is mastered. When your child can perform 8 to 15 repetitions with good form then they can start to increase weight by 10% increments. Exercise should include all muscle groups, to include the core muscles (focusing on the trunk muscles such as the abdominal, low back and gluteal muscles), and should be completed through the full range of the joint involved.
5. Exercise sessions need to be done for 20 to 30 minutes and take place 2 to 3 times per week while continuing to add weight or repetitions as strength improves. Strength training more than 4 times per week as not shown any added benefit.
6. Make sure a 10 to 15 minute warm-up and cool-down period occurs with each session.
7. A strength training program should be a minimum of 8 weeks in duration to achieve strength training benefits. Don’t forget to add some sort of aerobic, ie biking, jogging, swimming, training to improve general health benefits.
8. Have your child evaluated by their physician immediately if any signs of illness or strain from strength training occurs before continuing program.
Make sure you have fun with your child. Make this a fun family activity that all can enjoy. This will allow you to improve your own health while spending time with your child. YoMedics strives to continue to educate families on healthy lifestyle behaviors. Through proper childhood nutrition and exercise we can combat our current childhood obesity epidemic. If you feel you would like to learn more tips to improve the health of your family go to www.yomedics.comand sign up for our free monthly newsletter.
