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A few years ago I had a serious Mountain Dew addiction. It started out innocently enough: ordering a soda here and there while out for dinner, enjoying a cold can at a backyard cookout. But over time it morphed into something much more unhealthy.

I’d ask my husband to pick up a twenty-ounce bottle when he stopped at the gas station. Then I started running by the store to grab one every morning after dropping off the kids at school. Pretty soon, 20 ounces a day wasn’t enough. Something about the combination of yellow dye, high-fructose corn syrup, and caffeine created a dependency that I just couldn’t seem to shake. I’d finish one Dew, then start to slump a half-hour later and “need” another. I was sip, sip, sipping (okay, and sometimes gulp, gulp, gulping) all day. Read more »

Dark night. Chill in the air. Light fog. Raging fire. This is just for me.

When I started this series on health and well-being, I had all of the elements I needed to begin to improve my lifestyle except for “something just for me.”

I didn’t realize that I was over-thinking it and I already had a brilliant “just for me.”

I was thinking it would need to be something like knitting or gardening or (racks brain for something self-focused) polishing my nails. I looked for something engrossing and active, something to draw my mind into itself, a release propelled by a focus on repetitively minding details while simultaneously minding nothing. Definitely a “do something” something just for me.

Nope. I was wrong. This time. Again.

I’ve been building fires. We bought a lot on the bayou last year with a dream home in mind. So far, all it holds is a wooden playset from a generous new neighbor and a fire pit, both at the water’s edge. The lot is one of those opportunities we recognized because we were open to it, though certainly not ready for it. It may well remain an empty lot for years to come, but it’s ours. And it is on the water.

We have spent the last nine months slowly clearing the lot of overgrown vegetation and dead trees. Raised in a family that adored backyard fire pits, I carefully saved every single scrap of wood and made sure every tree was chopped to ridiculously pedantic firewood specifications. And then promptly never built a fire.

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Thanks so much to Brita for sponsoring this series of posts. Check out more at Babble’s Brita Health and Well-Being page!

I know you’re looking at that picture and thinking, “Damn girl! You’re so fit and active-looking! Like some kind of fitness model!” And it’s true, I have been taking care of myself lately. Now that my daughter is two years old, I decided it was time to lose the baby weight. I tried going to the gym for a while but I found the exercise equipment to be basic and boring. I needed a lifestyle overhaul. So, I turned to one of the most active and energetic people I know – my daughter Annabel.

Annie sized me up and developed a five-step plan for me to get healthy. You all can follow her advice and whip your bodies into shape, too!

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As a mom who works from home, the small amount of child care I’m able to cobble together is generally reserved for phone calls during which it would be counterproductive to hear “mommy, mommy, mommy” in the background, and the sort of writing that involves concentration, which includes this post but generally not tweets. (That explains a lot about my Twitter feed.)

The last thing I’ve got time for when my kids are with the sitter is a trip to the gym. And in the evenings, I just want to relax at home with the kids, not head out to Zumba class.

But it’s not uncommon for me to get through a day of emailing and phone calls and checking off items on the to-do list…only to realize that my rear end is numb because I only got up twice, once to make a 45-second bathroom trip and another time to refill my cup of English Breakfast, in eight hours. And that just won’t do!

I’ve been working hard to fit working out – or at least, actual movement – into my busy and fractured work-at-home lifestyle, and I’ve picked up on a few things that seem to work: Read more »

I’m sick.

It’s like the Universe has been reading my previous posts — my desire to drink more water and generally get moving to stay healthy — and just laughed in my face.  “Get healthy?!” the Universe snorted.  “Take THIS!”

And then I was smited (smote? smitten?) with an unholy cold.

I don’t know about you, but I have a ritual of what I must have whenever I’ve come down with a minor illness like this — when I’m snuffly, or have a sore throat, or a cough or that prickly, sensitive sensation on the little hairs in my lower back whenever I have a fever.  (What, you don’t have that? Weird.)

So I thought that in the spirit of sharing, I’d list my must haves whenever I’ve come down with something.  (Husband, take note.)

1. Lots and lots and lots of mugs of sweet tea.  I drink tea a lot anyway, but usually I try to curb my sugar intake — not when I’m sick, man.  I start mainlining black tea, drinking it the English way with two teaspoons of sugar and a splash of milk.  I think it’s more for the comfort of it than any sort of medicinal reasons, but whatever.  Like a security blanket, it tends to work.

2.  Lots and lots of Vitamin C.  I recently discovered these vitamin C drops, and whenever I’m sick (or traveling, actually), I pop these puppies like candy.  Because they taste like candy, actually.  Which brings me back to sweet being very, very comforting.

3.  Hoodies and leggings.  Okay, so I often wear hoodies and leggings, but I make no apologies for it when I’m sick.  Part of the reason is to keep me warm, part of the reason is because soft fabric against my feverish skin is the only way I can be sick and not act like a completely whiny baby.

4.  Soup.  I don’t actually much like soup normally, but when I’m sick, nothing comforts like a steaming bowl of soup.  I actually could do without the time-honoured custom of chicken noodle, though — I like thick, gooey, corn-filled, creamy soups … or stews, maybe.  Yes, scratch this:  I like a good stew.

(Number 4 is actually a subliminal message to my husband.  He makes the best corn-filled seafood soup/stew on the planet.  And I swear it’s a miracle cure.  I’d share the recipe, but he’s sort of a kitchen MacGuyver, and never makes the same recipe twice.  But it always tastes awesome, and I tell him often I would’ve married him for his cooking alone.)

5.  Socks.  Big, fat, fluffy socks.  I do not know why.

6.  My journal, and coloured pens and paints.  I tend to do a criminal amount of journaling when I’m ill — usually just doodles, and paint splotches and nothing that makes any sense to anyone but (including) me.

7.  Extra sleep.  I try to go to bed extra early when I’m ill.  I always feel tons better.

8. Scalding hot showers.  Preferable with tons of water pressure.  Nothing like a scalding shower and the steam to make me feel something close to resembling human again.

I’m sure there are several other items that should be on this list, but right now I’m too foggy-headed to think about any more.  What about you?  Anything you have to have with you when you’re feeling poorly?

Help a sister out.

Thanks so much to Brita for sponsoring this series of posts. Check out more at Babble’s Brita Health and Well-Being page.

As moms we hear a lot of about ways to keep our sanity. We kind of sort of know that we should be eating balanced meals, taking our women’s essential vitamins, finding healthy ways to unwind and taking time for ourselves blah blah blah. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be doing all that but just thinking about all the things I should be doing for me stresses me out! Honestly, I could use a break from “taking care of myself.”

The thing I find that helps me the most is to prioritize what is the most important to my mental and physical health. I know I am just not myself unless I can have a little bad TV (Bachelor, American Idol or any of the Real Housewives do the trick) at the end of the night coupled with a pomegranate for antioxidants. Followed closely behind TV for me is the gym. I feel so much better if I’m getting regular workouts. I like to spend thirty minutes on the Precor machine, do some arm weight nautilus machines (I’m not sure if they’re still called nautilus or not but I’m too lazy to Google it –I may be stuck in the 80’s –although I’m not wearing a fucia neon sweatband on my head or any legwarmers) and then do as many sit-ups on the ab bench as my energy level will allow.

The only problem with the gym is that you are forced to engage in what I feel should be a private activity among a lot of people. And  a lot of those people have no manners. So here now is a list I’ve compiled of good gym etiquette in the hopes that it might inspire people to be aware that they may be ruining someone’s workout.

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Apparently, one way to get back on track physically and emotionally is to hit the figurative reset button. I inadvertently did just that last week and, while I don’t recommend it, I’ll share with you my results.

Where is our reset button, you ask? I’m guessing somewhere in the region of our tummies. While I’m not sure how to hit it deliberately the first time, I’m quite sure that kneeling in your bathroom for hours on end has something to do with repeating the hit.

Yeah, I got the stomach flu.

Mere hours after publishing my last post full of high hopes of healthier living, all three of my children came down with the stomach flu. Each within an hour of the last. Despite making every effort to head it off, my husband and I caught the bug within days ourselves.

I can’t help but think that had my new water-drinking habit been more established even a week prior, I may have stood a chance of flushing it out of my system. But no such luck.

And the diet soda gods laugh.

Not so fast, ye gods of carbonation. Hear that? That is the sound of ice slowly cracking, melting in my water bottle as I type. Oh ye of little faith, I have kicked my diet soda habit cold turkey. With the help of what I’ll call the “Soda Bug.”

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So last week (when I lamented how difficult it is for me to drink water), I mentioned that I’ve been doing pretty well when it comes to keep up with an exercise regime.  Lest you think this is because I’m some sort of born athlete, let me be perfectly clear:

I hate exercising with just about every fibre of my being.   In fact, as far as I could tell in the past, the only really great thing about exercise is that blissful moment when you realize that your workout is mercifully over.

I’ve had a very on-again-off-again relationship with exercise my entire adult life.  In my 20′s, I exercised primarily because I wanted to be as thin as possible (and in those crazy days, I survived on two diet shakes, an apple, and about 2 hours of exercise each day.  Thankfully, I’ve gotten over that).  After I realized that I truly hated being hungry all the time (and I was hungry all. the. time), I stopped working out and started eating again.  And because I was in my 20′s, I didn’t gain too much weight; however, I just became weak.

So in my 30′s, I decided that it was time to head back to the gym — this time, it was because I decided I wanted to be strong.  As it happens, weightlifting is the type of exercise that least offends me, and so I began going religiously to the gym, 5 days a week, 5 a.m. every morning before work.  And I’m not going to lie, I looked and felt great.

Then I got married, we went on our honeymoon, and the resort had a seafood grill right on the beach.  I just lay there all day, as hotel staff brought me food and beverages.  And that, my friends, was the beginning of the end of that bout of taking care of myself.

By the time I hit 40, I decided that I didn’t need to work out — after all, I eat right, and I’m relatively healthy!  Why do something I don’t enjoy doing?

But then two things happened a few months ago that made me change my tune:  first, it dawned on me that I’m turning 45 this year.  And as much as I don’t want to believe it, there are parts of me that are sliding down the backs of my legs, my body is starting to feel stiffer when I wake up in the morning, and I don’t keep the weight off as easily as I used to.  And secondly?  My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer — a huge slap upside the head that good health shouldn’t be taken for granted.  I finally realized that as the mother of a young daughter, it was time to be a little less cavalier about how I take care of myself.  I need to be around for a long time.

And so, reluctantly, I joined a gym, and began weight training again.  But I made a pact with myself:  I didn’t have to go if I really didn’t want to go (I mean, really, really); similarly, if I had a fleeting thought that I should get moving, I had to make time to work out.  Also, I decided that if I wasn’t in the mood to go to the gym, but instead wanted to go on a long photo walk, that would totally count.  I also decided to refuse to get on a scale.  History tells me that I tend to obsess about that number, so I decided that I wasn’t going to even think about it.  Instead, I decided to measure progress by increases in strength, and changes in body shape.  But not weight.  Same with clothing size.

So far, so good, really.   I have no idea if I’ve lost any weight or not (and I haven’t dropped any clothing sizes), but I’m noticing that I look better in photographs, so that’s a positive.  And I’m definitely increasing the amounts of weight I’m lifting, so that’s good.  And with those two characteristics, I’m defining my little experiment with exercise a success.  And happily, after about 5 months of going to the gym, I’m still motivated to continue.

Then, this morning, I came across the following video on exercise (by the super dynamic Marie Forleo) that gave me another metric to measure my workouts, based on the concept that exercise is good for my mind even more than it’s good for my body.  Here, take a look:

Great video, isn’t it?  In case you didn’t catch it, Marie was referring to the research of Dr. John Ratey of Harvard Medical School, who was also quoted in this article:

“Exercise is the single best thing you can do for your brain in terms of mood, memory, and learning,” says Harvard Medical School psychiatrist John Ratey, author of the book, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. “Even 10 minutes of activity changes your brain.”

I love the idea of exercise being more for your brain and emotion than your body.  It sort of takes all that weird baggage of trying to look like some warped societal ideal of beauty completely off the table, doesn’t it?

It also motivates me to work out more.  After all, I’m planning on my brain lasting me a good long time.

(Incidentally, you should read the rest of this US News & World Report article, on the 5 Mind-Blowing Benefits of Exercise — it’s a great read.)

What about you – how do you make sure you move? Have you noticed benefits other than the usual look-good-naked goals we usually have?  I’d love to hear.

Thanks so much to Brita for sponsoring this series of posts. Check out more at Babble’s Brita Health and Well-Being page.

Thanks so much to Brita for sponsoring this series of posts. Check out more at Babble’s Brita Health and Well-Being page!

I am one of those people who needs music playing at all times. I like to think of it as my “life soundtrack,” because obviously, my life is a movie. I have dozens of playlists for every possible situation and occasion. I have them for events that have already happened (baby showers, bachelorette parties, Christmas) and for things that might happen (car chases, alien abductions, working out). Whenever I press play on these mixes, I’m transported to the situations they were created for (except for working out, because I don’t usually want to relive that).

Lately, the playlist I’ve been listening to the most is my Chill Out Mix. Maybe it’s because I have a toddler who just turned two, so things can get loud and busy up in here. I’ve found myself taking many deep breaths and willing myself to relax. So, in the spirit of all of us chilling out, here are some of my favorite songs to play when I want to pretend I’m laying in that lounge chair on the beach. Read more »

Thanks so much to Brita for sponsoring this series of posts. Check out more at Babble’s Brita Health and Well-Being page!

Something I fail miserably at is making time for myself. I put everything and everyone else first, and eventually this leaves me haggard and snippy and resentful. If mama’s not happy, no one is happy, AM I RIGHT? My husband and I have agreed that this year, in addition to making time for each other, we will also make time for ourselves. Every few weeks we’ll each get an afternoon to go solo and do whatever we want.

This isn’t a time to do housework or pay bills – this is my time to recharge and have fun. My husband wanted to know what I planned on doing on my first solo-afternoon. It’s hard to narrow it down! Read more »