*20-Day Total Health Challenge recap below!*

Certain traditions are meant to be repeated – that’s really the point of a tradition.  At my house, after big holiday meals, it’s tradition that I end up on the couch, holding my stomach saying …

“Ohhhhh.  I ate too much.”

I’m not about to break a tradition, so this year, the same thing happened…  except, oddly enough, it was after leftover day.  Can you blame me?  My mom loaded up my plate (thanks momma!):

This was a sugar-free, gluten-free Thanksgiving weekend and it was awesome.  Even the cranberry sauce was sugar-free.

I Eat

Instead of detailing all the eats of this long weekend, here’s a photo mess of some favourite eats…

 

 

Now that was a good bowl of oats – they’re buried under cranberry sauce + chewy granola crumbles. 

I Move

I can’t say I did much all weekend!  I was too busy hanging out with my family. :)  I did get in one treadmill session (oddly, I’m not despising the treadmill these days) and I spent some time walking around here with my mom and sister…

The apple orchard!  We picked empire apples + jonagold apples and I haven’t stopped eating them since we picked them.  I brought some back to Ottawa with me.

Apple picking is a fall favourite.  We had beautiful weather, and it was just fun to be back at that orchard.

20-Day Total Health Challenge

This weekend, my 20-Day Total Health Challenge came to an end.  What did I learn?  What did I achieve?

• Some habits come more easily than others.  Some goals started to  become habits (moisturizing after the shower, flossing daily, eating dinner at the table) and others continue to be a challenge (drinking enough water, stopping mindless eating).
• It’s always possible to incorporate more movement into the day.  Can’t fit in thirty minutes to exercise?  Take the stairs at work, take a ten minute walk break at lunch, and do some triceps dips off the couch when you get home.  It all adds up.  Try to lose the exercise-happens-in-the-gym-or-on-my-running-route mentality and you’ll do yourself a favour!  It sure helped me during the challenge.
• A couple of days, I achieved all my goals.  Most days I didn’t.  A couple of days I hardly achieved any.  Striving for perfection is not healthy and perfection isn’t achievable – live your life, my friends!  If you miss a workout, that’s okay.  If you miss two, that’s okay.  If you spend your Thanksgiving weekend skipping your workouts so you can spend it eating lots of turkey with people you love, that’s the best of all.
• Small goals can be a great way to move towards a bigger one.  Sounds obvious, right?  Getting more sleep, turning off the TV sooner, eating more protein at lunch… they’re small things that have added up to me feeling healthier in the last few weeks. 
• My total health is affected tremendously by things going on with my emotional, spiritual life.  I’m sure this is the case for some of you out there – and if not, you’re fortunate!  After a conversation with a close friend that hit me like a ton of bricks, I connected those dots more clearly than ever before.  This is a new focus for me, and will be something I need to work on.  It’s likely not something I’ll blog about, but it’s a big one.

The challenge allowed me to track health variables that can often be overlooked.  Health is about more than vegetables and lifting weights.  I plan on embarking on other mini challenges in the future because I appreciated what the 20-Day Total Health Challenge taught me about tracking small goals and seeing how they add up to an overall feeling of wellness.  Simple stuff, yes.  Still important.

And on another note, one of my fur babies wanted to practice smiling with her eyes (ANTM, anyone?):

The Week Ahead

It’s back to work tomorrow, back to regular life and regular routines.  I love long weekends and love being at home, but I also love a normal schedule.  So tomorrow is back to a yummy packed lunch, hot yoga after work and an easy supper.  Sounds like a good day to me.

Hope you all enjoyed your weekend, whether it was a long one or not, and that you have good health – and lots of other things – to be thankful for!

Adi

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 1:42 am and is filed under Breakfast, Dinner, Health, Lunch, Oatmeal, Running. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.