Bon Voyage!

 

Traveling is a favorite of mine and I love to do it with family. Its nothing like taking a break from everyday stresses and relaxing. But, while vacations are an opportunity to escape from everyday stresses of everyday life, they should never be an escape from healthy lifestyles.(Guidestone 2012) I recently read an article about 7 tips for a healthy family vacation.

• Include physical activities everyone can enjoy: doing things such as hiking the grand canyon can be fun. You can site see and get exercise. 
• Eat healthy: Vacations are not a license to indulge in unhealthy splurges. Resist the urge to supersize your meals or cater to every whim your sweet tooth dreams up. Maintaining a healthy diet will give you more energy to enjoy your vacation.
• Stay hydrated: Dehydration can aggravate altitude sickness, motion sickness and jet lag. It can also cause headaches, dizziness and tiredness. Drink plenty of water, especially in warm weather or when you’re physically active.
• Protect your skin: Outdoor fun is more fun if your not suffering from sunburn. USE SUNBLOCK
• Play it safe: Avoid making your trip memorable by spending it in the emergency room. Never take a vacation from safety. 
• Plan some down time:  Don’t try to cram so much into your vacation that you aren’t able to rest. Vacations are as much about renewal as they are about family fun.
• Take along a vacation kit:  Inevitably health needs will arise when you’re away from home. Pack a small bag or box with medical supplies and medications you and your family use regularly. Similar to a first-aid kit, the vacation kit can be customized for your particular destination and activities.

Having all of these things in a family vacation can ensure that you enjoy it while also still being healthy. 

Retrieved from:  http://www.guidestoneinsurance.org/aboutus/articles/healthyvacation.aspx

Getting Fit with the Fam!

My family is very big on being fit and exercising especially my mother. Every morning she wakes up early and goes for a 2 mile walk. It keeps her very energized throughout the day. She often tries to get my sister and I to join her, but unfortunately were usually to lazy to wake up -_-. Though as a young girl I was always in a some type of sport. If I wasn't at practice or a game I was playing some type of game with the neighborhood kids. My family has always been very active and I am very grateful for that. While browsing on Yahoo, I came across a very informative article on tips to keep your family fit and active.

The article spoke about how now days obesity has risen drastically because of the convenience of fast food, television, and video games. When I was growing up it was very rare to have kids overweight. We always stayed active, so it is crazy to me how so many kids are over weight now. Picking up at least two of these tips can help a lot into contributing to a more healthy family.

1. The first tip was, "walk." You can walking anywhere pretty much. If your going to a friends house that is down the street instead of getting a ride, walk in stead. It is the most convenient way to stay fit. Maybe taking a family trip to the park every weekend will be a good way to stay in shape and bond.
2. Water is number two on the list. My mother keeps water in the house or we make lemonade. There is absolutely NO pop in our house. It is very unhealthy and filled with sugar. Having just water will cut down on a lot calories.
3. Dieting can be pretty hard to do but if you keep a lot of fruit and veggies in the house the kids can snack on those instead of cookies and candy. In my house we would occasionally have some chips but not often. There was plenty of fruit and veggie though.
4. The next tip was to play with your kids. My family put a volleyball net in our backyard and we had many days where we would sit there and play games. The article states hop scotch is a great game and I definitely remember her teaching my sister and I how to play.
5. Dancing is probably one of the most fun tips on the article. I LOVE to dance and so does my family. They used to own a lounge back in the seventies and that is all that went on there. Dancing is a great way to lose calories while also being really fun!
6. Limiting television is something that can hard to do sometimes. There are a lot of great things on TV that come on every single day. A good way to get the family away from the television would to maybe have a game night. If you don't want to do that go outside and play, just do something other than sitting in front of the television all day.
7. The last tip is to be happy! Spend time together, love each other and don't sweat the small stuff...Life is to short!

 This article was retrieved from... http://voices.yahoo.com/tips-keep-family-fit-active-1284911.html

A Family That Eats Together Stays Together!

As I was eating breakfast this morning alone it made me think that this would be the perfect time to have a good conversation before the day starts. All of my roommates were gone unfortunately so I had to have a conversation alone....Not! But eating breakfast is one of the most important parts of the day. Why not spend that part with your family? A family that eats together stays together. The day can be so busy and most of the time everyone is running around. I checked out a article written in May 2007 from Improving Your World, about some pros and cons of eating breakfast as a family.
 

Pros

• The first pro was exactly what I mentioned earlier. When having a large family its hard to get everyone together at the same time to talk. Many member have different activities going on so before the day starts the family can sit together and talk about them. My family does this because with us all having cars were rarely at home, so eating breakfast together helps us inform each other of our plans for the day.
• Eating breakfast together is a great way to bond, and have time to talk. The article mentioned how many families are missing that these days and I can totally agree with that. With this new generation there is a lot of technonlgy and television that keeps the mind of most people. Having breakfast together as a family gives people a break form that. 
• The rest of the cons were pretty much the same thing. To sum them all up having breakfast together is a great way to talk.You can talk about the weather, your goals, anything! One thing that did stand out to me was the note about having guest over for dinner. If you have a lot of guest over for dinner a lot then having breakfast might be one of the only times you will have to spend with just family. 

Cons  

• The first con talked about how a lot of families wake up at different times. If there are younger members in the family they might get up later than the adults for school. It can be hard to have everyone together for breakfast. What my family would usually do is eat breakfast together on the weekends. That is an easy way to solve this problem. 
• The second con said how people usually want to eat different meals for breakfast. To solve this problem I feel like every one can get together and make one big breakfast. Each member can make whatever they would like to eat and make enough for everyone to eat. 

I really enjoyed reading this article on the pros and cons of eating breakfast together as a family. After reading this article a good thing to look up next would be healthy breakfast meals.

Improving Your Health. (2007) 

Retrieved from http://www.improvingyourworld.com/relationships/eating_breakfast_as_a_family_pros_and_cons_000999.html