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NativeFit Blog
- a collection of health and wellness thoughts -


How This Athlete Found Her Healthy Diet

5/27/2016

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​As an athlete, I know how important it is to find a healthy diet that fits each of our bodies' needs. For me, the right diet is a vegetarian diet. It’s easy to find ways to replace meat with other protein sources such as legumes and nuts. 
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To successfully create that healthy diet that best fits one’s individual needs, it is important to figure out what food we want to change, then replace the good nutrients in that food with the same nutrients from a different food source.
For example, we can replace the protein and iron in beef with the iron in spinach and the protein in lentils. Breaking down our diet and what we eat enables us to pick and choose the nutrients and vitamins that we need and helps us decide what foods would be good for us to eat.
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Eating veggie rolls after a swim workout

​Being a vegetarian has made me realize the importance of maintaining not only a healthy diet, but a balanced diet. Balancing the fruits and vegetables we eat with our grains and proteins is important, whether we are athletes or not. Eating from all  of these food categories maximizes our performance, helps us live a healthy lifestyle, and contributes to our overall positive mentality!
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Olivia Ross
High School Athlete
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When Willpower is Not Enough

5/15/2016

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Change can be hard – especially when it involves adopting healthy new behaviors. How often have we channeled our inner warrior willpower, only to cave to temptation and eat that candy bar we swore off, stay up too late, or skip our workout again?
Why is choosing healthy over unhealthy difficult? Look no further than the theory of willpower depletion. This theory comes from research that showed that resisting temptation over and over again takes a mental toll – like a muscle that tires from overuse. Our daily supply of willpower is a limited resource. Using willpower in one situation to make the right choice drains the self-control needed to make good choices for the next situation. Bottom line? We need more than willpower to develop healthy habits.
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Willpower is like a muscle that tires from overuse.
So hooray for Behavior Change Strategies! These strategies are great because used with willpower, they help make healthy habits stick.  Behavior change strategies work because they target unhealthy behaviors, motivate change, and help us develop sustainable new habits. These strategies  are always available to use once we understand them. And, these strategies all start with change in motivation - which means that when we starting using them, we'll be making cool healthy changes inside our minds well before anyone sees our cool healthy outside behavior changes!
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Healthy living is a journey...
Excited to learn more? In future blogs, we’ll talk about the different behavior change strategies and how to use them - so check into our blog space often.

Starting today – approach healthy living as a journey - not a destination. Take joy in this adventure, grab friends and family to travel along, don’t be afraid to take a wrong turn or start again. And, celebrate joyful moments and good intentions every day!
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Grab friends and family to travel with you.
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Celebrate joy and good intentions every day!

Maile Jachowski, MD
Founder, NativeFit
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7 Simple Rules for Healthy Living

5/5/2016

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My name is Mary Anna Weklar and I’ll be joining NativeFit as a contributor to its Healthy Lifestyle Blog space. I hope that together, we can explore simple, easy ways to bring positive lifestyle practices into our day to day lives.
An integrated approach to healthy living has the opportunity to heal and renew us as individuals, communities and beyond! But, there is such an explosion of new information about health and lifestyle, that it can be incredibly overwhelming and confusing to figure out. So, here are some basic guidelines I believe can help build a strong foundation for healthy living: ​
  • Move your butt! 
    Strive for at least 30 minutes or more of physical activity daily…outdoors if possible. Vary physical activity to use all your muscles…walk, stretch, lift weights (a water bottle in each hand works), shoot baskets, or jump rope anyone?
  • ​Eat a rainbow!
    Not skittles or other packaged, processed foods, but 5-7 servings of real veggies and fruits daily. Aim for whole and as close to how it grows as possible – an apple not applesauce, an orange, not the juice.
  • ​Rest and Repair.
    Sleep at least 7 – 8 hours per night. Remember our bodies and minds are not machines.

  • De-stress with Recess.
    Find time to play (games, music, dance, hobbies, draw) and take a break from our cell phones!

  • Share quality time with others.
    We need our peeps! Friendships cultivated and laughter shared are some of the greatest riches free to enjoy!

  • ​Practice gratitude and appreciation.
    Lighten the heart and sooth the soul with positive thoughts and simple thank you’s. ​
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  • In the simple find the joy – a flower, a smile, a sunset, a bath.
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Wake up to a rainbow breakfast! Photo Credit: Mary Anna Weklar
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We all need our peeps... Make time to share quality time with your crew. Photo Credit: Mary Anna Weklar
Incorporating these 7 simple practices into my life helps me live a positive lifestyle. I’ve enjoyed sharing them with you and I challenge you, in the spirit of healthiness, to try them out for yourself. I think you’ll find that adopting these 7 positive lifestyle practices can be fun, simple, and easier than you think!

So how about making a healthy meal with friends or planning a group walk, anyone? Enjoy!

Mary Anna Weklar, MHA
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