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(HealthNewDigest.com) – February, the month related to our hearts is all about heart health and love. This is why I have decided to combine my usual Valentine message with February’s American Heart Health Month, because it is all about love; loving ourselves and our loved ones, that is! I think that when we take care of our heart, it means taking care of our heart health including our cardiovascular system, and our emotional health. After all, can we completely separate our emotions from our physical health?
Okay, so for the next few weeks we’ll take a look at a few of the components of taking care of our heart, physically through exercise, through foods, coping with stress, and through a few other ways including expressing our love to others. Let’s start today with an alternative way of expressing our love for this week’s heart holiday, Valentine’s Day, of course!
Valentine’s Day, usually the time for my annual love tip, represents all types of love, romantic or otherwise in my opinion. Many of us will celebrate it romantically with a loved one over a special dinner or with gifts such as flowers or chocolate. When I was a little girl, my dad used to send me chocolate by the foot from Arkansas, and it was always at least 3 feet! ,even though I’ll eat some chocolate this Valentine’s Day (I hope!), I’d like to propose that this Valentine holiday and this month, we take a moment to think about another way to express our love to others and to ourselves (we can all eat a little delicious chocolate too, of course!). I call it Alternative Love. If we can practice alternative love, we will impact our heart health as well as express our love to others.
How?
We can express our love this weekend and month by giving a gentle nag to our loved one to make that over-due doctor’s appointment or we can buy our loved one a new gym membership, or an exercise bike, for some examples. It can even mean our giving someone a new work-out outfit or a pair of sneakers to spur on a healthy walking routine. Maybe it even means taking over a chore for that special someone so that he or she can get to the gym more often. Do we know someone who smokes? How about we give him or her information about the various “smoking cessation groups” available and meeting times (along with a love basket of flowers, okay I’m getting carried away!). We can also give a massage as a gift for Valentine’s Day to help cope with stress, instead of chocolate, or we can take a couple’s massage to celebrate together.
How can we express love to ourselves? Well, how often have we stopped to think about doing something that is an expression of love for ourselves? Do we need to make that over -due doctor’s appointment for ourselves? Have we been exercising regularly? Have we been eating a few more healthier foods? One suggestion I’d like to make, is for each of us to eat one new food every week that is known to be healthy (how about we start our day with a healthy high fiber cereal for instance or heart healthy oatmeal?). Or how about we eliminate one food that we know is unhealthy as a way of getting started. We can treat ourselves to that weekly massage for the next few weeks to reward ourselves, especially if stress is a major factor in our life. Many of us eat to cope with stress, so let’s try a massage instead.
Valentine’s day and this entire month is about love, and with so many ways of expressing it, let’s pick at least one way that may help our health and fitness. Of course, we can still give our loved ones a box of chocolate too (just a smaller one), because “February is All About Our heart” this month and beyond!
Want help with your exercise and weight goals? Contact us for information on the new “10-week Personalized Get- in- Shape” Programs by emailing me or go http://www.junefit.com/serviceshp.htm Offered also are “Personal Exercise Only” Programs smartly designed to strengthen, condition, increase flexibility, and more with Ed Irace! Services provided in NYC, and nationally through Skype web service, email and phone when appropriate.
For more information on American Heart Health Events, go to http://healthfinder.gov/nho/PDFs/FebruaryNHOtoolkit.pdf
Happy Valentine’s Day!
June M. Lay M.S.
JuneFit
Enjoying my tips? Get a head start thinking about a New Year weight loss goal with my book. Here’s the link to Amazon, ItsNotDietCreativeEating
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