Phil Parham
Page 13
How many times have you waited until the last minute to complete a homework assignment or a project? And how many times could you not finish it on time? Did you have an excuse ready to give your teacher? We can always find a reason why we couldn’t do something we were supposed to do.
We do the same thing with our health. We make excuses about why we ate too much and didn’t exercise enough. There is always a party to go to, a movie to watch, or a vacation to go on where we have a “reason” to give ourselves a break. The problem is that we will never change for the better if we keep making excuses for our bad choices.
When we got the call to be on The Biggest Loser, we moved heaven and earth in a week so that we would be able to go. We did whatever we had to do because we knew we were doing it for our health. If you want to change your life, you have to do what you need to do and eliminate the excuses.
Don’t let excuses hold you back from living the best and longest life you can. Don’t say, “I can’t do this because...” To borrow a phrase from Nike—Just do it.
Something to Talk About
1. What are some excuses you have made in the past?
2. What is the definition of an excuse that my professor gave me?
3. Why are excuses bad?
Tip of the Day
If you are constantly late, try setting your clocks 10 minutes early. That way if you are always 10 minutes late, at least you’ll be on time.
Nutrition Sense for Your Family
It’s time to learn how and what to eat. Proper nutrition is a big part of what it means to be healthy, so pay close attention. You’ll learn about why you should eat natural foods such as grains, fruits, and vegetables and drink lots of water. And you will understand that feeding your body well helps to keep it running properly, just as putting the right fuel in your gas tank makes your car run like it should.
DAY 31–GROW YOUR OWN VEGGIES!
A Word from Amy
Something to Think About
What do you think about when I say the words “the great outdoors”? Do you think about breathing in fresh air? The smell of freshly cut grass? There’s nothing quite like spending time outside. It makes you feel so good.
The outdoors is also where food grows. Not only that, you can even grow your own food. Back in the old days, there was no such thing as grocery stores. Most families grew their own fruits, vegetables, and grains.
Imagine planting a seed in the ground, watering it, fertilizing it, and after a couple weeks, seeing that tiny seed sprout into a tomato plant that eventually produces tomatoes you can hold in your hand. How awesome is that!
Take a family trip to a local gardening store and talk to someone about building your own garden. Start out with veggies that are easy to grow, such as tomatoes, green beans, carrots, and beets. Add different food items to your garden every year. If you live in an area where you can’t grow a garden, visit a local farm that allows you to pick your own fruits and vegetables. It’ll be a fun family day out, and you can learn how food grows.
Above all else—and I know many of you have heard it said a thousand times before—eat your veggies. Try to eat two cups of veggies a day. They’re good for you.
Something to Talk About
1. What are your favorite veggies?
2. Why are veggies good for you?
3. Here is another fun project to do as a family. The next time you go grocery shopping, spend some extra time in the produce section. Go through each section and check out the different kinds of cool looking vegetables. Hold a big red beet in your hand. Check out the unique shape of an eggplant and its deep purple color. Try a new veggie every week.
Tip of the Day
To help your child make healthier food choices, make a daily vegetable and fruit chart and post it on your refrigerator. Have your child color a picture or place a sticker or gold star for each fruit or vegetable eaten.
DAY 32–SAY “NO” TO THE DRIVE-THRU
A Note from Phil
Something to Think About
I hate to break it to you, but fast food is not a part of a nutritious diet. Most foods that you get at the drive-thru window are loaded with extra junk to make the food taste better, but it’s bad for your body.
I know we live in a busy time and sometimes it’s just easier to grab lunch or dinner on the road when you’re on your way to soccer practice or a play date. But while it’s easier, is it good for you? Absolutely not.
In their excellent book Chew on This, Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson talk about the dangers of fast food. They say, “The food you eat enters your body and literally becomes a part of you. It helps determine whether you’ll be short or tall, weak or strong, thin or fat. It helps determine whether you will enjoy a long, healthy life or die young.”
Ouch! Why eat fast food if you can eat healthier at home? You can even eat healthier on the road. Pack lunch or dinner to take with you. Take some fruit or veggie snacks to the game or on your play date. There are many ways you can be healthy even when your life is super busy. Remember, you have to fuel your body properly for it to work properly. And fast food is not the way to do it. Natural foods are the way to go.
Something to Talk About
1. Do you like fast food? Why or why not? How does it make you feel an hour or so after you eat it? Do you feel tired or energized?
2. What are some ways you can take healthy food with you when you’re on the road?
3. Knowing how bad fast food is for your body, do you still want to eat it? Why or why not?
Tip of the Day
Slow down while you’re eating. It takes 15 minutes for your digestive system to tell your brain that you are full. The best way to eat slower is to chew each mouthful 30 times. When you eat, take your time!
DAY 33–ENCOURAGE YOUR FRIENDS TO MAKE HEALTHY CHOICES
A Word from Amy
Something to Think About
“I’ll trade you my banana for your potato chips.”
“I’ll give you my carrot sticks for your cupcake.”
Sound familiar? Making healthy choices with your friends at school can be a hard thing to do sometimes. Especially when you sit with them at the cafeteria and see some of their lunches (that you think taste super good, but are not the best things to eat for good health).
Sometimes when you make healthy choices, your friends won’t be as excited as you are. Though you may love apples, they may not be used to eating them. It’s okay. Here is a great opportunity to teach your friends, by your example, how to make the right choices when it comes to nutrition.
Instead of telling someone what to do, it’s better to show them by doing it yourself. This is a great reminder for parents. When you offer fruits and veggies to your kids at mealtime, make sure you eat them yourself We make a greater difference when we lead by example.
Remember this, kids. You might need to learn how to say no more often (not to your parents, but to your friends who don’t make the right nutrition choices). When they’re munching away on salty or greasy foods and offer you a bite, tell them “No thanks,” and munch on a piece of fruit instead. When they gulp down a ton of soda and ask if you want a Coke, say “No thanks,” and drink your water instead.
Something to Talk About
1. How many of your friends make healthy eating choices?
2. If they eat snacks or a meal that’s not the best choice to fuel their body, do you feel pressure to do the same thing?
3. How can you encourage your friends to make the right nutrition choices?
Tip of the Day
I know you probably hear it all the time, but take care of your teeth. Brush them at least twice a day. When you eat foods that are high in sugar (candy or soda) or starches (french fries or cookies), it can cause tooth decay. Good nutrition even matters in keeping your beautiful smile.
DAY 34–WHAT DO YOU SEE?
A Note from Phil
Something to Think About
Have you ever looked at a special image where there’s a pictu
re hidden inside a picture? You have to stare at it long and hard until you see something that pops out. You are surprised when you see it, but it was there all along. Then when you look at that secret image any time afterward, it is as clear as day.
I want to show you something you may have looked at hundreds of times before, but may have missed. When you cut open a tomato, the inside is red and has four chambers. Our heart also is red and has four chambers. Tomatoes have this thing called lycopene in them. Lycopene is a great tool to help maintain good heart health. As a matter of fact, all fruits, vegetables, and beans have nutrients in them that help your body, and many of them resemble a part of your body.
Celery, bok choy, and rhubarb look like and are helpful to your bones. Kidney beans help maintain kidney function, and yes, they are shaped like a kidney. When cracked open, walnuts, which help our brain function, look like the human brain. Grapes hang in a cluster that has a shape similar to that of the heart; each grape looks like a blood cell. Research shows that grapes are a heart and blood-vitalizing food. Onions, which look like your blood cells, have been shown to help clear waste materials from blood cells.
The next time you eat your fruits and veggies, think about how God designed each of these foods to help your body.
Something to Talk About
1. What vegetables help the blood cells?
2. What organ do kidney beans help?
3. What do celery, bok choy, and rhubarb help?
Tip of the Day
What kind of fruit do you like? When you’re tempted to eat junk food, pick up a piece of your favorite fruit instead.
DAY 35–AN APPLE A DAY KEEPS THE DOCTOR AWAY
A Word from Amy
Something to Think About
Does an apple a day really keep the doctor away? Maybe. Did you know an apple provides nine of the sixteen chemical elements and four of the six most crucial vitamins required by our body to function and protect itself against disease? But an apple is just one of the many fruits God made to keep us healthy.
Fruit is a carbohydrate and carbohydrates give us energy for our day. We always try to mix a carb with a protein to keep our blood sugar stable. For example, when you’re eating an apple or orange, have some nuts or cheese with it. If you’re having Greek yogurt, put some peaches or berries in it. One of my favorite snacks is a banana with a little peanut butter.
How much fruit should we eat? Nutritionists suggest two to four servings a day. There are so many delicious ways to get your daily amount of fruit. I usually eat fruit for my snacks, or I put it in my cereal or oatmeal for breakfast. You can have your mom or dad pack a piece in your lunch box or you can eat one after school for a snack. I like to freeze grapes and pop them in my mouth like candy. You can also blend frozen fruit (such as strawberries) and a bit of milk to make a sorbet or a smoothie.
Fruit is a wonderful source of vitamins, fiber, and antioxidants. It is nature’s dessert and it is yummy.
Something to Talk About
1. What are some things that fruit does for our bodies?
2. What should you eat with fruit?
3. What are some ways to put more fruit into your diet?
Tip of the Day
Put snacks in little plastic bags. Measure them out in single-serving portions so you eat only as much as you are supposed to.
DAY 36–ARE YOUR EYES BIGGER THAN YOUR STOMACH?
A Word from Amy
Something to Think About
Have you ever noticed that when you stub your toe, you immediately feel pain? The same is true when you skin your knee. Your brain will quickly send a message to your nerves to tell your body that you’ve injured yourself.
This isn’t true when it comes to eating and feeling full. We can eat a giant meal and not feel full immediately. It takes the brain longer to send the message to our stomach that it needs to stop eating. We need to know the right portions. We can’t count on our stomachs to tell us.
Here are some helpful hints:
• one serving of fruit/vegetables = a balled-up fist
• one serving of meats/protein (and take the fatty skin off) = a deck of cards
• one serving of bread/grains/pasta = a tennis ball
• one serving of dairy such as cheese (choose the low-fat kind) = the size of four small dice
• one serving of oil/fats/sweets = one teaspoon or the size of a small die
Cup your hands together and hold them out. That’s roughly the size of your stomach. Can you imagine how much we stretch our stomachs when we eat a hamburger, fries, and a chocolate milk shake?
Here’s a key to remember. If you are super tired after eating, you probably ate too much. Food should energize you, not make you want to take a nap. Stick with eating small portions more often (instead of three huge meals a day), and you’ll be headed on the right track to good health.
Something to Talk About
1. What is the right portion for a single serving of protein? How about oils, fats, and sweets?
2. What does it mean if you are tired after a meal?
3. How big is your stomach?
Tip of the Day
Have a deck of cards, a tennis ball, and some dice handy in your kitchen so you can compare them to the amount of food you put on your plate. You will soon notice that you are eating much less.
DAY 37–FAT BROTHERS
A Word from Amy
Something to Think About
Imagine you are friends with two brothers. They live in the same house and have the same last name, but one is bad news while the other is a really great guy. This is the case with the “fat brothers,” saturated and unsaturated fat.
Saturated fat is the bad news brother. He can be found hiding in candy, cookies, cakes, pies, chocolate, french fries, and other things that are bad for you. What happens when you have too much saturated fat in your diet? It forces your body to create more cholesterol. When the levels of cholesterol in your blood are too high, you put yourself at risk for all kinds of diseases.
The good brother is unsaturated fat. He’s a great friend of your body because he helps burn extra body fat. Eating good unsaturated fats in foods such as olive oil, nuts, and nut butters keeps your hunger under control, and these fats also produce hormones that help your muscles grow. Good fat also does something else. It helps deliver vitamins A, D, E, and K to your fatty tissue to be used when your liver needs them.
Fat has a bad reputation, but it’s only saturated fat that you need to quit hanging out with. Become friends with unsaturated fat, and he will help you be healthier.
Something to Talk About
1. What is the difference between saturated and unsaturated fat?
2. What foods have saturated fat in them? What foods have unsaturated fat in them?
3. What good things can unsaturated fat do for your body?
Tip of the Day
Look in your pantry and fridge and read the labels on some of your foods. Do you see any with a lot of the “bad brother” in them? Stay away from these foods.
DAY 38–SUGAR AND SPICE IS NOT SO NICE
A Word from Amy
Something to Think About
Do you remember the nursery rhyme that said that little girls were made of sugar and spice and everything nice? Well, it turns out that too much sugar and the spice salt are not so nice to your body. They are things you want to watch out for if you want to stay healthy.
Sugar is everywhere. It’s found in soda, condiments, cereals, and even places you wouldn’t expect it, like some yogurts and bread. Sugar is dangerous because it is nutritionally empty. It doesn’t fuel your body as other foods do. It also causes your blood sugar to spike up and then crash back down. This is why when you drink a soda, you feel a rush of energy, but later you feel sleepy or cranky. Too much sugar also puts you at risk for obesity and type 2 diabetes. We need to be careful that we eat sugar only in very small amounts to keep our body working well.
We also have to be careful about eating
too much salt. It can make you retain fluid, contribute to high blood pressure, and overwork the kidneys and liver. We get plenty of salt in our regular foods, so it’s not necessary to add salt to the food on our plate. Instead of salt, many other spices can be used to give your food flavor.
Watch out for sugar and salt in your food because they are not very nice to your body. Too much of them does more harm than good.
Something to Talk About
1. Do you like to eat foods that are high in sugar or salt?
2. What foods are high in sugar? Salt?
3. What are some of the health problems that may occur if you consume too much sugar and salt?
Tip of the Day
Next time you’re in the grocery store, take a trip down the aisle with the spices and seasonings. Pick out a few that you would like to try on your food.
DAY 39–THE THREE AMIGOS
A Word from Amy
Something to Think About
Ever notice how some things take more than one person to do them? For example, it would be really hard to ride on a seesaw or play baseball by yourself, right? The same thing is true when it comes to fueling your body. One type of food can’t do the job alone.