empowerme

Don't skip meals!  Skipping breakfast, lunch, and/or dinner may cause you to overeat at holiday meal times.  If you have to skip a meal, replace it with fruits and veggies, otherwise keep to your regular meal times.

On Valentine's Day, give yourself a gift of a healthy heart by staying away from the really sweet stuff and instead eating a little bit of dark chocolate - it may improve your heart health.

When ordering in, watch your portion sizes! Rather than eating straight from the container, separate out what you will eat and put the rest away. That way you will be aware of how much you consume.

For a simple total body workout: use resistance bands to strengthen and tone your muscles; a stability ball to strenghtn your core and improve your balance; and a jump rope to get your heart rate up and improve coordination and timing.

 Get the whole family playing together! Start a new tradition of spending Saturday or Sunday afternoon skating or playing touch football.      

Take the Challenge . Challenge your friends to try all kinds of fruits and vegetables. Have everyone keep track of the different kinds of fruits and vegetables that they eat and see how many you can all try. Make it a competition and the winner gets a meal made for them with their favorite fruits and vegetables.

Looking for a healthy Valentine's Day gift, make a fruit bouquet using strawberries, grapes, cantaloupe, honeydew and other colorful fruit. They are filled with nutrients and vitamins.

Try eating sweet potato instead of plain white potato. You can also add cinnamon to sweet potato to spice it up and make it yummy.

Swap out the Fries and Onion Rings. Order a side salad or baked potato. Large fries can be at least 500 calories a serving!

Lunch at school? Get your friends together to petition for more vegetables or a salad bar at school. Already have one? Be creative and put veggies on foods you already like such as pizza and burgers and always grab a banana or apple to eat.

Find ways to add healthy foods into foods you like. You can put blueberries in pancakes, chopped fruit on cereal, or small pieces of broccoli in macaroni and cheese.

Stay clear of eating too much salty food. Some soups, lunch meats, sauces, and frozen meals contain a lot of salt.

Got chores? Make them fun! Use music and get active while cleaning, Head outside and help in the garden, or climb the stairs extra times as you clean to get more exercise!

Need a satisfyIng snack! Reach for crunchy vegetables like carrot sticks, broccoli florets, or red pepper strips.

Try and get at least 60 minutes of play time or exercise throughout each day and work up a sweat when doing it. Try dancing, swimming, mowing the lawn, or bicycling to start. You don't have to do all 60 minutes at once, feel free to break it up throughout your day.

Kangaroo Jump. Tape a shoelace to the floor in a straight vertical line. Stand on one side of the line with both feet together. Count to 3 and on 3 start jumping over the string from one side to the other 10 times. Take a brief break and do it again.

Help Shop. Shop 'till you drop! Choose the fruits and vegetables at the supermarket and then help prepare the dinner that you love.

Get at least 9 hours of sleep every night.

 Look at newspapers and flyers for activities that your whole family can do together, like a community fun run, walk or a car wash.    

Fruits and vegetables are the best way to get important vitamins and nutrients, like vitamin A, vitamin C, potassium and fiber, into your body. It is hard to understand the importance of fruits and vegetables, and it is sometimes even harder to learn to like how they taste. But fruits and vegetables can be fun to explore, prepare and eat! Give them a try--you may even find a new favorite food!