Living a healthy life in 2009 - Now is the time

Image by Claudio.Ar via Flickr

2009 is the year that I am going to really concentrate on living a healthier life for my own sake. I need to do this for me otherwise my health will deteriorate as I am now in my 50s and starting to feel it physically.

The following are the things I am going to do this year:

Laugh a lot and be happy. We have to choice to look on the positive side or the negative and this year I am going to be happy and thank God for what I have and laugh a lot. This also attracts people to you so maybe I will make some new friends along the way.

Stress less but use it only to challenge myself to achieve the things I want. I am going to meditate more this year and the iPod is coming out again regularly to listen to binaural beat music as this really brings down my stress levels dramatically.

Don't worry so much. This is probably my biggest hurdle as I am a real worrier. This I'm sure impacts on my health and especially my blood pressure. I will set aside some time to think about my worries to find solutions then I will put them aside in my mind. Some problems have no solutions and worrying about them doesn' make it any better.

Exercise more often. I must admit that I'm not keen on exercising but I will start to walk again and this will be the main exercise I will do. A beach walk will be nice to do each week so Ill add that in. Exercise also helps me balance stress levels.

Eating well. I really don't have a problem with this one, only that I like my snacks as well, so Ill cut those down and eat more healthy ones like raw vegetables.

I'm sure I could do more but this is a good start and if I can achieve these it will make a big difference to my health. Now the only goal I will have to really work on is keeping my job and with the economy as it is this will be my biggest one for the year.

Cooking the crock pot way

I am a busy woman, working full time, trying to keep a house clean and be a wife and grandmother as well. I was looking for ways to save money and my time and I remembered I had a crock pot packed away somewhere. I finally found it and I have been using it ever since.

The crock pot is the best thing since sliced bread. I set it in the morning and I have a hot cooked dinner when I get home from work. For a complicated recipe I will cook on a Sunday and then reheat for Monday night's dinner. Serve with rice or potatoes and vegetables or in summer with a salad.

Winter and changing of the seasons are great times for soup and I have been making lots of soup lately. I have a blog with a lot of recipes which is called Crock Pot Meals and you can get the recipes there.

I have found that I don't spend as much time in the kitchen now and we have less take outs which saves me money (for my vacations). Have you rediscovered the crock pot?