On Friday January 20th a group of committed and fabulous women gathered at Beans & Babes Cafe in Oshawa to kick off the 12 week Fitness Event hosted by FITMOM Durham.

There are 15 new moms who will be participating in this health & wellness challenge between January 23-April 13th ,2012.

This past Friday we learned from Kim Corrigan Oliver, from your green baby, about building a healthy mom and baby through diet. For me, it was reassuring to know that overall my diet is well balanced, but trust me, there is room for improvement!

Below you will find a recap of what we learned from Kim. Many moms also took the opportunity to buy her new book and some have even started making the recipes from them and implementing a few of the strategies Kim suggested last week!

Kim's Tips for a Healthy Diet:

• Always eat breakfast! Avoid skipping meals.
• Whenever possible eat whole foods (this means real food, not stuff that comes in a box) including lots of fresh, green, leafy vegetables
• Drink lots of water
• Eat at regular intervals throughout the day (every 3-4 hours)
• Consume good fats (especially DHA) good sources of DHA include fish, cod liver oil, avacados, and chia or flax seeds
• Eat protein at every meal and snack to help keep you satisfied and to stabilize blood sugar & energy levels
• Eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. Aim for a minimum of 6 servings per day. 2 of these servings should be green, leafy vegetables.

Remember that 80% of what you need to do to change your lifestyle from unhealthy to healthy revolves around what you put in your body! When you make healthy food choices you will have more energy, will feel better and it will be easier to implement all of the other positive changes you want to make in your life!

If healthy eating is a new practice for you, then I suggest slowly integrating these choices into your life 1 week and 1 meal at a time, this will help ensure that this becomes a new lifestyle for you and your family. Too many changes too soon have a way of derailing many good intentions. So start slow and you will be more likely to succeed and maintain your new habits.

In health,

Jenn