BetterU Week Two: Ignorance Is Not Bliss

I’ve made it through my first week of the BetterU program. Today is the first day of week two for me, so I’ll fill you in on how week one went and what’s going on this week. For those of you who have joined, I hope you’ll post about your progress in the comments!

My week one goal was to be active for 10 to 30 minutes each day. I did it for 6 out of 7 days last week, and I think that’s a pretty good start to a BetterMe. I exercised right here in my apartment 3 of the days – pounded on my quasi-heavy bag (yes, I know this is not a normal thing to own!) and just generally bounced around for 10 or 20 minutes. I went to the gym the other three days and even did my full 9-minute run once (45 minutes on the treadmill with three 3-minute intervals of jogging). All in all, I had an active week, thanks to the motivation I got from BetterU.

Week two is all about reducing risk factors for heart disease, which begins with knowing what they are and which ones you have. I happen to be very well acquainted with my own risk factors, and I encourage you to identify and reduce yours. The main controllable risk factors are as follows:

High Blood Pressure – Smoking – High Cholesterol – Physical Inactivity – Obesity or Being Overweight – Diabetes

If you don’t know what your blood pressure is, find a drug store that has one of those chairs with the cuff. Normal is 120/80, anything within ten or twenty points either way is probably okay. If you don’t know your cholesterol, talk to your doctor about having some simple blood work done to find out. If you don’t have a general doctor, find one! In the case of heart disease factors, ignorance is most definitely not bliss.

The point this week is that there are little choices we can make every day to reduce our risk for heart disease. With that in mind, I set the following goal for week two:

While on 3 days of business travel this week, I will choose to avoid sweets and desserts.

Now, you may be thinking: Isn’t this girl diabetic? I sure am, but I cheat and squeeze sweets into my diet sometimes. On top of this tendency, travel is synonymous with unhealthy eating in my mind. For some reason, I’ve always allowed myself to indulge while traveling. On trips like this, there are always sweets and snacks lying around, begging to be eaten. There are fancy dinners, which seemingly everyone finishes off with decadent desserts. Not this girl, not this week. Wish me luck!

Stay tuned for the winners of the week one contest – I will announce two winners as soon as I figure out what the prizes are :)

Why you should sign up for the program with Go Red For Women:

The Ugly Truth: Heart disease is the #1 killer of women age 20 and over, killing approximately 1 woman every minute.

The Good News: About 80% of heart disease is preventable.

What We Can Do: 90% of women have one or more risk factors for developing heart disease – together we can reduce this number drastically!

How BetterU Can Help: Research shows that women who Go Red are more likely to make healthy changes in their lives.
• More than 1/3 have lost weight.
• Nearly 50% have increased their exercise.
• Six out of ten have changed their diets.