I recently became affiliated with the EmpowHER Blogger Network. EmpowHER is a Social Health Community for Women. I highly recommend taking a moment to explore their website. You will find many women bloggers writing about women’s issues, health and wellness, exercise, eating, weight, etc. While there are lots of pages of things I might not be as interested about (on diseases, or not so happy topics) I am sure that many folks find the resources on the website helpful to them. I wanted to share their website for those of you that might be interested, as I follow their exercise and eating healthy topics.

Exercise and healthy eating is NOW important to me, but it has not always been. I grew up in Indiana, where I might have mentioned in a past blog post that corn should have been listed as the state vegetable. There is a small amusement park/area in Indiana called: Indiana Beach. They have a tagline of: “There is more than corn in Indiana.” I am not sure I believe them! Well, truth be told, I grew up hating my vegetables. It took at least until I was twenty-five years old and married before I would start to enjoy eating any vegetable (thank you, hubby for making them so yummy). I started to enjoy vegetables because of how he prepared them, and also because living in Oregon there are a vast variety of vegetables that grow local and are fresh and easily accessible to obtain, especially with our many farmers markets.

Lots of things have happened in my life since my vegetable breakthrough, I will not go into those now, but I will tell you that what has resulted from all those things is an excitement for eating healthy and for consistent exercise. Friends that knew me from a younger age are still shocked at my transformation with food. I now willingly ask for vegetables at restaurants, crave them, and know that they are benefiting my health. Changing my diet has changed my mood, my energy level, and driven me to be motivated to stay in shape and be healthy. As I have changed my diet, I have also gotten into running. I try to run at least 6 days a week, it has been a great stress release from the day. The other idea on my list to try is boxing, this article about women boxing workouts on the EmpowHER site has inspired me to see where I can start boxing in my area. Here is another good article from their website on 5 Ways to Exercise Everyday.

Take a moment to explore their website!