New Year, a Time for Change?

The New Year is a great time to reflect back and plan for new goals and retooling life-long commitments. Take advantage of a national wave of “yes, we can!” to create the changes you want in your life this year. Most annual “resolutions” are short-lived; the Following tips can help you get set up for positive change. Get inspired by these offerings of CHANGE and tailor them to work for you!

Care about your body and mind. A wise cliché says, “This isn’t a dress rehearsal!”- so make conscious choices about how you live your life! Resolve to visit your doctor annually; take time for health checks and screenings. Your ounce of prevention can balance set the foundation for a healthy mind, body, and spirit, with time for all three.

Healthy and happy- this could be your future.. Prioritize what matters most to you. Take a walk or sit down in a quiet space and consider what you most care about and what changes you really need. Ask yourself, what am I doing well already and where can I improve? Give yourself a pat on the back for what’s working. Maybe you only want to make two or three small changes at first. Think about your average day and chose what you can do “just for today” as a point to start the cycle. Do you need to make shift habits and behaviors related to food and nutrition; exercise and activity; spirituality and managing stress? How about planning for all three? Breathing exercises, meditation, and yoga can help your body, mind and spirit.

Get inspired with the Somerville Physical Activity Guide where you’ll find hundreds of options for dance, swimming, yoga, aerobics, biking, boxing, crew, etc.http://www.somervillema.gov/cos_content/documents/SUS-PAGuide2008.pdf or check out offerings through the Somerville Recreation Commission at the city’s website. Try out the Baila Cardio: Latin Dance for Fitness classes on Monday and Wednesday evenings 6:30-7:30- $15 for 27 sessions will help your physical and financial health.

Attitude- be kind to yourself and find support for making changes! Be realistic and get support. Staying motivated and active gets easier with outside motivation: invite a friend to walk with you; explore new places, parks, and playgrounds. Tell your family members about your new healthy eating goals and invite them to live healthier with you.

Nutrition. Food for life means adopting healthy habits you can stick with. Don’t forsake entire food groups or skip meals. Start off small. Add one extra vegetable serving everyday; replace your soda habit with water (free, healthy, calorie free!); say no to second helpings. Once you get these down, you can build in new goals. Remember that changing drastically overnight is a recipe for disaster. Try making a goal and then organize how that goal will be incorporated into your life. For example, say your new goal is to eat a healthy home-cooked meal for lunch everyday. You can plan to incorporate that into your schedule by preparing it the night before while cooking dinner. Prepare it; box it up; and grab it the next morning on my way out the door for work. That’s not just a goal it’s a goal and a plan- a recipe for success!

Goals. By far, this is the most critical step. This takes time, so consider it a process. Think about what YOU really want and work towards it. Don’t set yourself up for failure: make your goals realistic, meaningful, manageable, and small. Break down your goals into small steps; document by writing things down; evaluate them; reward yourself; and keep growing with new and intermediate goals. You can set up goals by months and then reflect on your progress. Rewards help keep you motivated! Get imaginative with your rewards: a snazzy journal to document your progress; new sneakers for walking to work in; a new piece of clothing in a smaller size.

Some tools to help you organize and motivate you: 1. http://www.tillcreative.com/resolution.pdf

2. http://www.pledgehammer.com/ The motivation link (pledehammer) can be addictive! Try following through on small, simple goals and get motivated by browsing past pledges on this site.

Environmental health: the green pledge, tying together the earth, energy and exercise. Think the community’s health as an extension of your own good health. We are all stewards and can benefit from a healthy world around us. This list is almost limitless but here are 5 good choices for a healthy you and a healthy community:

1. Think about your destinations that are within 4 miles from your house and work. Can you walk? Walking is free, easy, and fun. Can you bike? Biking around the city is often faster than driving and a zillion times more calming to the roads. Can you take transit? A trip by train gives you time to read, zone out, and relax. Try all three! This can be a painless way to build in the recommended 30 minutes a day of physical activity into your daily routine. Participate in Walk/Ride Day http://www.gogreenstreets.org/

2. Be a good neighbor: shovel snow from your sidewalks and sand when it’s icy. Keeping the community safe and walkable during the winter helps us all stay active, healthy, and safe. Remember that your shoveling path should accommodate our neighbors with canes, carriages, and wheelchairs so think big! And remember that shoveling is great exercise- using up 340 calories per hour!! If you have the time and the means, try helping your neighbors: good karma will bounce back to you in spades and you might make a new friend!

3. Invest in a bike. It never runs out of gas. It produces no carbon. It makes our neighborhoods clean, quiet and friendly. Somerville is getting more and more bike lanes so biking around town is that much easier.

4. Drink tap water and say no to bottled water. Save money. Fewer plastic bottles in the world is a good thing. Reward yourself with a safe stainless steel water jug. Ask your work to give up bottled water in favor of a filter on the tap.

5. Try growing your veggies. You don’t need much space- just a few 5 gallon containers for tomato plants in the summer or bright window sills for herbs. Want more space and community bonding? Sign up for a community garden: (617) 201-1680.

If you want to be part of thinking about how a whole community can work to make positive changes, consider volunteering with one of the many organizations in Somerville that work to make the city a healthy place to live.

• Check out the Cambridge/Somerville Resource Guide at http://www.mnip-net.org/cambridge/cambridgeRDB.nsf/wfp?open to learn about many programs you can become part of, depending on your interests.
• Volunteer with the Somerville Public Schools to help kids learn to garden or enjoy physical activities during recess by calling 617-625-6600 x6023.
• Attend a Shape Up Somerville Taskforce meeting on the 4^th Wednesday of each month at 2:30pm at 50 Evergreen Avenue, contact lbrukilacchio@challiance.org to learn more or call the City at 311 to volunteer with Shape Up Somerville. Here’s to a healthy year for all of Somerville!
• Tell us how you are doing! Share your New Year goals in the Comments section.  

Our first meeting on March 12 was a hit! We had six families in the kitchen- chopping garlic, stirring pots, and making beautiful, fresh, delicious dishes for the table.