Healthy Living Is Possible Even with a Busy Life

Over the past few months my best friend and I have been trying our best to get back in the swing of a healthier lifestyle. We meet up at least three times a week and work out, the meals we cook are lower in fat and higher in veggie content and I only have a few days left until I quit smoking forever. We are both very busy gals -- she has twin eight month old boys and their crazy schedules, I write all day -- so we struggled over how to fit a better lifestyle into our lives, but in the end we both decided the only way to do it was to simply do it!

Our workouts are not long but they are intense. During her boy’s morning nap we spend about a half hour on the rowing machine, recumbent bike, ball or Bowflex. This allows us to get a good heart rate going as well as burn off a few calories and tone at the same time without sacrificing any time with the kids or keyboard.

As far as food goes this has surprisingly been the simplest area of health for both of us. Since we are both the Reluctant Domestic Divas it was imperative that the addition of healthful meals was super simple; and it was! Each night she puts together a nice side salad full of yummies like baby spinach, carrots, tomatos and avocado as the main issue in their household was skipping veggies. For us dinner was not the problem but my food consumption over the course of the day had become lax. When I am inspired to write I tend to not leave the keyboard for hours at a time so I would grab things like entire boxes of Cheez-its for lunch. Now I have started getting back into the swing of making fruit smoothies for breakfast and accompany it with a piece of 12 grain toast and a multi-vitamin. My skin and hair has never looked so good! The extra few minutes it takes each of us to infuse our bodies with something better for us has made all the difference in ours and our husband’s attitudes towards food.

Although neither of us would ever claim to be health nuts or better living gurus it is obvious we both have a highly increased level of energy and are feeling so much better about ourselves; and it only takes about an hour a day total to bring about the change. The positive outlook keeps us motivated and it becomes a vicious circle of awesomeness! As the summer months arrive she will be walking more with the babies and I intend to up my workouts to include two days a week (at least) of yoga (great article here on how yoga helps with depression as well). Little steps everyday really add up quickly and I barely remember what I did with the time before pursuing this healthier lifestyle.

How long do you spend in a healthy way each day? What do you do for exercise?

The END of Ecologically Irresponsible Footwear

In an effort to get the ball rolling on getting back into shape, my best friend and I have begun a power walking routine twice a week. With the chilly temperatures, and the fact that she is pushing a stroller, we settled on the indoor sanctuary of the mall for the first few weeks. My friend advised me that I should get myself over to the New Balance store and pick up a pair of walking sneakers after a couple weeks of pounding the tile in the only sneakers I currently own which are not exactly walker friendly. I definitely need the support so I began searching for options, wondering if there was such a thing as an environmentally friendly sneaker and I was delighted to discover END Footwear.


END stands for Environmentally Neutral Design and these folks are really striving to be just as their name indicates.

Their company moral is to do more with less. For example, their shoe soles are created from a single mold as opposed to a different mold for each style, the plastic shank (arch) was removed (there is still support at the arch, just continuous material instead of a separate piece of plastic -- formed by yet another steel mold) and the manufacturing process only produces 1 - 5% waste (which they regrind and put back into their next product). Not to mention they are currently working to develop a 100% glue free shoe and have donated all of their test and development samples over the past two years to the Soles4Souls organization.

These shoes are just coming available in a variety of outdoor specialty shops (released for mass market beginning this past January 2009) and online. It was nice to see they are available at REI as I have a location somewhat close by so I can try them on before purchasing but I was curious what the cost might be for an environmentally responsible athletic shoe so I did some online research on the Women’s shoe line at Zappos.com. At first I was shocked to see the price hovering in the $85.00 range so I decided to do a cost comparison to the New Balance shoes my friend had recommended and I was delighted to learn their average cost for a similar style shoe was around $75.00. A ten dollar difference would be acceptable to me in order to make a better environmental selection.

The drawbacks I discovered while reading customer reviews about END are primarily associated with the look of the shoe (which of course is a personal preference because I thought quite a few of them were really attractive) as well as the fact that, although the company is based out of Portland, Oregon, the shoes are manufactured in China (this means overseas shipping creating emissions).

In the end the positive impact this company is putting out there far outweighs any drawbacks and I fully intend to try out these shoes this weekend. If they are comfortable I will likely acquire a pair. In the meantime, due to nothing more than what I have discovered online, I am granting END Footwear a Three Leaf Rating! After testing I will report back and who knows, their leaf rating might just tick up another branch.