Your Work Team and a Year of Living Healthfully

Want to improve your own well-being and that of those you work with?  You can lead a MIGHTY team dedicated to a year of living healthfully.  You could, for example, bring 3 to 50 employees together into one team; or, if you’d like to bring together a larger group, you could create an Organization Page for your whole workplace and then create a team for each department.

What would a “Year of Living Healthfully” look like?  Each month your workplace team(s) dedicate themselves to one healthy change in their lives.  The goal is to stick with the change every day for a month, and the hope is that after a month, the change will be second nature.  The following month, you continue with the previous change and add one other.  At the end of a year, through a series of simple, small steps, you are all living a much healthier life.

What happens after a year?  You can either add a new goal, or re-focus on the first goal.  (So, for example, every January can be “Drink More Water Month.”)  The advantage of cycling through the 12 changes each year is that new people can join in at any time and attain the same health goals a year later; and people who have been through it before can offer support and advice. 

Does one change a month seem too slow?  If the change becomes a permanent healthy behavior, 30 days of focus is worth it.  But if you are afraid of losing momentum, new goals could be launched every two weeks or even every week.  

Here is a suggested list of 12 goals:

1.       Drink more water.

2.       Keep a food diary.

3.       Add a serving of fresh vegetables to every dinner; if you are already doing that, add it to your lunch.

4.       Sleep 8 hours a day.

5.       Take the stairs instead of the elevator.  Start by walking one or two stories.  Add a flight of stairs a week.

6.       Eat fresh fruit instead of processed sweets for snacks.

7.       Read the nutritional labels of everything you buy.

8.       Substitute whole grain versions for the cereals, bread, or pasta in your diet.

9.       Add 10-30 minutes of aerobic exercise to your daily routine.

10.   Doggie Bag It: When eating at a restaurant or getting take-out, have half your entrée put in a doggie bag right away. 

11.   Say goodbye to chips, cheese puffs, and French fries.

12.   Have an annual check-up.