Veggie Bee

Please welcome the newest addition to the Veggie Bee family!! My new exercise buddy, Lindsey.

Lindsey is a 2-year-old lab mix and was gifted to us by our friend Robyn, who already had two large dogs living in her home. They were a handful all together and Robyn thought it would be best to make sure Lindsey went to a home where she could get spoiled on her own. That’s where we came in. About a month ago, David and I were talking again about getting a dog and we both agreed that we wanted a female black lab. Less than a week later, we got an email from Robyn asking if we were still thinking about getting a dog, she wasn’t even aware of our earlier conversation! So I think the universe was bringing Lindsey to us and we are already spoiling her rotten. I’m still getting used to running with her, but I’m definitely doing more walking than ever. She’s going to be one fit doggy!

I just recently realized that the theme that I’m using on Veggie Bee doesn’t appear correctly if you’re viewing in browsers other than Internet Explorer. I’m going to do a theme change for the short term and hopefully do a full blog makeover as part of my New Year’s resolutions.

If you find any technical issues with the blog, please email me or send me a tweet!

Happy Monday! I just wanted to point you to some changes I made over the weekend. There will be regular additions and changes as I get things set up the way I want them to look and function so I’ll keep you updated when I make any changes.

• I added a Resources section to the far right sidebar and took away the resources link at the top.
• I added a Blogroll to the right sidebar as well. These are healthy eating and healthy living blogs that I frequently read and I’ll be adding to this list (and the resources list) over the next couple of weeks.
• I added my picture to the About Veggie Bee page. I am having a challenge formatting this page template with the picture, so as soon as I figure that out, I’ll add more bio info on me!
• I increased the font on the posts! Now I’ll need to update the font on the other templates, so bear with me as I make it easier to read all around.
• There are some other “bugs” in linking around the site, but if you find anything that doesn’t work properly, send me an email at rachel@veggiebee.com.

I’m off to run, so I’ll be back later with a Fitness Follow-up! Have a happy Monday!

I just wanted to give you a look at what’s in store for Veggie Bee. I have a lot of ideas but I want to remain focused on supporting you in exercising more and eating more whole, healthy foods, especially fruits and of course, veggies!

Things To Do

• Fitness challenges & follow up: I’ll give you more ideas on incorporating fitness into your day and challenge you to do more than you currently do. Let me know how you’re doing on the Fitness Follow up posts!
• Food challenges: These will be challenges to try new types of fruits & veggies, new recipes or strategies. If what you’re doing isn’t working, then let’s try something new!
• Recipes: Let’s be honest, I’m not a great cook so I’ll be learning along with you. But there are plenty of healthy people out there who want to share their recipes. One of them happens to be the Mama Bee who knows more than a thing or two about cooking veggies!

Things To Think About

• What stage of change you’re in: Especially if you’re in the neutral or contemplation stage, we’ll talk about things to move you along to the action stage. If you’re in either of those stages and need additional motivation, post a comment here or email me at rachel@veggiebee.com.
• The power of negative thinking: You’ve probably heard of the power of positive thinking, but first we have to identify your sources of negative thinking. We’ll talk more about how your thoughts affect your feelings and ultimately your actions around healthy living.

More about me

• What I eat: I’ll give you my own menus and recipes and places that I shop.
• What I do: More about my background and education and some of the steps I’m taking in the future to help myself and others live healthier lives.
• Pictures: I’ll be adding pictures in my pages and posts and I’ll also add some pictures as I go about testing healthy strategies that work in my own life.

The bottom line is that while Veggie Bee is my baby, I’m putting it out there to help as many people as I can to move into action where their health is concerned. 

What do you want to see on Veggie Bee??

Welcome to Veggie Bee, a blog that will focus on practicing healthy living and developing the skills you need to be successful wherever you may be on the journey to a healthier life.

Veggie Bee is a guilt-free, positive-thinking zone, which means accepting where you are on your journey to living healthier. It means that getting and staying healthy is an ongoing learning process where we’ll focus on what’s going right as well as the challenges and obstacles you face as you practice healthy living.

So what does practicing healthy living really mean? 

• Making changes that work for you. You may simply be contemplating the idea of losing weight and changing your lifestyle. You may be ready to go, but have no idea where to start. Or you may be currently maintaining a healthy life. Together we’ll come up with strategies to help you start or maintain a healthy lifestyle and the nutritional and fitness behaviors that go along with it.
• Food versus products. With all the focus on components of our diets, from carbs to proteins, from trans-fats to omega-3’s, it’s easy to forget that there are whole foods out there that are naturally created for optimal health. Food that doesn’t have to be enriched, that doesn’t have ingredients that sound like a foreign language – just whole, natural food. Don’t worry, we’ll also talk about products that are created to help us live a healthy life conveniently!
• Moving. As in, being active and moving your body more. Walking, finding activities that you actually enjoy doing, or ones that you at least don’t hate.  It’s inevitable, healthy living includes exercise for those of us blessed to be able to do it.
• Eating, not dieting. Finding foods you enjoy and strategies that you can practice that will keep you healthy over the long term, not just as a temporary fix for weight loss.
• Reality checks. Using the tools of health management to measure your progress and allow you set goals for yourself based on the reality of where you are. For some of us, it takes practice to look at our health without bias, denial or guilt. Learning to detach your worth and worthiness from the number on a scale may take time, but it is necessary at times to maintain momentum in healthy behaviors.  Weighing yourself regularly, keeping records related to healthy behaviors, knowing your health-related numbers like body mass index (BMI), blood pressure and cholesterol are all healthy reality checks to ensure you’re on the right track.
• Accountability. This may mean finding a walking buddy, joining a community of support, finding a nutritionist or personal trainer or it may simply mean setting up goals that make you accountable to yourself. It also means finding a way that works for you to keep records related to what you eat and when you move.

You can be healthy and vibrant!! I hope my passion for whole foods and fitness can help you as you make positive changes in your life. It’s time to be fabulous ~ and positively healthy!