Categories
Health Nutrition Weight Loss Wellness

I Challenge YOU to POWER UP with PRODUCE!

Now that’s a head of lettuce! That’ll make enough salad for a small army!!! 🙂

I’ll bet you’ve heard of the ANA, the American Nurse’s Association? Let me share with you, an exciting initiative they started about a year ago. Something called Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation. Nurses should be the model of health, right? We should ooze health- eat, sleep and breathe healthy options and choices – we should live by healthy example for the world to see… lol. Maybe in a perfect world…. Truly though, we as Nurses are often among the first healthcare providers patients see when they enter the healthcare system- in wellness and illness- and I do believe we should set a good example of health, to practice what we preach. Being coached on a cardiac diet from a nurse who is morbidly obese herself is a clouded message, one that could be difficult for a patient to actually take seriously. It’s without a doubt hard to deliver a message with passion and fortitude that you truly don’t believe in.

Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation is tackling that head on. It is and interactive, fun, community setting for nurses to grow and learn about their own health and wellness, all the while supporting each other. Along the way there are wellness challenges- ways to improve yourself, from diet, exercise and sleep and mental health. All wonderful ways to help each nurse be his or her best self.

This is where YOU come in. This week the Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation Challenge that is kicking off is all about produce! Fruits and veggies… plant based eating! In the coming weeks I challenge YOU to increase your servings of plant based foods in your day. According to the USDA Food Guide Pyramid, we should be getting between 5-9 servings of produce per day. How do you stack up? I know I could do better. So let’s do this! Start slow, and make it fun! Maybe increase by just one a day, maybe by one a meal, you decide what you can do. I’ll be doing this and of course sharing some pictures of it as I go on the OpportuKNEEty Knocks social media pages.

This time of year it seems “everyone” is on the healthy eating bandwagon- so join the fun! Get to your local food store, pass over the 80% Christmas candy, skip by the “JUST IN” Valentine’s Day chocolates, and go straight to the produce department. See of you can find one “new” veggie you don’t regularly prepare- or if you aren’t feeling that adventurous, one old standby you just haven’t eaten in a while. Grab and go! If you feel compelled to share your culinary creation, tag me! I’d love to see how you are “Powering Up with Produce!”

Be Well!

-Laurie

By Laurie Trezza

A Registered Nurse, turned Personal Trainer, with a specialization in corrective exercise, I bring a unique perspective to the world of fitness. I have journeyed through joint replacement, weight loss and other obstacles, all of these experiences shape the trainer I am today.

This concept was created out of a love and appreciation for movement. I'm sure you have heard the cliché, "You don't know what you've got 'till it's gone!" I kind of experienced that in reverse.... Let me explain...

As a little girl I truly despised running and moving quickly- any game that required speed and agility was just not for me. I gravitated to slower, low impact activities- movement was really just the worst. Why? My knees hurt after a short time of running or jumping. No one really knew what to tell me, they'd shrug it off and run away. I was just "no good" at sports. Despite my lack of fast motion, I did remain pretty active.... but those knees!

As I got into my college years, I finally went to a specialist. He refused to even image my knees. I was "too young" for any type of issue he said. "Take an anti-inflammatory, get some more exercise and ice afterwards. You'll be fine." he continued. That was not what I had been hoping to hear. Maybe I was oversensitive. Oh well.

I graduated from college, got my first job as a Registered Nurse on a busy telemetry unit in a large teaching hospital in the NYC metro area. I got married, a few years later had my first baby, then my second.... then number three (oh, and bonus! it was twins!!!!) Still... those knees.... worse, worse, and worse....

The final straw- at a party, I met another mom, also carrying twins, as we chatted about all things twin pregnancy related, she squatted down to the coffee table below us to retrieve a snack.... Whoa!!!! Her baby-filled belly was even larger than mine (she was further along than I was) and she got up and down like she was an American Ninja Warrior! There was no WAY I could do that with my knees!

Once the babies were born, and life was humming along at a relatively normal-insane pace, I found another orthopedist. He listened, imaged, and found that indeed, my knees were a disaster. For a number of years we played with all types of treatments to prolong the inevitable... total knee replacements.

The year I turned 40, I was given one of the best gifts ever... a pair of titanium and polyethylene prosthetic knees! The surgery was difficult and painful to recover from, but the results were truly life altering.

Since recovering from my total knee replacements (TKR's), I have re-discovered exercise and movement again. It does NOT have to hurt. Exercise and movement does not need to be high impact and harmful to your joints to be effective in changing your body composition and changing how you feel. Exercise and movement absolutely must be, a part of your life to keep you fit both physically and mentally.

Newton's law of physics... "A body in motion STAYS in motion."

I had no idea how impactful motion would be on my life, until I could move without pain. It has made such an incredible change for me, I decide to make it my livelihood.

I've tied my nursing background in with my life experience with joint replacement, and looped that with a certification in personal training and specialization in corrective exercise. I am focusing this work to help others like me- who may be struggling to regain motion and emotional control after a difficult surgery or other life-altering situation.

Physical activity is the most under-utilized antidepressant out there, and in my observations, it seems we have a society that is more depressed than ever. Focusing on movement to better the body, mind, and spirit, that's what my work is about.

Grab YOUR OpportuKNEEty and SHINE!