I practice what I preach....sort of

So the excitement/lack of sleep from this weekend finally caught up to me and I turned the alarm off and skipped the swimming. I haven't actually had a true, complete, day off since the marathon, so that's how I justified it. Monday I did yoga and walked about a mile and yesterday I did decently tough yoga. Tomorrow I am using my final Bikram class before my living social deal expires! I have been excited for this for weeks. Lily's getting a massage, but who needs that when you have Bikram?

Did I mention another big influence on my crazy decision last night was free massages at the end for all runners?

I don't think I've ever looked forward to working late but my school is having an evening event tonight that I am actually excited about. As a school, we've been working on a vision statement all year, and we are unveiling the student submission that won. It sounds lame but it's actually a huge deal and all sorts of cool stuff is happening, like a laser light show.

But here's the best part – I'm working the nutrition booth! I really want to help stop/prevent the childhood obesity epidemic, but sadly I'm the only teacher in my school (and that I know, period) who refuses to give out candy and has parties that involve dancing instead of cupcakes. Now, obviously, I am all about treats in moderation, so I don't think there is anything wrong with kids eating candy or cupcakes. The problem I have is, they eat donuts for breakfast, fried food, ice cream, and chocolate milk for lunch, and, from what they tell me, generally fast food or something similar for dinner. I've had first graders that can't buy jeans and need to have special desks because their legs are too big to fit under the normal ones. It's tragic because the kids have no say in what they eat, they have no idea about nutrition, and now because of choices their parents make they are being set up for a lifetime of health problems. I think a lot of people truly don't know how to implement good nutrition so I am really excited to share some good ideas with them.

My job is to show parents how to log their daily food intake into mypyramid.gov and it will break down all the nutritional info, and show a happy face or sad face if you've met your daily goals (for example, enough veggie servings). Actually, fourth or fifth graders could probably just do it themselves. It also has meal ideas and tons of good info about exercise and healthy living.

I generally practice what I preach but let's just keep stuff like this under wraps for tonight.