Happy New Year!

I hope you had a wonderful holiday week with your family! It is that time of year when we are all setting goals for the new year.  Not all of them will stick, but I am hoping some will to help my family live a healthier lifestyle and for me to help you all more!

1. Drink more Water

I had to drink so much water when I was pregnant that I sort of got sick of it.   Since then I haven’t wanted to make the time and effort to do it.  I run around a lot and I don’t prioritize bringing a water for myself, but I need too.  There are so many studies that show the benefits of drinking 48-64oz of water daily.  According to WebMD, some of the benefits include energizing muscles, controlling calories, hydrating your skin (many celebrities talk about this and as I am getting older taking care of my skin is a goal), helping your kidneys, and maintaining normal bowel function.

2. Read a book

This was a goal last year that I did not achieve and I am determined to do it this year. Most of my reading is articles and online and while I am still reading I would really like to get into a great book.  Let me know if you have any recommendations 🙂 Studies also show that it is not good to be on our phones right before bed.  So I am setting a goal to put the phone down and read a book for at least 10 minutes a night before bed.

3. Eat Less Sugar as a Family

Somewhere along the line we got into a bad habit of a nightly treat and a treat with lunch sometimes.  While I like to have a balance in our life, I do not think we should have a sugary treat every night.  As it is we consume more sugar daily than we probably should since it is hidden in so many foods.  There was a good article published in the NY times this week about making 2020 the year of less sugar and I wanted to share it with you.  It has a 7 day no sugar challenge that I will be doing (I actually already started and my goal is 14 days).  But if you would like to join me starting this Monday let me know and I can do accountability check-ins and share some tips!  For the rest of my family, I am not eliminating sugar completely, but just reining it in.  I am going to switch to plain yogurt for my children and eliminate weekday sugary treats.  We can still have “treats” after dinner, but it is going to come in an unsweetened form most days of the week.  I will share more next week about what we are eating as post dinner “treats”.

4. Share & Make more recipe videos for you!  

Let me know if there is anything specific you would like to see 🙂

5. Make cooking at home easier for you! 

That was my goal when I started Food Play Go and I want to continue that into 2020!  According to Cooking Light it is the return of simple home cooking is actually a soft food trend. Cooking at home helps us eat more vegetables and consume far less sugar and salt.   This helps to  lead to better overall nutrition.  Let me know how I can help 🙂