Dr. Oz’s Healthy Family Challenge

You don’t have to buy a set of family treadmills or join an expensive gym to start making healthy activity a part of your daily routine. With a goal of 30 minutes of activity daily, or 10,000 steps in one day, there are lots of fun and easy ways to get moving together.

• Buy pedometers for each family member and make a competition out of racking up the most steps each day.
• Institute a family walk after dinner and use the time to catch up on each other’s lives. You’ll be amazed how walking side-by-side in the outdoors (rather than across a quiet dinner table), can help your kids relax and open up about their day.
• Move your chairs back and host a post-dinner family dance party. Each family member can pick one song or you can rotate picking the type of music for each night. Whoever chooses can teach one move to the group. Parental bonus: You’ll keep up on the kinds of music your children are listening to!
• Make one night a week family workout night and rotate which family member chooses the activity. Ideas include: speed walking, roller blading, jumping rope, jumping jacks, basketball, tag, biking, hula hooping, backyard volleyball and badminton. If you have a pool, ditch the floating loungers and take some laps.
• Do one outdoor activity per weekend such as biking, hiking, swimming, tennis, splurging on a visit to a local rock climbing gym, walking a new neighborhood, or building an obstacle course in the backyard. You could even buy video games for family exercise competitions. It doesn’t matter if the activity is new to your family. The point is having fun not scoring points.

The entire family will quickly see an improvement in energy levels, sleep habits, and moods. In fact, studies show that exercise decreases the risk of depression by the same amount that antidepressants do, which can reap big rewards in those angst-ridden teen years.

The snacks you find on the shelves at your local convenience mart are loaded with sugars and empty calories that may fill you up, but they also drain your energy, pack on the pounds and give you no nutrition in return. So, ditch the chips and make smart choices at snack time.

Swap

• Potato chips for whole grain pretzels
• Soda for flavored seltzer water or iced tea with no added sugar
• A bag of candy for a sweet piece of fruit (bananas, apples, pears) or a handful of nuts such almonds or walnuts mixed with dried fruit with no sugar added
• An ice cream bar for vanilla low-fat frozen yogurt
• A candy bar for a nutritious fiber bar
• Cheese and crackers for veggies and hummus

Quick tip: Bag these in snack-size portions on Sunday so they are a no-brainer grab from the pantry, as easy as a bag of chips, only so much better for you!

Remember: Drink enough water throughout the day so that you never feel thirsty and your urine is clear (which means you’re hydrated).

Experts place some of the blame for the childhood obesity epidemic on too much TV and computer time. Studies have shown that decreasing the amount of TV kids watch leads to less weight gain and a lower body mass index.

Once you’ve got your nightly family activity in place, your family’s screen time will automatically decrease. But, go one step further by setting a few limits.

• Keep TVs out of the bedrooms
• Turn off the TV during meals and while doing homework
• Limit TV watching to weekends. Record favorite shows to be enjoyed later and encourage more activity on weeknights
• Set a good example by cutting down on your own viewing
• Create a TV schedule so everyone can enjoy their favorite shows but reduce the hours spent flipping channels and vegging out

You’ve revamped the snacks your at-home and on-the-go snack options, but now it’s time to take it a step further. With all the unhealthy choices bombarding your kids at school vending machines, in convenience marts on the way home, and on television, they may not have the information they need to make good choices on their own. Involving them in a kitchen overhaul will help them say goodbye to some of their favorites and help you all learn how to put together satisfying and healthy meal choices.

Foods to toss

• Anything containing trans fats (check the labels of all your processed foods and watch out for anything with palm and coconut oil). Trans fats are an industrially-created fat that both lower good cholesterol and raise bad cholesterol, making them the worst fats of all.
• Foods whose first 5 ingredients include simple sugars or syrup. This includes brown sugar, dextrose, corn sweetener, fructose (as in high-fructose corn syrup), glucose, corn syrup, honey, invert sugar, maltose, lactose, malt syrup, molasses, raw sugar, and sucrose. Keep a little table sugar, honey, and maple syrup handy.
• All products with enriched flours and all flours other than 100%whole grain or 100% whole wheat. This includes enriched white flour, semolina, durum wheat, and any of the acronyms for flour that is not whole wheat.

Stock Up On

• Skim milk
• Reduced-fat cheeses (light string cheese and non-fat cottage cheese are great, high-protein snack choices)
• Healthy nut butters such as almond to replace butter on toast
• High-fiber foods such as whole grains (whole wheat bread, brown rice, quinoa, barley, oatmeal), beans, peas, citrus fruits, cabbage, beets, carrots, turnips, and cauliflower
• A weekly selection of fruits washed and ready to eat in the fridge and on the counter
• Good-for-you fats: wild salmon, walnuts, sunflower seeds, olive oil, avocados
• Agave nectar for sweetening foods such as oatmeal

Skipping breakfast hurts you in 2 ways: It slows your metabolism so that you burn fewer calories for the rest of the day and it sets you up to binge in the afternoon. That’s a recipe for putting on the pounds. Plus: studies have shown that children who eat breakfast perform 20% better on tests than their hungry peers.

The goal: Everyone in the family should eat a healthy, protein-packed breakfast within a half hour of waking up, preferably together.

At home choices

• A bowl of quick-cooking steel cut oats with sliced walnuts and a light drizzle of sweetener such as agave nectar.
• 6 ounces of low-fat yogurt mixed with fruit and ¾ cup granola
• Multigrain pancakes topped with sliced fruit and applesauce
• Dr. Oz’s brain-boosting smoothie or a raspberry and flaxseed smoothie

On-the-go options

• Whole wheat bread with natural peanut butter (no added sugar)
• A hard-boiled egg with a side of fruit
• A bag of whole-grain cereal with a nonfat yogurt.

Quick tip: Take a few minutes on Sunday evening to slice up fruit or boil hard eggs to have ready to grab and go in the fridge.

Skipping meals may sounds like a shortcut to losing weight or keeping the pounds off, but it backfires in a big way. When you deprive your body of the energy it needs, it begins to worry that there may not be enough food to go around. So it hoards every bit you give it, which slows your metabolism. The result? You burn fewer calories and hold onto fat stores. Eat a meal or small snack every 4 hours to keep your metabolism revved up.

Better brown bag lunches

• Lean turkey or tuna on whole grain bread, spread thinly with light mayo or mustard and sliced tomatoes and lettuce
• A whole wheat pita spread thinly with hummus and packed with sliced cucumbers, red peppers, and a sprinkling of feta cheese
• A whole wheat wrap spread thinly with pesto, and rolled up with deli turkey, shredded carrots and a slice of reduced-fat Swiss cheese

Smart cafeteria choices

• If you go for the burger, choose the whole-wheat bun, skip the mayo and swap the fries for a salad
• Ditch the bun completely for a wrap filled with lean protein, like turkey or chicken, and pile high with fresh veggies

Instead of sweets, try a yogurt parfait with fresh fruit and heart healthy cereals

Gather the gang around the computer or your favorite healthy cookbook and find meal ideas that will appeal to the whole family. Then split up into cooking teams and sign up to cook a few meals each week.

If you meet resistance in the ranks, remember that it takes about 12 tastes of one food for a child to begin to enjoy it. So you should all commit to trying new foods in different combinations until you find a few favorites to add to the family repertoire.

Rainbow Ratatouille

Use this hearty vegetable sauce on top of pasta or brown rice.

Ingredients

2 tbsps olive oil

1 small onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 cups sliced, fresh mushrooms

4 cups broccoli

2 cups sliced eggplant

1 28-oz. can of crushed tomatoes

2 medium tomatoes, chopped 

4 cups fresh spinach, chopped 

1 tsp oregano

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes(optional)

Directions
Heat oil on medium heat in large pot. Add onions, garlic, and mushrooms, and other spices and saute for 3 minutes. Add broccoli, zucchini, and eggplant. Cover and cook for 8 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add crushed tomatoes, fresh tomatoes, and spinach. Cook an additional 5 - 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve.

Recipe copyright 2008 by HealthCorps, Inc. from Cook Before You Eat - HealthCorps' Healthy Cookbook for Teens. Used with permission.

Chicken and Rice

Ingredients

2 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast

1-1/2 cup brown rice

1 15-oz. can of tomato sauce

Juice of 1 lime or lemon

2 tsps olive oil

1 cup water

salt and pepper to taste

1 16-oz package of frozen peas, thawed

2 tbsps fresh cilantro, chopped

Directions
Place chicken, rice, tomato sauce, lime juice, oil and water in a large pot over medium heat. Bring mixture to a boil. Cover the pot and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in peas, cilantro, salt, and pepper. Let cook 5 - 10 more minutes or until rice is tender.

Recipe copyright 2008 by HealthCorps, Inc. from Cook Before You Eat - HealthCorps' Healthy Cookbook for Teens. Used with permission.

• Get 5 to 10 servings of fruits and vegetables daily
• Choose nutritious ingredients – especially colorful vegetables such as red pepper, yams, green or red kale and broccoli
• Cook with as many fresh, raw unprocessed foods as possible
• Replace corn oil with olive oil or flaxseed oil
• Use fresh herbs and garlic or onion to add flavor, rather than salt
• Get protein from lean cuts of meat, fish or beans
• Swap out creamy sauces for tomato-based ones
• Downsize your dishes: Use a 9-inch plate so that you don’t pile on too big a portion.
• Choose a seasonal fruit for dessert
• Take time to eat dinner with family members in a relaxed atmosphere, eating slowly so you don’t overeat (and so you have time to get up on all the family gossip!)

Lack of sleep boosts 2 key hormones that affect weight gain -- grehlin, which makes you hungrier and cortisol, which both increases appetite and the likelihood that fat will gather around your waist (the least healthy place for it to hang out). Recent studies suggest that insufficient sleep increases weight gain, plus it leaves you cranky and unable to perform your best in school or at work.

This may seem like an easy change for your teenager to make on the weekend, but remember it’s getting good sleep consistently that counts. So, enforce bedtimes for yourself and your kids.

How much do you need?

1 – 3 years: 12-14 hours per day (this includes naps)

3 – 6 years: 10-12 hours per day (gradually without a nap)

7 – 12 years: 10-11 hours per day

12 – 18 years: 8-9 hours per day

18 and over: 7-7.5 hours per day

Set bedtimes: Figure out when everyone needs to get up to begin his or her day and count backward from there.

Dr. Oz’s Healthy Family Challenge is not about getting one family member to drop 20 pounds (though wouldn’t it be a nice bonus if it was you?), it’s about helping everyone make long-term changes and choices to live healthier, happier, and more energetic lives together.

Avoid focusing exclusively on weight, or on any one family member’s body. We want to teach our children to value being healthy, not to worship being skinny. In fact, adolescents who have a poor body image are more likely to lead sedentary lives and engage in unhealthy behaviors such as poor eating, binge eating, and smoking than those with positive body images.

So mark your progress by how good you all feel, how much fun you are having together, how colorful your meals are, how many new foods you’ve grown to love, how much time you spend outside, not by how each of you looks in the mirror.

Congratulations, all of the small steps you have each taken have added up to one huge stride forward for your family’s health. You’re exercising every day, eating satisfying nutritious meals, sleeping better, and supporting one another. You’re spending less time zoning out and more time checking in with each other. In fact, now that you know so much more about each other’s lives, invite your friends (old and young) over to join in the healthy fun.

Some fun ways to share what you’ve learned:

• Plan a neighborhood game night with Wii Fit, XBOX Yourself Fitness, Dance Dance Revolution or your favorite video exercise game
• Invite friends over for a Saturday obstacle course party
• Rotate healthy family dinner nights at your neighbors’ houses
• Plan a kids’ dinner party where the children cook the adults a nutritious meal (Bonus: The adults can sit down, put their feet up, and enjoy a glass of heart-healthy wine!)
• Ask your children’s school if you can come in for show and tell and talk about how your family tackled Dr. Oz’s Healthy Family Challenge!