Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change Week 5: Final Weekly Review & Overall Project Reflection

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Weekly Overview
1. What was your SMART goal? How did you do in achieving your SMART goal?

• My SMART goal: I will eat at least 4 servings (1/2 cup) of fruits or vegetables (or a mix) every day for the next 10 weeks.
• This was my best week yet falling short only once, and it was primarily because I really wasn’t that hungry and didn’t want to eat another serving of vegetables or fruit on top of my large dinner.

2. Address successes & challenges. What strategies helped you to be successful? What challenges did you face? How did you deal with them?

• I have found a really good system of balancing my servings throughout the day, starting with a good breakfast in the morning. I am usually not very hungry in the morning so I usually just eat some fruit before I begin my day.
• The only real challenge I faced was eating too big of meals and not wanting to add a serving of fruits or vegetables to simply meet my goal.

3. What feelings did you experience? When did you feel them?

• I am still feeling about the same as the weeks prior, minus the stresses of the semester winding to an end. However instead of surrounding myself with comfort food this time around, I am instead going to resort to fruit!!

4. What did you learn this week?

• I learned that this goal is very attainable, I have also learned some neat ways to incorporate fruits and vegetables into the types of meals that I usually eat.

5. What are your plans for next week? Will you continue with the change as is? Will you modify to make it more achievable or more challenging?

• My challenges for this upcoming week are actually beginning to decrease because I am back in the swing-of-things with school. I now have some time to prepare meals and snacks the night before so I can receive the proper amount to fruit and vegetables that I am shooting for. For this week I plan to continue to do what I am doing and if all goes well, even exceed my goal.

Overview of Project

1. What was your SMART goal? Did it change at all during the project? Explain.

• My SMART goal: I will eat at least 4 servings (1/2 cup) of fruits or vegetables (or a mix) every day for the next 10 weeks.
• My smart goal remained the same throughout this project, the only exception was that I did not stop once I achieved my goal, I allowed myself to exceed it.

2. What helped you be successful? What things got in your way? How can you address these in the future?

• The things that made me successful throughout this process were making fruits and vegetables easily available to myself. When I had them attainable, I found myself snacking on them instead of junk food with out even realizing it
• The biggest thing that got in the way was, in the beginning I didn’t do a very good job of keeping fruits and vegetables around the house and I ran out on a regular basis. Also, Thanksgiving and the Wisconsin deer-hunting season provided a few bumps in the road as well.
• I am going to continue to keep fresh fruits and vegetables around the house and easily accessible as healthy snacks. I believe this is a behavior that can become a habit in no time at all

3. How did you benefit from this project? What did you learn about yourself? What did you learn about behavior change?

• In the beginning I felt like I had a bet more energy during the day and slept a bit better at night, I then kind of hit a plateau and the feeling felt natural. However now I am tired and a bit irritated, but I think that is to be expected with the semester winding down.
• Through this process I learned that I can definitely change a personal behavior as long as I completely buy into it. By supporting the behavior and surrounding myself with the means of achieving this goal it was pretty easy for me to continue my path of success.
• I learned that behavior change is completely about truly embracing the change and doing your absolute best to support that change by surrounding yourself with a positive environment.

4. How did others and/or the environment benefit from you changing this behavior?

• I’m not quite sure how others benefited from my behavior change; maybe I was a bit less irritable. But as for the environment, I believe this change can make a significant impact because it greatly reduced the amount of garbage I produced by lowering the amount of processed and packaged foods I consumed. I also could use the remains of my excess fruits and vegetables as compost.

5. Will you continue this behavior? Why or why not?
What recommendations do you have for others about making a lifestyle change?

• I will continue this behavior because there are nothing but positives that surround it. It is beneficial both from a health aspect and from an environmental aspect.
• I recommend to others seeking to make a lifestyle change, to completely buy into this change and want to make it for themselves before they decide to begin. This is so because without the support of yourself this change will continue to be nothing but a personal battle.

Blogged for the Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change Week 5 hosted by Amy@Amy in the Rain

Share & Voice: Superior McDonalds

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I was listening to the radio this morning and this topic came up in conversation.  Superior City Council member Greg Mertzig proposed this ban in accordance with a previous motion made in San Francisco regarding toys given out with fast food.  This motion would ban the Superior McDonalds to give away toys with any happy meal or kids meal containing over 600 calories and 10 percent or more of fat.  Although McDonalds is in no way healthy, I thought this was a unique effort to combat our obesity problem in the United States.  It is exceptionally appealing to me because it targets children, and with our steadily rising obesity rate among youth is considered by some to be our biggest problem area regarding those with weight issues.

Advocacy Project: Letter and Fact Sheet

December 4, 2010

Ron J. Kind
House of Representatives
131 S. Barstow St.
Suite 301
Eau Claire, WI 54701

VOTE YES ON H.R.2724 Title: National Transportation Objectives Act of 2009


The proposed nationwide objectives for transportation will have a significant impact on the overall environmental health and safety of our entire nation. As a health education student at the University of Minnesota Duluth, I believe that setting national transportation performance targets will result in overwhelming positive outcomes for our communities both urban and rural. This will set a standard by which we as Americans must meet and abide by.

This bill seeks to not reduce vehicle emissions as well as promote alternate forms of transportation as a way to lower traffic congestion and reduce traffic accidents. The national transportation targets developed by this bill include reducing per capita vehicle miles traveled by 16% and transportation-generated carbon dioxide levels by 40%, triple walking, biking, and public transportation use, increase freight transportation provided by railroad and intermodal services by 20%, and improve public safety.

Opponents to this bill may argue that this act may impact the automobile industry, however this is the opposite of the truth. By establishing performance targets and objectives that must be met will make the automobile industry more competitive. By mandating manufactures to follow the framework developed by this act the innovations in safety and efficiency that will result are almost endless. These guidelines are set as a means for reducing vehicle emissions but as a result create a new competitive edge within the industry.

We appreciate your past support of the bill protecting our environment and reducing automobile emissions. By supporting alternate forms of transportation we are not only promoting cleaner air, we are lessening cluttered roadways and decreasing traffic accidents as well. Vote Yes to H.R.2724 National Transportation Objectives Act of 2009.

Adam

Fact Sheet

• Ten percent of all vehicles cause 90% of the mobile-source pollution.
• Cheaters tamper with their cars. About 10% of all vehicles have some form of tampering, but over 40% of gross emitters have been tampered with.
• It’s not only the old cars that cause pollution. Both new and old cars can be gross emitters. Only timely maintenance prevents one from attaining the “status” of a gross emitter. New car technology, while helpful, is expensive and will malfunction over time.

How much to Automobiles contribute to global warming?

• Automobiles are America's biggest reason for oil dependence, and represent the single largest piece of our global warming problem. A gallon of gasoline weighs 6 pounds but when burned and combined with oxygen in the air, the resulting compound weighs nearly 20 pounds. Chrysler’s Jeep Grand Cherokee, which weighs just under two tons, emits over three times its body weight in CO2 per year.
• One-third of the United States’ carbon emissions are transportation-related. If American cars and light trucks were a nation, they would be the world’s fifth-largest carbon emitter.
• SUV fuel efficiency has remained virtually unchanged over the last decade; the typical SUV has a rated fuel economy of 20 m.p.g. (29 percent lower than that of the average car), and a consequent CO2 emissions rate of 6.2 metric tons per year (40 percent higher than passenger cars).

How much does the U.S. contribute to CO2 Emissions?

• The United States has the highest rate of carbon emissions in the world, with close to 1,600 million metric tons of carbon released annually (or about 25 percent of the world’s total). Our country’s total output is double that of the next largest polluter, China.
• U.S. carbon emissions are linked to our uncontrolled consumption of fossil fuels, especially oil. The United States is the world's largest "oil burner," with petroleum products accounting for 42% of U.S. global warming

What if Automobile Fuel Economy standards were higher?

• If fuel economy were improved by 5 m.p.g., American consumers would save 1.5 million barrels of oil per day, more than half of what the U.S. imports from the Middle East.
• Cars and light trucks could achieve a combined Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standard of 40 m.p.g. if automakers made the best use of available technology over the next ten years. Reaching such a standard would cut global warming pollution by 133 million metric tons per year in 2020, and cut America’s oil demand by 3.6 million barrels per day.

What can be done to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases?

• The most important step is making the political commitment to put a cap on oil demand and global warming pollution, using improved technology to cut fossil fuel use without shifting the size or performance of the vehicles we drive.
• California’s landmark law to regulate greenhouse gases from cars and light trucks is a crucial start. Extending this approach to other states and the nation would be the single biggest advance Americans can take to stop global warming.

For more information visit the EPA or Environmental Defense