About
Keeping fit by chasing a child at bedtime
Melissa
So, full disclosure here – I work for a company called NuVal. It is an amazing new nutritional scoring system that ranks foods from 1-100 based on how nutritious they are. It is very simple – the higher the number the better the nutrition. We’re implementing NuVal in grocery stores around the country. NuVal may not be in your area yet, but here on my blog, you can get a sneak peek at some of the scores that are coming out. It will change the way you shop and eat.
If you are dying for more information, there are lots of sample scores at http://www.nuval.com/. NuVal is currently live in Price Chopper, Hy-Vee, and Meijer stores.
Background
My interest in all things healthy started at an early age. As a child, I would ask my mother if I could have lettuce for a treat. Really. While I do believe that I was born with some of my taste for vegetables, I also know that my mother nurtured it by providing a healthy home. We never had soda or chips in the house, we brought carrot sticks to school, we made our own yogurt, and to this day, the smell of health food stores reminds me of childhood.
Perhaps it was leaving that healthy home that led me to stray from my nutritional diet. My college years brought on the Freshman Fifteen - probably more. For the first two years, my roomie and I were first in line at the dining hall for Pasta night. Junior year, I moved into a sorority that had a wonderful chef on staff and I enjoyed every last bite. Upon graduation, I headed right to graduate school in Boston to wait out the recession. I walked everywhere, started taking aerobics classes and lost my college weight by following Weight Watchers. I felt great and vowed to stay healthy.
My first “real” job found me working for a management consulting firm and traveling at an insane pace. Still I kept my pledge to myself to maintain my happy weight. To do this, I had to be motivated, organized and militant. I counted points, I flew to job assignments with vegetables in my suitcases, I found Weight Watchers meetings in unfamiliar cities. I even pretended to be a co-worker’s wife once in order to use his gym membership in Chicago! Another colleague of mine (not my fake-husband) dubbed me the “Queen of Leafy Greens and Chick Peas” because of my rigorous and vegetable-oriented eating habits.
In my late twenties, I married my college sweetheart, left “the firm” for whom I worked so insanely, went to work for a major supermarket company, bought a house in the suburbs and started to think about having children. As part of my pre-pregnancy planning strategy, I became a certified group exercise instructor through AFAA (the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America). I knew that once I had kids, it would be a lot harder to get out of the house and get to the gym. If my gym-going activity was a “job” rather than a past-time, I knew it would be easier to negotiate gym-time with my husband. So, I started teaching Step, Muscle Conditioning, Circuit Classes and later on, Pilates.
After my first child arrived, I left All Things Corporate for a while and worked in my family business. Child Number 2 came only 22 months later and I found myself with my hands full. While I still got to the gym (that becoming a group exercise instructor thing was a good idea), I barely had time to put food in my mouth never mind record it a la Weight Watchers. My focus became my children and while I never abandoned my healthy eating, I just didn’t have the time to give it the attention I could Pre-Children.
Eating a Nu Way
Fast forward to 2008, when I made a connection thanks to my previous work with Big Consulting Firm and Big Supermarket Company. I landed a great new job as a Customer Manager for a new company called NuVal. My first assignment was to work with Price Chopper, one of the first supermarket retailers to implement NuVal. Through my work, I learned more every day about how products in the grocery store scored. Soon I was “trading up” myself. I now choose better cereals, pastas, crackers, cookies, yogurts, bread and more for me and for my family. I used to think of food only in terms of calories, fat and fiber. But now, I aim to eat the most nutrient-dense foods instead. And while NuVal is not a weight loss plan, I find that by choosing the best-scoring foods, eating small portions and exercising regularly, I’m able to maintain my happy weight without recording everything and counting points. This gives me the time to turn my focus to raising two healthy kids, just like my mom did!
