Family Matters: Tips for a Healthy Easter

Easter is on Sunday and DumBell Fitness would like to share some tips to make the holiday a healthy day for your family. Typically, Easter is characterized by a large basket full of chocolate eggs and jellybeans. This year, we challenge to you to limit the influx of sugar. It’s so important to avoid instilling in your children that food equals enjoyment. It may seem like giving out large amounts of candy is a small deal, but it can have long-term effects on your child’s health and relationship with food.

Tip #1:  Leave out carrots for the Easter Bunny the night before Easter. Make the carrots a treat for your kiddos, too, and talk about how healthy they are!

Tip #2: Keep up your Easter egg hunt tradition, but instead of filling the eggs with candy, try:

Stickers

Quarters

Punching Balloons

Finger Lights

Squinkies

Little Pet Shop toys

Tip #3:  Turn your leftover Easter eggs into healthy snacks! You can make low-fat deviled eggs and egg salad. Or, just use them as a great protein-filled snack, or even add them to your salad for lunch.

DumBell Fitness wishes you a healthy and happy Easter! 

Healthy Habits: Clean Eating Recipes

My family has re-committed to living a clean lifestyle. We recently cleaned out all of our cabinets, ridding ourselves of all processed food. This transition inspired us to try out some new recipes: Waldorf Salad with Homemade Mayo, Chocolate Cranberry Pie, and Cookie Sandwiches with Coconut Whipped Cream. My family loved them! Try them out this weekend and let us know what you think!

Waldorf Salad with Homemade Mayo

Chocolate Cranberry Pie (Note: we used extra coconut oil in the crust)

Waldorf Salad

Homemade Mayonnaise
Grain-free Chocolate Chips Cookies
Coconut Whipped Cream 

Assembling the cookie ingredients

Cookie sandwich complete! 

Trinity enjoying the finished product! See, kids can enjoy healthy treats and love them, too! 

Family Matters: Exercising as a Family

Childhood obesity is a serious epidemic in the United States. Due to budget cuts, more and more schools are cutting physical education classes and school-made lunches consist of processed foods heavy in additives. Every child owns a video gaming system and spends entirely too much time inside. What can you do? Teach your children fitness as a lifestyle! Kids tend to emulate their parents’ actions: if they see you being active, they are more likely to make activity a habit, too.

With Spring Break upon us, DumBell Fitness wanted to focus today’s post on ways to exercise as a family. Hawaii offers us so many ways to have fun and get fit at the same time that there really aren’t any excuses for being inactive!

The good news is that these activities are enjoyable and have the added bonus of making you closer as family.

Here are our suggestions for active family fun this Spring Break:

Family sports:

• Set up a volleyball or badminton net in your backyard. Play tournament-style--whichever team loses has to do the dishes after dinner! 
• Kick around a soccer ball. 
• Partner up with a few more families and host a softball tournament! 
• A good, old-fashioned game of tag or hide-and-seek. 
• Ride your bikes! 

Family-friendly hikes:

•        Diamond Head
•            Makapu'u Lighthouse Trail
•            Manoa Falls

Beach day, active style!

• Buy or rent some boogie boards and see who can catch the best waves! 
• Break out your snorkels and flippers and visit Hanauma Bay. 
• If your kids are old enough, rent a Kayak and paddle out to the Moku'lua Islands. 

       

For even more ideas on becoming an active family, visit First Lady Michelle Obama's Let’s Move Campaign page.

Looking for some healthy snacks to pack for your Spring Break activities? Check these out!

Fruit and Cheese Kabobs

Cranberry Nut Snack Mix

Watermelon Pop Stars

Homemade Granola Bars