Mums United

I'm so excited to have been invited to take part in a special project called Mums United. It's from the Heart Foundation and Soup and it's all about making small changes for healthier eating as well as ideas to help Mums get their families up, moving and more active. There's even a Mums United Facebook group you can join.

The Mums United project has sent me a bundle of goodies to share with you - there's a booklet with recipes and ideas to help get your family up and moving, family walking charts and shopping list pads. They've also offered some seriously good prizes so I'm planning a couple of competitions over the next couple of weeks - stay tuned for them

Lots of you in my real life know that I started the year feeling fat and frumpy. I took a long hard look at what I was eating (and how much of it I was eating!) and decided I needed to make a whole bunch of changes. None of them were difficult and some of them have become downright addictive. I cut the junk, upped the activity, took control of a few eating habits that had gone a bit crazy and week by week lost a little bit of weight. I lost nine kilograms, discovered that I actually like eating breakfast and that I love my daily walk. My family discovered that a slimmer Mum is much more fun and that is she doesn't get her daily walk she gets a little bit grumpy! I've still got a couple of kilo's to go before I hit my goal and this initiative seems like the extra little kick I need to get back on the eat better, move more wagon.

Lots of the suggestions that Mums United makes are things that already happen in our house:

• I use butter for baking but for everyday use like sandwiches, toast, etc we use margarine (50% fat compared to as little as 14% fat). I am going to cook a cake with margarine instead of butter and I'll let you know what I think of the result.
• We eat mostly reduced fat dairy products. Ok, Hubby and the kids have full fat milk and have resisted every single attempt I've made to swap them over. I'm going to get them to try it. I can't promise it'll be successful but I'll give it a go.
• I've been walking 4km most days of the week since February. I walk with my neighbour - we meet at her front gate at 5.30 every morning- and we've just added an extra kilometre so now we're up to 5. And yeah, I'm feeling that extra kilometre.
• The kids are pretty active. We have an acre that they run around on and they have a trampoline, bikes, scooters, footballs, hula hoops and a puppy. But I'm going to make more of an effort to get outside and play with them. You  know, kick the ball with them, play jump rope. That kind of thing.
• And one thing I've never really paid much attention to is the Health Foundation's tick. But in October I'm going to look at what food I'm buying and, where I can, swap it for a product with the tick.

I'll let you know how I'm going once a week or so.

So, who wants a little pack of goodies from Mums United ? Leave me a comment and tell me what you're going to do in October to eat more healthy and be more active and I'll send you one. (Sorry, only if you're in Australia).