Making Healthy Choices

• The basics of wellness, a lifestyle that leads to health and the enjoyment of life
• The importance of personal responsibility
• The five critical areas of a wellness lifestyle: exercise, nutrition, stress management, relationships, and personal balance

• Create a wellness report card that shows how participants are doing in the major areas of wellness
• Consider where participants would like to make improvements
• Plan how to make the desired changes

• The importance of giving as well as receiving in relationships
• The four critical interpersonal needs essential to supporting your well-being
• How to nurture your existing relationships as well as build new ones

• Reflect on their “circles of relationships” at many different levels of intensity
• Examine their relationships to determine whether or not their needs are being satisfactorily met
• Create a personal plan for increasing the support received from the caring given to personal relationships

• The definition and causes of stress
• How stress can be harmful physically and mentally
• Keys for reducing stress

• Assess their present level of stress and the way it is affecting them
• Determine which stressors are worth spending themselves on and which are not
• Choose stress management techniques that work for them

While watching Healthy Change, participants will learn:

• Wellness means change - in fact, wellness requires change
• A solid foundation of wellness can be built to take charge of the changes in life
• Wellness is only a slice of life—not the whole pie. Wellness must be viewed from the broader perspective of life and not just the narrower perspective of health and fitness

One can take charge of change in life by:

• Setting goals wisely
• Making your progress measurable
• Building rewards into the process
• Enlisting essential people to support you along the way
• Taking personal responsibility for the entire process

By using the worksheets, participants will:

• Explore spiritual motivators and reasons for making change
• Examine how they fit into the lives of others around them and how others fit into participants’ lives
• Learn how to find meaning in life
• Identify specific changes they want to make in their lives

• The importance of nutrition to overall health
• The basics of a well-balanced diet
• Guidelines for shopping and preparing healthy food

• Examine attitudes toward food and eating
• Assess diet and affirm an understanding of nutrition
• Learn a simple process for evaluating and making food choices
• Explore non-nutritional needs that affect eating patterns

• What experts say about the effects of exercise on overall health, longevity, and risk factors for disease
• What people who have made exercise a part of their lives say about the benefits of their fitness activities

• Assess exercise patterns and determine the participant's desire to increase the level of activity
• Identify and examine the barriers that stand between the participant and regular exercise
• Create a plan for starting and maintaining a regular, lifelong exercise program