Mums United Project

Recently I was asked if I would be interested in participating in the Heart Foundation ‘Mums United Project’, by gathering a group of friends or family and discussing the difference we can make as a group for a healthier nation.

As a person who has struggled obesity all my life and recently undergone weightloss surgery I was excited to participate not just for myself but as a mum who is forever encouraging my kids to make better food choices.

The main purpose of Mums United project is to educate & encourage a person at a time to make small healthier changes, and become more active for themselves & their families.

The ‘Mums United Project’ pack was received and our little gathering of 8 friends & my sisters was booked!

Before I start, I would like to apologise for not having any photos to show you, my little ‘angel’ son some how removed the SD card and its been missing since…!

Using my Woolworths $15 gift cards I purchased Bega So Extra Light grated Cheese & using my trusty Taste recipe made a batch of Cheese & Salami (replaced bacon with Helal Salami) scrolls.

We were provided ’myth-busting’ quiz cards to help the conversation get started but we didnt need them, everyone was too busy complementing ME on my huge weightloss not to mention how good I looked and ofcourse the topic kicked off from there.

Everyone was participating, exchanging their healthier choices and then it was time to confess exactly how much exercise we were doing per day.

Unfortunately while everyone knew exercise was important not one person in that room was active and while Im not active either I was surprised as I assumed atleast one friend who follows her diet religiously would also exercise.

Before our little meeting I did do some research online about ‘Mums United Project’ so I was better informed & prepared.

According to the Health Foundation we only need to make the smallest change in our diet to feel & see the results.

Swap full fat dairy foods for reduced fat dairy foods for all family members above two years old. Since my weightloss surgery Ive replaced full cream with reduced fat milk for my self only, I was thought kids need the extra fat in full cream milk. This small change will remove 4kgs of saturated fat from our diet in one year…..wooooow
Swapping butter which contains 50% saturated fat with canola, sunflower or olive oil margarine spreads which contains 14% fat removes 2.85 kg of saturated fat from our diet per year….another wooooooow

To encourage families to become more active, the Health Foundation run free walking groups across Australia, we jumped online and searched our own postcodes on Walking groups. There are groups running in our local area except for two so they were planning to email Health Foundation to either start their own group or request one to be started.

We were also given a Family walking chart for kids to colour in a footstep each time one goes for a walk. Because we all have kids we were planning to reward our kids with a trip to the local pools, beach or indoor playcentre.

Our ‘Mums United ‘ meeting has come to an end.

We finished our meeting pledging never to purchase butter again, we all live in different suburbs so we’ll be having weekly FAMILY including hubby walks at random local parks.

I personally will be taking the kids to the park after school instead of racing home, this way im giving myself and the kids time to calm down, kids and I will be active and there wont be unhealthy afternoon snacking.

Every Saturday I declare it my cleaning day instead im going to break up my cleaning through out the week giving me more time and energy to become more active with and for my kids.

What other small changes can you recommend for us? I would love to become more active but need inspiration to get off the couch, any suggestions would be appreciated.

For more information about Health Foundation ‘Mums United Project’ or to participate in their free walks head over to facebook.com/wearemumsunited - see you all there….~