This year I have another idea! Try making a resolution that you can pull off! Let me share my tips on how to accomplish your goals in 2013 so you and your family have the best year ever!

• Start with one realistic resolution! If your goal is too big or over whelming you may give up and not accomplish anything. Many resolutions require multiple behavior changes. 
• Make your resolution very specific. Plan the how-to’s! Focus on positive To-Do behaviors! 
• Challenging but manageable! 
• Enlist the support of friends and family. Bring others in on the resolution so you have a support group to help you accomplish your goals. 
• Don’t let yourself quit. Even if you slip up once or twice, you shouldn’t abandon your resolution. 
• Track your progress: Monitor your progress it will dramatically improve your success rate. 
• Get a new calendar and set your goals! 
• Focus on a positive behavior change. Ex. I will go to the gym 3x per week vs. I want to lose 10lbs this year. 

Having a positive attitude and realistic goals for the New Year is a great first step. There is no time better than the present to take a new approach or start living a healthy lifestyle! But on the other hand many people wait until the end of December to dream up an unrealistic resolution, only to get frustrated and give up by the third week in January. This is not the way to start out the New Year.

This year I challenge you to take a new approach.  Make your New Year’s resolution focus on you, your family and your whole health. Start by thinking of what you want to accomplish in 2013. It could be more time with the family, less stress or being more active. All of these are wonderful goals that will help you live a healthier more balanced life.  When you take the time to invest in your well-being your whole family will reap the benefits. This year toss the scale and crash diets out the window and instead pledge to live an active more healthy life every single day! 

Michelle Rowe was born and raised in Toledo, OH. She attended Mercy College of Nursing where she received her Nursing degree. Passionate about healthy living, she currently works for Mercy as a Health Educator and Registered Nurse. You can find her monthly column “Always Healthy Mom” in The Toledo Area Parent Magazine and regularly on 13 abc Ask The Expert. As a wife and mother of three, she strives to inspire a healthy lifestyle with helpful tips and tricks for families and moms on the go. Passionate about eradicating childhood obesity, Rowe has been a community advocate for women’s health and the health of children in Northwest Ohio.

Her website www.alwayshealthymom.com offers advice on everything you need to know about living, shopping and eating toward a healthy lifestyle.

There is an old Daryl Hall and John Oates song that starts out with a resounding “You got no legs? Dance on your knees!” I refer to it at the start of every New Year to remind me to keep on dancing no matter what
“issues” I have going on.

I’m not certain if the inspiring story about Itzhak Perlman, the Israeli-born U.S. violinist, is urban legend or fact, but it touched my heart so we’re going with it. Mr. Perlman had a bout with polio at age four that left his legs paralyzed. During one of his performances, a string on his violin snapped. The audience expected him to put down his violin, pick up his crutches and laboriously leave the stage to get a new instrument or restring the disabled one. Instead, he took a moment before signaling the conductor to begin. Just like it is said that the aerodynamics of a bee should render it incapable of flight (don’t tell that to Mr. Bee), playing a symphonic piece with a three-stringed violin would be as probable as me balancing my checkbook. However, that is what the musical genius did. He recomposed the work in his head to accommodate the loss of the string. He later explained his actions by saying that it is the artist’s responsibility to make music with what you have left.

South African runner Oscar Pistorius is another “go to guy” when I need some inspiration. He marched into London’s Olympic Stadium in 2012 as the first double-amputee to compete in the games. A birth defect led to the amputation of his legs below the knee when he was 11 months old. The doctors told his mother that he would never be able to stand. I’m certain that Mr. Pistorius is thankful that his late mother refused to believe that prognosis. Many critics argued that his metal “legs” gave him an unfair advantage. I do believe that Mr. Pitorius did have an edge, but it pertained to his strength of spirit and REAL fortitude, not his “fake” legs.

Whenever I need an injection of inspiration I turn to my personal version of Olympic fortitude. Susan Hagemeyer was diagnosed with infantile hypophosphatasia, a rare genetic bone disease, at the age of three months in 1996. Susan’s bones are slow to grow and slow to heal. Treatments are limited and the physical limitations that come with the disease are abundant, but don’t tell that to this little “bee.” A bone marrow transplant, countless surgeries, and month-long hospital stays far from home have not stopped her from flying. She has a fondness for acting, art, and supporting her Southview Cougars, and knows in her heart of hearts that one day she will walk. I am in a constant state of awe at how such a little body can contain a spirit of that magnitude.

I can vividly recall a family cookie making day when my Gram, who suffered from macular degeneration, was fussing that she couldn’t participate because of her poor vision. My middle child quickly pointed out to her that at age nine, Marla Runyan became the first legally blind athlete to compete in the Olympics. She is not capable of reading an eye chart below the big “E.” My mom, who was “dipping” into the conversation from the kitchen, yelled out “so decorate the damn cookie Mother!” Gram let go of her need for perfection and rose to the occasion. Her creations ended up looking like one of my mother’s meat loaves; pretty darn ugly, but tasty.

I have had a few issues myself, from “T-Rex arms” (post bilateral mastectomy) to what I like to call “Mrs. Doubtfire” breasts (they could be engulfed in flames and I’d never know it). As we plunge into the year ahead, I vow to rise above my challenges and make music with what I have left!

Mothers and Boy Scouts are always prepared. I am neither, so when I take the kids I need to be a little like MacGyver. Recently, with my brother-in-law, his two-year-old daughter and my two kids — two and six — I had my abilities put to the test.

While my mother-in-law and our wives went shopping, we took the kids out for lunch. The first harbinger of problems to come happened on the way into the restaurant. My son needed a diaper change and I realized I had no diapers. My brother-in-law had two and offered one of his daughter’s. I changed my son’s diaper and was content that I had dodged a bullet. 

After lunch my niece had to have her own diaper changed. We now were out of diapers, but I was blithe to the danger ahead. We walked over to an ice cream shop and ordered ice cream for everyone. As my son stood waiting, his diaper started leaking, onto his pants and then the sidewalk.

I quickly grabbed him and went to find a way to clean him up. My brother-in-law tried to help by getting paper towels from the men’s room, but his attempts at assistance were thwarted by the motion-sensitive dispenser providing one small square at a time. While he was waiting and motioning for towels, I looked in the van for a solution. That is when I spotted my daughter’s jacket, a thin sweatshirt hoodie. I wiped him up with all the napkins I could find and fit the hoodie over his legs.

At about this time my brother- in-law walked out of the men’s room with a handful of towels, too late to be of any help. While I was explaining how I had solved the situation, another conflagration broke out.

“That is mine!  I don’t want his messy butt on my coat,” my six-year-old daughter yelled.

“This is an emergency. I need to use this,” I implored her.

“NO! He cannot use that!” She was screaming at me.

My response, because I was upset, was less than consoling during what must have been a traumatic event for her.

“Fine, be upset. Get in the car. He is keeping it on.” She cried the rest of the way home. I called my wife to warn her of what was ahead and to have a diaper ready.

When we pulled in, like an emergency room doctor waiting for the next ambulance, my wife was ready to take over. I handed her our half-naked boy and she quickly put a diaper on while calming our upset daughter.

Once the problem was behind us I admitted that it was pretty dumb to leave without a diaper bag, but I was still proud of my solution. Although maybe I need to be more Boy Scout than MacGyver.