Small Changes for a Better Life: How I'm making changes to improve my health

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Activia Probiotic Yogurt. All opinions are 100% mine.

Now that my youngest has turned a year old (which I still can’t believe), I’m realizing I no longer have the ‘I just had a baby’ excuse to lean on. It’s time to take a hard look at how I’m treating my body and make changes to improve it. I don’t know if you are like this, but I have to start small and be consistent to have any luck; if I try to jump on a crazy diet or make extreme changes to my life, I crash quickly.

This was me, pre-kids. The more I’ve read about this, the more I’ve found that the most successful people realize that small changes within your healthy daily routine over time speak volumes. Phew — because I also don’t exactly have a schedule that is conducive to hours at the gym or prepping gourmet dinners. I knew I would need to find a way to make small changes that could lead to a big impact — a healthier life. My overall goal is not just to lose weight (although that is a big piece of it), but I want to feel better in general and improve my overall health. I’m always sluggish, I never feel well after I eat, and I’ve had some minor digestive issues since having kids. I am going to try using my iPhone to log my phone — more for accountability than calorie counting because I find when I have to log it I’m less likely to make bad food choices. I’m also going to commit to hitting 7,000 steps per day and I’m going to use my watch to monitor this. I would also really like to take a daily multivitamin so I’ve set a reminder on my phone to go off every day so I have no excuses.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading about probiotics and the impact they can have on your digestive health and subsequently, your overall health. The Activia website is a great source to learn more about probiotics. Did you know that if you are a woman, you actually process food more slowly in the stomach and large intestine than men? Apparently we can’t catch a break, anywhere.

According to Activia, daily consumption of probiotic foods may be good for you in one of the following ways:

· They may help your digestive system by providing a regular source of “friendly” bacteria for the intestinal tract. (Gill et al., 2004).

· They may help to maintain the balance of bacteria in the intestinal tract. (Adolfsson et al., 2004 ).

For more information about the general benefits of Probiotics visit http://www.activia.us.com/what-are-probiotics

Small changes with a Big Impact, the Power of Probiotics. I am embarking on the 2-week Activia Probiotic Challenge where I will eat Activia 2x per day for 2 weeks. Activia may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive issues when consumed twice per day for two weeks as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle. See the full rules here: Challenge Rules.

My goal is to see if doing this will help with some of the minor digestive issues I’ve had since having kids.