What a Year & More to Come…

The Healthy Giraffe is one year old! I can’t believe it. I wrote the following purpose just over a year ago:

The Purpose of The Healthy Giraffe is to provide you resources, support and community in an effort to live a healthy lifestyle. Take personal accountability for your health – no one else will.

The tagline, Add Health to Your Life, can mean just about anything in the spirit of when we add and continue to add healthy things to our lives we move less desirable things out. This can be nutrition, fitness, how we spend our time, etc. So if it’s going out to walk one day a week, one block, running a 5k, eating one more serving of fruit and/or veggies in a day, it’s about adding good (healthy) things to our lives, not missing what we think we are going to miss. It’s what it means to you.

I have learned so much on my journey from being quite unhealthy to living a healthy lifestyle now. I have so many people to thank for that. You can see more about what transpired in my life to take my health serious here – My Story.

To support the purpose, my commitment for 2018 was to write a blog, “The Giraffe Paper,” once a week. I did just that, writing 52 blogs in the year spanning topics on nutrition, performance, the mind, our community and more. The blogs reached 30 countries…super exciting! The top five blogs of the year in terms of amount of views were:

1. Treasure the Opportunity
2. Trail Run Gone Wrong
3. Community in Racing
4. Recovery, Motivation, Healthy Eating & Community
5. The Healthy Giraffe Event – How Not to Die

Also in support of the purpose and power of community, I wanted to organize a monthly event, “The Healthy Giraffe Event,” where we would either gather at my home or go on a road trip to a local restaurant offering plant-based options. At the gatherings at my home we would usually watch a brief video on health, cook a healthy meal together (so much fun!!!), and then enjoy it. I learned so much and love our community!

I wrote about each event covering what we experienced. You can use, “event,” as a search term in the box in the upper right of the page to go back and find previous event summaries.

In 2019 the purpose will remain the same. I will also continue the weekly blog and monthly events. Please send me ideas to cover and where we should go in the Tampa Bay area to try out healthy plant-based cuisine.

Continuous learning is paramount to me. As I learn and experience learning, sharing  with you I hope to add value to your life and in some way – Add Health to Your Life. I know I have learned something from each and every person I have interacted with this year.

In addition to the Plant-Based Nutrition Certification I completed, I will be finishing a plant-based culinary program and finalizing my USA Triathlon Coaching certification soon. There are a couple more programs I’m considering for 2019. I also spend approximately 12-15 hours reading books and listening to podcasts on these topics each week. Many times I’m reading (Audible) or listening while on a recovery run, bike ride, or a commute somewhere in the car – a win-win. These will continue to fuel the blogs and events.

Thank you so much for an incredible year!!!

I’m excited about some new ideas coming around the corner here…stay tuned…

Let’s keep this community building and in a small way, big way, in your way –

– Add Health to Your Life