A Healthy U Conference

I had such a great day Saturday, attending the first A Healthy U conference, organized by these lovely ladies:

L-R: Kimberly of Manifest Yourself, Cassandre of Losing In The City, & Nellie of Brooklyn Active Mama

I’ve attended events and conferences before, where you just kind of take for granted that there are awesome speakers, it runs smoothly, there are sponsors who provide their services or products for the day and you usually leave with a fun swag bag. Since I know a couple of the organizers of A Healthy U (Kimberly and I met when we checked out Cook + Go, and Nellie was one of my Fit Mama Friday features), it really struck me how much hard work goes in to making these kinds of events successful. These women work full-time jobs, as well as blog regularly, two of them are mamas and they were able to put this amazing event together! I was SO impressed. Even more so when they mentioned they never once had an argument throughout the process.

I was so happy to see some familiar faces there. I chatted with Patty from Enjoying This Life, who I knew through social media – her face was so familiar to me and we realized we recognized each other from Twitter! Then, I saw Allie from Vita Train For Life, walked right up to her, saying, “Hi Allie!” and was already going in for the hug before I thought to mention, “By the way, I’m Carly.” Luckily she’d heard my accent so she already had a good idea it was me! Brittany from My Own Balance was there as well and I was so happy to congratulate her on her baby bump news in person! 🙂

L-R: Me, Allie, Brittany

After a great breakfast spread, Nellie gave an introduction and got everyone excited for the day ahead. She is exactly how you would imagine from reading her blog! She’s friendly, funny and really high energy. 🙂 Then the panels began. First up was “It’s All Connected: The importance of the mind, body and soul connection when it comes to getting fit.” The speakers were personal trainer Matthew Matheson, author & fitness coach Nadia Murdock, and licensed mental health counselor Don Sinkfield.

Matthew was singing the praises of high intensity interval training (HIIT) for getting into shape quickly, as well as for more effective fat burning. I loved that the organizers helpfully suggested he give us a demo of some HIIT exercises to do at home! You’d better believe every single camera in the room came out for that!

There was some discussion on how stress, anger and negativity all have physiological effects on the body, so it’s really important to take care of your mental and emotional health to ensure a truly healthy and fit lifestyle. Another great point made by Nadia was that it’s easy to become overwhelmed with all the “shoulds” of fitness – that you feel like you need to be doing everything perfectly and have every area of your life under control. Don’t forget the stress you put on yourself affects you, so try to give yourself a break with what you’re truly able to institute in your lifestyle.

Following a snack break (trust me, there was no low blood sugar going on in the room!), the second panel began: “Eat Healthy Today: Tools, Tips and Tricks to help you start (or enhance) your healthy eating journey.” The panelists were Melissa Burton, an RD (and blogger at The Valentine RD), Dara Cooper, Director of NYC Food and Fitness Partnership, Valentina Rice, Founder of Many Kitchens, and Dr. Aletha Maybank, MD, MPH.

What an awesome panel, with some inspiring women! First of all, Melissa is super smart. I loved listening to her and I thought she made some really interesting points that made me think. For example, rather than avoid having trigger foods in your house, she suggests if you really like a food, buy it – get used to having it around so you can gain power back over the food. She also made an important point about juicing – regardless of whether you juice your fruits and veggies, or just blend them, either method breaks down the cell walls, so you are definitely getting less fiber than if you just eat the food whole. I had forgotten this nutrition 101 and had been thinking if a smoothie was blended you were getting all the good stuff from the veggies.

Valentina spoke a little about Michael Pollan’s books and rules for eating, which I agree is a thoughtful, simple way of making sane food choices. Simple stuff like, ‘Would your great grandmother recognize this as food? If not, don’t eat it!’ and “Eat food that comes from plants, not food that’s made in plants.” Dara Cooper was a great speaker. Her whole mission is to get people back to eating whole, real, local, organic foods, at a low cost. She works within communities to set up co-ops and CSAs, and educates people on how the food system is set up in the US. Dr. Maybank joined the panel and made a very important point that’s often overlooked: People look to their doctor for advice on healthy eating and exercise, but you should be aware that general practitioners are not as educated as RDs when it comes to nutrition.

After all that inspiration, it was time to workout! I chose yoga (despite my shoulder still being a little painful from my fall last week), mainly because I felt like I really needed some yoga to shake out my long run. It was a great class, run by Studio Anya, where the conference was held. The instructor did an awesome job of maintaining a yogic vibe to the class despite us all hearing Nellie getting her Zumba class super revved up! 🙂

After our workout, we had lunch, there were (yet more) giveaways, then the organizers thanked everyone for coming and we walked away with some seriously impressive swag bags. Happily, there was much chocolate included. 🙂

See you there next year for A Healthy U 2015!!