Kathy DeVries was our club leader and Gary Bogle led us in song with several great verses of ‘Vive Le Rotary’.
Mari Martin introduced Kourtney Koopman, who spoke to the club about the Six Pillars of Lifestyle Wellness. Kourtney has an extensive background in Wellness – she is a Certified Personal Trainer and has spent over 30 years in the wellness field. She currently is the Fitness Coordinator at the Holland Township Recreation Center.
She started off with “The choices we make today limit or expand our life.” Kourtney then proceeded to discuss the Six Pillars.
Pillar One: Nutrition – she reviewed the differences between the old Food Pyramid and the new Pyramid which indicated much more focus on fruits and vegetables in our daily consumption. Nutrition is the key to starting a day off right. Many people don’t take time to understand how important a balanced diet is and she cited a few examples.
Pillar Two: Physical Activity – People should strive for 150 minutes of moderate exercise or focused exercise each week. This can be as little as 20 minutes per day. “Your brain loves the gym!” was a good takeaway,
Pillar Three: Sleep – After conducting a brief experiment with the members about the number of hours each gets of sleep per night she shared that 7-9 hours is a good goal.
Pillar Four: Connectedness - Having family time, friends time and social connections can all work to make a healthier ‘you’. Volunteer work is a great activity to promote connectedness – and she didn’t say this, but Rotary certainly fits well here!
Pillar Five: Stress Management – Some great strategies for reducing stress in our lives is simply to breathe deeply and slowly let your breath out. Meditation in a quiet area and exercise in general are also helpful to reduce stress.
Pillar Six: Risky Substance Avoidance – Alcohol can be risky in general and a good guideline is women should have no more than 1 drink a day and men should have no more than 2.
Kourtney shared that these Pillars are not stand-a-lone items and that they overlap with a healthy lifestyle. “Small habits = big improvements”.
Lastly, she asked everyone to think about the Six Pillars and how their inner connectedness can work in our lives every day.