New edition 2015 of “I love my body”

The Daily Herald writes that the healthy lifestyle promotion programme called “I Love My Body” returns with a new edition for 2015. This programme is organised by the Saba Health Care Foundation and the Island Government of Saba.

Host Dr. Gina Boorsma invites previous and new participants to join. There will be new subject matters and presentations this year, which will make the programme interesting and relevant for everybody.

The I Love My Body programme helps participants to learn about how healthy eating, more exercise and psychological factors influence your ability to get and maintain a healthy lifestyle. The programme was initially started as an internal programme for employees of the Saba Health Care Foundation in 2013. In the year 2014 it was presented to the public with great success. The participants felt better, lost weight and exercised more.

A lot of the 2014 participants kept up with the positive lifestyle adjustments they made also when the programme concluded. “I Love My Body, is not a diet, it’s a programme that helps you make long-term changes to your diet and physical activity to result in a healthier lifestyle” says Dr. Boorsma. “The key to success is making realistic changes to your diet, level of physical activity and make them a part of your daily routine. A healthy lifestyle has a big input on someone’s health. “Eating healthy and exercising will not only help you lose weight, it will reduce your blood pressure and cholesterol. It also reduces glucose tolerance which means it decreases the risk of diabetes and if you have diabetes it reduces the need for insulin or tablets. Joint pains and back pain can reduce due to weight loss which doesn’t only improve your health, but also greatly improves your psychological wellbeing. “Abdominal problems like gas, constipation, reflux and abdominal pain can disappear and it can improve your fertility.” Boorsma emphasised.

A new addition to the programme in 2015 is the attention for psychological factors and how they influence the ability to get and maintain a healthy lifestyle. Negative thinking leads to poor planning and goal setting; this leads to a negative outcome, which will eventually result in failure and more negative thinking.

Guest speaker Sucheeta Peeters will provide tools to recognise negative thinking and tools to think positive to prevent getting stuck in a negative cycle. A returning feature from last year is the cooperation with the “Body Fit” programme from the Physical Therapist department.

Next to exercise guidance during the I Love My Body information sessions, Tjitske “Jess” Vasilev will continue to host Body Fit which is a weekly workout session consisting of basic exercises that will help participants feel stronger, energised, balanced and fit for day-to-day activities.

The Body Fit programme is for both beginners, professionals and is designed to provide tools to maintain and control fitness levels and decrease any level of discomfort. Body Fit is a continuous programme which is free for everyone to attend every Wednesday from 4:00pm until 5:00pm at St. Johns Gym.

The I Love My Body programme 2015 will begin on February 3 and will continue for 12 weeks, every Tuesday afternoon from 4:00pm until 5:00pm in the Ambulance Bay of the A.M. Edwards Medical Centre. The one-hour sessions are free of charge and welcome everyone to join.