“Then followed that beautiful season…Summer….Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I love summer (as I’m sure you’ve gathered!!) and I can feel it starting to slip away. Our days are starting to grow shorter already! Its now still dark at 5am where just a month ago it was light. In the evenings the sun is setting much earlier than a month ago as well. The mannequins in the store windows are all wearing jeans, long sleeved tops and even some jackets. In a mad push to “fit it all in” the kids and I have been in a whirlwind of activities. We’ve taken a train ride to Millennium Park for a picnic and played in the fountain, hit Bears training camp down in Bourbonnais for an afternoon, saw a Cubs game, took a family bike ride and will be squeezing in a day at the waterpark– all within a 10 day span!!!! Its in an effort to check all our favorite summertime fun activities off our list as “successfully completed” in the summer of 2010!!! — This is also a good time for a last summer push for our weight loss efforts. Let’s use these last few weeks before school starts to really enjoy what summer has to offer us by the way of healthy living. The fruits and veggies are so good right now AND so inexpensive compared to other times of the year. This is the time to get out and take an extra walk or ride your bike with the kids. Let’s not let it pass us by without enjoying as much of it as we can. It feels good to move around and eat healthy, so our mood can improve and while losing weight. Labor Day is FOUR WEEKs from this very day. It would be very realistic to have a 4-5 pound weight loss by then if we get back to the basics and take some control. Whether your looking for weight loss or to maintaining your current weight, my challenge to you is to set a goal. It can be a weight goal, a fitness goal, a behavioral goal or a mental goal. The choice is yours. The next month will FLY by and it will feel good a month from now to have the kids back in school, fall to have begun and to sit back and be happy with the way we finished the summer. Make your plan, write it down and get excited about the end result you are trying to accomplish-its all you and you can achieve whatever is important to YOU.