5K the FCMC Way Finale!

On May 9^th, Floyd County Medical Center and 256 community members embarked on an 8-week activity challenge – to get active and train to walk, jog, or run a 5K!  Our mission was three-fold:  To encourage and involve the community around an event that promotes health and well being, to improve the health of our community by increasing awareness and encouraging activity, and to have some fun!

Each week participants were asked to track their activity distance, activity time, water consumption and fruit/veggie servings.  Participants turned their activity sheet in at a different local business each Monday and received an incentive to encourage them along their journey. Along with a weekly incentive participants received a health tip from FCMC.  Our health tips have been on topics such as staying hydrated, injury prevention, and motivation. 

In 8 weeks, the participants logged 8815 miles, over 2500 hours of activity, drank over 30,000 cups of water, and ate over 18,000 servings of fruits and veggies!

Congratulations to our big winners:  Sue Baker for logging 421 miles; Lisa Schwickerath for logging over 73 hours of activity; James Tupy for drinking the most water – 814 cups; and Dan Hugh for consuming 550 servings of fruits and veggies!

We would like to say thank you to all of our wonderful local businesses who participated as work groups, hosted our participants on Mondays, or donated an incentive along the way.  Your generous participation and support is very much appreciated!  Here is a list of our generous sponsors:

Artwear                                                                                    Healthquest

Blush Salon                                                                              HyVee

Boundless Network                                                                 KCHA

Cambrex                                                                                  Kwik Star

Charley Western Firecracker 5K Committee                           Pfizer

Charles City Chamber of Commerce                                       Radio Shack    

Comprehensive Systems                                                         Rivers Edge Salon

Curves                                                                                     Runners Flat/Rocket Science Coaching

First Security Bank & Trust                                                     Slinger Chiropractic

Floyd County Extension Office                                                Subway

                                                                                                YMCA

And to all who participated in the program – we thank you for your enthusiasm and dedication.  We hope you enjoyed the program, were able to increase your activity level and are on your way to a healthier, happier you!  


Article compliments of Dori Myers

Strawberry Pie Season

It's berry season!! I LOVE this time of year for many reasons and with one of them being, strawberry pie! Growing up, my family of seven children would go with my Mom to pick berries at a local patch. I think Mom decided against us having our own patch because we couldn't start berry fights in public and we would actually behave ourselves :)

We would spend the morning, picking, cleaning and tipping all of the berries and then spend the afternoon making jams, canning/freezing, and making 4-5 fresh strawberry pies. Life was amazing back then, right?!

Although the pies were delicious, they were far from healthy with the sugar-cookie type crust. Remember, we also lived on a dairy farm and butter was readily available at all times! Below are a few tips on why strawberries are healthy and also an updated version of strawberry pie that is much lower in calories than my Mom's version (sorry Mom!).  ENJOY!

Tip: Just one cup of strawberries has about 3grams of fiber and more than one day's worth of the recommended intake of vitamin C.

Strawberry Pie recipe from Cooking Light

Ingredients
Crust:
50 reduced-calorie vanilla wafers
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp grated orange rind (optional)

Filling:
2 cups of ripe strawberries
1/2 cup water
2/3 cup sugar
2 Tbsp cornstarch
1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
6 cups of small ripe strawberries

Reduced fat whipped topping

Prep:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place wafers in food processor and process until finely ground. Add butter, sugar and orange rind and pulse 10 more times or until wafers are moist. Press into bottom of 9-inch pie plate coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes and cool. (You could also use a pre-made low fat graham cracker crust here).

Mash 2 cups of berries. Combine mashed berries and water in saucepan and bring to a boil and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Strain and discard pulp- keep liquid. Combine 2/3cup sugar and cornstarch in pan; add strawberry liquid from above; stirring well with whisk. Bring to boil and cook 1 minute; stirring constantly. Reduce heat, cook for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and add lemon juice.

Place whole or sliced berries in crust (6 cups) and add sauce made above, over the top. Chill for at least three hours.

Nutrition info: 8 servings: Each serving contains 285 calories, 8.5g fat, 52.2g carbohydrate.