The International Bicycle Fund (IBF) is a non-profit organization promoting bicycle transportation and international understanding. IBF promotes bicycle and other aspects of on-motorized transportation worldwide, especially in less developed areas, with a particular interest in Africa and South America. Areas of activities include: creating a bicycle culture, urban planning, transportation planning, rural mobility, mobility for women, economic development, road safety education, human settlement and quality of life, personal health, environmental quality, energy conservation and responsible tourism.

Their fundraising is done through sponsoring environmental friendly, cultural immersion, small group, bicycle tour program for ordinary active people, to Asia, the Americas, and all regions of Africa.

The taste of a juicy tomato, just-picked off the vine at the peak of ripeness, is one of life’s simple pleasures - and for many of us it is a distant memory. When I was growing up my mother always kept a vegetable garden. I remember digging around in the dirt with her, eating sugar snap peas right off the vine, pulling up carrots and picking big juicy tomatoes for grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches.

The wildly popular fitness franchise Curves for Women has 16 locations in Brevard County and serves millions of women worldwide in their desire to be fit and healthy.

The Curves location in Suntree is the largest in the county, serving over 1000 women, and was recently recognized as Franchise of the Year in the Southeastern Region at the annual Curves Convention. Lealyn Wiggins and her partner Linda Gaffey purchased the Suntree franchise in January of 2003. Green Brevard recently spoke with Ms. Wiggins and asked her about being a member turned owner and how it relates to providing a better quality of life for our local residents.

In 1994 the first Natural Awakenings™ magazine was established in Naples, Florida in response to the local holistic health community’s need for an effective way to share information and connect with people searching for alternative therapies. Success of the original Naples/Fort Myers edition was immediate. It didn’t take long for many more community editions to take hold.

Today there are more than 30 editions of Natural Awakenings throughout the United States and Puerto Rico and growing strong.

Discover over 85 ways to improve your health all in one day! With 85 exhibitors and many speakers at the Healthy Living Expo you are sure to find health options just right for you. The expo will be held on Saturday, March 5th at the Florida Tech Clemente Center in Melbourne, Florida.

“This year’s sponsors have made it possible for us to open our doors and make admission free to public,” says expo co-producer Laurie Davey. “You’ll find free tasting of organic beer, wine, food and even chocolate.” Also available will be hundreds of door prizes (win a palm pilot or a massage!) and deals on products and services you won’t find anywhere else – such as low cost cholesterol and health screenings provided by Wuesthoff Health System.

The American Heritage Dictionary says, “Play is to occupy oneself in amusement, sport, or other recreation.”

As our population increases dramatically, wide open spaces shrink and digital screens command our youths’ attention, it becomes evident that our jobs in Parks and Recreation become extremely important if not mandatory.

Play is an integral part of any person’s healthy development. Every age group invests social, physical and emotional value in active play. It is where a toddler gets the nerve to take that first step, a child learns socialization skills that will be used into adulthood and an older person keeps their will to continue a healthy lifestyle.

Lately I’ve heard a lot of talk that diets are not the way to lose weight and get in shape. It is absolutely correct that we need to exercise, to burn more calories than we take in. Yet to discount several diet trends is a mistake.

I’m in decent shape and do something daily, whether it’s riding a bike to school with my son in the morning, using the elliptical walker, or cranking on the free weights while watching the Sci-Fi channel. Yet for years, my weight has been slowly creeping upward.

Participate in National Wear Red Day on Friday, February 4: Wear Red to Support Women and Heart Disease Awareness

Friday, February 4, 2005, is National Wear Red Day—a day when Americans nationwide will take women’s health to heart by wearing red to show their support for women’s heart disease awareness. More women die of heart disease than all cancers combined, yet less than half of women know that heart disease is their biggest health threat and most fail to make the connection between its risk factors and their personal risk of developing heart disease.

About a decade ago I published a newspaper column declaring my universal disdain for running. It hurt my shins, I bemoaned. It made me itchy, I groused. It burned my lungs, I whimpered. The long litany of complaints was neatly wrapped up and tied together with numerous strings of justification.

Then, suddenly yet deliberately in early 2003, I tossed off such lame excuses and decided to give my body-and, especially, my mind-the opportunity to become a runner.

The concept of being fit is a lot for us to handle; so take that notion, throw it out the window and start a clean slate with me today. With the holidays, the feasting and the “we’ll get back on track next week” mindset, most of us are always putting it off as something to do tomorrow. It’s the mental game that so difficult to get going and guilt, resolutions and scale watching just can’t turn you into someone who is fit–and happy.

We have a creeping tendency to live within the prison of our “shoulds” and “oughts.” Disappointment in decisions we have made, or results left by the hand of fate–often shaded by our own misperceptions–can plague us and engender a vicious cycle of regret. Its tentacles feed into laziness fused with declining confidence, which forces us to tread water in the miserable tension of wanting and hoping but feeling that somehow we just can’t.

This incarceration infects each key area of our lives: relationships, vocation and health. The third component is particularly crucial, because it has a proportional and increasing impact on the first two.

“The mission of the Central Florida YMCA is to improve the lives of everyone in Central Florida by connecting individuals and families with opportunities based on Christian values that improve the spirit, mind and body,” says executive director Chris Jaffe. “Our goal is to build strong kids, strong families and strong communities.”

Jaffe has served as the Cocoa Y’s executive director since it opened in May 2004. It is part of the Central Florida YMCA, which formed in 1942 and boasts of three Y’s in Brevard County-Cocoa, Suntree and Titusville.