June Healthy Woman of the Month: Alisa Peters

Each month, Healthy Girls Initiative will feature a brief interview with a woman who contributes to our South Sarasota County community by leading by example and promoting holistically healthy lifestyles for our girls.
Our June Healthy Woman of the Month is Alisa Peters, a Girl Scouts of Gulfcoast Florida, Inc. staff member always inspiring to other staff in her commitment to wellness and the girls of our community!


Where you live and how long have you lived there?
I live in Sarasota and have lived in the Bradenton/Sarasota area for 16 years.
What do you do for work?
I work for Girl Scouts of Gulfcoast Florida, Inc. in the position of Director, Administrative Services. I have been with the Girl Scouts for 12 years and enjoy my work.

I started working in retail at the age of 17 but have mostly worked in administrative positions since the age of 22.
How many girls ages 8-14 do you interact with on a regular basis?
I interact with many girls when they come into the office or visit our Girl Scout Shop. I have helped several times at summer camp assisting girls with arts and crafts within this age range. I enjoy working with girls of these ages, they are a lot of fun and it is amazing what you can learn from them. I have three wonderful nieces that keep me up on the new and hip things happening in today’s society for their age range, it is so different now-a-days than it was when I was a kid.
What does living a healthy lifestyle mean to you?
To me it means taking care of yourself and your family. Everyone can live a healthy lifestyle just by making small changes on a daily basis. I have a daughter who is 7 years old and she was learning about the food pyramid in school in January. We promised together that we would incorporate some of these new changes in our daily routine of eating habits; so far it is working great.

The past few months I have been learning about eating healthy and am still learning how to make the right choices. It can be easy to make changes but it does take time to mentally make yourself think about choosing the right foods. In January I realized that I was not happy being at a weight that I had never reached before. I was uncomfortable in my clothes and upset at myself for letting myself make bad choices. So I made the decision to make a life change to start living a healthy life for my family and myself. I signed up in January to do the 3-Day Breast Cancer walk this coming October.

Since signing up and training for this event I have lost 30 lbs. to date and am working on loosing another 20 lbs. by October so I will be in good shape for the event. I was inspired by the TV show Biggest Loser (BL), which is a favorite of mine and three awesome trainers I had at Lifestyles in Bradenton, Toni, Carol, and Kate. Unfortunately, two of us moved and are now living in different areas; but to this day they stay in touch with me and keep me motivated. While watching the show (BL) I tell myself if these people can do it, so can I.

I feel it is important to set goals, stay focused, and work hard to accomplish them. I choose the 3-Day Breast Cancer event because it has been a life long goal of mine to accomplish. I lost my grandmother to breast cancer 27 years ago and I am walking in memory of her. I am very excited about the people I will meet, the new friendships I will form and I am proud of myself for taking the steps to learn how to make changes to live a healthy lifestyle.

My personal advice to others about making a change to start a healthy lifestyle is that I would advise anyone to start by making small steps. Make better choices, choose healthier meals, exercise and it will get easier to maintain a healthy weight. Do not give up! When you feel like you want to quit, you have push through it. It will get easier in time, you will be glad you did it and you will gain a happier out look on life. I hope that by living my life in a healthy way it inspires others to do the same.
Share your top three healthy living tips for other adult caregivers of girls:
1.) Exercise and make it fun - it is important to get some type of exercise daily or at least a few days a week. So go for a walk around the block, play outside with your kid(s), throw a ball around, try to get at least 30 minutes of exercise in everyday and you will feel better and will see results just by taking small steps in the right direction to be healthier. The bonus to exercising is that you will feel better with more energy and not less.

2.) Make small changes in your eating habits: Choose low fat cheeses and yogurts, whole-wheat crackers and cheese, smoothies made with fruit and fat-free milk, eat lots of fruits and vegetables. Choose lean meats such as skinless chicken, turkey breast, fish, or pork loin and cook with olive or canola oils instead of butters. Most important limit fried foods.

3.) Plan your meals for the week ahead of time. I recommend the steamer bags of veggies they have out now, they are easy and go with any meal. Try not to keep things like chips, candy, and soda in your pantry; they will only make you hungrier. Try not to be tempted by fast foods. It is so easy today with all the fast food chains we drive by on a daily basis, to just swing through and get a meal. Many of us are always on the go and rushing to get our kid(s) to their activities due to time restraints so we pick the quickest choice, which is fast food. It is okay to treat yourself to something once a week, but make sure you limit the amount you eat.
Why are you a part of Healthy Girls Initiative?
First and foremost I’m trying to be a positive role model for my own daughter and my family by focusing on healthy lifestyle choices – in other words I’m trying to “walk the talk.” At work, my team and I help the HGI and Julia by registering girls for all the great programs that the Healthy Girl Initiative has to offer.

P.S. If anyone would like to support me and my team with the 3-Day Cancer walk I would greatly appreciate it. To make a donation and sponsor me just go to www.The3Day.org put in my name, Alisa Peters and follow the prompts. You can also print the form and mail in a check if you are not comfortable making a contribution on line. My goal is to ask 200 people to make a $10.00 contribution or whatever amount they would like to contribute to sponsor me so I can reach my goal of $2300.00 and complete the journey.



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