Have a Healthy Valentine's Day

The most sugar-coated holiday gets a healthy makeover.

By Amanda MacFarlane, Marketing Intern

When I think of Valentine’s Day, the first thing that comes to my mind is chocolate and candy. Since I was a kid, it was almost a rite of passage to send people bright red lollipops or boxes of sugar hearts with cute messages on them: Be Mine, UR A QT, and my personal favorite for the digital age – Text Me. Now that I’m older, the sugar rush has moved to the grocery store in heart-shaped boxes, in baskets, in crazy multi-flavored towers all lining the aisles in shades of pink and red.

We’re all trying to say it as loud as we can with our sugary sweet gifts – “I love you.”

However, with claims flooding the news space every day on the negative effects of added sugars in our diets affecting everything from how long you live to your relationship with food, it seems that we’ve gotten our messages mixed. Not to mention with the fitness kick that always hits in the spring, it can be hard to keep your workout goals with everyone you love sending you all kinds of sweets.

So this year at IT’S TIME TEXAS, we ask you to consider to give the gift of health this Valentine’s Day – to show encouragement and support when someone you love is trying to make healthy choices for the better.

Show your loved one you care by sharing your favorite resources and tips. Our favorite resource is our Living Healthier Coach Hotline. This FREE service offers health coaching and motivational support to all Texans. It’s a great way to access information, referrals for resources, and stay on track.

Whether it’s with a small bag of apple slices in your kid’s lunch box or a protein bar with a bow on top for a special someone before heading off to work, to get you started, we made free healthy Valentine’s Day cards you can print off and attach to any healthy gift this Valentine’s Day. You can send them off to your kids’ school and never have to worry about if you’re giving sweets to a child of a health-conscious parent, or if they’re allergic to nuts, or if they even like chocolate at all.

More importantly, this gift says more than just “I love you.” It says, “I care about your health and support your journey,” and that’s more than any candy bar from the store can ever say.

Download our Valentines Day cards here >>