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.

Join us for a family fun 10K bike or skate and 5K run or walk to benefit the Sea Turtle Preservation Society. The weather has been great, plan to join the Space Coast in this awesome event.

The Sea Turtle Preservation Society (STPS) is a not-for-profit organization, whose purpose is to educate the public about marine turtles. STPS reaches thousands of people each year through lecture presentations, exhibits at area events, and through our turtle watches during the sea turtle nesting season.

Important Info
Saturday, February 24th at 8:00 am
Driftwood Plaza, 3830 Highway A1A, Melbourne Beach

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.

Sharon Hughes, President of Central Florida Fitness Pros, has a passion for helping people develop a blueprint of holistic, healthy living. She is an architect of positive designs in more ways than one.

About three years ago, Hughes launched her company with the mission of helping people find qualified professionals in the health and fitness field. A personal trainer herself, Hughes remarks, “Having been in health and fitness way too long, I’ve realized that not everyone out there is qualified. Clients don’t know what it means to be qualified.”

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.

The Melbourne Arts Festival puts on the city’s premier running event, the Flamingo Run. 2005 marks its 8th year.

Rain or Shine, the 5K Flamingo Run will be held Saturday, April 23rd at 8 am and will usher in the 21st annual Melbourne Art Festival as the first event of the weekend. Between 1200 and 1500 runners are expected to gather at Holmes Park to take their mark and set off for the 18th annual run.

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.

On March 5th the “Turtle Krawl” Family Fun 5K/10K event will be held at Driftwood Plaza in Melbourne Beach, starting at 8 am.

“Krawling” across the finish is nothing to be ashamed of; This year you may be “krawling” your way to the finish line of a 5K event, but not how you might expect.

It’s a fundraiser entering its 5th year to help support the Sea Turtle Preservation Society. While the event will feature some competitive runners from around our area it’s also a perfect event for families and citizens looking to get outside to help our beachside visitors, the sea turtles.

Parrish Medical Center—one of America’s finest healing environments. Years ago the Parrish Medical Center (PMC) Board of Directors embarked on a journey to build a replacement hospital. They didn’t just want to put up another building. They wanted to provide them with one of America’s finest healing environments.

That dream was realized in November 2002. That same year PMC became one of the first members of the Center for Health Design’s Pebble Project. Together with more than 25 other hospitals and healthcare facilities around the country, we are helping to produce a ripple effect in the healthcare community by providing researched and documented examples of evidence-based building design that is creating life-enhancement for patients, families and staff.

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.

Your Chiropractor’s job is to relieve as much Nerve Impingement Syndrome as possible. By allowing the nervous system freely to transport the nerve impulses throughout your body, you will begin to feel like new again, free to enjoy life to the fullest! Chiropractors work to achieve the highest level of function for your body, relieving the pain, eliminating the symptoms and correcting the cause of those symptoms.

It is never too late to improve your health and well-being. To maintain good health and vitality, try these simple, painless routines.

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.