Health & Wellness

Breakfasts with teachers associations or other groups can begin some mornings as early as 7:30 for Delegate Ward Armstrong. For the Collinsville resident, the General Assembly session is not the easiest time for an individual who wants to maintain the fit and trim shape that he attained during the latter months of spring after the 2006 legislative session.

To find the necessary energy to make it through days in the capital city that sometimes stretch into the late hours of the night, he finds time for the gym. As one of the few individuals putting in the effort to do so in the early morning hours, Mr. Armstrong doesn’t have to fight for the elliptical machine that he found integral to his loss of 30 lbs. before the midsummer of 2006. If one is to have enough meals to last throughout the day, one has to cut fats without depriving oneself of one’s needed 2000 calories a day. The Delegate says that he finds room for six meals a day: three protein shakes and three smaller meals in which Mr. Armstrong watches his carbohydrate intake. Telling himself that he isn’t hungry enough to eat large meals is the key to this delicate balancing act that Delegate Armstrong carries out each legislative session.

Since his recent weight loss, the Delegate has become a champion of general health and wellness issues that affect citizens from across the Commonwealth. During the 2007 session, Mr. Armstrong introduced a bill that aimed to create a study group that would observe the conditions that lead to childhood obesity. One such catalyst is the use of trans fats in our children’s school-bought lunches. For this reason, Delegate Armstrong co-patroned a bill that aimed to ban all trans fats in lunches served by the school itself. The wellness of the Commonwealth’s children also rests on their level of activity, especially our gym programs.