Tips to Avoid Holiday Weight Gain

The average American tends to gain 1-2 pounds over the holiday season.  This may not sound like much but most people don’t lose that weight after the season ends, and it just accumulates year after year. Here are a few steps you can take to avoid the extra weight that creeps up on us in between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. 

Most importantly, be aware of what you eat and how much. Allow yourself to indulge in holiday foods and treats a little, but always in moderation. Eat slowly and savor your food, this aids digestion and makes it less likely that you will overeat.

Make gatherings about socializing and not about food. Have something healthy before a party, like a BōKU® smoothie. Flooding blood with nutrition just before diving in will go a long way toward avoiding over indulgence and give you more energy for having fun! Also, don’t stand around the food or snack while making small talk; get more involved in your conversations and you won’t want to eat to fill silences. You’ll have a much better time and maybe even make a friend or two.

Try to find opportunities for exercise (go for a walk after dinner, take an extra lap around the store while holiday shopping) even 5-15 minutes a day is better than nothing. Try to manage stress by having a buffet style or potluck dinner so you don’t feel overwhelmed, and make sure to take some time for yourself when you need it. Regular exercise will help with this too.

Also limit your intake of alcohol as well as food, and drink plenty of water. Drinks are full of empty calories and may lessen your willpower causing you to eat more than you should. One can also come up with their own creative ways to remind themselves to exercise and eat in moderation. For instance you can wear snug fitting clothes so you can feel them tighten when you’ve had enough to eat, brush your teeth to keep from going back for more food, or leave little notes around the house reminding you to go for that jog.

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan Rave!

Michael Pollan's 2008 book In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto was his follow up to 2006's The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. The latter remaining #1 on the New York Times Non-Fiction Bestseller List for an astounding six weeks!
That likely means that many people are interested in what Pollan is writing about: the need for people to eat real food

Pollan asserts why food itself needs defending:

"Because most of what we're consuming today is not food, and how we're consuming it -- in the car, in front of the TV, and increasingly alone -- is not really eating. Instead of food, we're consuming "edible foodlike substances" -- no longer the products of nature but of food science. Many of them come packaged with health claims that should be our first clue they are anything but healthy. In the so-called Western diet, food has been replaced by nutrients, and common sense by confusion. The result is what Michael Pollan calls the American paradox: The more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we seem to become."

This is definitely a message that needs to be spread far and wide to help change people's minds about what is actually food, and what isn't. This is how we can become as healthy as possible.

In Defense of Food can be found at any local brick and mortar or online bookstore and in many libraries.  If you'd just like to learn more about Michael Pollan, his books or to see his ongoing public speaking schedule visit:
www.michaelpollan.com

Great Article About How to Stay Organic During Winter!

On Discovery's Planet Green site, writer and healthy living spokesperson Laurel House poses the question: What's a green produce devotee supposed to do when farmer's markets close down during winter months? 

"You leave your home, reusable bag in hand, to take your weekly stroll over to the local farmer's market to load up on farm fresh organic produce. There is a slight chill in the air but the weather has yet to make an impact on your life. And suddenly, now it has. Your farmer's market is shut down for the season. For the next 6 months it will be markedly harder to get green greens into your diet. What's an organically obsessed veggie lover to do?"


House continues by giving some awsesome tips for keeping your diet greena and organic when the farmer's markets are no longer an option, and even a super healthy smoothie recipe!


Read the whole thing here: 
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/food-health/powdered-greens-farmers-market.html

Remember to Eat Your Greens!

Everyone is crazy about “Going Green” to save the environment today.  But “Going Green” is not just for our environment…Going Green inside is just as important for your health!

No one can refute, the foundation of great health is great nutrition…And the best way to fight disease, is to prevent it.

In the beginning of time, our ancient ancestors ate up to six pounds of green leaves per day.  Imagine them walking along from one place to another, just picking and eating leaves as they went. Can you imagine eating a grocery bag full of greens each and every day? Very few of us even eat the minimum USDA recommendations of 3 cups of dark green vegetables per week. And yet, these vegetables deliver a bounty of vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients.

Why are Greens so good for you?

Dark green leafy vegetables are, calorie for calorie, perhaps the most concentrated source of nutrition of any food. They are a rich source of minerals (including iron, calcium, potassium, and magnesium) and vitamins, including vitamins K, C, E, and many of the B vitamins. They also provide a variety of phytonutrients including beta-carotene, lutein, and zeaxanthin, which protect our cells from damage and our eyes from age-related problems, among many other effects. Dark green leaves even contain small amounts of Omega-3 fats.

Perhaps the star of these nutrients is Vitamin K. A cup of most cooked greens provides at least nine times the minimum recommended intake of Vitamin K, and even a couple of cups of dark salad greens usually provide the minimum all on their own. Recent research has provided evidence that this vitamin may be even more important than we once thought (the current minimum may not be optimal), and many people do not get enough of it.

Vitamin K:

•  Regulates blood clotting
•  Helps protect bones from osteoporosis
•  May help prevent and possibly even reduce atherosclerosis by reducing calcium in arterial plaques    
• May be a key regulator of inflammation, and may help protect us from inflammatory diseases including arthitis
• May help prevent diabetes

So, what now?  Eat a grocery bag full of greens everyday?

The reality is, it’s nearly impossible to eat a grocery bag full of green produce per day, but there are options for the consumer:  Fresh Juicing Greens is a terrific method of preserving all the natural goodness of greens, but most people find this inconvenient and very expensive.  My preferred method of getting my greens is in quality powder form, such as BOKU Superfood.  BOKU Superfood is rich in natural greens, but also much much more.  It also saves me money because it is basically $1 per serving. 

No matter what method you choose, make sure all your greens are certified organic! 

Healthy Recipes - Fruity Veggie Smoothie

Ingredients:

1 banana
1 cup favorite fruit
(grapes, nectarines, apples)
3 big leaves of anything dark green and leafy
(spinach, Swiss chard, amaranth)
1 heaping scoop of BõKU™ Super Food
2 cups almond milk

Directions:

Blend the fruit using just enough water to cover it. Then add the greens (cut up into medium size pieces) and BõKU™ and blend until it’s completely blended.
Pour a tall glass about 2/3 full of this mixture, top it off with almond milk and stir!

Breast Cancer Diet Connection

In honor of the 25th National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, this article will discuss the likely relationship between breast cancer and diet. While there may be nothing that we can do guarantee that we will not get breast cancer in the future, there is a host of studies that report that there are several lifestyle changes that we can make to reduce risk.

As far as diet is concerned, research seems to confirm common sense. According to a September 2009 study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, (Meat, dairy, and breast cancer: do we have an answer?) that women who stuck to what they called a “prudent” diet tend to have a lower risk for breast cancer. Researchers Eleni Linos and Walter Willet define this “prudent” diet as one that is rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fish and low in red and processed meats, starchy carbohydrates and sweets.  During their study they found that with pre-menopausal, normal-weight women the risk for cancer declined as their scores on the “prudent” diet scale rose. In fact, those with the most prudent diets lessened their risk by a third!

There was little evidence that the more “prudent” diet lowered risk among postmenopausal or overweight women, although it was liked to a generally lower risk of estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer — an aggressive type of tumor that accounts for about one-third of breast cancers.

Some common healthy foods that are believed to help prevent cancer are whole grains, cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower), spinach, berries, tomatoes, garlic, mushrooms, ginger, green and black teas. Some foods to avoid or cut down on would be red meat, sugar, anything fried, foods that contain hydrogenated oils, such as stick margarine.

However, eating healthy food is not the only lifestyle choice that one can make that may reduce their risk of developing cancer. Another is exercising regularly, the American Cancer Society suggests 45-60 minutes of exercise 5 or more days a week. Losing weight if you are overweight is also beneficial, as is maintaining a healthy weight after menopause. Limit your intake of alcohol. Studies have found that having one or more drinks a day will increase a woman’s risk of developing hormone-sensitive (ER+/PR+) tumor, this type accounts for roughly 70% of women diagnosed with breast cancer.

It is also very important to obtain a breast cancer risk assessment from a physician as well as an annual clinical breast exam. One should also remember to perform monthly breast self exams and make sure to get regular mammography screening once turning 40 years old.
Also, try to find a healthy way to manage the stress in your life and try to keep a positive mind set as often as possible. There isn’t a lot of evidence that this keeps the cancer away, but it certainly couldn’t hurt!

Where Does Your Sugar Come From?

Pictures are worth thousands of words. Just something to ponder from sugarstacks.com...