Healthy News

If you’ve got kids that complain about healthy snacks, it’s time to make healthy snacks more appealing! Here’s a few tips

-Decorate muffins with healthy food such as cream cheese frosting, raisins and peanuts (a great alternative to cupcakes with candy decorations!)

-Make ants on a log with celery, Cheez Whiz and raisins. You can also do this with peanut butter instead

-Make healthy bagel or english muffin pizzas by using chopped vegetables as toppings. You can do the same with fruit for a dessert pizza!

-Make trail mix with healthy stuff but insert just a few treats so the child doesn’t feel completely deprived of junk. Just a few Smarties in with a healthy trail mix or candied peanuts when most of the mix is raisins, nuts, dried fruit, etc can work really well.

A little imagination can help your child eat healthier without their feeling like they’re being deprived of the yummy stuff.

If you’ve come up with great healthy snacks for your kids, feel free to share!

If you’re wound too tight it could impact your health in more ways that one. What do you do when stress is overwhelming? Here are a few tips:

Make a To Do List

Often, feeling overwhelmed can be overcome when you get a real grasp on everything you need to get done. Make a to do list and prioritize it. As you put checkmarks on the list you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment which will take the edge off.

Organize

Disarray can stress you out and make completing tasks take longer. You might feel like you don’t have the time to organize but trust me, taking a few minutes to tidy your environment will remove a weight from your shoulders and enable you to increase your productivity signifiantly!

Stress Release

Get some stress relief! Exercise, clean the house, treat yourself to a little outing. Doing these things can help you burn off nervous energy! Conversely, if you cannot calm down try learning relaxation techniques and doing things like Yoga or Tai Chi.

Take care of yourself by eating well, paying attention to medical red alerts (when something seems ‘off’ in your health) and take one day at a time.

Are you thinking a fad diet could be the start of a great weight loss run for you? Diets advertised online promise to help you lose weight fast. Some offer no exercise or promise you the foods you love. Should you take the plunge?

Diets like the famous internet Fat Loss 4 Idiots Diet make some promises and guarantee positive results so it might be worthwhile. Dieting does take discipline and those who attempt fad diets need to be really careful about not harming their health.

The fact is that sustained weight loss typically only happens with habit changes but a fad diet can help you get the quick results you want that will help you be motivated enough to stick with a healthier lifestyle.

When buying diets online, do look for positive and negative reviews and consider whether or not you can do it on your own or need to pay someone for their advice. Some unique programs may be worth your while but do your due diligence and research your options before taking the plunge.

Instead of eating a 100-calorie chocolate bar that’s known as a ‘tease’ leaving you wanting more (how many of you have eaten 2 or 3 instead of one in a sitting? Exactly!) why not find 100-calorie snacks that are: good for you, satisfying and help you lose or maintain weight.

Try snacks such as:
-popcorn. A big bowl can equal 100 cals and get you full plus satisfy that salty/crunchy craving
-raw vegetables and low fat dip
-a bowl of cereal
-crackers and peanut butter
-yogurt
-fruit
-handful of nuts

If you absolutely need to have chocolate or cookies and want to watch your portion size, of course by all means buy a 100 calorie option but the point of today’s post is that by eating healthier on a regular basis you’ll find your cravings satisfied and new acts will quickly become habits and the junk food cravings will become fewer and further between.

If you watch the tv show, Doctors, you might have seen a recent show about utilising salt caves for help with asthma. If you haven’t seen the episode and are interested, there are many holistic benefits of visiting a salt cave including asthma help, help with sinus problems and with emphysema.

Many people who regularly visited salt mines with respiratory problems saw a dramatic decrease in breathing problems and reduced their need to use inhalers.

In many areas, salt caves are places you can visit for intervals and there are new devices being invented to mimic salty air for aero chambers as well as salt pipes.

Get your immune system ready now before winter germs set in. Here are some tips:

-Take a multivitamin daily
-Clean the house well before you let it get air tight for Winter
-Use coconut oil. It’s proven as an immune system builder
-Eat more fruits and vegetables
-Wash your hands often
-Get a physical
-Make sure you’re getting enough sleep
-Get enough exercise

Avoiding getting run down can minimize your chances of getting sick and we all know how important diet and exercise is for our immune systems. Eat immune system boosting foods like coconut, vitamin C, probiotics and prebiotics and drink plenty of water as well. Getting healthier now will get you through the winter with reduced chances of illness.

Are you listening to your hypothalamus when it tells you that you’re full? A lot of people either don’t give it a chance to communicate with them or eat food that prevents it from doing its job.

A lot of the causes of an unhealthy digestive system result from consuming food too fast. If you are eating on the run all the time and eating mindlessly in front of the TV, you could harm your digestive health and it’ll result in increased portions which could lead to weight gain over time.

Let the hypothalamus tell you when you’re full by taking time to eat. It takes about 20 minutes for your brain to get the message so if you wolf down your food in ten minutes, you’re probably going to be on seconds before your brain has had a chance to say it has had enough after the first plate.

Some foods, like high fructose corn syrup can block messages between the hypothalamus and the brain so could result in your overeating anyway. Reduce consumption of foods with this ingredient; especially when it’s near the top of the ingredient list.

Sometimes it’s difficult to get your 5-10 a day servings of vegetables and fruits and that’s where juicing can help. Not only can you get a lot more intake of this essential food group but you can even make the vegetables you don’t love so much taste better by the combinations you come up with.

Juicing Benefits

There’s a huge list of health benefits to juicing and some research has even been done about healing powers to the degree of solving cancer with specific juice blends done at a specific speed for maximizing the enzyme power of the juice.

Weight Loss

If you’ve ever tried juicing you also know that fresh juices can also be very filling and result in decreased appetite which can have the extra benefit of weight loss or weight maintenance.

Drinking fresh juice each day could also practically turn back the clock on your body’s aging both inside and out. By eating a lot of antioxidants you can definitely lengthen not only your lifespan but slow the look of aging as well.

Tea is very helpful for you. Let’s have a look at oolong tea. Oolong is also known as wulong tea and is being sold all over the internet today as a weight loss aid. Many teas can aid in your metabolism. Let’s look at several other potential benefits of oolong:

-Helps prevent dental cavities
-antioxidants
-antibacterial
-fights free radicals (anti Cancer)
-anti-inflammatory benefits
-anti-aging

Tea can be very beneficial to your health. Drinking green tea, white tea, black tea and oolong is a great idea. If you’re sensitive to caffeine, don’t overdo it on the tea. Try replacing one cup of coffee a day with a healthy tea beverage.

Here are several things you can do to shorten the cycle of being sick. The biggest secret is to listen to your body and rest.

-Vitamin C. Take some and eat foods rich in it
-Gingerale really does soothe a sore throat
-Chicken Noodle Soup really can help you feel better
-Echinacea can help you
-White tea can kill throat infections and soothe a sore throat
-Expectorant instead of cough suppressants. Try to clear the gunk instead of keeping it lodged in your chest.

And again:
-Rest. Slow down so you have a chance to get better

At the first sign of illness I drink white tea and put peroxide in my ears because there are beliefs that cold viruses can enter the body through the ears. Often I avoid illness altogether. Frequent hand washing can minimize the spread of germs as well.