Saturday, October 31, 2009

Five Good Things to Add to Your Diet

1. Antioxidants -- Found in brightly colored fruits and vegies, nuts, fish and whole grains. These boost your immune system, reduce damage caused by free-radicals, help prevent heart disease, macualar degeneration, diabetes and cancer.

2. Omega 3 Fats -- Found in flaxseed, walnuts, squash, soy, or in supplement form such as fish oil capsules. Improve brain function, promote healthy vascualar function, helps prevent Alzheimers and depression.

3. Fiber -- Found in oatmeal, whole grains, dry beans, raw fruits and vegies. Aids digestion, rids body of built up waste products, helps maintain or lose weight by feeling full longer.

4. Olive Oil -- Eat olives or cook with extra virgin olive oil, 1 Tbsp. per day. Promotes healthy skin and hair, lowers bad cholesterol, helps reduce risk of skin and breast cancers.

5. Multi-vitamin -- If you are a woman under 50, take one with iron. None of us gets the amount of vitamins and minerals we need from food, so be sure to take a supplement.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Five foods to avoid

Avoid these five foods to look and feel healthy:

1. High Fructose Corn Syrup -- HFCS is found in many packaged and processed foods, and in most soft drinks. It was invented in the 1970's to be a cheap replacement for sugar and to make the shelf life of foods longer. Because it is in a liquid form, it can be easily incorporated into foods that never had sugar in them before, like wheat bread or spaghetti sauce.

2. Refined Sugar -- Sugar is just empty calories that make you crave more and more sugar.

3. "Enriched" Flour -- There is basically no nutritional value in this - all the important vitamins and minerals have been removed. White breads, cereals and pastas all contain enriched flour.

4. Saturated Fats -- Found in fatty meats and anything deep fried.

5. Trans Fats -- These are also known as hydrogenated fats. Hydrogen is added to them to keep them solid at room temperature and therefore makes them last longer on the shelf. These are not natural in food, and our bodies do not know how to break them down. This can lead to illness, weight gain, heart problems, etc. Trans fats are found in margarine, butter and many processed foods.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Making Healthy Food Choices

The greatest thing you can do for your body is to eat healthy foods. Eating a variety of fresh foods in all colors, flavors and textures will help you feel more alive! If what you are eating was recently alive, you will feel alive when you eat it. If it has been in a package on a shelf in a store for months and months (in other words, dead), chances are you will not feel very well after eating it.
Avoid the center aisles of the grocery store. That is where all the packaged, processed and canned things are that are bad for you. Shop the perimeter where there are fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy and frozen foods. (Fresh is better than frozen, but frozen is better than canned.)

Also, try to get 7 to 8 hours of sleep every night. When your body lacks sleep, it will crave carbs to keep it going. This leads to making bad food choices.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Why am I worthy of getting healthy?

This is a question you need to ask yourself: Why am I worthy of getting healthy now? For me the answer was my family. I take good care of my husband and my children, my mom, my cat, my home, etc. But if I want to be able to continue to take such good care of them, I need to take care of myself. If I don't, soon they will be taking care of me. I was given a healthy body at birth as a gift from a loving Heavenly Father. It is my responsibility to take good care of it and honor it so it can take good care of my spirit while I am here on earth. So, why are you worthy of getting healthy now?

Saturday, October 24, 2009

This is a blog about my journey toward being well. It is a journey that I have been on for a while now, and one I am continuing to take. I wanted to share some of my experiences and things I have learned along the way. I am by no means an expert, I just love learning about ways I can be more healthy and make healthier choices for my family. Even making small changes can make a big difference, but you have to be committed to making permanent changes to your lifestyle. If you try to change everything all at once, you will become discouraged and stop trying. So this is my path to wellness. I hope it will help inspire someone else to start on their journey too.