Good Both Inside & Out!

Eating Fresh Healthy Foods doesn’t just make you feel great---it can help you look great! Tomatoes are loaded with antioxidant lycopene which helps protect skin form sun damage.  The antioxidant EGCG found in green tea does also.  Strawberries are packed with Vitamin C which has a key role in producing skin plumping collagen.  Think spring and go for some fresh healthy treats.

Healthier Academy Awards Treats

You can have great party food and still eat healthy.  When making dips, use neufchatel or light cream  cheese instead of full fat & substitute Fat Free Sour Cream for Full Fat---after you jazz up the dip with chopped garlic, onions, leeks or whatever---you won't be able to taste the difference.

Instead of everything pizza with double cheese, try mushroom or other veggie toppings and save your heart a couple of globs of saturated fat.

Think "I am" rather than "I want to be"

Making "healthy eating & fitness" part of your IDENTITY rather than thinking "I need to lose weight/eat better" is key to increased wellness.  What you think, and tell yourself does show up in your behavior.  So, your "self talk" needs to be positive. 

National Wear Red Day ~ Heart Disease is #1 Killer of Women

Friday is National Wear Red Day.
Help the mission to fight heart disease in women, by telling your girlfriends, wife, Mom, sisters, and all the women you care about.  More than 500,000 women die in the U.S. each year of cardiovascular disease, making it, not breast cancer (40,000 deaths annually), their No. 1 killer.

Women can modify their lifestyle to control or treat risk factors for heart disease.
Visit this website to access risk factors:  http://www.goredforwomen.org/understand_your_risks.aspx?id=530&tm=vascular+disease

Reduce the Salt & Reduce the Risk

On Jan 13th, the American Heart Association  issued a call to action for the public, health professionals, the food industry and the government  "to intensify efforts to reduce the amount of sodium (salt) Americans consume daily.In an advisory, published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, the association sets out the science behind the American Heart Association’s recommendation for the general population, which is to consume no more than 1500 milligrams (mg) of sodium a day because of the harmful effects of sodium – elevated blood pressure and increased risk of stroke, heart attacks and kidney disease. Elevated blood pressure (hypertension) is a major public health problem – approximately 90 percent of all Americans will develop hypertension over their lifetime."

One teaspoon of salt provides 2300mg of sodium---close to twice what the AHA recommends per day.  Much sodium is consumed in restaurants, and packaged foods.  When you cook at home, use more fresh herbs to enrich the flavors of foods, and it will be easier to use less salt.  For more hints click here.  

Specific info helpful---or hit the Easy Button

The U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services will hold a joint press on Monday, January 31, at George Washington University, in Washington, D.C., to release the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.  I'll post excerpts from those guidelines-----
In the mean time--Hit the Easy Button--and eat lower on the food chain.
(i.e.... baked potatoes instead of making  a box of potatoes au gratin)
The less processing the better.

Nutrition Thoughts

Don't worry, the resolution you made can still become a reality.  Think of foods you know intuitively are Fresh & Nutrient Rich choices.  Sit down and write a story of how you will live and enjoy more of those foods over the next two weeks.  Use positive energetic words to describe the upcoming weeks of your life.  Believing can lead to seeing.