March 2015

By Eileen Johnson Do you often end up with a cold or flu during this most exciting time of the year? Here are some tips for reducing your risk of getting sick during the holidays. Develop a plan and write it out ahead of time. Purchase a day planner and turn it into a “healthy holiday” planner. Include your plan for healthy meals and desserts, exercise times, and moments for relaxation. Plan to include plenty of antioxidants and minerals in your diet every day. These can be found in a variety of fruits and vegetables – The more colorful variety, the better! Create a menu and write out a specific grocery list that will help you to plan healthy, well balanced meals during this busy time and not rely on pizza orders and trips to fast food restaurants. During the busy

By Eileen Johnson With gluten sensitivity (celiac disease), the structure of the intestinal wall deteriorates and absorption of nutrients from the food that is eaten is compromised. Very common signs of this disease include chronic diarrhea, failure to gain weight in children or weight loss as an adult, anemia and a skin rash. Other than celiac, people may also experience gluten intolerance, in which any of the possible signs of food intolerance might appear. These include more vague symptoms like fatigue, muscle or joint pain, digestive discomfort or depression. How often do we struggle against something new, only to find great joy and relief when we make a needed change in our lives? This may be true when making the change to a gluten free diet. For those who are sensitive to gluten, the process can be confusing and difficult, but the

By Eileen Johnson Summer is an easy time to fit exercise into a child’s day. They more naturally fill their summer hours with playing outside, swimming, biking, skateboarding, and sports. During the school year, studies and extra-curricular activities keep them busy and the cold winter weather makes it less appealing to go outside. At the same time, studies are showing a strong correlation between activity and academic achievement in our children and adolescents. .http://saferoutespartnership.org/resourcecenter/research/the-relationship-between-physical-activity-weight-and-academic-achievement I  dedicate this article to my grandfather who, well into his 70’s, would invite neighbor kids over to jump rope in the yard and see who could jump the most, the fastest, the fanciest, etc.  The kids loved it, and it brought the community together to feel more like a family. Consider these ideas for keeping your kids active during the school year: Find out how often your child

By Eileen Johnson Summer is an easy time to fit exercise into a child’s day. They more naturally fill their summer hours with playing outside, swimming, biking, skateboarding, and sports. During the school year, studies and extra-curricular activities keep them busy and the cold winter weather makes it less appealing to go outside. At the same time, studies are showing a strong correlation between activity and academic achievement in our children and adolescents. .http://saferoutespartnership.org/resourcecenter/research/the-relationship-between-physical-activity-weight-and-academic-achievement I  dedicate this article to my grandfather who, well into his 70’s, would invite neighbor kids over to jump rope in the yard and see who could jump the most, the fastest, the fanciest, etc.  The kids loved it, and it brought the community together to feel more like a family. Consider these ideas for keeping your kids active during the school year: Find out how often your child

By Eileen Johnson Who has time for breakfast? This used to be a question that many adults would ask each other but, unfortunately, this has increasingly become a question that children as young as elementary and preschool age also ask. Some children are up late doing school work after sports or watching TV and playing video games long after the time when past generations of children were sound asleep. Due to these late night activities, children are no longer awakened by the rising sun. They sleep in on school mornings and get up just in time to dress and run out the door. Later evening meals and snacking has killed the once robust appetites that children had for a healthy morning breakfast. The American Dietetics Association States that a healthy breakfast will help children to: Have better problem-solving skills and hand-eye coordination

By Eileen Johnson I took a very deep breath before beginning this article as I considered the thousands of ways one can define, perceive, and cope with stressors in one’s life. For this article, I have named simple lifestyle changes that may help to effectively manage negative reactions to everyday stressors.  As always, please remember that this information is not meant to take the place of a practitioner’s advice or prescription medicines How might chronic negative stress affect your life? Chronic stress can increase blood sugar and dampen the ability of the body cells to use dietary carbohydrates. This can precede type two diabetes. There is a loose link between stress, the release of more “free fatty acids” in the body and a disposition to diabetes. This link is presently under study.  The body tears down muscle as an energy source during

By Eileen Johnson Many warnings can be heard in the media about the growing number of people diagnosed with type two (previously called adult onset) diabetes, including a significant number of adolescents. 21 million Americans have diabetes, about 6 million are undiagnosed. Complications include heart disease and stroke, high blood pressure, blindness, kidney disease and heartbreaking amputations. Lifestyle changes can significantly affect your chances of preventing this disease or controlling the disease after diagnosis. Start with our children Help children set up great habits at an early age and get used to whole foods that don’t have to be heavily salted or sweetened.  Include fresh vegetables and fruits, fresh nuts, grass fed or free range meats and deep sea fish, whole grains and unadulterated dairy products in their diet. Cook with omega 9 rich oils like grape seed or olive oil, and

By Eileen Johnson We all know the importance of staying active, even during the coldest months of the year. Were you aware that it is crucial to your health to maintain or build muscle strength into older years? Research has shown that as we age, particularly as we enter the 40’s, we start to lose muscle strength, endurance, and mass. Loss of muscle size and strength can trigger a downward cycle of decreased physical activity, insulin resistance and type two diabetes, obesity, cholesterol imbalance, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. It also can result in bone loss and a general increased frailty of health and likelihood of injury. Research is showing how we can reverse much of this loss through consistent and carefully crafted lifestyle habits! Here are four points to keep in mind: A Healthy Cardiovascular System. The cardiovascular system can have

By Eileen Johnson How many of us love the holidays but get nervous when anticipating the pounds that will be packed on with very little thought as to how it happened? Two years ago I heard Brian Wansink, Ph.D., a professor at Cornel University and head of their Food and Brand Lab, talk about “Mindless Eating” and how our environment actually shapes how much and what we eat. He feels people make over 200 eating decisions each day, most without really thinking. This leads to nutritional mistakes and contributes to the increase in obesity rates. His book “Mindless Eating – Why We Eat More Than We Think” – cites numerous studies which show how the environment affects the number of calories we consume. One study was carried out at a movie theater on the East Coast. Adults were given either a medium

By Eileen Johnson Cardiovascular disease signals inflammation that has gotten out of hand. Building a healthy heart includes quenching that fire! Pick healthy carbohydrates! Refined sugars and grains fan the flames of cardiovascular problems but deciding how to live without them and still maintain energy levels may be a challenge. Start slowly by adding nutrient-rich fruits and vegetables to your diet. Make a plan for how you will include 5-10 servings of fruits and vegetables each day by including them at every meal and in your smoothies, salads and snacks. Use iPhone reminders or try the website   www.sparkpeople.com to track progress. You will soon experience a feeling of energy and clear-mindedness that will help you achieve the rest of these steps! Fiber up! Strive for 25-35 grams of fiber in your diet every day. (Most of us get about 6-8 grams)  You will find 3grams in the