Found While Doing Some Research Today..

About 80% of Health Care $$$ spent is related to:
Smoking, Over consumption of alcohol, Bad dietary choice, Lack of physical activity, Stress-related disoders

PREVENTION!
"Although immunization and screening tests remain important preventive services, the most promising role for prevention in current medical practice may lie in changing the personal health behaviors of patients long before clinical disease develops."

10 Good Reasons to Eat Organic

First this is not my two cents and I don't know who to give credit to for writing this but here goes because I liked it:

1.  TREAT YOUR BODY LIKE A TEMPLE
We are what we eat.  And if we want food grown as if the biology inside counted, look to organic food.

2.  INCREASE AGRICULTURAL DIVERSITY
Eating organic helps preserve thousands of agricultural varieties not accommodated by industrial agriculture.

3.  CREATE BALANCED ECOLOGICAL COMMUNITIES
The community of life extends from the rich microbial ecosystem in living organic soil to the insect, animal and predator communities, all linked together in an interdependent web of life.

4.  WE HAVE CHOICES
Where do the pesticides; herbicides and fungicides go after agribusiness sprays them on food?  Everything goes somewhere: in our water, our land, our atmosphere and our bodies.

5.  AVOID BEING A GENETIC ENGINEERING EXPERIMENT
Only organic food offers us the ability to sidestep the risks of genetically engineered food.  Genetic engineering tampers with a process which took nature billions of years to evolve.  We think it opens Pandora's Box.  Will the genie fit back in?

6.  CREATE A SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY
It only takes about ten families eating organic to support one small-scale organic farm.

7.  BLOSSOM THE PLANET
Our farmland is a thin web of living earth blanketing the planet.  It needs to be nurtured and protected.

8.  LEAVE A LEGACY FOR OUR CHILDREN
How do we expect to have seven generations follow us if we don't provide them a healthy future?

9.  MAKE YOUR CONNECTION
Who planned your last bite of food?  You get a tangible and edible relationship with the living Earth every time you eat organic.

10.  YUM!
Top chefs agree: "You need great tasting ingredients to make great tasting food."

Carbohydrates, Carbs, The Good, The Bad, The Ugly!

Carbohydrates (good vs bad)

Carbohydrates also known as Carbs pretty much come in two varieties. 

COMPLEX (aka “good”) or SIMPLE (aka "bad") based on their chemical makeup and what your body does with them.  My body craves carbs!  Ugh!  And the more simple carbs I eat the more carbs I want!   

COMPLEX carbs, like whole grains and legumes, contain longer chains of sugar molecules; these usually take more time for the body to break down and use. This, in turn, provides you with a more even amount of energy.

SIMPLE carbs are composed of simple-to-digest, basic sugars with little real value for your body. The higher in sugar and lower in fiber, the worse the carbohydrate is for you.

Fruits and vegetables are simple carbohydrates ~ still composed of basic sugars, although they are drastically different from other foods in the category, like cookies and cakes. The fiber in fruits and vegetables changes the way that the body processes their sugars and slows down their digestion, making them a bit more like complex carbohydrates.

Describing carbs as being either simple or complex is one way to classify them, but nutritionists and dietitians now use another concept to guide people in making decisions about the carbs they choose to eat.


The glycemic index of a food basically tells you how quickly and how high your blood sugar will rise after eating the carbohydrate contained in that food, as compared to eating pure sugar. Lower glycemic index foods are healthier for your body, and you will tend to feel full longer after eating them. Most, but not all, complex carbs fall into the low glycemic index category.


The bottom line: Just be sensible about the carbs you choose. Skip low-nutrient dessert, consider the levels of sugar and fiber in carbs, and focus on healthy whole grains, fruits, and veggies to get the energy your body needs every day.

Note to self:   those carbs in that there bottle of coffee creamer are obviously SIMPLE and HIGH on the glycemic index!  Just reminding myself to back away from the java fix.

How many carbs should you eat a day?  The fact is that there is no one carb level that will be best for everyone.  So why not take some lifestyle change baby steps for yourself?  Switch from that white rice to brown rice.  Switch from that coffee creamer to half and half or skim milk.  Switch from that white bread to a whole grain bread.  And start backing off foods with High-fructose corn syrup ~ when you start reading the label you will find this added to almost everything!  That will be another blog!

Lifestyle change, baby steps, live-it not diet, YOU can make a difference in YOURSELF!

What To Research And Blog...

So many topics running through my head!

Carbohydrates (good vs bad)
Success (how do you define it)
Goals (setting and keeping them)
Mental Health (where's your head)
Fiber (enough said)
What To Eat and What To Avoid  (olives anyone?!)

Gonna have to pick one and go for it....I'll be back!

Label Reading 101

"But I don’t eat that much"  ….well OK, maybe not but let’s just look @ how you start your day....

Breakfast:  Ensure, Orange Juice, Banana and Special K cereal with milk.

 

567 Calories,  117.8 Carbohydrates - for breakfast....think about it.  (This doesn't calculate the calories or the carbohydrates in the milk you poured over your cereal)


READ the label peeps!! 

What Is Wellness?

well·ness  (noun)

1.  The quality or state of being healthy in body and mind, especially as the result of deliberate effort.

2.  An approach to healthcare that emphasizes preventing illness and prolonging life, as opposed to emphasizing treating diseases.

Wellness: 

An active, lifelong process of educating ourselves and making choices that will lead to better health.

Is about embracing a way of life; an individual lifestyle based on one's own abilities, interests and habits.

Encompasses choices about our lives, our work, our families and our priorities that influence our lifestyles.

Is about our physical, emotional, spiritual, and nutritional well being not just about diet and exercise.

So How'd That Food Journal Work Out For You??

Did you keep it for a week?
Did it help you pinpoint some eating problem times?
What ya think?
Gonna do it again this week?


I found for myself it was an excellent tool to show my perfection mess of an eating plan I have!  Oh wait, I have no plan so that is part of the problem.  Let me just say each morning started out well.  Same boring thing.  Java times two.  Lunch was later in the day and usually kicked off an eating frenzy until bedtime.  ;-(  By Friday I stopped writing in my journal all together.  Here it is Tuesday and did I start writing anything this week?  um no.  As I have declared already I know what to do, how to do it but I don't always do that which is right when it comes to my own wellness.  So what am I gonna do the rest of the day today?  Track my food intake!  Why wait until the morning?!  Are you with me?  I have stumbled ~ thanks for picking me up so we can carry on together!