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April 24, 2025

Healthy Popsicles That Make Summer Sweeter

Consider the humble popsicle. A nostalgic symbol of sticky fingers, grass-stained knees, and that sweet relief on a blazing summer day. But here’s t

April 16, 2025

Time to Reflect, Release, Move Forward

Whether you celebrate Easter, Passover, or simply welcome the longer, brighter days of spring, this time of year invites reflection. It’s a season o

April 10, 2025

How to Stop “Night Worrying”

Ever find yourself lying in bed, staring at the ceiling while your mind races through tomorrow’s to-do list, replaying conversations, or wondering i

April 2, 2025

Four Cheers for Angelos and a Birthday Recipe to Reel You In

If you’ve been following my blog for several years, you may recall my weekly posts that were written comparing the size of my friend’s baby in ute

March 27, 2025

Springtime Tips for Home and Health

Spring is here, bringing longer days, warmer sunshine, and the perfect opportunity to refresh our spaces and our diets. Just as nature renews itself,

March 20, 2025

Spring into Spring

The spring (vernal) equinox happens on Thursday, March 20 at 5:01 A.M. EDT, marking the moment when the sun crosses directly over the Earth’s eq

March 12, 2025

Natural Ways to Tackle Seasonal Allergies

Seasonal allergies occur when your immune system mistakenly identifies harmless substances—like pollen from trees, grasses, or weeds—as dangerous

March 6, 2025

Why Extra Virgin Olive Oil is the Kitchen MVP

When it comes to cooking oils, not all are created equal. While seed and vegetable oils like soybean, corn, safflower, and canola are common in proces

February 27, 2025

Are You Stuck in the “I’ll Start Tomorrow” Loop?

Ever told yourself, “That’s it! Tomorrow, I’m eating healthy!” And then tomorrow shows up, and you think, “Eh, maybe next week.” Guess wha

February 20, 2025

Simplifying Dinner with HelloFresh

I recently stayed with a friend and when I offered to cook dinner, she presented me with a brown paper bag that said “HelloFresh” on the outside.

What’s Really in My Food? Label Reading 101

Eating healthy would be easier if what we saw was actually what we got, right? We see lettuce, we get lettuce; an apple is simply that, an apple.apples-214148_640 The food industry has come a long way since the days of bartering butter for eggs, but like everything in life, with the good comes the not so good. And so it is with food.

This topic is very lengthy. Here is a very brief overview and I will go into more detail over the course of future blogs.

Serving Size. This fact makes me laugh. If I had offered my adolescent sons “one serving” of pasta or cereal, I would have been accused of starving my children. Most of us adults consume a quantity of food that is more than we actually need. The problem occurs when we believe that we only had one serving and we probably ate twice that. Remember February’s Habit and stop at 80% full.

Ingredients. It is true that these are listed in order of the highest content first. Be wary of this list when it is as long as your arm. When you can’t pronounce the words and have no idea what they are, odds are you shouldn’t eat it.  sherlock-holmes-147255_640

Natural, Real Juice, Healthy. Food companies love to use these words in their names and on the labels. Whatever is inside the box or bottle is perceived to go along with these claims. Read the Nutrition Facts.

AHA (American Heart Association) Trademark. A food or beverage may be considered ok for your heart health, but may not good for the rest of you.

Trans fats. If the label reads “partially hydrogenated vegetable oil,” “shortening,” “hydrogenated vegetable oil,” “margarine,” then you are eating trans fats. Eating these contributes to a variety of health issues. You can typically find trans fats in various baked goods, fried foods, crackers, cookies, some soups, dressings, oh the list goes on. And don’t assume because it reads “Zero Trans Fat” that it’s ok. Read the ingredient list anyway. In the United States, if the food has less than 0.5 Grams of trans fat, it can state “Zero.” Any amount is too much.

And More. Other “not so good” ingredients to be wary of: artificial vegetarian-233834_640sugars (terms such as Lite, Light, Zero, on the label), artificial flavors and colors, preservatives, and items marketed as Fat Free. Our bodies get confused by all of this. Be kind to you.

My Advice: Eat REAL food as much as possible. Do the best you can. Choose ONE thing to look for that you would like to eliminate or begin to cut down on in order to avoid overwhelm. Practice reading the labels on foods you eat and understand that changing habits takes time and patience.

*This information is not intended to help cure, treat, diagnose or prevent any disease state. Any questions you have concerning food as it pertains to a specific medical condition should be addressed with your physician.

“Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.”  Michael Pollan

P.S.  If you are looking for a system to help you stay healthier, lose weight and have more energycontact me today!  It’s never too late to form new habits.

February’s Healthy Lifestyle Habit

practice-615644_640Now that you have gotten in the habit of drinking your water, it’s time to practice another simple concept. This month’s habit: Eat slowly and stop at 80% full. This habit is straight from the pages of my coaching textbook, The Essentials of Sport and Exercise Nutrition, second edition. The authors, Dr. John Berardi and Ryan Andrews, are experts in the field of exercise and nutrition.

Eat Slowly. How many times do we rush through a meal? snails-214765_640We’re so busy sometimes that if questioned about what we had for lunch, we are clueless. Or perhaps we are distracted by the newspaper or TV. Beginning TODAY, focus on your meals and snacks and really taste the food. Spend at least 15-20 minutes enjoying your meal. It takes that long for your stomach to get the signal from your brain that it’s being fed. If you are with family or friends, it’s easy to savor the conversation and the food. The temptation to “hurry up and eat” typically happens when dining alone. If you customarily eat in 5 minutes, slow down and eat for 6 minutes. (Set a timer) Practice slowing down a little at a time until you master this. Turn off the TV. Remove the distractions. Savor the flavors.

Stop at 80% Full. When we stop eating because we are full, we have probably eaten more than we need. A good way to think about this habit is to stop eating when we are no longer hungry as opposed to eating until full. Although it may be a challenge to figure out the 80% part, do your best. Stopping at any level less than your current habit will be a positive step toward your goal.

evening-sun-694425_640By eating slowly and stopping at 80% full, odds are good that you will consume less food and over time, experience weight loss. You will truly enjoy your meals and your digestion will improve. This habit is awesome because we are not even taking into account WHAT you are eating! (The WHAT is a habit for another month!)

If you are one of those people that need to gain weight, eat faster and stop at 100% full.

For those of you who are still getting the water habit down, that is OK. Keep working on the water and practice this new habit when you feel ready. Remember, changing your lifestyle is a process. How many years have you been creating habits that may not serve you? Good things take time!

“The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age.”  Lucille Ball

P.S.  If you are looking for a system to help you stay healthier, lose weight and have more energycontact me today!  It’s never too late to form new habits.

The Most Important Person

Last week, I had the privilege of listening to two expert fitness trainers, Erin Hartigan and Estelle Blockoms. They offered great advice and motivation, which I will do my best to convey for those of you who were not able to attend the event.

The most important person you need to take care of is…YOU! Consider this: when you are at your very BEST, how does that affect your energy, sleep, work, relationships? Conversely, when you are NOT doing the things you need to do to take care of yourself, when you are NOT your best, what happens?

Trainers, motivators, coaches all push us to be better—to be our best. What can we really control in our lives? Not much. However, we CAN make good decisions about what we eat and how much we move.

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On exercise: Find activities you enjoy and do them. Start slowly and work your way into a program that is consistent and takes you to a level of fitness that improves your quality of life. Thirty minutes a day will do wonders for your health, stress and attitude. Erin and Estelle have different fitness routines that work for them. Of course, they both mentioned that they aspire to be better tomorrow than they are today. Always changing, always growing.

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On food: Estelle has a list of “FORBIDDENS.” These are the foods she will NEVER, EVER eat. Some of her “forbiddens” are fried foods, sugar, soda, and gluten. She suggested we each come up with ONE FORBIDDEN that will improve our health. Estelle eats a salad everyday, but advises to use caution with the dressing. Erin rarely eats out and makes meals for her family that include lots of vegetables, lean protein and a minimal amount of processed foods and sugars. As we eliminate certain foods from our diet, our taste buds change. For example, if we don’t eat fried foods for several months, it is very probable that we will not enjoy that fried chicken any longer—and it may even make us feel sick. (I know… some of you may not be ready to let that go…think of something else.)

These women lead others to be their best because of their positive attitudes and discipline. The energy in their classes is extremely high, which creates the perfect environment for consistency. Think about the momentum of a moving freight train. Try to stop it. On the other hand, think about getting a stopped train to move. UGH!

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There is connection with mind, body and spirit that works together to make us whole. Once we get that, we’re living a lifestyle that not only brings out our best, but the best of all those around us.

“First we form habits, then they form us.”  Jim Rohn

P.S.  If you are looking for a system to help you stay healthier, lose weight and have more energycontact me today!  It’s never too late to form new habits.

January’s Healthy Lifestyle Habit

Closeup of message stones on white background.

Welcome to a NEW YEAR, and the possibility of a NEW YOU. The thing that is fun about the beginning of something is the hope that it can be better—that WE can be better.   The other side of that thinking is that MOST people are resistant to change. We get comfortable doing things the way we have always done them and the thought of mixing it up, even if it gives us a better result, can be SCARY.

Here is my proposition for the “Healthier You” that you may be searching for. I am going to offer you an idea of ONE new habit each month from now until December 2016. (That sounds like a long time from now, but don’t blink…)

So, let’s say you start with January’s habit today. Are you going to see some amazingly crazy change in your health and weight in the next week? NO! Over the course of the next 12 months, if you develop even a few of the habits I introduce, will you see a change in your health and your weight. YES!

What I am offering is “the slight edge” principle.  (The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson is a MUST READ!)  It’s not the monumental things we do that radically change our lives, but the little things we choose to do—or NOT do—day in and day out. In every aspect of life, we are either going in a positive or negative direction based on our choices that day. We never stay stagnant.

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This month’s habit is to drink your water. Sounds easy, right? Maybe not so much. The easiest formula I have learned is to take your weight and divide it in half. You need that many ounces of water in a day to stay hydrated. This does not take into account what happens when you exercise for an hour, are in the sun, or if you drink lots of caffeine (each cup of a caffeinated beverage means you need two additional glasses of water to stay hydrated).

Room temperature water is easiest on the body, but do whatever works. Yes, herbal teas count, and any liquid that does not have caffeine or sugar or fake sugar. (Caffeine is a diuretic, is addictive and is not a healthy additive for some. Sugar has no redeeming benefits, except that it tastes good. It is as addictive as heroin. Fake sugars are chemicals that wreak havoc with us on lots of levels. All of these are topics for future Blogs!) Add a slice of lemon, lime, orange or float a strawberry. Put up post-it notes to remind you. Drink it in your favorite glass or mug or container that measures how much you have. Always take water in the car. This is the month you make water a priority in your life and figure out what you need to do to stay hydrated. You will feel better. Sometimes when you think you are hungry, you are really thirsty. Try water first. A great tip is to drink 8 to 16 ounces when you first wake up. It’s like extra credit before you even get your day going.

Oh, and be sure to LIKE my Inkwell Healthy Lifestyles Facebook page for reminders and other healthy tips to stay on the positive side of living well.

“With true friends . . . even water drunk together is sweet enough.” Chinese Proverb