As I warn all my clients, there is a lot of hype around nutrition. The "health food industry" is in fact that - an industry. Unfortunately, that can mean it is concerned with profits and not necessarily providing truly healthy food. The latest of these hypes to come to my attention is agave nectar. Given this new information, I have removed it from my list of acceptable sweeteners to use as alternatives to sugar. Like many of these nutrition hypes the agave nectar story begins with a basis of truth. We are told how native Mexicans used the "product" for thousands of years for a variety of purposes, including medicinal. Then we get the truth - the "nectar" is not produced as the ancients...
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Filtered by topic: Nutrition & Nutrition Support
Natural Ways to Boost Your Energy - Part 2
In my last article I introduced you to six natural ways to boost your energy through healthy eating behaviors.As a quick reminder those were: 1.Eat protein with each meal. 2.Eat a diet balanced with protein, fat, and carbohydrate. 3.Don’t fear fat. 4.Reduce your sugar intake. 5.Eat breakfast. 6.Don’t skip meals. Now, here are six more, to give you a healthy dozen ideas. Get more sleep.Well this one may be rather obvious, but guess the number one reason people are tired and lack energy.They don’t get enough sleep! In fact 50 million of us suffer from chronic, long term sleep disorders while another 20 million experience occasional sleep problems.Why do we need sleep? It...
Natural Ways to Boost Your Energy - Part 1
Are you feeling tired?Run down? Don’t have the energy you used to have? Unfortunately you are not alone.One of the most common complaints of my clients is just that – being tired and not having the energy they desire to do what they want to do during the day (and night).Since it is such an important topic I plan to devote the next couple of articles to it.The material I’ll present can be found in greater detail in best-selling nutrition author Jonny Bowden’s The 150 Most Effective Ways to Boost Your Energy: The Surprising, Unbiased Truth about Using Nutrition, Exercise, Supplements, Stress Relief, and Personal Empowerment to Stay Energized All Day.As you can see, the book covers...
Tips for Improving Your Sex Life
When asked in a classic Rolling Stone interview what he had learned about himself while going through a recent divorce, an introspective Carlos Santana offered “… one thing I have discovered is that I don't need no damn Viagra, that's for damn sure.” Perhaps you don’t either! Kidding aside for a moment, any erosion in your sexual health and function is no laughing matter. There are effective (and cost-effective) ways to improve your sexual health, function, and satisfaction that you may want to consider: Your erectile function is a “canary in the coal mine” indicator of possible cardiovascular disease. Before doing anything else, please take the time to rule out this...
Eat These Too! Ten More Foods to Nourish Your Body
In a previous post I listed ten foods to eat as part of a healthy diet. The truth is there are many healthy foods to eat. So, I decided to discuss another ten foods to include in your healthy diet. Again, they are in no special order. They are all healthy foods that I recommend you eat on a regular basis, unless you are allergic, intolerant, or sensitive. Broccoli is a cruciferous vegetable. Other crucifers include cabbage, cauliflower, kale, bok choy, and Swiss chard. They are all good for you. Broccoli is a great source of protein, fiber, potassium, calcium, vitamin C, folate, magnesium, phosphorus, beta-carotene, and vitamin A. It contains isothiocynanates that fight cancer and...
Natural Remedies for Heartburn and GERD
One of the most over-prescribed and profitable medications (for Big Pharma) are acid suppressing drugs used to treat heartburn and gastro esophageal reflux disease (GERD). These strong medications should be used as a short-term therapy (a few weeks) rather than for years as people often do. Long term use of these medications make them difficult to stop, lead to increased susceptibility to infections such as clostridium difficile and pneumonia, and increase the risk arrhythmias and bone fractures due to decreased mineral absorption. Fortunately, there are other safer, healthier and natural solutions to relieve heartburn and GERD. Our Stomach Produces Acid For A Reason Why is the...
Tips on Stress Reduction
Stress Reduction is one of the keys to a leading a Mr. Happy life. For your consideration, here are 7 simple suggestions to simply mull over: Give up all hope for a better past. Regrets and grudges are a waste of your here and now. As is worrying about an uncertain future. It is how you take advantage of and use your here and now that will determine your future. Act accordingly. Apparently not everyone is in your hurry. Yes, I’m talking to you. Traffic is traffic, and it is not our job to teach the world how to drive. And that is just one example. The more we react to things that we cannot affect, the more stress we needlessly inject into our daily life. Avoid the absurd and...
Animal protein as bad as Smoking? Really?
Study published in the journal of Cell Metabolism says diet high in animal protein may kill you prematurely if you are between the ages 50 to 65. If you are over 65 then animal protein may protect you. One of the headlines online read: Diet High in Meat, Cheese Can Be as Bad as Smoking Study Details: This was an observational epidemiological study where researchers look at the relationship with one or more occurrences (consumption of animal proteins) and its relationship to (in this case) disease and death. 6,381 US men and women aged 50 and above were observed for 18 years. The participants were categorized into three groups based upon their protein consumption (low, med,...
Tips to Enhance Immunity
The kids are back at school and a chill is in the air, which means Fall is quickly approaching. The following are my recommendations for staying healthy through the upcoming months. 1. Get Your Vitamin D Checked Vitamin D has been shown to enhance immune function and provide protection against many other conditions. Since Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin, it should be monitored with blood testing. Healthy levels of Vitamin D should be in the 30-55 ng/mL range. If your levels are low you can replace with it 1000-5000 IU/daily for 8 weeks followed by a retest. Make sure your Vitamin D supplement is D3 (cholecalciferol) rather than Vitamin D2, which is poorly absorbed. Additionally,...
Eat These Ten Foods
As a nutrition consultant the most common question I get is, “What should I eat?” I’ll keep the answer simple – eat these ten foods (and as a bonus I throw in a few more!) The ten are in no special order. They are all healthy foods that I recommend you eat on a regular basis, unless of course you are allergic, intolerant, or sensitive. These foods emphasize what lacks in many American diets – vegetables and fruit for vitamins and minerals to fuel our metabolism, and healthy fats that are sources of Omega 3’s and vitamins A, D, E, and K. Blueberries taste great and are loaded with vitamins and minerals. Blueberries have been found to have anti-inflammatory and...