Monthly Archives: March 2012

Hugs + Health + Hard work = Happiness

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Fia drinking JOOS

Hugs: My 10-year-old daughter, Fia, is an ambitious child who places pressure on herself. This week she has MCAS and the anxiety leading up to it has made her irritable. This morning, the day of the test, she broke down in tears and starting yelling at my son because he had taken the last package of cookies. Instead of getting mad at her, I took her in my arms and hugged her tightly. After telling her how much I love her and how much I understand that she’s feeling stressed, I said to her, ”Do you know what spirituality is? It’s opening up your heart. That’s it. And as you open your heart to others, they will open their heart to you.”

She hugged me ever tighter and for the first time in a couple days, truly smiled.

Health: As we walked out the door, Fia asked for a fresh organic juice. She knew that she wanted to feel her best during the MCAS and that nutrients make you feel good. She sipped on her favorite Green Lemonade as I drove her to school, the calmest I have seen her in days.

Hard work: Pretty self-explanatory. If you work hard, you feel accomplishment

Happiness: Taking a step back to breathe, regroup and eat/drink healthy!

Empower Yourself by Taking that Leap of Faith

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Mary lived on a farm with 3 horses, 5 goats, 2 dogs and 5 cats. It was a peaceful existence, but highly isolating. She hardly ever saw her friends and felt lonely. For two years, she pondered a move, but felt terribly guilty about leaving her animals and fearful if her life would actually end up better in a more urban environment.

Change is extraordinarily difficult because it causes a loss and a fear of the unknown. Most people decide to live with the discomfort of the known than to take the leap of faith to a situation that can potentially cause more pain and suffering.

When I heard Mary’s story, it made me think of the hundreds of people I know who were afraid to do a raw juice cleanse because of their fear of the unknown. What is a raw juice cleanse? Would I starve? Is it just a fad? Do I lose control of my life? How much discomfort will this cause me?

To answer those questions: if done the right way, you will not starve and you will feel energetic, balanced and in control, finally!I love when people complete it they feel such a sense of accomplishment from sticking wiht a healthy eating plan and a sense that they can achieve their life goals, whether it be to lose weight, continue to eat a plant rich diet, take a step back to slow down and enjoy life.

Take that leap of faith! It may be the best gift you could give yourself!

 

How to Binge the Right Way

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Charlene and her husband got into a major argument. He stormed out of the house. She ate 6 packs of Trader Joe’s Seaweed snacks that she fortunately had in her cabinets.

We all inevitably fall off track and, during those times, many of us turn to food. If Charlene hadn’t stocked her cabinets with seaweed snacks, she would have turned to  some unhealthy, processed snack, like she did in the past. The next morning she would have woken up feeling M I S E R A B L E. In contrast, the next morning, she woke up feeling light and attended the 6AM yoga class, which is exactly what she needed.

Here are a few suggestions of snacks you should have readily available, which you can quickly turn to in an emotional jam:

  • Joosbites
  • Trader Joe’s Roasted Seaweed Snacks
  • Sunspire grain sweetened chocolate chips
  • Joellyn Cooney’s Banana Peanut Butter Treat (cut bananas into chunks, smear natural peanut butter on one end and roll that end into flax seed. Freeze)
  • Jonathan Meizler’s Chocolate Sorbet (Place unsweetened chocolate almond milk with sliced bananas in Tupperware in the freezer. Can add a tsp of agave. After frozen, place in blender. Can also add other types of fruits.)
  • Erehorn Cereals (with almond milk)

I’d love to hear your suggestions!

Do You Eat Healthier than Your Child?

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We took our Irish babysitter to a restaurant when she first arrived, which had a kids and adult menu. She looked at both menus and said, “I’m confused. Why do the children receive a different menu than the adults? In Ireland, we have adult portions and children portions, but it’s the same food.”

This struck me what a disservice we’re doing to our children. By giving them these fried chicken fingers, grilled cheese on white bread, pasta with butter sauce, you get the picture, we are setting them up for a lifetime of poor eating habits.

When I was growing up, chicken fingers didn’t even exist. Now they’re a staple in the American child cuisine. Why have we, as parents, enabled our children to develop poor eating habits?

Do you know that 1 and 3 children born after the year 2000 is supposed to contract diabetes?!

Time to take back control of our children’s diets and the very best way to do this, as parents, is to ACT as role models for our children.

If they watch us down a pack of cookies, they’re going to believe it’s acceptable to down a pack of cookies.

If they watch us eat a Fred Flintstone sized steak for dinner, they’re going to believe it’s acceptable to do the same.

You get the point!

For many of us, this is very difficult because we’ve come so off track in our own eating habits. If that’s you, for your children’s sake, time to get responsible!

Diet Soda Linked to Greater Risk of Heart Disease? Diabetes? Stroke?

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Diet soda, no calories, what could be so bad? Major primary research is finding that it really is that bad, and probably even worse than you think.

A growing body of research is pointing towards the increased risk of metabolic syndrome, which is a cluster of risk factors including high blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist, and abnormal cholesterol levels that occur together and increase the risk for heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes.

Columbia University and University of Miami researchers followed approximately 2,500 New Yorkers for 10 years. All of the study volunteers were over age 40 and had never had a stroke.

At the end of the 10 years, those who had daily consumption of diet soda was linked to a 44-percent higher chance of heart attack or stroke, compared with 22 percent for people who rarely or never drank diet soda but had a heart attack or stroke.

Even more interesting, the increased risk remained even after researchers accounted for smoking, exercise, weight, sodium intake, high cholesterol, and other factors that could have contributed to the difference.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_122137.html

“Soluble Fiber Strikes a Blow to Belly Fat”

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While being over-weight is generally unhealthy, the fat around the stomach is particularly dangerous and can cause the most harm. The reason is this fat is typically visceral fat, which goes deep into the abdomen, surrounds our organs and creates hormones that put us at risk of heart disease, fatty liver disease, diabetes and cancer.

A recent study by Wake Baptist Medical Study (line below) showed that by eating soluble fiber from vegetables, fruit and beans, and engage in moderate activity leads to belly fat loss.

The study found that “for every 10-gram increase in soluble fiber eaten per day, visceral fat was reduced by 3.7 percent over five years.”

http://www.wakehealth.edu/News-Releases/2011/Soluble_Fiber_Strikes_a_Blow_to_Belly_Fat.htm

Weight loss and So Much More by Eating Grapefruit?

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JOOS is thrilled to add grapefruit to our flavor, Citrus Refresh, and you may be surprised to learn all of its incredible health benefits, including:

  • Immune system booster, thanks to the high amount of Vitamin C. Several studies suggest that Vitamin C-rich foods may help reduce cold symptoms or severity of cold symptoms.
  • Reduce the severity of inflammatory conditions, such as asthma, osteoarthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis, also due to the high amount of Vitamin C and organic salicylic acid.
  • Promote cardiovascular health. Researchers in Israel recently found that red and white grapefruit contain powerful antioxidants that may help decrease the risk of heart disease.
  • Protect against lung and colon cancer.
  • Act as a liver tonic.
  • Decrease the risk of calcium oxalate kidney stones.
  • Slow down the progression of atherosclerosis.
  • Inhibit tumor formation, since grapefruits are rich in lycopene (the red color/pigment).
  • Reduce cholesterol levels. The February 2006 issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, scientists found that serving heart by-pass patients the equivalent of one grapefruit a day significantly reduced cholesterol levels.
  • Promote weight loss, since it contains high in fat burning enzymes.

What are you waiting for to feel your best?

 

Eating a Plant Rich Diet Could Save Your Life

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Here’s something that I found fascinating. The Nazis removed all livestock when they occupied Norway during World War II. The Norwegians were forced to subside on whole grains, legumes, vegetables and fruit. Through this period, death from heart attacks and strokes plummeted.

When WWII ended in 1945 and the Norwegians returned to eating animal meat, deaths from heart attacks and strokes resumed to pre-war levels.

So if we know this, why isn’t everyone eating a plant rich diet? Frankly, because we’re stuck on processed foods and sugar.

That’s why a raw juice cleanse can be vital for many of us: to kick start a healthy diet!

What are you waiting for to feel your best?

Parents: Are You Setting Your Children Up for a Lifetime of Poor Health?

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While researching for my blog post on how spices cut triglyceride levels, I learned something amazing: I assumed that in India, where people eat a diet high in anti-inflammatory spices such as turmeric and ginger, that diabetes levels would be low. Instead I found the exact opposite: that diabetes is the highest in the world.

Here’s why: The body adapts to starvation in-vitro. Ironically, in the last few years, the economic growth in India has propelled people into the middle class. All of a sudden, they have access to an abundance of sugary and high fat (fried) foods and have become more sedentary, which is the perfect breeding ground for diabetes and other diseases.

According to David Barker, a British doctor whose research has helped explain the origins of so-called lifestyle ailments and why they’re exploding in India and China, “An undernourished fetus prioritizes sugar for its growing brain. To make more glucose available in the blood, the fetus stores less of the energy in its muscles by making the muscles resistant to the effects of insulin. What starts as a clever survival trick in the womb becomes a liability in later life. When food is freely available but the muscles can’t store excess glucose, the blood floods with sugar and diabetes develops. Too much sugar in the blood damages the heart, small blood vessels and nerves, compounding the risk of heart attack, stroke and kidney failure.”

Fortunately, Americans do not face such abject poverty as people do in India, but this is an extremely important lesson that what we feed our children sets a foundation for their health for the rest of their lives. 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-07/india-s-deadly-diabetes-scourge-cuts-down-millions-rising-to-middle-class.html

Take Control of Your Health! The Power of Antioxidants!

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Here’s an irony. We need oxygen for proper brain function, but the wrong type of oxygen can actually erode cellular structure in the brain and cause free radicals.

Micro-nutrients, which are rich in anti-oxidants, to the rescue! Micro-nutrients insure that the right type of oxygen reaches the brain cells and combats free-radicals. In a nutshell, antioxidants are molecules that free radicals find more attractive than cellular components.

This is why it’s vital to eat a diet rich in dark leafy greens. Sure you can take a
pill, but nothing is going to be more effective to brain health than to eat a
plant rich diet, exercise, manage stress and sleep well.

Fresh organic juices make it easy for you to get an ample supply of the highest quality anti-oxidants, since they are loaded with anti-oxidants

Why wait until it’s too late? It’s time for you to take charge of your life.