Stop Eating Cereal for Breakfast

Stop eating sugary cereal for breakfast!

Cereal is not healthy and should be treated as a dessert, even Kellogg agrees!

Link to Article: https://newfoodeconomy.org/kellogg-sugary-cereal-healthy-label

Stop The "Just Pop a Pill" Mindset

We must break the "just pop a pill" mindset.

Opioids are legally made and and legally prescribed but they are tearing people's lives apart. We see people with opioid addictions on a regular basis.

It only takes two rounds of taking opioids to get severely addicted, and the devastation these drugs can bring quickly snowballs downhill from there.

If you know someone who is heading towards an addiction or is already addicted, you have to take massive action to get them to change. Sometimes rehab is the only option.

Steps towards prevention is the best option, and reducing pain can be done naturally through:

1. Anti-inflammatory diet
2. Anti-inflammatory supplements
3. Anti-inflammatory spices/herbs
4. Proper joint mobility
5. Proper muscle flexibility
6. Positive mindset

The Importance of a Good Diet

You can drive a car fast or slow and eventually it will need a tune-up.

But fill the tank with junk, sawdust, and dirt and you won't make it out of the parking lot.

Exercise is VERY important to a healthy life, but the food we ingest makes an immense and immediate change to how our bodies function.

Nutrition Is The Key To Weight Loss

Exercise is healthy.

But it's not the key to weight loss...nutrition is.

Physical activity reduces the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, dementia and some cancers, but increasing your physical activity doesn't guarantee you'll lose weight.

The problem is that the more calories you burn during exercise the more calories you are going to crave afterwards. If you aren't eating healthy foods, you are going to magnify the problem with just eating more unhealthy foods. Depending on the kind of exercise you're performing or if you're brand new to exercise, muscle mass can increase while body fat decreases, improving body composition but not decreasing the number on the scale.

Over and over we see people lose weight the easiest by putting their focus 100% on nutrition and not exercise. In fact, many people who see the best weight loss results are only doing low intensity walking, riding a bike, or other similar low-intensity exercise on a regular basis.

Learn how to eat healthy first and THEN implement an exercise routine! Your body will thank you.

Roundup Chemical In Your Cereal

Many genetically modified crops (GMO's) are created to be resistant to glyphosate. When glyphosate-containing Roundup is sprayed over the fields, it would kill basically everything in the field except for the crops.

At the surface, this seems like a good solution for farmers to control weeds, but it's a chemical disaster happening to our health because humans are not resistant to glyphosate.

"Out of 61 food samples tested, 48 had some glyphosate in them. The most heavily contaminated were made with conventionally grown -- as opposed to organically grown -- oats."

Source: https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news

Ultra-Processed Packaged Food

"More so than any other Western country, Americans are being bombarded with food products that are high in sugar, saturated fat, salt, and calories. More specifically, after analyzing over 200,000 U.S. packaged food products including bread, snacks, salad dressings, sugary sweets, and sugary drinks researchers found that a whopping 71% were classified as ultra-processed. Furthermore, 86% of the packaged foods sold by the 25 top manufacturers were found to be ultra-processed.

For reference, the term “ultra-processed” was defined as foods that “are industrial formulations made entirely or mostly from substances extracted from foods (oils, fats, sugar, starch and proteins).” These foods are usually created in laboratories and derived from hydrogenated fats and modified starch."

😦😦😦

#eatrealfood

Source: https://www.studyfinds.org/

Most Breakfasts Today Should Be Called Dessert

“One of the biggest mistakes I see is eating dessert for breakfast. They might not even know it, but a bowl of Frosted Flakes has about 15 grams of sugar.

We shouldn’t be having sugar for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Sugar in all its forms is the root cause of our obesity epidemic and most of the chronic disease sucking the life out of our citizens and our economy — and, increasingly, the rest of the world. You name it, it’s caused by sugar: heart disease, cancer, dementia, type 2 diabetes, depression and even acne, infertility and impotence.

There are so many different kinds of sugars – honey, maple syrup, agave, cane sugar, etc. And while there are some small differences among these sugars, for the most part, sugar is sugar is sugar. It can all wreak havoc on your health.

Now, as far as this question is concerned, it’s important to take a look at the whole diet instead of just focusing on one ingredient in your coffee.

Are you consuming sugar throughout the day? What about hidden forms of sugar?

The truth is: food manufacturers put sugar into everything from ketchup to bread and all food products in between.

If you’re eating a whole-food, low-sugar diet, a little bit of honey in your morning coffee or tea might not be a problem, but if your diet has a little more sugar than you’d like, it might be time to detox completely from sugar.”

Food Journaling

Start a food journal:

(Share one thing you have noticed about your sensitivities below for others to see.)

There is not a single food on earth that is healthy for everyone because we all have different metabolisms, food allergies, sensitivities and digestive tracts.

Keeping a close eye on how you feel day to day can really help you clean up your nutrition protocol and get you feeling, sleeping and thinking at your best all the time instead of sporadically.

For example this is just a list of a few things I have personally noticed:

1. Too many raw nuts irritate my stomach
2. Eating apples plain makes me extremely hungry an hour later
3. Too many grains of any sort causes bloating and swelling for 12-24 hours. 4. All forms of beans irritate my stomach and cause bloating
5. White potatoes make my hands itchy and also make me feel bloated
6. Hot coffee just makes me go to the bathroom every hour and makes me lose focus
7. Too much cauliflower irritates my thyroid
8. Drinking the recommended 8+ glasses of water per day just causes it to sit in my stomach causing me to feel out of it and uncomfortable.
9. Too much raw spinach causes my kidneys to ache
10. If I take 400 mg of magnesium before bed I don't wake up at 3 AM
11. If I eat mostly meat, vegetables and berries along with intermittent fasting 3-5 days per week I feel extremely good physically and mentally.

How you do it:

1. Start seeing how you look (bloated or not), feel (mentally and physically) l and preform (how's your energy or if you are an athlete how was your workout?) on a daily basis, if anything is different day to day look at what you have been eating. Especially look at days where you feel really good and really bad.
2. The next time you eat the suspect food see what happens.
3. Start to remove things that don't sit well with you and customize your diet by the things you tolerate the best.

Remember, just because your family and friends does well with a certain food doesn't mean you will.

Low Dose Daily Aspirin: Increased Risk of Stroke

Low Dose Daily Aspirin: Increased Risk of Stroke

"Use of low-dose aspirin was associated with an overall increased risk of intracranial hemorrhage, and heightened risk of intracerebral hemorrhage"

How many times in the past have we seen a drug marketed for a certain benefit only to find out years later that it really wasn't true. Aspirin has been marketed heavily to doctors and patients as a preventative drug. "An aspirin a day is good for heart health!"

I have and will always have a hard time trusting someone who says a perfectly healthy person should take a medication as prevention...to stay healthy. Healthy food, supplements or other natural products I can get on board with but a medication to STAY healthy? Medications work by altering biochemical pathways, which means they will always have side effects. Yes, there is a time and place for certain medications, but that time and place is WAY to often and not to maintain health in someone who is already healthy!

"Pooling the results from the random-effects model showed that low-dose aspirin, compared with control, was associated with an increased risk of any intracranial bleeding (8 trials; relative risk, 1.37; 95% CI, 1.13-1.66; 2 additional intracranial hemorrhages in 1000 people), with potentially the greatest relative risk increase for subdural or extradural hemorrhage (4 trials; relative risk, 1.53; 95% CI, 1.08-2.18) and less for intracerebral hemorrhage and subarachnoid hemorrhage."

Source: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/article-abstract

Good Stress and Bad Stress

Most people know that having too much stress in their lives isn’t healthy but having too little is also very unhealthy especially as people age. 

Using your brain to make tough decisions on a regular basis is critical for long term mental heath and using your muscles on a daily basis is also critical for long term physical health. 

The healthiest clients I have in their 80’s and 90’s have purpose every day they wake up. They worked later in life, had a regular role in taking care of grandkids, have a huge passion for physical things like gardening or do a lot or volunteering on a regular basis.

Choose Healthy Breakfast

Would you give your kids a glazed donut every morning as their breakfast?

The majority of parents would say definitely not -- but many of them don't realize that the bowl of cereal their kids eat instead often has the same amount of sugar and nutritional value as a doughnut.

Recently on NBC’s Today Show, nutritionists studied the surprising amount of sugar in breakfast cereals and healthier alternatives. Cereals are full of sugar – and it is mostly brands marketed to kids that have the highest amounts. Reports show there is more sugar in some cereals than there is in a glazed doughnut.

A new study found many breakfast cereals for kids are loaded with 50 percent sugar. Those that top the list are Post Golden Grahams and Kellogg’s Honey Smacks.

One of the reasons we tell people to avoid grains is because they often serve as a "vehicle" for additional sugar.

Start giving your kids other options for breakfast. Why do we typically eat so much cereal for breakfast? Because it is convenient and marketed as a breakfast food. But is it best for us and our kids? No.

Healthy, fast and affordable breakfast meals include a vegetable omelet, a fruit filled whey protein shake or an egg. Your kids will feel better and be healthier!

Sleep Myths

New study looks at five sleep myths:

1. You can get by on less than five hours of sleep
2. Snoring is harmless
3. Booze before bed boosts sleep quality 
4. Watching TV helps you unwind
5. Snoozing your alarm isn't that bad for you

Source: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news

The Benefits of Grass-fed Butter

Butter was given a bad rap in the 1950s when Americans started their fat-phobia phase. This inspired a common, but untrue, belief has been that butter causes heart disease, cancer and obesity.

But if this were true, how would some of the world's healthiest populations have always had butter as a continuous staple in their diet? It just doesn't make sense, or does it?

There is a huge difference between grass-fed cow's butter and grain-fed cow's butter. It is like calling a golf cart and a Cadillac the same thing just because they both have a motor.

Cows are meant to eat grass. When they eat grass, they are healthy and produce healthy butter. It also means they are getting exercise and living in an environment that they should be living in. Grain-fed cows are fed an unnatural diet, typically don't have much room to move around and are at a higher risk for disease. This, in many cases, causes acidosis in the cow leading to liver problems, nutrient absorption issues, digestive problems, dehydration and many other issues that can be fatal. Grain-fed cows do not produce healthy butter.

One of the main differences between grass-fed butter and grain-fed butter is the Omega-3 to Omega-6 ratio. When you have more Omega-3's compared to Omega-6's, it helps to reduce inflammation. Grains increase the amount of the unhealthy Omega-6's leading to excess inflammation. Cows that are fed grass have 50 percent of their fat in the healthy Omega-3 form, while cows fed grains have almost none. This makes grain-fed butter very inflammatory, potentially leading to many health issues from fibromyalgia to cancer.

Eating grass-fed butter on a regular basis can have many health benefits:
• Full of Omega-3s: reduces inflammation, therefore reducing pain and disease.
• High in CLA: has been shown to help with weight loss and to prevent cancer.
• Contains Vitamin A: provides positive benefits for your eye health. Vitamin A is what gives grass fed butter the bright yellow color.

The next time someone tries to tell you butter is bad for you, you are welcome to teach them about the differences between grass-fed and grain-fed cows. And don't even get me started about margarine and other fake butter... it is even worse than butter from grain-fed cows.

Good Fats and Bad Fats

Eating good kinds of fat is an important part of healthy eating. Healthy fats lower the risk of heart disease, decrease inflammation, help create healthy cell membranes, and stabilize hormone levels.

But sometimes just looking at labels, it’s hard to tell what is a “good fat” and what is a “bad fat."

Here’s a little cheat sheet:

Bad fats:
Vegetable oil
Hydrogenated oil
Sunflower oil
Cottonseed oil
Soybean oil
Corn oil
Canola Oil

Good fats:
Coconut oil
Olive oil
Grass Fed Butter
Avocados
Wild caught fish
Grass fed meats
Raw tree nuts

Eggs Will NOT Kill You

“Don’t worry about your eggs, keep enjoying them.⠀
⠀
A new study published in the medical journal JAMA says, ‘Eggs are bad,’ but are they really?⠀
⠀
It is important that we look at the specifics of the study. This particular study is an observational study; it does not prove cause and effect.⠀

⠀
This new study surveyed 30,000 people over a 17 year time period. Each person completed one questionnaire about what they’ve been eating.⠀
⠀
It is very difficult to conduct nutrition studies and food frequency questionnaires are fundamentally flawed because people tend not to report what they think is bad.⠀
⠀
If you think a food is bad, you’re likely to downplay having eaten it. People also tend to over report the food they think is good.⠀
⠀
Also, people don’t actually measure their portion sizes and often can't remember how much they ate.⠀
⠀
During the time this study was conducted, eggs were considered bad. We were told not to eat eggs; to avoid cholesterol. So people who were eating eggs were likely people who weren’t otherwise health conscious. Maybe they were smokers, didn’t eat well, didn’t care about their diet, or didn’t eat fruits and vegetables, which are things that could have also led to heart disease.⠀
⠀
It doesn’t mean the eggs caused the heart disease.⠀
⠀
There are 300mg of cholesterol in two eggs. You have 10,000mg in your blood normally. If you add 300mg, will it make a difference? Not really.⠀
⠀
When you eat cholesterol, it doesn’t have an impact on your lipid levels or your heart disease risk. A study done by UCLA found that 75% of patients hospitalized for a heart attack had normal cholesterol levels that would not indicate any risk for a cardiovascular event. ⠀
⠀
In fact, cholesterol is essential. It’s what we make vitamin D from and hormones like estrogen and testosterone. Cholesterol is part of our cell membranes and our brain.⠀
⠀
Whenever you look at a study, it is important to decipher whether it’s an experiment or just a correlation study? If it’s a correlation study, you have to take it with a grain of salt unless there’s a 100% increase risk.⠀
⠀
Make sure to look into the data whenever these types of studies come out and stay informed.”

-Dr. Mark Hyman

Diet Drinks Are A Scam

Diet drinks are a scam. Artificial sweeteners aren’t metabolized properly in your body and can wreak havoc internally.

“Previous research has shown a link between diet beverages and stroke, dementia, Type 2 diabetes, obesity and metabolic syndrome, which can lead to heart disease and diabetes.”

Link: https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/14/health/diet-soda

Nutrition Labels On Vitamin Drinks

While enhancing food and drink with extra vitamins seems like it would be to your advantage, it often comes at a cost. For example, one of the biggest problems with a vitamin-enriched drink is that it typically contains a lot of sugar to improve the taste. The nutrition label of Vitamin Water by Glaceau, heavily advertised as a healthy beverage, shows that the drink contains 13 grams of sugar per serving, but there are 2.5 servings in each 20 oz. bottle. That means there are a whopping 32.5 grams, which is nearly seven teaspoons of sugar in each bottle of Vitamin Water—nearly as much as a 12 oz. can of soda.

The ingredients list is another clue that Vitamin Water is an unhealthy beverage. Listed from greatest to least amount, Vitamin Water’s first and second ingredients are water and crystalline fructose (sugar). There are more water and sugar in this beverage than any other ingredient—including vitamins.

When reading nutrition labels, basically anything that ends in the letters '–ose' is going to be a sugar, including fructose, sucrose and glucose. With the average American consuming between 160 and 200 lbs. of sugar a year, increased sugar consumption is currently a major health issue in the United States. In excess, sugar is poison to the body and creates unwanted stress that can lead to health problems ranging from depression to diabetes to obesity.

Is Vitamin Water just sugar water in a pretty package? In my opinion, yes. Save your money by drinking purified tap water, examining your diet and improving where you can, and using quality supplements when necessary.

False Food Labels

Food label alert: Don't fall for it!

"Organic, Turmeric, Probiotics, Natural" they

are all buzz words companies will use to try to get you to buy their products. "These must be healthy, they have turmeric and probiotics and those are healthy!"

Yes, these things can be healthy, but not when it's coming with a 23 gram (total carbs minus fiber) dose of sugar which is the same as what's in the same size serving of a sugary coke.

This product is also called "natural defense" making you think that it's going to boost your immune system, however research is very conclusive that consuming this this much sugar is actually going to instantly decrease your immune system and will far outweigh any of the benefits of the probiotics or turmeric. Get ready for a push of buzz words like these in unhealthy products to make them seem healthier.

Weight Loss Starts With Nutrition

You can't outrun a donut.

Slaving away for hours on a treadmill or bike trying to lose weight? While exercise WILL make you healthier, it isn't the key to losing weight.

The problem is that the more calories you burn during exercise the more calories you are going to crave afterwards. If you aren't eating healthy foods, you are going to magnify the problem with just eating more unhealthy foods.

Over and over we see people lose weight the easiest by putting their focus 100% on nutrition and not exercise, in fact many people who see the best weight loss results are only doing low intensity walking or bike riding on a regular basis.

How it needs to be done:
Learn how to eat healthy first and THEN implement an exercise routine! Or if you're currently exercising, get a nutrition plan and STICK TO IT. Your body will thank you.

Social Media and Food

This picture won't do well on social media.

It won't go viral, be swooned over by foodies, and no one will pin the recipe to a board so they can impress their guests next time they have company.

It's a reasonable portion, easy to make, and healthy - but it just doesn't have that social media zing. But it's important to realize that the "social media zing" can influence our relationship with food, and can determine everything from what to how much we put on our plates - for better or for worse.

What makes a great picture may not make a great meal...or it might. Education and having a nutrition plan in place can act as a healthy filter, helping us choose good food and discard unhealthy food, as we scroll through Pinterest or Instagram.

For more on social media and food, check out this article: https://medium.com/s/thenewnew