Archived News of the Week

1) Eat whole grains. Brown rice and quinoa are two that come to mind.

2) Eat more beans and legumes. Why? That would take another newsletter, but let's just say for brevity's sake - fiber and protein.

3) Eat more colorful vegetables. Make sure your daily plate is a wild array of green, yellow, orange and red vegetables. There are so many wonderful cancer-preventive phytonutrients in plants, it's just amazing.

4) Exercise regularly. My usual mantra is 30 minutes a day/6 days a week. If you are not exercising at all, just go out your front door and walk for 15 minutes one way then turn around and come back for 15 minutes. Try to do this without any regular or sun glasses on. This way you will light up your brain with sunlight through your optic nerve, thus doing two healthy things at once.

5) Get enough sleep as it is healing and restorative. Most of our good sleep comes before midnight, so you night owls out there, try to get to bed earlier. And remember, naps are very powerful. Just 15 minutes will do wonders.

6) Keep your prescription drugs to a minimum, if at all. There are many ways to treat naturally any issues your M.D. might want to throw prescription drugs to fix. You can't poison your way to health and it seems that Americans take far more drugs than anyone else.

7) Limit or end any bad habits. You know what they are. But let's think about at least limiting alcohol and coffee for starters.

8) Eat no sugar. Yes, I will go out on that very punitive limb, and say NO SUGAR. It's not easy, but you will be glad you did. You will lose your taste for it, too.

9) Don't make it a habit to eat desserts. Take that concept out of your life. Maybe a piece of fruit, but no cookies, cakes, etc.

10) Eat out less often. Learn how to cook. It's expensive to eat out, the food is marginally clean and usually you end up eating more than if you ate at home.

11) Take your lunch to work. You will save money and have better and healthier food, and have more control over what you put in your mouth.

12) Take proven supplements. See me. We can figure all that out.

13) Also see me in order to balance your hormones. Let's check DHEA, your adrenal hormones, pregnenolone, and order some labs through your M.D. to check your thyroid and D3 levels, for starters.

14) Eat soup before each meal. It's a proven weight loss ploy. It's easy to make a big pot of veggie soup and eat a cup before your meals.

15) Don't snack. And if you must, snack healthily on raw veggies and fruit.

16) Don't drink fruit juice. It's not at all healthy for you. It's full of sugar without the fruit fiber to mitigate it's messing with your insulin levels. You know what insulin does in the body? It's yells at your body to "STORE ALL THE FAT!" It's our famine hormone, and that is something no one needs in this day and age.

17) Clean up your intimate relationships. Do therapy if you have to. Our loved ones keep us healthy and happy and vice-versa. Work on yourself constantly.

18) Meditate every day for at least 15 minutes. If the word meditation makes you want to run somewhere really fast, then just "sit" for 15 minutes every day in a quiet place and don't do anything. (However, you could listen to relaxing New Age music if you want. I listen to an artist named Deuter.) When you feel good about the first 15 minutes, then add another 15 minutes for a total of 30 minutes per day. Divide the 15 minutes into two segments if you like.

19) Drink enough water. Be more conscious about when you are thirsty. Esp. the oldsters out there. The older we get, the less our thirst button is pushed and we have to be even more conscious.

20) Be grateful for what you have. Be thankful for just being alive and for everything you have been given. Our life is a very brief flame of light, so be grateful for the opportunities to love and give in this lifetime.