Fat is probably the most maligned, misjudged, and misunderstood of all the macronutrients. In truth, the body needs healthy fats, called essential fatty acids, in very small amounts to maintain many life-sustaining physiological functions. Good fats are the building blocks for hormones and cell membranes, and are responsible for healthy nerve conduction.  Essential fatty acids eaten in small amounts help us to control our weight by slowing down and regulating the rate at which sugar (glucose) enters the blood stream. This controlled release of glucose enhances good blood sugar control.

Essential fatty acids are commonly found in fish, seeds, nuts, and plants. Olive oil, canola oil, flaxseed oil, almonds, and avocados are examples of healthy sources of fats. Omega-3 oils from fish (salmon and sardines) or fish oil supplements are also healthy essential fats. Be aware, however, that there are fats that are potentially harmful to the body. Some margarines and other hydrogenated oils are potentially harmful, for example, because they are trans-fatty acids.  Fats that have been artificially altered to preserve their shelf life-a process that is harmful to your cells may be Trans-Fatty Acids. Trans-fatty acids resemble essential fatty acids, making it difficult for cell membranes to distinguish between the two kinds of fat. However, when trans-fatty acids do enter a cell, they cannot perform the normal functions that essential fatty acids do. They trick your body and do damage because the body doesn't know how to distinguish between the good and the bad, thus opening the door for significant health problems.

Saturated fats are also potentially harmful to the body. For the most part, they are found in animal proteins such as red meats and dairy products.  Saturated fats should be eaten less frequently than essential fatty acids. Trans-fats should be altogether avoided whenever possible. READ YOUR FOOD LABELS!!  Foods that are high in fats, "mono-and polyunsaturated", but low in 'saturated fat', are generally GOOD foods that should be eaten in moderate amounts.

The rules are simple. Changing your behavior is not. Accept that. It is natural that you may ‘fall off the wagon’ sometimes. That’s normal and expected. Just make sure that you commit yourself to getting back on the wagon, before you fall off. Believe that you can ride the bicycle and you will ride it. If you don’t believe you can ride the bike, then you’ll always fall and probably decide that you’re not going to try again since you’ve already made up your mind that you don’t believe you can ride the bike. I’ll tell you a trick to believing in anything…feelings. Feel that you are already riding. If you feel it, you believe it. Following below are what I call the HEALTHY WEIGHT RULES. If you abide by these rules, you will:

• lose weight if you are too heavy

• maintain your weight if and when you are in healthy range

• gain weight if you are too skinny

RULE #1. The amount of calories you consume must equal the amount of calories your body burns.

These are based upon normal body mechanics. In basic terms, metabolism, is a series of process by which food is converted into energy and products needed to sustain life. When the body converts food into energy, we call it digestion. The body creates heat during this conversion process. In laymen’s terms we say the body is burning calories.

During your quest for good health, you may have heard about calories, more specifically counting calories, but perhaps have not taken the time to understand exactly what a calorie is or the reason why all this attention is given to calories. A calorie is a unit of energy-producing potential in food. The potential of energy production from food, otherwise known as its calories, have been measured and that information is readily available and usually found right on the packaging.

Perhaps you have learned about it, but haven’t been able to stay true to a diet because it’s too difficult to be practical about how to count calories in everyday life. Well, I’m here to slap you in the face. Guess what. In order to make a change in your lifestyle habits, you must make a change in your lifestyle habit. This does not have to be difficult. It just has to be something you really, I mean really, want to do. But it’s SIMPLE! Initially, you will need some tools:

• small notebook (so you can write down what you eat)

• a small calorie counter pocketbook (the source from which you’ll write down your consumption into your notebook)

• a kitchen scale, in grams preferably (to measure your food-in order to look up a food in a calorie book, you need to know how much of the food you have.)

• measuring cups and measuring spoons

RULE #2. Eat mostly unprocessed foods. The more raw foods, the more organic foods you consume the more nutrition you give your body. The more nutrition you give your body, the better the body functions. Nutrition is the nourishment that we obtain from food. Since food that is processed or grown with chemicals or in depleted soil or poisoned by toxic substances or infused with artificial ingredients, the nutritious elements become reduced or even non existent. The more food (calories) that we consume that are without nutritious value (empty), the less positive energy is created within the body. This leads to disease.

RULE #3. Exercise. The human body is meant to move. It is made for the purpose of being active. If you do not activate its muscles regularly in a fashion to keep them limber and strong, then they will lose their purpose. It’s best if you start with small increments that you can incorporate into your everyday routine. View (daily exercise tips) for some examples.

RULE #4. Eat in proper portions. Listen to your body as to when to eat, which will in most cases be about 6 meals per day. Please pay attention to what is meant by the word meals. Meals are simply a serving of food. This could be classified as a snack, dinner, breakfast, lunch; it can be a liquid or solid.

THE GOLDEN RULE: The more you practice the first four rules, the more you will find that it gets easier to accommodate this way of living. They become natural habits. You’ll start to feel more energy each day you’ll notice an increase in lean muscle mass while you’re shedding off excess fat mass. In fact, as you become more attuned to your body, you’ll notice that if you don’t practice these rules regularly, you’ll be more sensitive to feeling ill at ease. Your body will be telling you what it needs and this time you’ll be listening!!

Now let’s do a mind exercise. Imagine yourself exactly as you would be in your ideal universe. If you could transform your body to exactly what you want it to be, what would you envision it to look like? Your body, your vision of your body. Not some celebrity’s body, because that’s not your body, that’s theirs. Envision your body. Go ahead, close your eyes.

Open your eyes. Print these pages and GET STARTED!!!! Right now.

          Finding balance in your life is not always an easy task.  It's like juggling an apple, a firestick, a flower, and a razor.  Time waits for no man and you never know what awaits the next corner.  In this day and age, due to overwhelming world circumstances that hit us in the face daily with sensory overload, learning to find peace within, is essential. In the face of economic and financial ruin of the nation, many of us have been slapped in the face and are dealing with the same plights in our immediate everyday struggles of survival and existence in this society.  We are trying to just figure out how to get work to put gas in the car, to pay for the car, to get to a job we don’t have, to get food to put on the table, to have a table to put the food onto, to keep a roof over our head, and circling back to put shoes on our feet and clothes on our back to find the job that pays for the roof, and to get the education that leads to the job that doesn’t pay enough to pay for the car or the roof or the table or the shoes or the education that we need to get the job that leaves us no time to get the education to get a better job than the job we have just trying to survive.

          In this circle of chaos, one of my dearest friends has declared what he deems a 'mental health day' to be a part of their lifestyle.  This is defined as a day where when he or his wife, make a conscious decision to stop 'fighting the stress' and give in to a day of mental rest.  This means that they do nothing that puts pressure of productivity on themselves and they do not allow feelings of guilt enter their emotions for doing so.  It could be for example: staying home and cuddling in front of a movie, reading a book, going for a bike ride, exploring a local park with a 3 hour walk, sleeping, going to lunch with a friend, cooking,  whatever it is, to rest the brain of the extremely stressful situations of regular everyday life.  This is a day whereby one may wake up 'on the wrong side of the bed' and is in an immediate funk that one just can’t seem to shake off.  Symptoms are feelings of: Depression, Irritability, Grumpiness, being Moody, Angry, Temperamental, Impatient, Belligerant, Gloomy.  Instead of wallowing in these feelings, they have decided to make lemonade out of their lemons.  I like their adopted lifestyle incorporation. I’ve adopted these days too from time to time.  You see, we all need to find ways to cope with life’s anxieties. We must learn to not drown in stress and hold on to moments of clarity.  When our life force is in a positive vibration, we begin to sing in harmony with the universe and we gain fruitful wisdom.  We sync ourselves to that music by simply participating in activities that make us ‘feel good’.  A healthy habit to form is to allow yourself ‘mental health moments’.  If you are not able to give yourself a full day…give yourself these mental health moments.  They are bits of meditation.  Meditation is good for your soul, body, and mind.  It can help you get out of your funk.  These mediation bits will help you restore balance in your life.  Make room for them in your lifestyle.  Make an effort to share these moments with people you know… bring them into your meditative moments… positive energy grows exponentially quick.

          This has been demonstrated in the fact that they have been more productive lately than they have when they were focused on the stress.  They are physically healthier now too.  They’ve been tapping into their passions and making progress by applying their abilities.  They surround themselves with friends and family on a regular basis and communicate their feelings which helps motivate them to stay focused on their strengths. Although, they still face the chaos of life’s unexpected turns, they’ve learned to place their focus on the positive moments and they deal with struggles in smaller increments instead of by letting a big picture of doom crowd their life.  Remember the law of attraction is always at work!

Moderation, moderation, moderation…. Balance, balance, balance. 

It can be done. It will be done.
 

Engaging in exercise means your body improves; it develops a better sensitivity when it comes to insulin, as well as allowing you to be more in control of your glycemic index. Exercise indeed has a good effect on a patient’s glucose level. This is good news for people who have type 2 diabetes. A lot of research indicates that patients of diabetes gain more control over their glycemic as soon as they get used to a regular exercise program. On the other hand, people who do not engage in exercise find no improvement on their glycemic control. Since exercise improves your insulin sensitivity, you will also need less medicines in order to control the levels of your blood sugar. There are, of course, people who become at risk for hypoglycemia due to the combined effects of their diabetes and engaging in high stress exercise. This happens during exercise and after it, too.

If you think about it though, people can also be at risk for hyperglycemia simply for having poor control over their diabetes. Therefore, the leaders in this field recommend engaging in moderate exercise for a minimum of 2 hours and 30 minutes, or 90 minutes if they want to do vigorous exercise. In light of this, the frequency of the routine is more important that the kinds of exercise one engages in. There are many researches wherein an abundance of benefits result from both weight training as well as aerobic activity. Of course, sometimes patients should not engage in vigorous exercise especially when they have cardiac conditions or they are more prone to developing injuries as a result. It is better if they start of slow and get used to a light intensity program instead.

About the Author – Su Rollins writes for http://www.hypoglycemicdiet.org A hypoglycemia diet plan, her personal hobby blog focused on tips to prevent and cure hypoglycemia using the right diet and nutrition.

In order to truly understand the food you’re consuming you should be aware of the caloric expenditure of the food. One gram of Carbohydrate equals 4 calories, one gram of Protein equals 4 calories, one gram of Fat equals 9 calories.

One pound of body fat equals about 3500 calories. So, there is a logic of if you can create a deficit of 3500 calories, you will lose 1 pound of body weight. This is a flawed logic though since our bodies don’t operate in a vacuum.  That logic works on paper, but doesn’t take into account that our bodies are working with many a various systems and we are not linear. Be careful when losing weight thought, because when you lose weight, you are also losing lean body mass. That’s when exercise comes in. Exercise will enable you to retain and gain lean muscle mass.  You cannot just reduce caloric intake and expect to lose weight.  Caloric modification has to be done in a way that will work together with your metabolism and not against it.  If you just reduced calories without regard, you may end up slowing your metabolism, keeping weight on, and doing more harm than good.  It’s best to pay attention to how and when you consume your calories, and increase ways to burn the calories (energy).   Some ways to do this is by eating small portions more frequently.  Many times when embarked on properly, a fat reduction plan, which will include exercise, will require more calories instead of less.  This is so because as you exercise, you build lean muscle mass and reduce fat mass.  Lean muscle mass requires more energy (calories).  The more you move (exercise), the more you burn.
 
Over the years, many a various diet has been suggested and tried. The human body has and continues to be studied to understand it’s process of energy, which mainly comes from the ingestion of food. After all that’s said and done, it is widely agreed that the most effective healthful diet is a 40% carbohydrate-30% Protein-30% Fat diet. This practice is endorsed by The American Dietetic Association and has been followed by Europeans as the Mediterranean Diet.

Here are some steps for eating in proper proportions:

1. Study the labels on food products. They are mandated by law in the United States, many countries in Europe, as well as many other countries of the world. Use them to make wise judgements on the portions of what to ingest with each meal. If you take the time to learn about the foods you eat, what they are made of, you will understand how to gain control of your energy, your weight, your body fat, your metabolism, your sugar levels, your thinking power, your efficiency, your overall wellness!

2. In the beginning, don’t change your diet. Just take the time to write down the items you eat and in the portions you eat them. From the food labels, write down the carbs, protein, fat (and what type of fat!), and calories. I know it’s a pain, but make a chart and keep this food log for a minimum of 2 weeks.

3. Study your food log and then decide what items you can change around, minimize, maximize, replace, allow every now and then…etc. All things in moderation. MODERATION!

4. Since every body is different, there is no one exact caloric consumption level you can set to lose weight.  For the most part, you can forget counting the calories.  Yes, that’s right, forget counting.  Instead, pay attention to the balance of the food choices and the quality of the foods.  Pay attention to when your body is hungry.  Pay attention to the cravings you get (these tell you the types of foods you may be over or underconsuming…see ‘what do these food cravings mean?’

5. For the most part, eat whole foods.  Eat foods that have been minimally processed.  Generally, the more the food is to its original natural state, the more nutritious and healthy it is. Remember this at the supermarket.

1 lb of Soba noodles

1 or 2 lbs baby portabello mushrooms, cubed into bite sizes

2 cups of raw spinach leaves

2 medium yellow onions, diced in bite sizes

2 cloves of garlic

¼ cup olive oil

1 tsp ground coriander

½ tsp allspice

¼ tsp pure ground red chillies or ½ jalapeno pepper

1 ½-2 inches of Fresh ginger, peeled and cut into large cubes

½ cup lemon juice

1 bunch of scallions

½ tsp ground black pepper

¼ cup tamarind sauce

6 oz. Firm Tofu cubed

8 Jumbo shrimp, peeled and cleaned, leave tail on

1 cup Vegetable broth or 3 cubes

1. Mix vegetable broth, ginger, and lemon juice with 6 cups of water and bring to boil.

2. Boil soba noodles for 5 minutes, drain, rinse and place in ice cold water.  Let sit.

3. While above is boiling, place garlic and onions into the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat.  If using the fresh jalapeno instead of ground chillies, add the jalapeno here. Fry until onions are translucent. Place mushrooms into the mix and pour 1/8 tamarind sauce over them and toss in the skillet.  Cook mushroom mix for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

4. Place tofu into mushroom mix and pour the remaining tamarind sauce over mix.  Add coriander, allspice, and black pepper. 

5. Add spinach to mushroom mix. Stir until leaves shrink.

6. Remove mushroom and onion mix from heat and add to the boiling broth water.

7. Drain Soba noodles from ice water and add them to broth.

8. Add scallions and ground chillies (unless you used the jalapeno above) to soup.

9. Add shrimp.  Continue to heat soup until shrimp is cooked…approximately 1-2 minutes or until red.

10. optional, add tamarind to your taste. Eat with chopsticks!

Makes 6-8 servings. 

1.   To provide the electrical energy for our nervous system. Calcium is what the nervous system of our body uses to conduct      electricity.

2.   To provide the electrical energy for our muscular system.  Our muscles require calcium to contract. When calcium levels are not correct, people can feel weak and have muscle cramps.

3.   To provide strength to our skeletal system. 

The single major disease of parathyroid glands is over-activity of one or more of the parathyroids which make too much parathyroid hormone causing a potentially serious calcium imbalance (too high calcium in the blood). This is called hyperparathyroidism.

Calcium is the only mineral that has its own regulatory system. (the parathyroid glands) It is not a common cause of osteoporosis, but an important one to be aware of when facing symptoms for diagnosis and treatment. 

Symptoms of parathyroid disease are:

Loss of energy                                                Loss of memory

Loss of concentration                                    Heartburn

Depression                                                     Thinning Hair

Osteoporosis and Osteopenia                         Kidney Stones

Bones hurt                                                     High Blood Pressure

Trouble sleeping                                              Recurrent Headaches

Tiredness                                                        Arrhythmia

Irritable                                                            Decrease in sex drive

Most people with hyperparathyroidism will have about 5 of these symptoms. The only treatment available is to have the parathyroid glands removed.  Fortunately, if you choose an experienced parathyroid surgeon, a minimally invasive operation can be performed to remove only the gland that went bad.  If you’re reading this and you’re in the first third of your lifespan, then make sure you build your bone density now while your bones are still growing, by getting enough calcium in your body.  If you’re out of that first third, then continue to get your calcium with foods such as dark green vegetables, nuts, orange fruits, sardines and dairy. As you age, consider a calcium supplement, especially if you are a woman.  Woman are more susceptible to osteoporosis due to their hormonal make up.