If I gave you a $50 bill, you wouldn’t think of lighting it on fire right? With an average price of $8.00 for a pack of cigarettes in Massachusetts, that’s exactly what you’re doing each week—and that’s if you only smoke one pack a day! (Double that if there are two smokers in your family.)
A few nice things: Given the choice, which would you prefer—a few nice things that you really, really like, or a bunch of possessions that don’t have any special meaning?
My home was never cluttered but over the last couple of months as I was preparing to move, I couldn’t believe how much stuff I had inherited or accumulated. Purging has not been an easy process, even for me, though when you have to pack everything, it does make the decision process simpler. Read More
Listening to the radio this morning, I heard an advertisement for a juice drink that came in several flavors, including “berry”. I wondered what kind of berry? Strawberry? Raspberry? Blueberry? Raspberry? Each of these berries has a fabulously distinct flavor. But what is the taste of the generic “berry?” Read More
Breaking up with bad habits that is! When we know something isn’t good for us, why can’t we just stop doing what it is we are doing?
Most smokers say that they would like to quit. Many of us that struggle with things like being overweight wonder why can’t we just stop our bad eating habits and stay on track? We all know what we need to do, right? Read More
When’s the last time you took a really deep breathe? We are born breathing correctly but because the breathing reflex is automatic, we don’t think about how we breathe. Babies can breathe, yell and scream with optimum effect because they use their lungs without conscious thought. As we grow older, we become lazy in our habits, using only the upper part of the lungs and taking shallow breathes. As a trained singer, one of the first things I learned was how to control my breathing in order to produce a relaxed tonal quality and sing with optimum effect. Read More
For all you resolutioners out there (including my self), check out this site
Citric acid, aspartame, maltodextrin, natural flavor, silicon dioxide, soy lecithin, Phenylketonurics, Phenylalanine, high fructose corn syrup, Ester gum, gum Arabic, sodium polyphosphate, ascorbic acid, calcium disodium EDTA, potassium sorbate, sodium benzoate, sodium citrate, Yellow 5. These are just some of the ingredients listed in popular bottled iced teas and lemonades.
Over the past 50 years or so, our nation has developed a “drinking problem”. We stopped making our own iced teas and lemonades (recipe: water, lemon, sugar) and started buying them in bottles or mixes, with ingredients like “high-fructose corn syrup” on the labels. We stopped thinking of a soda as an occasional treat and began thinking of it as an equivalent to a glass of water, drinking two, three, four, or more a day. Then we stopped drinking tap water and started demanding that our water be artificially flavored and put into bottles with words like “vitamin” or “energy” on the labels. And, in just the last decade or so, many of us stopped brewing our own coffee and started buying things with vaguely European names, like “mocha latte.”
Do you have a “drinking problem”?
The term fiber refers to carbohydrates that cannot be digested. Fiber is found in the plants we eat — fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes. Sometimes, a distinction is made between soluble fiber and insoluble fiber: soluble fiber partially dissolves in water and has been shown to lower cholesterol; insoluble fiber does not dissolve in water, but that’s why it helps with constipation.
The National Fiber Council (NFC) recommends 32 grams of fiber daily for a healthy adult. According to Columbia University Institute of Human Nutrition, the average American barely consumes half of the recommended amount of fiber needed per day. Below is a chart with some of the most fiber rich foods. Fiber doesn’t’ need to taste like cardboard!
| 1 cup bran cereal | 19.9 g |
| 1 cup navy or white beans, cooked | 19 g |
| 1 cup frozen green peas | 14 g |
| 1 avocado | 11 g |
| 1 artichoke | 10 g |
| 1 cup Acorn squash, cooked | 9 g |
| ½ cup of lentils | 8 g |
| 1 cup of raspberries | 8 g |
| 1 can Campbell’s Low Sodium Vegetable Beef Soup | 6 g |
| 1 cup of broccoli | 6 g |
| 1 medium pear 4.5 g | 4.5 g |
| 1 medium sweet potato, flesh and skin | 4 g |
SPICE: No, not the mirrored ball in Times Square. I’m talking about the phrase “Dropping the ball” which means you let something go. “Oh my goodness! You dropped the ball!” (picture wagging finger and bad breath. maybe a little spittle. ew.)
It might be something important that affected others, but it might not. Either way, it usually means that “you shouldn’t have.” But is that really true?
We hear a lot these days about eating small, frequent meals to keep your blood sugar levels steady but having your blood sugar levels fall to baseline is not necessarily bad for you! They’re supposed to rise after meals, as food is digested and converted into glucose, and then fall back to baseline as the glucose is taken up by the cells and used for energy or stored for future use. Read More
