It is important to know that your digestive tract (your stomach, intestine and colon etc) comprises what has become known as your “enteric brain”. Research has found that there are more nerve endings and fibers there than even the spinal cord. And this “second brain” puts out all the same neurotransmitters found in the brain, including 90% of the body’s seratonin.

It’s no wonder that stress messes with our digestion and calming things like yoga enhance it. It’s also a no-brainer why people are addicted to Zantac and Pepcid, and pop Tums like breath mints: our lives are stressful, there’s no getting around it. But popping antacids further compromise our digestion and do nothing to fix the problem. So what do we do?

We begin by saying “when”. We need to create our own personal form of cognitive behavioral therapy. Whether it’s yoga, breathwork, mindfulness meditation or long walks in the woods, learning a relaxation response is key to better mental health as well as digestive health. It can be as simple as mindfully brushing your dog to as complicated as a scheduled Tai Chi class at the gym. You’ve heard this all before, but now I’m telling you to pay attention to your gut! The foods you eat are the energy and repair fuel of your body. If you have compromised digestion not only will you feel unwell, you will also lack energy, have poor sleep and dull skin. Imagine how your insides tolerate poor digestion!

Pay attention to how you feel. Take the time to relax and unwind. Take breaks to blow off steam. Don’t eat when you are stressed and agitated.  Sip tea. Ahhhhhh. Feel better?

Anyway, She reported that breast feeding mothers who ate a wide variety of healthy fruits and vegetables instilled these “tastes” in their children, even after weaning! Double wow. Another reason to promote breast feeding: training up a child’s tastebuds to crave healthy foods!

Further in her post, Dr. Dolgroff presented a novel idea about food presentation that is particularly appealing to youngsters. Apparently, studies were conducted comparing childrens vs. adults’ food presentation preferences–how they perceive their plates, if you will. The studies found that children are much more interested in their dinner plates if there is a variety of colors and shapes present. Call it better visual stimulation if you like, but it happens to be more likely that your child will eat more good things if she is interested in what she sees. I think the take away point here is to look at food preparation as an art form! Think about eating in the fancy restaurants: those expensive dinner plates are pretty and artfully displayed. Creating a colorful plate for your children might be the ticket to better eating habits. Why not give it a try?

Here’s a starter: use mashed potatoes (regular or sweet) as a base, and stand up carrot sticks and green beans. Or, make a “dam” of aforementioned potatoes and fill the center with peas or broccoli trees. Let your creativity shine through, and dinner time may become an artistic expression of your inner self!

You can read Dr. Dolgroff’s post on The Huffington Post under Healthy Living. Enjoy!

Here are my thoughts on getting kids on track with eating healthy.

• Start ‘em young. When they begin eating solid foods, make sure they are wholesome, real foods, devoid of artificial ingredients. Real fruits and vegetables, bitesized pieces organic cheeses, samplings of whole grain cereals etc. The key is to keep their taste buds from getting addicted to sugar.
• Don’t cave to pressure, keep an open mind, and remember it’s food.  As kids grow into the whiney “I want” stage, keep the goal of healthy eating in the forefront of your mind. Allow them to pick out healthy treats, even if it means a trip to the health food store to narrow the choices. Dried fruits and fruit leathers, raw nuts mixed with dark chocolate nibs often win over the fussy eaters. Make frozen fruit pops and blended smoothies. Ask them for suggestions, and maybe you will be surprised at how much they’d like to experiment with new foods. If they say they will eat broccoli with chocolate sauce, give them broccoli with chocolate sauce!  Above all, don’t be a food Nazi!
• Try to keep it fun and light. Let them have chips once in a while, but let them choose organic whole grain chips. Let them pick out a healthy salsa rather than “cool ranch dip”. Instead of Reeses pieces, let them have chocolate covered almonds. Trade with your children: if they get the chips and salsa, you can expect them to try a new vegetable for dinner. Make eating fun and fair.
• For little ones, try chopping veggies and fruits into interesting shapes. Carrots sticks, frozen peas, broccoli trees, string bean spears. And just because junior doesn’t like raw carrots, he might like cooked carrot coins with orange juice and honey. Always ask them to simply try a new food, and don’t make an issue of it. You can also turn eating little items such as peas into a counting game!
• OF course there is also the idea of covert veg operations: hiding your veggies amongst other foods. Tomato sauce can hide pureed squash and cauliflower, for example. Smoothies of dark berries will hide spinach and kale! Using eggs and whole-grain baking mix will make awesome veggie pancakes such as carrot and zucchini: served up with apple sauce or butter is outstanding for kids and adults alike! 

Eating should never become a power struggle or war within a household. It’s a source of nourishment and energy. As we try to improve our eating habits day by day, let’s infuse those habits into our children and encourage them to eat good foods.

I know that exercise is a four-letter word to many women. They just haven’t found an activity they like, and aren’t motivated to look very far. There are also many women who, after working a long day and tending to the kids in the evening, have no time or energy to exercise. Many of them would like to exercise, used to exercise, but really can’t find the time.

This is a daunting task, but I have to tell you that we were meant to MOVE. I have said this time and time again and it is true. We weren’t meant to spend as much time on our derriers as we do. Our backs are healthier when we are standing and moving. Our brains are sharper when we are moving and oxygenating them. Our waistlines are smaller and trimmer when we are stretching and bending daily. So how do we find the time and the energy? By doing less and a little here and there. Let me explain:

There are moments in the day where you can move more. Now before you shout at me, let’s think about it. There really are a lot of ways to find time for movement during your days if you want to, so let’s look and see where our time is being spent.

• First, take out a pad and write a number in the left margin for every hour of your waking day. I start numbering from 5 am until 9 pm because that is when I get up and go to sleep.
• Then, write down what you do during those hours. You can even break it into 1/2 hours if you like. This is a Time Diary, similar to a food diary. This is highly enlightening if you have never done this before.
• Now is when you look for places to cull tasks and create time. Find time. Manifest time. It is there, you just have to find it. Even 15 minute blocks work.

What I found was that I spend a considerable amount of time looking at the computer, not all of which was necessary, but was filler between other things. You may find that you spend a lot of time on your smart phone or computer, too. Are you in front of the television much? Household chores? Looking at a comprehesive list of your time spending can help you to see where you can go on a time budget. For example, spending less time online can give you a bit of time to walk or exercise. Sharing chores with other family members can give you time to go out in the yard and physically play with your kids. You have to want to find it, but time is there. If you must watch TV, get up during every commercial (and there are many) and run up or down stairs. See where I’m going with this? If you want it, it will come.

In my mornings, I had to add time to make lunches for me and my husband, as well as breakfasts and even dinner prep. So the computer was reduced to a quick scan of my inbox, which allowed me 45 minutes for a run with my dogs every morning. Did you only find 15 extra minutes in the mornings? Easy! Set your alarm for 15 minutes earlier, and you now have 30 minutes to move, stretch, run, jump and dance!

You need to change the way you think about exercise. Forget the E word. Think M. Movement. Walking briskly to and from your car. Taking stairs. Cleaning with gusto. Yard work with spunk. This is exercise, ladies, and this is what keeps you fit and young.

So let’s MOVE!!

But what is happening this year to winter? it’s grey, soggy, rainy, and I found ticks crawling up my arm last night. What gives? My moods are deteriorating with the winter weather, and it is a time when emotional eating can overtake even the most health conscientous people. What’s a foodie to do?

Plan!

One thing I tell everyone who works with me—about eating and life in general— you have to have a plan. It is too easy to slip into mindless unhealthy eating when the days are short and grey, damp and uninviting. So you have to be prepared. Here is my short-list on food preparedness for February blues eating:

• Know thy enemy. It’s a very personal journey, but you know who they are. Chips? Chocolate? Ice cream? If you can’t steer clear of them, hide them in the basement or move them out of the house.
• Choose healthy snacks that pack nutrition and foster satiety such as dried dates and figs (wonderfully sweet), raw cashews, walnuts and Brazil nuts, jarred salsas and bean dips with chunks of carrots and celery or whole grain chips. Have citrus fruits, pears and apples in a bowl on the counter for quick fruit energy bursts.
• This is a wonderful time to stew—-in the crock pot, of course. Have  a crock pot going on the weekends so you have nourishing bean and vegetable soups and stews during the week. Chili, black bean, lentil and minestrone are nutritious, filling and warming for those long winter evenings, and they are quick to thermos up for lunch!
• Make friends with your tea pot. Nothing warms your hands and calms your soul better than a fragrant cup of herbal tea. Make up your own blend of herbs from your garden– I dry mountain mint, lemon balm and verbena, and apple mint from my herb beds— or try one of the many premade tea blends available. Tazo, Yogi and Traditional Medicinals have great blends and are sold in most supermarkets and health food stores. My favorite source is Mountain Rose Herbals, a delightful company which offers so many wonderful, inviting blends such as “Evening Repose” and “Peace Blend”. I encourage you to google them and find a tea that beckons you.

We have already made it to February (almost) and spring is literally around the corner. As the sun shines through the greyness, I pour myself a cup of tea and settle down in front of the fire with a good book. Winter is good for that. No gardening to tend to, no grass to mow. peace. Embrace it. Embrace winter. Plan your foods wisely and you will be ready when spring comes to climb out of your sweatpants and into your shorts and sleeveless tees!

I have written many times in the past about the need for vitamin D supplementation. My interest in this vitamin started years ago before you heard much about it, and it has only continued to become a more interesting topic as time and research continues. It bears repeating that vitamin D is called the “sunshine vitamin” because our major source comes from unadulterated sun exposure. There is very little in the way of food sources for vitamin D, other than sun-cured mushrooms such as Shiitakes, and some fish. The paltry amount of D2 added to milk does nothing to boost our levels of the vitamin, and dairy comes with its own set of problems for many folks.

Long ago when our food animals were raised outdoors and on grasses,animal products contained wonderful fatty acids and some vitamin D. Egg yolks used to be a good source of vitamin D, but not when your chickens never see the light of day! So our society has evolved to be very D-ficient!

We know that vitamin D is essential for bone health, helping to escort calcium into the bones to keep them strong. We also now know that there are vitamin D receptors on all our cells and that this “hormone” actually plays a vital role in many things such as immune function, neurological function, mood, cognition, preventing heart disease and cancer. The newest reports that I read just this evening from the Vitamin D Council speak of studies that show how vitamin D slows the aging of our cells– and us!—by keeping our telomeres long and healthy. Telemeres—go back to your science classes!—are the ends of the spindles that protect the chromosomes and genes. Think of them as protective caps. When they are thick they protect the genes but when they are thin they do not. Many studies have shown a direct link between the length of our telomeres and how fast we age. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to age any faster than I have to!

The bottom line is this: get your vitamin D level checked at your doctors’ office first. Your level should be at least in the 40s-50s. Many  doctors think that that number should be even higher if you have cancer or autoimmune disease. Dr. Russell Blaylock, MD, a very prominent neurosurgeon, recommends levels in the 80s-90s. It is safe to supplement with 3000IU to 5000 IU daily if you are low, and then it is very important to recheck your levels in 3 months to see where you are at. Hopefully you can then find a maintenance dose that will keep your numbers in a healthy, protective range throughout the year. For more info, check out www.vitamindcouncil.org for some great stuff!

Be well,

Diane

I,too, was the queen of multitasking, and at times, I still fall back into that old pattern. But the truth of the matter is this: we can only perform one task at at time. We may think that we are being more productive while thinking about several things whilst doing another, but it is all fantasy. If we concentrate on doing one thing only, we will not only accomplish the task extraordinarily well, we will also do it with more meaning and satisfaction. And, in no time at all. And we will avoid much of the angst and worry about not “doing it all”.

But I digress, for the meaning of all this is to give you my thoughts on anxiety and depression which seem to go inextricably well together. And I chose this season, autumn, to think about these things because this time of year tends to aggravate mental “issues” what with the shortening days and colder temps.

Coming into peri-menopause I have come to know the meaning of anxiety all too well. Hormone fluxes have much to do with our mental health and if you doubt me, just hang around an adolescent for a time. Stress, hormones, our jobs or lack thereof, all can and do add to the likelihood of manifesting a mental health illness. But I want to assure you that we don’t all have to run off to the doctor’s office and beg for Prozac. Those medications are needed by some rare individuals. But the vast majority of us can gain control over the situation by learning a few proactive tools and tricks. So let me tell you a few things that I have learned:

~ Exercise is paramount to good health and hormonal balance. Particularly for anxiety, exercise uses up the adrenaline and the cortisol that our primitive brains think they need to outrun the saber-toothed tiger that is chasing us– when in reality it is only our boss. When you feel stressed out, run it off. Walk fast. Dance your pants off. Do anything that suits your mood, but move yourself and burn off the stress hormones and replace them with endorphins. Speaking of endorphins, those feel-good hormones, nothing brings me out of a funk than a brisk walk in nature with the dogs. Exercise creates energy when you don’t feel like getting out of your jammies, and calms you down when you feel like jumping off the bridge. try it. I promise you it will give you relief.

~if you are anxious, steer clear of caffeine. Nothing exacerbates an anxiety attack like caffeine. Know your limitations and stick within them. Once you down your 2nd Starbuck’s and are shaking, it’s too late. On the flip side, if depression has you wanting to hide your head under the covers, treat yourself to a cup of Joe to get you up and running. Know that caffeine is a drug and if you imbibe, use it wisely. There are several health benefits to caffeine whether from coffee or tea. But everyone reacts to it differently, so know your body. I know many patients who could easily get off their Zoloft if they would give up or cut back on their cafffeine intake. be aware of caffeine’s affect on your body!

~Have you ever noticed that you  hold your breath or breathe very shallowly when you are upset or anxious or angry? The power of the breath is your biggest ally. It is easy to learn (you’ve been breathing for a long time), it’s free, it’s portable, and no one needs to know what you are up to. Cool. The next time you are running late and are stuck in traffic, try this: take a long, deep breath in through your nose. Let your belly expand with air. Deeper. Now hold it for a couple seconds, but not long enough for it to create more anxiety! Then, let it out slowly, through pursed lips, slower still, until you have forced that last bit of used air out of your lungs. Repeat 3-5 times, or as often as necessary. If you are a yogini, use that wonderful Darth Vader breath where you close your throat a bit and let the sound of the air make that wooshing sound as it vibrates in the back of your throat.. You see, when you focus on the breath and change from shallow breathing to deep full lung breathing, you are switching from the sympathetic nervous system’s control (think “flight or fight”) to the relaxing parasympathetic nervous system. This is where you want to be. So breathe!

~You can spot a person struggling with depression sometimes by just watching their posture. When we are down, when we are tired and without energy or desire, we tend to carry ourselves with rounded shoulders, and head hanging forward. We diminish our ability to breathe deeply and we tax our muscles and creat tension in our necks, shoulders and spine. Even our mouth sags. Stand up straight and drop your shoulders behind you by thinking to yourself “elbows in my back pockets”. Envisioning allowing your elbows to fall into your back pockets allows your chest to open and your lungs to expand. Opening your heart, allows you to accept and give love! Lift up your eyes when you walk, and make eye contact with others. Lifting your eyes lifts the head back where it should be, taking the strain off the neck and upper back. Your head is heavy! Lastly, allow yourself to smile. Find SOMETHING to smile at. Trust me, this is very important. Force it. A smile invites happy thoughts into your soul. It invites people to smile back at you. This is very powerful stuff.

~One thing I know that works perfectly for both anxiety and depression is petting and loving on an animal. Petting a dog or cat has profound effects on our nervous systems. Grooming a horse gives us exercise and a warmth in the same way. If you are not a pet owner, find a friend or neighbor and borrow one. Visit a shelter or volunteer at a rescue. There are plenty of animals out there waiting for you to attend to them. Having two dogs has made a profound improvement in my and my husband’s mental health. My daughter’s canine companion is helping her navigate through law school. Their talents are boundless and their love is unconditional. They are the perfect mental healthcare provider!

I hope I have given you a few tools to use to help get a better grip on two conditions that seem to be plagueing modern society. I know it isn’t easy, and I know it isn’t a perfect solution. But every time you can thwart a depressive episode or curtail an anxiety attack you have made a serious step toward control over your mental health. And that is one of my missions: helping all of you take control over your health through nutrition and good, sensible healthy life choices.

Be well,

Diane  

Just as the weather is changing, so too, is our diet, personal care, and soul-life.

As fresh lettuces are a mere memory, fall spinach, kale and chard become center stage. Now is the season of cooked greens, and if you don’t know them, aquaint yourself immediately! Kale, Bok Choi, chard, collards are all staples of the fall diet, and they are nutrient-dense and flavorful. They add easily to all soups and stews, making it easy to get your daily quota of greens. Tomatoes and cucumbers may be dwindling, but winter squashes and apples are plentiful. Baking them is easy,,, season them with cinnamon and the house will smell wonderfully.

Fall is also a time we seek out heavier foods, but instead of reaching for rich desserts and heavy meats, look toward whole grains such as polenta, oatmeal and pilafs. I recently bought a small 2 quart crock pot to cook my grains. It is wonderful: I add stock and the grain, some minced herbs or onions, and walk away. I then have a crock of grains for the week!

As the weather cools, our skin tends to dry as our tans peel off and skin has a rough, old texture. If you haven’t added healthy fats to your diet all along, your skin will suffer now! In addition to keeping well hydrated by drinking water, eat fatty fish such as wild-caught Pacific salmon, sable fish, sardines or herring for their essential fatty acids. Or, take a high-quality fish oil supplement such as Nordic Naturals. Use raw organic butter, organic coconut oil, and organic extra virgin olive oil. And don’t forget the nuts and seeds (raw, please) that provide protein and healthy fats for not only your skin but also your brain cells! And let’s not forget dry skin brushing to make your skin glow.

Some people tell me they get depressed as winter rolls around. Some say it is the lack of sunlight, some say a deficiency of vitamin D. I think it is more than that. I think it is also  a mindset. When I visit people up north, they seem to embrace winter, participating in outdoor activities, and seem quite fine overall. I think it is important to get some sunlight on your face, in your eyes every day that it is possible. And, keep your vitamin D level in the 50’s at least. Then, change your mind about winter. Find a way. I know you can! Take up walking, leaf collecting, park-hopping while the weather cools down. Invest in some warm clothes and a good flashlight. Buy cheap snow shoes! Whatever intrigues you about winter, go for it. Your soul needs fulfillment all times of the year. It needs to be nourished and excited about life in all seasons! If you really hate the thought of braving the cold, make friends with books and embrace a whole new life through reading. Or crafting. Or sewing. Feed your soul something new and get excited about it. Fall is the perfect season to transition into something new and good and fun. That is one of the keys to staying young.

Only a generation ago, people knew what to eat. Today, nobody knows what to eat. Why is that? Well, for one thing, we have too many choices between foods and food products and advertisements everywhere you look. But eating well does not have to require a math degree or a flow chart of scientific formulae. I hope that I can simplify this for you.

Michael Pollan makes it easy when he says to eat real food, mostly plants.

What I say is eat real food, not food products, mostly veggies, fruits, nuts and seeds. What ’s a food product? It’s anything that requires a label to tell you what’s in it. It’s anything that your grandmother didn’t eat. Think Swiss cheese vs. Velveeta. Think fresh peaches vs. canned peaches in sweet syrup. Think pure maple syrup vs. Aunt Jemima! Are you getting it?

Marion Nestle, PhD, is the author of a great book, “What to Eat” and I highly recommend it. She spends a lot of time trying to help people know what is safe, nourishing food. Her food blog, FOOD POLITICS, is very good, too. She gives good advice when she suggests that people shop the perimeter of the supermarket. This essentially lets you avoid the junk and processed foods in favor of the produce, meat and dairy departments. During the summer and fall months, I recommend shopping at all the farmer’s markets you can find. If it’s not sold there, you probably don’t need it anyway!

To simplify things, take it from someone who hates math and will not count calories, grams of fat or carbs. Focus on seasonal veggies and fruits. Build your meals around them. Add beans and animal products in smal amounts so you get the protein you need. Need more energy? Up the protein a bit. Use grains in their whole form once a day or so, and keep the servings small. Think oatmeal, whole rice pilaf, or wheat salad. Snack on raw nuts and seeds. Relax. It’s only food. Real food. Make friends with real food and enjoy the bounty this season.

It’s been about 2 months since we began our spring cleaning. We have increased our intake of water, healthy teas and greens. Our bowels are flowing smoothly and our toxins are moving out of our body through our clear skin and invigorating breath. Do you feel the difference??

Now it’s time to eliminate further—unhealthy foods from your pantry and your diet! You know it would come to this. So let’s do it!

Just say NO to HFCS

If you have been reading my newsletters, you know I am adamant about a couple things, and the first is to avoid high fructose corn syrup like it is the deadly sin it truly is. Now be aware that the corn industry is going to great lengths to prove the safety of HFCS, but don’t fall for this propaganda and stay away. There is nothing natural about a test tube byproduct added ubiquitously to our food supply. JUST SAY NO. If you need more information on why you need to avoid these chemicals, please read this article.

Learn to Read—–Labels

Marion Nestle, PhD, says that you shouldn’t eat food products with more than 5 ingredients. Notice that I said “food products”. Excluding things such as canned beans and fish and packaged hummus and salsa, many things that come in packages are not foods but “food products”. This is particularly evident as the list of ingredients gets longer than 5 items.

Ideally, most of our diet should consist of real foods that don’t require labels such as fruits, vegetables, beans, seeds, nuts, and whole grains like rice, oatmeal, barley etc. The rest of our diet should include foods that are minimally processed and with several things missing: avoid these:

·         Artificial flavors and colors—ALL of them.

·         Preservatives unless derived from natural ingredients (and these would be labeled as such)

·         Anything you can’t pronounce

·         Anything that has the word HYDROGENATED in it

If you can remember to avoid just 2 simple items (that happen to be in the worst of the food products you can eat), you will be well on your way to improving your health and minimizing your intake of harmful food products. These products are high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated fats. Check your breads, baked goods, snacks and don’t even consider fast foods. If it has either of the above mentioned additives, it is poorly made, of no nutritional value and probably cheap as well. Welcome, my friends, to the reasons behind the obesity epidemic.

On a Lighter Note…

It is almost June: the winter weight gain should be mainly a thing of the past, right? The days are longer and there is no reason not to get outside and get your bodies moving. There is yard work aplenty, and the bicycle needs air in the tires. Walk the dogs, please! They are the most inexpensive personal trainers around!

Plan your meals around healthy ingredients. Whip up a batch of guacamole, salsa or hummus in the Vitamix and pack it up in small containers for work You can even buy cut up raw veggies if you don’t have the time to cut them yourself!

Stock up on freezer fruit. Blend this up with some protein powder or other supplement blend and you have a quick meal-to-go or an afternoon pick-me-up. I really like the product by Nature’s Way called Alive! which comes in a soy or pea protein base and includes a plethora of wholesome ingredients. My husband and I drink daily shakes with Alive!, fresh kale, berries and a banana. Great energy drink!

Even kids love them!!