10 Small Steps To Improve Your Health

Many of us make health-related resolutions, such as to lose weight, stop smoking or join the neighborhood health club. While it is common to set high goals, experts say that setting smaller goals could do more for our health.

“Small steps are achievable and are easier to fit into your daily routine,” says James O. Hill, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. “They are less overwhelming than a big, sudden change.”

Here are 10 to try:

1. Stop gaining weight. Even if you gain just a pound or two every year, the extra weight adds up quickly.

2. Take more small steps. Use a pedometer to count your daily steps; then add 2,000, the equivalent of one extra mile. Keep adding steps, 1,000 to 2,000 each month or so, until you take 10,000 steps on most days.

3. Eat breakfast. Breakfast eaters tend to weigh less and have better diets overall. For a filling and nutrition-packed breakfast, top Whole Grain Total® with fresh fruit slices and low-fat or fat-free milk.

4. Switch three grain servings each day to whole grain. If you’re like the average American, you eat less than one whole grain serving a day.

5. Have at least one green salad every day. Eating a salad (with low-fat or fat-free dressing) is filling and may help you eat less during the meal. It also counts toward your five daily cups of vegetables and fruits.

6. Trim the fat. Fat has a lot of calories, and calories count. Purchase lean meats, eat poultry without the skin, switch to lower-fat cheeses, use a nonstick pan with only a dab of oil or butter.

7. Consider calcium by including two or three daily servings of low-fat or fat-free milk or yogurt. Dairy calcium is good for bones and may also help you lose weight.

8. Downsize. The smaller the bag, bottle or bowl, the less you will eat.

9. Lose just 5 to 10 percent of your current weight. The health benefits are huge-lower blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol and triglycerides.

10. Keep track of your eating. Write down what you eat over the next couple of days and look for problem spots. Often, just writing things down can help you eat less.

Berry Good

Long before winter comes, black bears in the forest spend all their time eating everything they can sink their teeth into.  During the summer, bears eat and eat and eat, trying to get as fat as they possibly can, and when the weather turns cold, they look for a place to curl up and then they sleep the winter away.

Now, the habits of bears might not seem like something you should try to follow.  After all, doctors are always warning us humans that we shouldn’t overeat, and that we shouldn’t spend all of our time lying around, doing nothing.

But there is one part of the black bear’s habits that you should actually try to imitate, because it would be good for your health.

Black bears eat a lot of berries, of many different varieties, such as raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries.

Berries contain natural sugars and wonderful flavors.  Unlike many other foods that are really good for you, but which don’t taste good, berries taste great.

And unlike many foods that taste great but which aren’t good for you, berries are among the most health friendly foods you can eat.

It’s only been within the last decade that scientists have started to pay a lot of attention to the health benefits of berries.  And what researchers are learning about the health benefits of berries has a lot of exciting potential for human diets.

One of the first major experiments on the health benefits of berries took place at Tufts University about ten years ago.

Researchers were working with a group of aging rats.  They fed them diets of various foods to see what the effects would be.  Among the foods they tested were strawberries, blueberries, and spinach.

Now these rats were fairly old in terms of “rat years”.  In fact, their age was equivalent to humans about 70 years old.

The foods the scientists tested were all very high in beneficial antioxidants, so the scientists wanted to see if any of these foods would boost the physical and mental capabilities of these aging rats.

The researchers found that while several of these foods seemed to offer some antioxidant protection, the rats that had been fed blueberries were the only ones that actually improved in their abilities.

In fact, the rats which had been fed blueberries were able to perform like much younger rats!

This was a very exciting find, and the scientists then wanted to find what it was in the blueberries that produced this very beneficial effect.

It turns out that the chemicals responsible for making these aging rats act mentally younger and perkier were the pigments in the skin of the blueberries.

The compounds that give ripe berries their beautiful colors are the very substances that have such strong anti-oxidant powers.  And antioxidants are compounds that help repair some of the damage that happens to our body cells every day.

Scientists have discovered that the darker the berry, the more health benefits it has!  Eating two thirds of a cup of blueberries will give you as much anti-oxidant protection as five servings of apples or squash.

The dark pigments in these berries seem to offer protection against cardiovascular disease, degenerative eye disease such as cataracts, and may offer some help in preventing some cancers, and bladder infections.

If the exciting results of the rat studies turn out to also hold true for humans, it may mean that compounds in these dark berries may help protect brain cells from the degenerative diseases of aging.

You can get this fantastic antioxidant protection whether you eat your berries fresh, frozen, or dried.

You can eat berries raw, add them to your favorite cereals, or make a smoothie drink with various berries, fruits, milk and yoghurt.  Get creative and find ways to mix berries into your favorite recipes.

In North America, blueberries are available fresh or frozen year round.  If you can’t get fresh berries, dried berries are also filled with very concentrated levels of the valuable antioxidants.

If you live in a place where blueberries are not easily available, look for other fruits and berries that have very dark red or dark purple colors.

Foods such as pomegranates, bilberries, cherries, black raspberries, saskatoons or serviceberries also have high levels of these very beneficial dark pigments.  These foods offer benefits similar to the benefits of blueberries.

So, think about incorporating at least one habit of bears into your lifestyle  – and make berries a frequent part of your diet!
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Calcium: When You Take It, It Works

Calcium has been recommended and widely accepted as an essential mineral for bone and skeletal health and numerous body functions-regulating heartbeat, conducting nerve impulses, stimulating hormonal secretions and clotting the blood. Now, some conflicting and potentially misleading research is threatening to negate the efficacy of this vital mineral.

One factor that the study, published by the Women’s Health Initiative, got right was that the government’s recommended daily dosage is necessary to receive the benefits associated with calcium consumption and supplementation. Yet more than half of the study participants did not adhere to the recommended calcium supplementation, making improvements in bone density a nearly impossible result. Meanwhile, those that did comply experienced a whopping 29 percent lower risk of hip fractures.

Americans, both young and old, are failing to meet calcium intake requirements and the incidence of osteoporosis is climbing. During adolescent and teenage years, when 45 percent of bone mass is formed, meeting calcium requirements is essential. According to the Journal of Pediatrics, however, only 10 percent of teenage girls and 30 percent of teenage boys are meeting adequate calcium intake, which places them at serious risk for stunted growth, bone disease and, eventually, osteoporosis.

Calcium is available through dairy products and green, leafy vegetables-yet incorporating adequate amounts into a modern, hectic lifestyle, regardless of age, is often unrealistic. Calcium-fortified foods and supplements, however, can fill the gap.

“It’s very important that people do take a supplement if they’re not getting enough calcium in their diet,” says Nicholina Galinsky, R.N. “Unfortunately, most of us are not aware that we have osteoporosis until we break a bone.”

Adora™, a new calcium supplement, is made with milk and dark chocolate. Each chocolate disk contains 500 mg of elemental calcium, along with 100 international units of vitamin D and 40 micrograms of vitamin K, which aids absorption. In addition, the supplements taste like gourmet chocolate, which makes sense since the manufacturer, Thompson Brands, is a candy maker, not a pharmaceutical company.