I want to wish all of my friends a Happy Passover and/or Happy Easter!

It does not happen often that these two holidays land together like they have this weekend.  Today is Friday, the first night of Passover and also Good Friday.

I hope if you celebrate either of these holidays (maybe you celebrate both) that you enjoy a weekend of friends, family, good food and connecting spiritually to your Higher Power.

If you do not celebrate in a religious sense, I hope you enjoy the time when stores and roads won’t be crowded and find something nice to do outside on this early Spring weekend!

To your health!

Vicki

Does this sound familiar? Mornings are just crazy with everyone rushing around the house trying to get out the door with lunches, books and briefcases. Darn! You meant to make some breakfast but now, there just isn’t time. You grab a bagel or a Poptart or you skip breakfast and figure you’ll find something at the office, even though you KNOW there isn’t anything to eat there.

(Did you think someone built a cute little café in your building overnight)?

An hour or so later, you are hungry and having trouble concentrating on your work-the dreaded brain fog. You may even feel a little shaky or irritable. You grab a sugary snack or a cup of coffee, feel a little better and anxiously wait for lunch.
That shaky, brain foggy feeling is from your blood sugar dropping. Reaching for the caffeine or sugary snack will jack up your blood sugar quickly so you will feel better quickly but unfortunately, it doesn’t last long. Sugar and caffeine are not the healthiest way to raise your blood sugar and sets you up for being on this roller coaster all day long.

This sugar yo-yo is a sure formula for gaining weight and being in danger of becoming diabetic.

The trick is to keep you blood sugar stable all day. That means that you need to eat three meals a day and a couple of healthy snacks. It takes a little planning but it is worth the effort because you will feel clear headed, productive and calm all day.

Cinnamon is helpful in maintaining blood sugar. There have been many studies that show that it helps to regulate blood sugar by decreasing insulin resistance. Some studies show that cinnamon enhances insulin’s effectiveness. There are some studies that are not as clear but y’know what? It can’t hurt to use some every day. Cinnamon tastes good and goes great on oatmeal, it can be used in cooking meat for a Mediterranean style meal and is awesome on popcorn!

It also has many other healing properties that make it a healthy choice.
Work on getting up a little earlier so you have time for breakfast and sprinkle a little cinnamon on your oatmeal or toast with banana’s and raisins. One quarter teaspoon a day is all you need!

To Your Good health!

Vicki

If you’d like help setting and meeting goals to improve your health, click here>https://my.timedriver.com/TGW2Me to schedule a free 30 minute consult with me. Working together, we can accomplish a lot!

How much time do you spend outside during the week? If you’re lucky, an hour or two when it’s nice out…on the weekend?

Maybe even less when the weather is more extreme.

Most of us spend the majority of our time inside. When we go do go out, we’re either bundled up to stay warm or slathered with sunscreen to protect ourselves from damaging rays.
It is important to protect ourselves from the sun but it is also extremely important to expose ourselves to the sun too. We need to be exposed for about 20-30 minutes every day to insure we have enough Vitamin D.

Vitamin D’s Numerous Benefits To You
• Key to bone health and strength (particularly important in the elderly)
• Muscle strength
• Reduction of high blood pressure
• Helps prevent multiple sclerosis
• Prevents rickets
• May help prevent cancer of the colon, ovaries, lung, kidney, breast and prostate, in fact, maybe all cancers
• May help prevent rheumatoid arthritis
• Helps regulate blood sugar
• Reduces tooth loss in the elderly
• Enhances mood, particularly with seasonal affective disorder (SAD)
• Assists in brain function and development

How Do You Get Enough?

Getting outside and exposing your skin for 20-30 minutes a day during the middle of the day will give you an adequate amount of Vitamin D. If you expose yourself during the summer your body can store up Vitamin D for the winter months. Be aware that the darker your skin, the more exposure you may need to get to optimal levels. You can also consume it through certain foods. Good sources include oily fish like salmon, mackerel, sardines, egg yolks, or fortified foods like milk and orange juice. Or you can take a vitamin supplement; D3 is preferable to D2.

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Did you know that sugar is everywhere in your diet?  It’s not just in candy anymore. Go look in your pantry and fridge. Check out the food labels. You’ll see that sugar is in salad dressing, pizza, soup and even in your bread!

What the heck is going on?

It’s the perfect storm that has created a health crisis.

Many years ago, a researcher named Ancel Keyes looked at heart disease in many different countries. His study was called the 22 Country Study.  The end result was that he concluded that fat was the reason that people were getting heart disease.  This one study spawned 30 years of medicine preaching no and low fat diets.

The problem is he may have been wrong.

And what manufacturers discovered was that low fat food tastes terrible.  They learned that if they added sugar, it was tasty enough that people would buy it. Unfortunately, what we now know is that fat does not convert into fat but sugar does. And those high doses of sugar we’re eating in our low fat food is what is making us fat.

Being overweight is the precursor to diabetes, heart disease and stroke.  It also causes inflammation which is the precursor for all diseases such as arthritis, cancer, and others.

Consider that at the turn of the last century, people ate about 25 pounds of sugar a year.  Today,we consume 151 pounds a year! (Haley, S. (May 2011). Sugar and Sweeteners Outlook: USDA).

The American Heart Association has created a guideline for how much extra sugar we should have in our diets.  Women should have 100 grams per day and men 150.  One gram is four teaspoons.  One gram is also 4 calories.

For example, one regular coke has 39 grams of sugar.  If you divide that by 4, you get 9.75 teaspoons of sugar.  39 grams x16=156 calories from sugar.  Guess what? The can states there are a total of 140 calories per can.  It is simply liquid sugar. Same with juices and caffeine loaded soft drinks and ice tea.  Next time you’re at the store, check it out.

Another problem with sugar sweetened beverages is that we don’t compensate for the calories.  If you know you are going to have a big celebratory dinner you may cut back during the day because you want to “save up” your calories.  Studies have shown that we don’t do that when we are drinking our sugar.  The pounds can easily creep up over a year when we consume those extra calories.

If you want to painlessly lose some weight over the course of a year, stop drinking sugar sweetened beverages. Not just soft drinks but juice, ice tea, etc.  If you really love juice, I suggest cutting it in half with water, to cut down on the sugar.

Sugar from natural sources like fruit are fine because they contain fiber to slow down the metabolism and they have vitamins and minerals that your body needs.  These other processed foods do not.

If you can think of sugar as a treat and not something to be consumed every day all day long, you will find the pounds pouring off!

If you’d like help in giving up sugar, a potentially difficult task made so much easier with some help, email me at Vicki@yourhealthystructure so we can set up a free consult.

To your good health!

Vicki

I’m not a big celebrity follower. I don’t watch E! or any of the awards shows, however, I love music. I’ve always loved music and I love to sing. Not that I’m very good at it but I’ve always appreciated talented musicians and Whitney Houston was one of my favorites. I remember when she had just started out, none of my friends had heard of her but I’d already bought her first album and knew all the words to all the songs.

She had it all. She was gorgeous and talented. A voice like no one else’s. But clearly something was missing for her. Something was causing her deep pain because she was also chemically dependent.

Two days after her death, I am reminded of how powerful the disease of addiction is. I am reminded that while one might appear to have it all, this disease wants to take it all from you. This disease is tricky, evil, and so often fatal.

I’ve worked with chemically dependent people for almost two decades. I love my work. I have never found brighter, more resilient, caring, loving people as I have in my patients and clients. Unfortunately, society often does not respect people who are chemically dependent. People think that changing chemical dependency is just a matter of willpower or a moral compass gone astray. I am here to tell you it is real. It is a disease that ravages mind, body, and spirit-if one lets it.

I can only hope that Whitney Houston’s death will not be in vain. Not only that her record sales will soar and a new generation will hear her voice but also perhaps a new start for understanding, funding, supporting and helping those that continue to live on with addiction.

I specialize in working with chemically dependent people who are looking to improve their chances of recovery through nutrition and psychotherapy. Please contact me for a session at vicki@yourhealthystructure.com

• Acts with Saturated fats to give cell membrane
  stiffness and stability
• Is a precursor to vital corticosteroids, stress
  hormones, sex hormones like testosterone and progesterone
• Is a precursor to Vitamin D, needed for healthy
  bones, nervous system, immune system
• Bile salts are made from cholesterol and aide
  digestion and assimilation of dietary fats
• Acts as an anti-oxidant
• Needed for proper function of serotonin (the
  feel good neurotransmitter)
• Mothers milk is rich in cholesterol and aides in
  baby growth of brain and nervous system
• Maintains health of the intestinal wall

• A diet that is high in anti-oxidants like the Mediterranean Diet
• Exercise
• Getting enough sleep (7-8 hours every night)
• Meditation
• Connecting with others
• If you smoke-quit!

Yesterday, I sent my husband to the store to buy salt.  As he walked out, I said, “Be sure to buy Celtic Sea Salt!”  He came home empty handed.  “Where’s the salt?” I asked.  He said I must be crazy. That salt was so expensive…it costs more than the gas we put in our car! So he didn’t buy it.

Maybe I am a bit crazy but I went back out and bought some.  Yes, it is more expensive than the regular table salt but in my holistic circles, Celtic Sea Salt, Himalayan salt, or Hawaiian salt (which I’ve used with charcoal or clay or green tea in them)
are the only salts to buy.

The question:  is there truly a difference between sea salt and table salt? Is it worth the price tag?

First, one needs to understand how important salt is to our existence.  The Salt Institute states:  “Salt is an essential nutrient. This is a technical descriptor, not marketing hype. An essential nutrient is one required for life that the body cannot produce itself and which is required for good health. For humans, salt is as essential as water. We can perish from too little salt as we can of thirst. The human body contains about eight ounces of salt. The amount of salt is regulated in our bodies by our kidneys and by perspiration.”

It’s a good thing we like the taste, isn’t it?

Most table salt today is “refined” or “purified,” a process that usually involves recrystallization. In recrystallization, a brine solution is treated with chemicals that precipitates out most “impurities,” that is magnesium and trace minerals. Multiple stages of evaporation are then used to collect pure sodium chloride crystals, which are kiln-dried.

During the drying process, an anti-caking compound is added to the brine—this ensures that the salt will “pour when it rains.” Some of the anti-caking chemicals used can cause health problems. (The Salt of the Earth, Sally Fallon, www.westonprice.org)

Since the 1920’s, many manufacturers have also been adding iodine to salt.  Iodine is an important mineral that supports thyroid health.  One can also get iodine from one’s diet if one eats seaweed and seafood.  However, many of us are land based and need to supplement.  Salt has been an easy way to do so.

Sea salt, on the other hand, is made by evaporating sea water.  Salt and trace minerals are left behind.  Sea salt often does not contain the iodine that refined salt has had added to it.

Consider:

• Both products contain close to the same amount of sodium chloride.
• Both products are essentially sea salt.  One is mined from the ground where waters have receded and one has been mined from the sea.
• Some experts state that sea salt may be contaminated with all the pollutants that are in the sea (Himalayan salt is mined from a lake so it does not have that issue)
• Sea salt has trace minerals; table salt has none
• Table salt has iodine added; sea salt has none or very little

At the end of the day, the choice is yours. Personally, I will continue to use Celtic Sea Salt or pink Himalayan Sea Salt (it is much cheaper) because:

• I prefer unprocessed foods.
• I prefer foods that have no additives.
• I like the flavor of sea salt on my food much more than regular salt.  And yes, I can tell a difference.
• I like that there are trace minerals, even if some experts say they are negligible.
• I will simply supplement with iodine and be sure that I eat seaweed regularly to support my thyroid.

References:

Sea Salt vs Table Salt: http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/HighBloodPressure/PreventionTreatmentofHighBloodPressure/Sea-Salt-Vs-Table-Salt_UCM_430992_Article.jspan

Is Sea Salt Better for You Than Table Salt? http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/sea-salt/AN01142

The 13 Amazing  Health Benefits of Himalayan Crystal Salt the Purest Salt on Earth http://products.mercola.com/himalayan-salt/

Salt Facts: http://www.saltinstitute.org/About-salt

The Salt of the Earth Written by Sally Fallon Morell    July 4 2011 Why Salt is Essential to Health and Happiness

http://www.westonaprice.org/vitamins-and-minerals/the-salt-of-the-earth