Create an Environment for Success

As the television season premiere week is in full swing, this time of year is hard for me to keep bad behaviors from resurfacing. I used to watch all the network nightly shows with a big bag of potato chips in my hand. In order to avoid this, I got rid of all the potato chips in the house and forbid anyone in my household to bring them in. Now I slice up cucumbers, put Morton's light salt all over them and cruch on those instead. If you are struggling with old behaviors, I found some great tips that will help you make it to your weight loss goal:

• If you want to eat better, rid your cupboards of tempting foods and keep healthy snacks on hand.
• To exercise more, make sure your workout gear is always clean and put it where you can see it.
• To facilitate self-monitoring, keep a journal and pens readily available.
• Find people to share your experiences with. Look for other opportunities, such as enlisting a friend for regular walks or trips to the gym.

If you have any tips you would like to share, please comment below.

Recipe: Healthy Tuna Salad

1 cup lettuce
1 small apple, chopped
1 plan serving low sodium tuna
1 tbsp. lite Italian dressing

Mix all ingredients together.

Counts as : 1 protein; 1 free vegetable; 1 limited fruit; 1 condiment

Report: Fewer Soft Drinks in School

School vending machines are stocked with fewer high-calorie soft drinks today because some states have banned the sale of sodas on campus and the beverage industry is phasing in healthier drinks.

Overall, shipments of all beverages to schools, when measured in ounces, dropped 27 percent between 2004 and the 2006-07 school year, the Associated Press reports.

The biggest declines were in sugary fruit drinks, 56.2 percent, and full-calorie soft drinks, 45.1 percent. Meanwhile, there was a 22.8 percent increase in the volume of bottled water in school vending machines.
Neely said that the guidelines led the beverage industry to invest millions of dollars to retrofit vending machines and repackage products. Those efforts will continue as companies work toward fully ending sales of nondiet soft drinks by the 2009-10 school year.

Read the full article.

CROP Hunger Walk Volunteers

WHO: Healthy Inspirations at Club Northwest is looking for a few good women to join us in supporting a very worthy cause and participate in a 5K walk to help eliminate hunger in our community.

WHAT: CROP Hunger Walks help children and families worldwide -- and right here in the U.S. -- to have food for today, while building for a better tomorrow. Each year more than 2.5 million CROP Walkers, volunteers, and sponsors put their hearts and soles in motion, raising over $16 million per year to help stop hunger around the world -- and in their own communities.

WHEN: Sunday, October 7, 2007 at 1:00 p.m.

WHERE: Riverside Park - Registration begins at noon in the gazebo

WHY: This walk is a great way to get some exercise, bond with other Healthy Inspirations members, and give back to the community in which we live. Twenty-five percent of proceeds go to the Josephine County Food Bank and the rest goes to feed the world's hungry. And you are part of it!

HOW LONG IS A 5K? Five kilometers is approximately 3.1 miles. If you can walk a mile in 20 minutes, a 5K will probably take you between 58 and 68 minutes to complete.

HOW TO SIGN UP? If you are interested in joining the team and finding a few sponsors to support you, please print your name & phone number below.

E-mail Krissy to sign up or for more information.

Visit the CROP Hunger Walks website.

Fish Oil Boosts Bone Health

Already touted for its heart and mood benefits, a fish oil-rich diet may also boost bone health, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry. If these findings hold true in humans, fish oil could offer a key strategy to prevent age-related osteoporosis.

Scientists supplemented the diets of two groups of female mice either with omega-3 fatty acid-rich fish oil or omega-6 fatty acid-rich corn oil. After six months, fish oil-fed mice maintained higher bone mineral density in different bone regions, compared with the mice fed omega-6 fats. The omega-3 fed animals also demonstrated increased levels of a bone formation marker, and fewer bone-degrading osteoclast cells in bone marrow cell cultures.

~ Cathy Burke, LIFE EXTENSION Magazine, September 2007

Today We Celebrate LaRae!

Today we want to celebrate LaRae W.'s amazing accomplishment of not only losing more than 20 pounds, but also in reducing her cholesterol count from 202 to 179!

She also brought down her triglycerides from 356 to 127 (she should be 150 and below). Triglycerides are the chemical form in which most fat exists in food as well as in the body. They're also present in blood plasma and, in association with cholesterol, form the plasma lipids. Excess triglycerides in plasma is called hypertriglyceridemia. It's linked to the occurrence of coronary artery disease in some people. Elevated triglycerides may be a consequence of other disease, such as untreated diabetes mellitus.

Way to go LaRae! We are so happy that you are now healthier than you were 15 weeks ago!!!!

12 Get-You-Off-the-Couch Reasons to Exercise

1. Physical activity helps you lose weight by burning calories, boosting resting metabolism, and buffering you from bone and muscle loss that can result if you diet alone.
2. High levels of physicial activity can decrease your risk of colon cancer by 40 to 50 percent.
3. Exercise helps you get better sleep. In one study, people who walked more than six blocks a day had one-third fewer insomnia problems than their less active cohorts.
4. Walking 30 minutes five days a week can increase your life span by one and half years. Make that running, and it may add up to four years. That's the conclusion of a 2005 study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, which showed that it's never too late to increase longevity.
5. Half-hour aerobic sessions three to five times a week have been shown to cut symptoms of mild to moderate depression nearly in half. One study suggests that exercise can be as effective as drugs in treating major depressive disorder.
6. Brisk walking for just an hour or two a week can reduce the risk of breast cancer in postmenopausal women by nearly 20 percent. And for those who already have the disease, walking three to five hours a week may reduce the chance of dying from it by as much as 50 percent.
7. Aerobic exercise, such as a half hour of rapid walking five days a week, has been shown to cut the risk of catching a cold nearly in half in postmenopausal women.
8. People who work out have more energy than nonexercisers, according to researchers at the University of Georgia, based on a review of 70 studies. That boost, on average beats the effect of stimulant drugs.
9. Working out - resistance training in particular - helps maintain, and even modestly increase, bone density to reduce the risk of osteoporosis.
10. An active lifestyle halves the risk of developing heart disease. Walking up to 12 miles a week (translation: 30 to 50 minutes a day) significantly improves heart health, according to a Duke University study. And if you're at high risk for diabetes, working out only about 20 minutes a day, combined with a low-fat diet, can reduce the chance of developing the disease by 58 percent.
11. Just working out 15 minutes three days a week may reduce the risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer's disease by 30 to 40 percent, according to a study last year in the Annals of Internal Medicine. For healthy older adults, a six-month program of exercise can reverse the age-related loss of brain tissue that begins around age 40 by two to three years, especially in regions responsible for memory and higher cognition.
12. Working out improves your sex life - by not only enhancing self-esteem but also strengthening the cardiovascular system. One study found that women who cycled vigorously for 20 minutes before watching an erotic film had significantly greater vaginal response compared with when they were inactive.

September is National Menopause Awareness Month!

The first wave of "Baby Boomer" women are now entering menopause. About 20 million more will reach menopause over the next decade. Polls show that many will turn to their obstetrician-gynecologist -- and to the media -- for information.

Some Facts About Menopause

• Menopause -- the time when ovaries cease functioning and menstrual periods stop -- marks the end of the reproductive years. A woman is past menopause when she has stopped having monthly periods for 12 consecutive months.
  
• Perimenopause is the transitional stage leading up to menopause, which lasts approximately three to five years, but may be longer or shorter.
  
• The average age of US women at menopause is 51. Twenty million women of the "Baby Boomer" generation (born 1945-1960) are due to reach menopause within the next decade. Currently, more than one-third of all US women are older than 50.
  
• A majority of American women who are approaching or going through menopause (53%) consider themselves only "somewhat informed" about it, according to a 1997 Gallup survey.
  
• Women tend to get their information about menopause from: physicians (cited by 51%); magazines (41%); other women (37%); TV (17%); and newspapers (10%).
  
• Over 6 out of 10 women who have not yet gone through menopause say they will talk to an ob-gyn (66%); 28 percent will consult their family physicians.
  

Menopause results in a significant decrease in estrogen, which can cause side effects and increase the risk of:

• Osteoporosis -- which leads to hip, wrist and spine fractures. Number of serious osteoporosis-related fractures per year: 210,000.
  Cardiovascular disease -- the number one killer of women.
  
• While 55 percent of women consider menopause to be "no big deal," nearly 90 percent voice concern about at least one condition associated with menopause, when asked. Their top concerns include: osteoporosis (37%); emotional symptoms such as mood swings (37%); and hot flashes (31%). * In 1992, there were 39 million prescriptions for estrogen, up from 16 million in 1982. But only 15 to 25 percent of currently eligible women use hormone replacement therapy.

Report: National Strategy Needed to Fight Fat

According to a recent CNN article, Americans are already among the fatest people in the world, and they keep packing on the pounds. A new report by the Trust for America's Health, finds that obesity rates have swelled during the last year in 31 states with not one state reporting that its obesity rate shrank.

The report found that Oregon has the 30th highest rate of adult obesity at 23.3 percent and the 23rd highest rate of overweight youths (ages 10-17) at 14.1 percent in the nation.

To read the full article on CNN click here.
To read the "State of Your Health: Oregon," click here.