1. Beets: Think of beets as red spinach, Dr. Bowden said, because they are a rich source of folate as well as natural red pigments that may be cancer fighters.
   How to eat: Fresh, raw and grated to make a salad. Heating decreases the antioxidant power.
2. Cabbage: Loaded with nutrients like sulforaphane, a chemical said to boost cancer-fighting enzymes.
   How to eat: Asian-style slaw or as a crunchy topping on burgers and sandwiches.
3. Swiss chard: A leafy green vegetable packed with carotenoids that protect aging eyes.
   How to eat it: Chop and saute in olive oil.
4. Cinnamon: May help control blood sugar and cholesterol.
   How to eat it: Sprinkle on coffee or oatmeal.
5. Pomegranate juice: Appears to lower blood pressure and loaded with antioxidants.
   How to eat: Just drink it.
6. Dried plums: Okay, so they are really prunes, but they are packed with antioxidants.
   How to eat: Wrapped in prosciutto and baked.
7. Pumpkin seeds: The most nutritious part of the pumpkin and packed with magnesium; high levels of the mineral are associated with lower risk for early death.
   How to eat: Roasted as a snack, or sprinkled on salad.
8. Sardines: Dr. Bowden calls them “health food in a can.” They are high in omega-3’s, contain virtually no mercury and are loaded with calcium. They also contain iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, copper and manganese as well as a full complement of B vitamins.
   How to eat: Choose sardines packed in olive or sardine oil. Eat plain, mixed with salad, on toast, or mashed with dijon mustard and onions as a spread.
9. Turmeric: The “superstar of spices,” it may have anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties.
   How to eat: Mix with scrambled eggs or in any vegetable dish.
10. Frozen blueberries: Even though freezing can degrade some of the nutrients in fruits and vegetables, frozen blueberries are available year-round and don’t spoil; associated with better memory in animal studies.
    How to eat: Blended with yogurt or chocolate soy milk and sprinkled with crushed almonds.
11. Canned pumpkin: A low-calorie vegetable that is high in fiber and immune-stimulating vitamin A; fills you up on very few calories.
    How to eat: Mix with a little butter, cinnamon and nutmeg.

The average adult invests approximately 23 hours everyday being inactive, sitting down in a work environment, eating poorly or not eating at all, battling stressful situations then trying to sleep comfortably amongst other things. While on a good day we’ll deposit 1 hour of focused exercise into our life account. So, why are some of us not yielding the great health returns that we that we desire and at this time of year plan for? Can we change? YES WE CAN!!! One school of thought is that the greatest change in our body comes from discipline nutrition and regular exercise, “More calories going out than staying in”.  These two factors create an awesome marriage for a better wellness lifestyle. How will you manage your lifestyle portfolio in 2009??

]]> http://patspowerhour.wordpress.com/2009/01/16/topic-of-the-week-ending-11809/feed/ 0 patspowerhour http://patspowerhour.wordpress.com/2009/01/06/topic-of-the-week-ending-11009/ http://patspowerhour.wordpress.com/2009/01/06/topic-of-the-week-ending-11009/#comments Tue, 06 Jan 2009 15:42:18 +0000 patspowerhour http://patspowerhour.wordpress.com/?p=87 ]]> Fad Diets

Many people want to lose weight and lose it fast, right? One of the most popular reasons for weight loss is to improve our physical image.  Overall health and functionality are ultimate benefits of weight loss and should be top motivators, but are often not top of our list until a physician breaks some unwanted news to us.  Fad diets have become popular ways to drop weight, but after the diet is over can you keep the weight off? Here is a link to a great site with many popular diets: http://www.everydiet.org/ They give benefits, descriptions and insight on effectiveness of diet.  Have you tried a fad diet? Were you able to lose weight (Fat)? Have you been able to keep it off?

It has come to my attention that our wellness goals can be trumped by career, personal and family challenges that arise.  We know how important and beneficial it will be to change our eating, exercise and even sleep habits. Somehow unexpected and challenging life experiences deter us and make it difficult to be consistent, so many of us give up while some of persevere.

Which type are you?  Do you drop health improvements from your top priorities when other difficulties appear or do you press on in spite of life happening? Why does health stay or change as a priority during tough times?

Why  do so many of us know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, yet some of us allow our busy schedules to be the excuse that we deny ourselves of such an essential meal? You can function throughout the day after skipping a well portioned breakfast.  Is this a good choice? Why or why not?  What stops you from eating breakfast or what motivates you to eat a meal before you begin your day?

The site has been updated for December, so be sure to check out the new features at www.patspowerhour.com.

The last newsletter focused on goal setting, so I hope that you have been able to identify areas in your life that you would like to improve so that you may live a healthier, pain-free, and stress-free lifestyle. If you have already begun taking action, then I applaud you and encourage to be consistent and stay on course to accomplish your goal.

This is the time of year when you are probably getting ready to identify habits that you would like to kick, improve, or change by creating new year resolutions that will hopefully lead to a personal, financial and physical makeover. Setting goals for the new year are great for influencing the changes you desire to see. As a trainer and fitness consultant I want to encourage you to begin to incorporate NEW DAY resolutions into your life. You can only experience the conception of new year resolutions once every 365 days, while you can create small attainable resolutions everyday that can lead to more consistent behavior. This behavior can help you form new habits that you will fuel your progress.

NEW DAY RESOLUTION: Today, I Patrick Quinn resolve to run for 30 minutes.

So, what will your New Day’s Resolution be? I will update my site weekly with resolutions and follow-up with you to hear your progress. Be Inspired! Be Great! Be Fit!

Q&A: Share your thoughts with me and my wellness industry associates. We want to help you, help yourself.

¨ How will you make healthier choices today?

¨ What is holding you back from being more active?

¨ Who supports your physical goals?

Power Message: Begin NOW!! Don’t stop until you have reached your desired physical and mental condition. When you get there you must work just as hard to maintain the new you. Do not allow the holidays to be your excuse to over indulge at the dinner table. The food you eat will either help you get closer to your goal or move you further away from it. The choice is YOURS!

In January: I will be sharing tips and solutions for designing an exercise program the fitness beginner and busy individual. If you have you have questions now, please contact me.

Quote of the Month

“It never occurs to me that there are things that I can’t do” -Whoopi Goldberg

Wellness Tips

• Weight train. You’ll burn more calories with more muscle in your body
• Eat after you exercise. Have some protein and carbohydrates immediately after you workout to restore energy levels.
• Focus on people. Stand away from the food table and socialize.
• Brush your teeth early. You won’t want to eat again in the evening.
• Look forward to dessert. Treat yourself to dessert once a week as a reward for maintaining smart eating habits
• Inspirational reminders. Put up pictures and sayings of how you want to look and feel on your refrigerator, by the TV, on your mirror, to help keep you in the fitness groove so you’ll stick to your plan

Sample Meal Plan Suggestions

What has been working for you? I will post 5 responses on the website.

Meal #1 ???

Meal #2 ???

Meal #3 ???

Meal #4 ???

Meal #5 ???

Meal #6 ???

Remember: We have added a new Q & A section so, continue to send your questions on issues related to health, fitness and nutrition. We are also accepting new clients to take on The Power Challenge and The Herbalife Challenge. Sharing your experiences will help others to begin and/or continue on their journey. We look forward to hearing from you and seeing your results. Be Inspired! Be Great! Be Fit!

Quote of the Month

“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity” -Albert Einstein

Wellness Tips Set

• Get a hobby. Keep your hands and your mind busy and away from unhealthy foods.
• Eat enough calories. Eat enough to fuel your exercise so you can train harder, increase muscle and metabolic rate and then burn fat.
• Eliminate alcohol. It can slow or even halt your weight loss. Substitute with fruit juice spritzer (grape/cranberry juice with sparkling water).
• Eat small, frequent meals. This keeps your appetite under control and increases your metabolic rate.
• Diet with a buddy. A partner in the process can make a huge difference.

Sample Meal Plan for August

Meal #1 1 cup oatmeal with mixed berries, 1 cup green tea, 1 –2 cups

of water

Meal #2 Protein shake

Meal #3 5oz grilled chicken breast, spinach, shredded carrots and

whole grain wrap

Meal #4 1 cup stemmed broccoli and cauliflower, 1-2 cups water

Meal #5 5oz grilled chicken breast and 1/2 cup steamed veggies

Meal #6 1/2 cup mixed berries and 1 cup green tea

Feature Article

Do’s and Don’ts of Goal Setting

Key Pieces to the Puzzle

– By Mike Kramer, Staff Writer (SparkPeople)

Goal achievement, especially when it comes to health and fitness, can be a mystery. Most of us have no trouble with Step 1 (Setting the Goal). Setting a goal is the easy part, it’s those other steps that can be a puzzle. But you CAN turn achieving your goals into a science with the right strategies. Here are a few of our favorites:

DO create a plan. DON’T wait for “someday” to roll around.
Setting the goal is just the first step. Know where you’re going, what resources you’ll need, who can help and – most importantly – what Plan B is when life throws a monkey wrench into Plan A.

DO start small. DON’T focus on too many things at once.
Try focusing on one goal at a time. Use a small goal that you know you can do each day for the next two weeks, like getting up without the snooze or drinking eight  cups of water. Build that first habit to boost your confidence and pick up speed.

DO write it down. DON’T forget to give yourself a deadline.
Deadlines turn wishes into goals. The act of writing down your goal is powerful enough to keep you committed and focused. Better yet, find a visual that represents your goal or how your life will be different. Seeing it makes it seem more possible.

DO be specific. DON’T deal in absolutes.
Avoid the words ‘some’ and ‘more’, as in “I will get SOME exercise” or “I will eat MORE veggies.” It leaves too much wiggle-out room. Deal in measurable things that you have control over. And never say ‘never’ or ‘always.’ All or nothing is a common attitude that leads people back to bad habits.

DO leave room for failure. DON’T expect perfection.
Persistence is key. Accept the fact that you might not make it on the first try. In a recent study, only 40% of people who successfully followed New Year’s resolutions did it on the first try; 17% of resolution achievers took six or more tries before they got it right – but they did get it right.

DO track your progress. DON’T fool yourself into failure.
Memory can be pretty selective. It conveniently forgets that extra brownie while remembering activity that never happened. The only way to know for sure is to track goals regularly with a checklist or journal.

DO reward your success. DON’T beat yourself up over failure.
This is the step that trips up most people. Negative reinforcement is all around us, telling us every day what we’re doing wrong. This is not the approach to take to succeed with your goals. Why not focus on what you’re doing right instead? If you take a step back, learn from it and take two steps forward.

DO find a support system. DON’T try to do it alone.
A goal buddy can make all the difference this time. People that can help are all around you – on the SparkPeople support message boards, at work, even in your own family. Just add one person to your support group, and you double your motivation, double your energy, double your commitment – and double your FUN.

Quote of the Month

“Make a success of living by seeing the goal and aiming for it unswervingly”

- Cecil B. DeMille

Wellness Tips

• Portion control. Determine the equivalent of 1 serving size when eating to prevent overeating.

• Eat most of your carbohydrates before 5pm.

• Get your rest. 7 – 8 hours of sleep is ideal to promote rest, recovery and a healthy outlook on life.

• Less sleep leads to heightened levels of stress hormones that build fat, not burn it.

• Treat yourself. Celebrate successes with something other than food.  Take active vacations. Bicycling, hiking, long walks

Sample Meal

Meal #1 2 Whole grain eggo, honey, low fat yogurt

Meal #2 Small bowl of mixed berries

Meal #3 Grilled chicken breast, spinach and sweet potato

Meal #4 Protein bar

Meal #5 Baked/Grilled Tilapia and 1 cup steamed broccoli

Meal #6 Cottage cheese with an apple

Feature Article

Stop Dieting and Start Living!

Have You Made the Change?

– By Dean Anderson, Behavioral Psychology Expert (www.sparkpeople.com)

You’ve heard it so many times that you probably say it in your sleep. “Diets don’t work; if you want to lose weight and keep it off, you have to make a lifestyle change.”

But what does a lifestyle change look or feel like, and how do you know when you’ve made one? The way some people talk about it, you’d think there’s some sort of mystical wisdom you get when you “make the change” that tells you when and what to eat, and how to stop worrying about the number on the scale. Does this mean you’ll finally stop craving chocolate and start liking tofu?

The basic difference between a diet mentality and a lifestyle mentality is simply a matter of perspective. Having the right perspective may not make tofu taste better than chocolate, but it can make all the difference in the world when it comes to achieving your goals, avoiding unnecessary suffering along the way, and hanging onto your achievements over the long haul.

Trust me on this. I’ve lost well over 350 pounds in my life—I know how to do that. But I also put 200 of those back on again, getting bigger each time. The 150 pounds I lost a few years ago is staying off, because I’ve changed my perspective.

Here are the main ways a diet differs from a lifestyle:

1. A diet is all about numbers—the number on the scale and the number of calories you eat and burn. Success is defined in terms of how well you stick to your numbers.

A lifestyle change is all about you. It’s about lining up your eating and physical activity with your real goals and desires. Success is defined in terms of how these changes make you feel about yourself.

2. The diet mentality assumes that reaching a certain weight is the key to finding happiness and solving other problems. That’s why messing up the numbers on any given day can be so upsetting—it means you’ve messed up on just about everything that really matters.

The lifestyle approach assumes that being overweight is usually the result of other problems, not the cause. Addressing these problems directly is the best way to solve both the problems themselves and your weight issues. This means focusing on many things, not just the numbers on the scale or the Nutrition Tracker. Numbers only tell a small part of the story, and “bad” numbers often provide good clues into areas that need attention.

3. Going on a diet involves an external and temporary change in eating technique. You start counting and measuring, and you stop eating some foods and substitute others, based on the rules of whatever diet plan you are using. Maybe you throw in some exercise to burn a few extra calories. You assume that it’s the technique that produces the results, not you. The results of a diet are external; if you’re lucky, you may change on the outside—but not on the inside. Once you reach your goal weight, you don’t need the technique anymore, and things gradually go back to “normal.” So does your weight—and then some. And, of course, all the problems you hoped the weight loss would solve are still there.

Making a lifestyle change involves an internal and permanent change in your relationship with food, eating, and physical activity. You recognize that the primary problem isn’t what you eat, or even how much you eat, but how and why you eat. Eating mindlessly and impulsively (without intention or awareness) and/or using food to manage your emotions and distract yourself from unpleasant thoughts—this is what really needs to change. Learning to take good care of yourself emotionally, physically, and spiritually—so that you don’t want to use eating to solve problems it really can’t—is a lifelong learning process that is constantly changing as your needs and circumstances change. This doesn’t mean the surface level things don’t matter. Clearly, controlling how much and what you eat is vital, and caring how you look is a great motivator.

The real issue here is where you fit into the picture. The key to both permanent weight loss and feeling satisfied and happy with yourself and your life is to take personal responsibility for what you can control, and let go of everything else.

Many factors that are out of your control—your genes, age, medical status and previous weight history— will affect your weight and appearance. These factors may determine how much weight you can lose, how quickly you’ll lose it, and how you’ll look and feel when you’ve gone as far as you can go. When you focus too narrowly on the numbers on the scale or what you see in the mirror, you are staking your happiness and satisfaction on things you really can’t control. That pretty much guarantees that you’ll be chronically worried, stressed, and uncomfortable—and more likely than ever to have problems with emotional eating.

And when you rely too much on external (diet) tools, techniques, and rules to determine your behavior, you are turning over your personal responsibility to the tools and techniques. If you find yourself frequently losing motivation or feeling powerless to control your own behavior, it’s probably because you’re counting on the tools to do your part of the work for you. You’re the only one who can decide what’s right for you; only you can change your attitude and perspective to match your personal reality.

There are many articles in the Resource Center and countless conversations on the Message Boards that offer good information and practical ideas for putting yourself in charge of your own lifestyle makeover. In fact, one of the best ways you can start the transition from a diet to a lifestyle is by taking on the responsibility to identify the problems you need to work on and gather the info you need. Whether it’s coming to terms with emotional eating, improving your body image, or finding a vision of the life you want to live—you’ll find that you aren’t alone and that plenty of support and help is available.

You just need to take that first step away from the diet mentality and closer to a new and improved life (style).