Getting Old is Not for the Faint of Heart!

When we are young we can never imagine a day with pain, feeling tired all the time, high blood pressure or high cholesterol.  Sadly the older we all get, the harder it is to avoid some or all of these ailments.

As I have grown a little more mature, I have found that my genetics are quickly catching up to me.  Each day it seems difficult for me to outrun the illnesses that my family is famous for.  All of us have those health issues in our family tree that dog us until we succumb.  There are those that try to outrun our family history and those who just roll over and succumb.

I am a runner.  I have diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol in my tree and I work very hard to overcome and outrun.  Even though I have high blood pressure, I work hard at exercise and diet to overcome it and am pretty successful at keeping it under control.  Then there is diabetes and with that comes high cholesterol.  To combat that I have radically changed my diet to accommodate blood sugar spikes and I have added Mona Vie’s  Pulse to my diet to lower cholesterol.  I am conducting an experiment right now, to see if, like many of my clients I can bring my cholesterol to a normal range using Pulse.  I am doing a three-month test, under my doctors supervision, to see if I can lower it enough to avoid the liver-damaging cholesterol drugs.

Whatever your genetics, the more you can do for yourself through diet, exercise and good supplements the longer you avoid drugs, that although effective and necessary, may have side-affects you don’t like.  It takes discipline but it is worth the effort to affect positive change to your health.  I will keep you posted regarding my cholesterol.

Aging and Antioxidants!

My son is a physician and I am always complaining to him that I never get the results I want fast enough with diet and exercise.  He always tells me that I have no idea the good I do my body when I eat right and exercise regularly.  The Today Show definitely concurred with him this morning.

This morning they were discussing the things we can do to help us to age more gracefully.  One of the things that they mentioned was hearing loss.  I don’t know about you but the last thing I want to do is to lose my hearing as I age.  The reason we do so is because, over time, free radicals destroy the tiny little hairs in our inner ear.  And what do you suppose combats the free radicals, you got it, antioxidants.

The fruits and vegetable, vitamins and minerals we are supposed to be ingesting everyday actually have a huge impact on how we age.  Since most of us don’t get all the antioxidants we need, I recommend getting on 4 oz. per day of Mona Vie.  It is packed with antioxidant rich fruits.  With just four oz. you get the antioxidant equivelent of 13 fruits and vegetables.

So if you are concerned about the ravages of free radicals as you age and you would like to feel better, Mona Vie is definitely an alternative that will do your body good.

Healthy Energy!

Like most everyone on the planet I find myself thinking there are not enough hours in the day and wishing that I had the energy to just get one more thing done.  I have fallen prey to some of the energy drinks out there and even though I can accept the crash, I get very concerned about the jittery, shakey feelings.  The fact that I can hear my heart beating is a little unsettling as well.  So I have, over the years, turned to coffee as my morning companion.  It does not keep me awake as long so I need lots of it!  Recently, even my faithful brown friend has turned against me because the acid is starting to bother my stomach.  Believe me getting older is not for the faint of heart!

So you can imagine my excitement when Mona Vie introduced EMV as a healthy alternative to the mainstream drinks.  It really has lived up to my expectations.  It contains the acai berry but it has added other amazingly healthy things to keep me awake, alert and focused for hours and there is never a drop as with its competitors.

To my surprise it does not affect my blood sugar (you guessed I am pre-diabetic, nature has really been pummeling me lately due to my bad genes).  I get about the same lift as from an apple and then my blood sugar returns right back to normal.  Naturally I was pretty pumped about that, since I can eat very few starchy foods and absolutely no other sugars.  It is 80% fruit juice and the sweetener is from isomaltulose, which is found in honey and cane sugar and does not trigger the same insulin response as other sweeteners.

It also has our old friend green tea containing more antioxidants, and guarana for that little “pick me up” feeling.  Yerbe Mate, which is a tea used by African natives, is added to give a long sustained energy.  (Yerbe Mate tea, is also a great beverage and can be found in health food stores.  I like it hot in the winter)

These are just a few of the amazing ingredients in this fabulous new energy drink from Mona Vie.  If you want more information about the drink please visit the              website.  While you are there, don’t be afraid to order a case of it.  EMV comes in a 24-can case and is well worth the investment if you desire to get some healthy energy.

If you know someone who is “hooked” on some of the other energy drinks, direct them to the site, because sooner or later they will need to make changes to a new healthy alternative because our bodies simply can’t hold up under the racing affects of some of these drinks.

So drink to your health with the new healthy energy drink from Mona Vie!

Discipline

Do you ever notice how life is all about discipline? Whether you are going to school, working a job, building a business, or improving your health, discipline is a common factor.

Are you trying right now to make it through a difficult challenge? Are you losing heart?

Whether you are ready to give up on exercise or reach for another donut, discipline is the thing that stands between you and success. If you can reach down a little deeper and find your inner strength, you can succeed.

This is a good time to think of your why. You know what that means. Why did you set the goal? Your why should keep your discipline entact and keep your goal on track.

So exercise your disciplne and remember your why and take another lap!

So What the Heck is ORAC?

If you are like me you have heard lots of people selling all kinds of products and saying that their product has an ORAC value of this or and ORAC value of that, and about that time my eyes usually glaze over and I visit my happy place!

I really like to educate people before I sell them a product and it is pretty important to understand what ORAC is and how to measure its significance in any product choice.  First, it stands for Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity and “ORAC score” is a method of measuring the antioxidant capacity of different foods and supplements. It was developed by scientists at the National Institutes of Health.  It is believed that foods higher on the ORAC scale will more effectively neutralize free radicals. According to the free-radical theory of aging, this will slow the oxidative processes and free radical damage that can contribute to age-related degeneration and disease.

In short, if you think of your body like a piece of iron, and as iron sits unprotected from the elements, it rusts.  If your body is unprotected from free radical or “rust” producing elements like the sun, pollution, fried foods, smoking even exercise, it begins to break down or “rust”, becoming susceptible to disease and degeneration.  Antioxidants fight off the free radicals and foods rich in antioxidants are what you need to combat the “rusting”.

The foods that have lots of antioxidants are fruits and vegetables.  The government tells us we need between 7 – 9 servings of fruit and veggies every day to get the ORAC we need to be at our best.

Just four ounces of Mona Vie per day gives me the antioxidant equivalent of 13 fruits and vegetables and I don’t have to cook!

Finding Good Energy Drinks!

I rarely go through a day when I don’t run into someone who is walking around with a “Red Bull” or “Monster” drink in their hand.  We are all going at a thousand miles an hour and we just need more energy.  I am no different, I run two businesses and work with people all day long.  Additionally, I am always networking to find new clients so I know a little about going fast.

Unlike many people, I am very sensitive to energy drinks.  I get very jittery and sometimes can actually “feel” my heart beating.  When I asked my Doc about these symptoms she was horrified that I would even consider an energy drink because cardiovascularly speaking, they can do a lot of damage. So no more canned energy for me!

As many of my friends know, I also have a Mona Vie business and was delighted when they came out with an energy drink that did not produce these side affects.  I can have one and feel energized all day long and never get the drop in energy or the jitters.  Their new product EMV is amazing.  It is 80% fruit juice and is filled with antioxidants.  The energy comes from a variety of herbs that do not create the jittery side affects I am familiar with.  I even have a couple of surgeons drinking it, and they certainly do not need to get the shakes!

For more information about Mona Vie’s EMV visit my web site Keep moving forward everyone!

Acai – It’s in Everything!

If you are like me you are seeing information everywhere about the Acai berry and its amazing properties.  Here are a few facts about it.

The Acai berry is unique in that it is a complete food – it is said that someone could live solely off of Acai for 4-6 months without becoming malnourished.  To date, it is the number one of the known “superfruits”.  You can now find Acai in everything from shampoo to yogurt to cereal.

Acai grown in the Amazon and the reason it is so nutrient rich is because of the environment in which it grows.  It needs to withstand weeks of flooding during the rainy season and, because the palms grow  above the canopy of the rainforest, it needs to protect itself from extreme UV radiation.  Its roots grow close to the surface of the floor of the rainforest, and so it benefits from the great variety of decaying plant and animal life, providing it with rich nutrients.  The nutrients appear in the fruit that we drink, but, even more interestingly, so do the phytonutrients.   Phytonutrients protect the Acai from the extreme UV radiation and, in turn, protect you from free radical damage.

So, if the Acai is so amazing, why does your source of Acai matter?  Acai deteriorates quickly, so the aging process must be stopped as quickly as possible so that the nutrients are maintained.  The only process that stops the deterioration in its tracks and provides us with the true nutrients of the Acai is freeze-drying.  The Mona Vie company freeze-dries the berries with hours of picking, trapping in the nutrients before it has a chance to lose its value.

If you look at the ORAC (a measure of how well a food fights free radicals) chart in Dr. Alexander Schauss’ book, Acai, an extraordinarily nutrient rich palm fruit*, you’ll see that gram for gram, freeze-dried Acai offers an extraordinarily high ORAC of 1,027, as opposed to 55-155 for spray dried Acai and only 40 for frozen Acai!  For comparison purposes, low bush blueberries (NOT what we find in our grocery stores) have an ORAC of 93.

If you are looking for a superior way to get your fruits and veggies, this appears to be a good option.  One that I and many others have chosen.  Drink to your health.

Antioxidants – Who Needs Them?

If you are anything like me you have heard this word tossed around a lot, by not only the health food industry, but by the main-stream media.  And if you are even more like me you never really paid much attention to what they are or why they are important. Oprah talks often about antioxidants and her friend Dr. Oz mentions them when he is on her show as well.  So what are they really?

Antioxidants are substances found in our foods which can prevent or slow the oxidative damage to our body. When our body cells use oxygen, they naturally produce free radicals as a by-product which can cause damage. An effective way to think about this is to think of your body like its a piece of iron that is constantly rusting because of air and moisture.  Get the picture now?  Antioxidants act as “free radical sponges” mopping up the free radicals produced from everyday activities.

A recent review of current literature suggests that fruits and vegetables in combination have synergistic effects on antioxidant activities leading to greater reduction in risk of chronic disease, specifically for cancer and heart disease. (Liu RH, Potential Synergy of Phytochemicals in Cancer Prevention: Mechanism of Action. J. Nutr. 2004;134:3479S-3485S.)  Of course this study and others have proven to tell us what our mothers have been telling us for years “eat your veggies!”

The bottom line is, that for all the time I have been ignoring the value of antioxidants to my diet, my body has not.  It has been woefully under supplied with disease fighting antioxidants and therefore has a lot of catching up to do.

I personally choose to supplement my diet with Mona Vie because a daily servicing of 4 oz. has been shown to provide the antioxidant equivalent of 13 fruits and vegetables.  It is a convenient way to give my body a “leg up” for all the years I have neglected it.  Be good to your body, listen to your mother and “eat your vegetables”.

News Flash from the Doctor

Okay the last time I was at my doctor’s office and explained my plight about eating well and exercising, with no weight-loss results, she said I needed to keep dropping calories until the scale started moving.  Well today we have the same conversation and she is now giving me the same information that I have heard from holistic health practitioners and the like.  And that is…drum roll please…eat 5 small meals, eliminate the starchy foods from your diet and eat lean meat, fruits and veggies.  I am, on the one hand, very excited to hear this from her, but on the other I wonder what happened.

Anyway, for those of you who think some of this information about weight loss coming from holistic healers, chiropractors and personal trainers does not agree with your doctor, it sounds like everyone is lining up along the same belief system.

I am indeed, excited.  So much so that I am off to make a salad and some fish for supper.  Happy 4th, and eat healthy!

iPhone to the Rescue!

In my daily passion for fitness I am always looking for tools to help me stay on top of my exercise and my weight loss.  I look for little things that will just keep my mind focused on what my hands and mouth are doing together.

I recently purchased an iPhone and discovered all the “apps” you can download, many for free (free except for the cost of the phone) and was excited to find two little “apps” that I found helpful.  I actually found a lot more, but these two useful for anyone trying to lose a few pounds or just stay on track.

I like “lose it! and my daughter tells me she likes “spark people”.  ”Lose it!” is very straight forward.  It lets you look up foods and add your own if you have the calorie count and has some recipes etc.  I like its simplicity.  My daughter uses the “Spark People” web site and the “app” is connected to it and you actually sign in when using it on the phone.

The best part is that you can do these things for free.  I have nothing against any of the programs, well I do, but not today, but I believe that for many people they don’t need a lot of hoopla to stay on target.  Most of us just need a couple of tools and we can motivate ourselves to stay on track by using them.

So what is your biggest challenge with your body?  Do you struggle to stay fit or at your ideal weight.  Do you obsess too much about it?  Let me know.  As a life coach I work with people who want to make changes to their lives, and many people struggle with body image.  Don’t let yourself get stuck there.

I love my iPhone, and was delighted to find all the little “apps” that make my life easier.  What’s your favorite “app”!  Have a great day!