April 2022

Tips in Organizing Your Kitchen and Dining Area

You may be able to lead a healthier life if your kitchen contains the right stuff and is well-organized. If you and your family wish to eat healthy, have easier time preparing meals and have more fun while cooking your food, there are a few things that you have to keep in mind.

Use Space Wisely

The first thing that you have to keep in mind is how you are using or not using the space that is available. A kitchen and dining area need to be safe for anyone who ventures into these places. When you are cooking and handling hot pots and pans, you have to avoid accidents. Also, your kids can become safer in a dining area that is arranged properly.

Assess how these areas in your home looks like. Once you have an idea about the positive as well as the negative parts, you can begin on planning what you are going to do. Be sure to keep path between the kitchen and the dining table clear. Furthermore, for your safety, do not put anything that will be in your way when you are on the stove or your kitchen counter.

Install cabinets and shelves that will make use of vertical space. In addition, you may have a walk-in pantry rather than one that is on one side of a wall. This way, you have a lot of storage space. Also, food storage in this space can be done safely and more effectively.

Remove Clutter

What ruins your kitchen area is the amount of clutter which might be seen there. If you wish to have an easier time cooking your food, you have to throw out items that you will no longer need. This applies to products that you have stored in your kitchen cabinet as well as in the pantry.

Removing clutter on top of your dining table is also important. Do you really need to have a vase of flowers or a basket of fruits on top on the table? If these things only take up significant space, it might be wiser to remove them and place them on another location like the counter top or a shelf.

Organize Things

You need to be able to keep track of what is placed inside your cabinet. You may be able to do this by grouping similar products. Breakfast food products may be placed in one shelf. Pots, pans and other cooking essentials may be placed in another container.

If you have young kids at home, you might want to leave some healthy food within their reach. Consider leaving fruits on top of the kitchen counter where your kids can reach. The dangerous tools like can openers, knives and similar things should be placed away from their reach. Putting locks on the cabinet for these tools will be helpful.

When you know how to organize your kitchen, you can easily make your family have more fun while preparing …

Avoid Eating While Driving

Eating is a dangerous distraction while you’re driving. Many people eat while rushing to or from their offices. If you are eating in your vehicle while driving, you are focusing on your food and not on your driving. This may affect your health and life badly.

Now a day, our dinning routine has completely changed. There are many reasons for that. Our lives have become time machines, dull and motorized and we can not even extract a little time to eat our food in a proper manner.

Your rushing schedule doesn’t let you take a healthy, home made diet. Taking fast food at unusual hours to overcome you hunger will bring you an upset stomach. With a disturbed digestive system, you tend to look awful.

Fast food has become the fashion of the day. We prefer to take it though it contains many unhygienic elements.

Your health is in your hand. Your choice of taking low quality food will severely damage your health and eventually your life. That is dangerous.

The best thing is that you should take your meals on their proper times. Quality of food matters a lot. Make a healthy menu of your diet that should contain fresh vegetables and good quality fruits.

Try to take some time out of your busy schedule to learn how to make fresh appetizing green smoothies and vegetable salads. These foods are very good source of energy. You got to try it and you won’t regret when you will find a wonderful taste in them.

You should give a proper time to your body to take hygienic food for good health. You will take time to get used to taking a healthy food, but with your continuity and willpower you will be able to get regularly healthy diet to live an energetic, health and long life.…

Common Pitfalls On The Path To Getting Skinny

Lack Of Information

My first hurdle in losing weight was finding the right information. I didn’t realize that eating more protein would help raise my metabolism, or that cutting fatty foods would greatly decrease my overall calorie intake. Since I didn’t have Internet as a teenager I had to seek out information in magazines and books, then experiment to find out what information was correct. Good information is critical in staying skinny, and fortunately most of us have access to great information. You just have to do the research to find it, and experiment a bit to figure out what techniques work for you.

Lack Of Healthy Foods

At age sixteen I very rarely went to the grocery store. The house was stocked with doughnuts, cookies and the like. Dinner was served almost every night, and these meals were not exactly beneficial to my goals. I realized that if I wanted to get skinny I had to take charge of my food environment and have a supply of healthy food on hand. I took the initiative to start going to the store regularly and buying the foods I needed for my diet. This was a big step for me, because being surrounded by junk food and very little healthy food is detrimental to anyone’s weight loss program, no matter how motivated they are. It’s essential to have the good foods on hand, and if there are foods you know you’ll binge on, just don’t buy them. You won’t eat what you don’t have.

Dieting Too Hard

At one time, I figured if I starved myself for a few weeks I’d get skinny and then could go back to eating doughnuts and drinking soda. This example may sound pretty stupid, but a lot of people actually fall into the same trap. They go on a “diet”, which to them means pain and suffering. Then they give up after a short time without reaching to their goals. Instead of torturing yourself with a short term “diet” it’s much more effective to pick something you can stick to permanently. This strategy is how I finally went from 220 to 155 pounds in about a year. I picked a nutrition and exercise plan that was not torture, and that I knew I could do for a very long time.

Lack Of Motivation

Before I ever tried to lose weight, I had a list of excuses for why I didn’t need to. “I know being fat increases my risk for heart disease and diabetes, but I’m young I don’t have to worry about stuff like that now.” Or “I’m not fat, it’s all muscle.” I find that people often are in denial of how serious their problem is, and that’s because they know fixing the problem will take a lot of work. Measure the circumference of your stomach, have someone take pictures of you in your swimsuit, get your cholesterol levels checked, check your BMI, whatever it …

How to Lose Weight Often Depends on Healthy Eating

If you want to lose weight consistently and keep it off you really should try health eating and forget about fast ways to lose weight

Eventually the penny drops and they learn that a balanced diet forms the bedrock of a healthy approach to living.

A healthy diet is something to be prized above all else for the contentment and feel-good factor it engenders.

There are five main food groups which are important in any health eating plan.

Throughout the western world governments are keen to ensure that the population eat five pieces of vegetables and fruits everyday. This is because these foods are packed with vitamins, minerals and fiber.

As well, many professional medical folk think your intake of vegetables and fruit will influence whether you are a candidate for some kinds of cancer and/or heart troubles.

In addition, common-or-garden problems such as acid reflux, heartburn and indigestion will usually improve as your weight reduces.

Potatoes, bread and cereal are not necessarily fattening and should form part of a healthy eating program. They are packed with fiber, vitamins and minerals and also induce vitality and energy.

Any healthy eating program should include some bread, potatoes and cereals alongside the usual vegetables and fruits. Add in some lean meats and fish and you will have a head start on most people who are trying to lose weight. Include some dairy foods and will almost certainly not be short of vitamins and minerals.

Nevertheless, you will have to avoid or cut down on some foods which you find to be appetizing. Nevertheless,if you are serious about a healthy weight loss – beware! Ideally, it is best to shun any foods high in sugar or fat and, if you cannot avoid altogether, then do your best to reduce their consumption.

Make yourself adept at reading and understanding food labels. For instance, go for low-fat products; these do not have any more than 3% or 4% fat content. Similarly, if sugar content is a problem make sure the products you buy have less than 4% sugar content.

You really must cut down on your intake of salt along with sugar and those foods with a high fat content. In truth, salt is a requirement for a healthy body; too much can cause strokes, hypertension and heart problems.

Salt is a hidden constituent part of many prepared, convenience and takeaway meals.

Surprisingly, if you keep going with healthy eating you will be the recipient of healthy weight loss as well as feeling much better.…

Tips on Healthy Traveling For Families

Spring break is here and many of us are preparing for a nice weeklong vacation. What a relief!

Quality family time is our highest priority; but, let’s not forget that our good nutrition is a way of life that we shouldn’t leave it at home.

So let’s talk about how to stay in balance while traveling, relaxing, and having a great time with your family.

It all starts with Travel Day…

1. Smoothies for everyone!!! Even when you are up and at ’em to get an early start (like at 4AM to catch an early flight!!!), having your smoothie to start your day of travel will make a big difference in how you and your kids will feel all day.

2. Hydrate!!! Have water with you and hydrate. Especially avoid sugary drinks – they can have 16 or more teaspoons of sugar in one bottle. They don’t quench your thirst and your kids don’t need the sugar rush.

3. Bring snacks and your own lunch… peeled orange or nectarine, apples, dried fruit, dark chocolate, nuts, homemade trail mix and wraps, etc. By having ready snacks and healthy food on hand at all times, you will keep yourself from arriving at your destination feeling totally starved. So, instead of being Starvin’ Marvins ready to wolf down large volumes of whatever when you finally arrive (or, worse yet on the road), you are feeling good and ready to enjoy your good times.

Once you arrive, your number 1, 2, and 3 priorities are to RELAX and have FUN!

Here’s how to stay in balance so that you get the most pleasure out of your vacation indulgences:

1. A fruit heavy breakfast. Maybe not a smoothie but always try to include a large fruit salad and juice in your morning menu. It will keep you feeling light and energetic all morning long.

2. Stay Green. While indulging on some non-green treats, make sure that there is still plenty of green in your meals. Salads, soups, especially vegetable-based soups, grilled or steamed vegetables and other good side dishes are a wonderful complement to whatever treats you choose to enjoy.

3. Hydrate!!! I sound like a broken record; but, the multiple benefits of hydration (especially if you are spending a lot of time outdoors) are just as important on vacation.

4. Walk a lot. And, exercise if you can. If you are on a sight-seeing trip, walk wherever possible. If on the beach, walk the beach. At the end of the day you will be a healthy kind of tired that will make it easy to sleep well at night.

5. Catch up on your Z’s. If not now, then when?

By sticking to these principles, you will find it easier to relax, have fun and truly enjoy treating yourself to guilt-free pampering! And, isn’t that what a vacation is all about?

Happy Spring Break!

With love,

Renata…

Pregnancy – Dos and Don’ts For a Healthy Diet! How to Improve Your Diet Right Now

Many women today are health-conscious, but very few follow what could be considered a healthy diet. Fortunately, pregnancy can be an opportunity for change.

With the incentive of giving their children a healthy start in life, many women make considerable changes in their diet while pregnant. If you use the opportunity of your intended pregnancy to really make an effort to eat better, you could help change your habits in the long term and ultimately improve your health.

I encourage you to pay more attention to what you eat day to day and to begin to make these simple changes:Eat more:

Whole grains. These include bread, pasta, crackers, and other baked goods made with whole wheat flour or other whole-grain flour as the first ingredient, as well as brown rice and other grains such as barley, oats, millet, quinoa, and corn. They have more nutrients and promote a healthier metabolism than refined grains

Fruits and vegetables. Try to include these at every meal and snack. Include the iron-rich vegetables listed earlier and vitamin C-rich foods.

Low-fat, nutrient-rich protein sources. You will need to boost your protein intake slightly during pregnancy, and it’s good to get in the habit of choosing lean meats, low-fat or fat-free dairy products, and protein-rich plant foods such as beans, peas, tofu, nuts, and seeds.

Unsaturated fats. Unsaturated fats are not only good for your heart health, they are critical for your future baby’s development. Sources of healthy fats are plant oils such as canola and olive oil, nuts, seeds, soy, and fish. Omega-3 fatty acids, found in fish, omega-3-enriched eggs, some plant oils, and walnuts, may be particularly important for fetal development. Choose lower-mercury fish such as chunk light tuna (not white albacore), shrimp, salmon, pollack, or catfish. Chapter 5 has more information on the mercury content of fish.

Cut back on:

Refined grains. Most baked goods, crackers, and other snack foods, as well as mealtime staples such as pasta and white rice, are made from refined grains, which lack the protein, fiber, and vitamins and minerals of whole grains. They can put stress on your metabolism by causing blood sugar levels to swing wildly.

Saturated fats. These fats are found in animal products such as meat and dairy, and they can have a negative effect on your long-term health by raising your cholesterol levels and your risk of heart disease. Choose lean meats and low-fat or fat free dairy products to cut back on these fats.

Trans fats. These are fats found in margarine and many processed foods. They help to promote high cholesterol levels, which can lead to clogged arteries and a higher risk of heart disease. Furthermore, these processed fats are not needed by your baby’s body and should be avoided during pregnancy. Avoid products that have hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils, which are trans fats.

Sweetened beverages. Sodas and other sweetened beverages are a primary …