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Introducing a New Whole Food Weight Management Program

Introducing a New Whole Food Weight Management Program

on Jan 5, 2015 in Fitness, Nutrition, Weight Loss, Wellness Blog

Healthy Balance – Weight Management and Healthy Living Program Convenient, affordable, and led by experts, the Healthy Balance Program is based on three basic ideas for success: Healthy Eating, Daily Habits, and Physical Activity. Programs are offered weekly. Start whenever you’re ready and stay as long as you want. Program has a $50 one-time materials fee and then the program is $10 a session. Programs typically run in 14-week cycles. Focus is on developing healthy eating habits, healthy lifestyle habits, an active lifestyle, and mindful eating. Programs offered in Clairemont Mesa, La Mesa, Otay Mesa, and San Marcos Kaiser Permanente Medical Office buildings.  Call to enroll: (858)...

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How Much Fruits and Vegetables is Enough?

How Much Fruits and Vegetables is Enough?

on Jan 5, 2015 in Nutrition, Wellness Blog

You have probably heard that you should strive to eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, but what you may not have heard is the average person actually needs about 9 servings a day for optimum health. A serving being about 1/2 to 1 cup of vegetables or about 65 calories worth of fruit. When setting government guidelines for nutrition, researchers concluded the average American consumes about 1 and a half servings of fruits and vegetables a day (and that’s counting the tomato and lettuce on their hamburger!) The guidelines were set low at 5 servings, because they didn’t think people would take the goal of nine servings a day seriously. Every activity we do throughout the day, including activities like concentration and digestion cause oxidative damage in the cells of our body. Only the vitamins and phyto-nutrients in fruits and vegetables can help our body correct this oxidative damage. Most of us woefully underestimate the amount of fruits and vegetables it takes to keep us in balance. Each meal should include 2-3 servings of fruits and or vegetables and each snack at least one...

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What Happened to Chicken?

on Dec 17, 2014 in Nutrition, Weight Loss, Wellness Blog

How many years have we heard that chicken is a better choice than beef because it is lower in saturated fat? Well it seems that when it comes to chicken things have changed. Studies that track foods to weight gain clearly indicate that meat eaters compared to vegans have higher BMIs (Body Mass Index – an indicator of obesity). When looking specifically at different types of meat, numerous studies indicated that the food most highly connected to elevated BMI was chicken!  What happened to chicken?  Well for one thing, over the last 30 years chickens have been selectively bred to be intense growers (grow quickly to maturity). Chickens that mature quickly mean improved profits for poultry growers, but the unexpected outcome of selective breeding/feeding is drastic consequences in the nutritional value of chicken. Today’s chickens have a lot more fat and less nutritional value.  A serving of chicken in 1940 had 95 calories and 10 grams of fat, a serving of chicken in 2011  contains 200 calories and 23 grams of fat.  The selective breeding has also had an impact of how well the chicken is able to make a very important fat called DHA (Docosahexaenoic Acid). DHA is an omega-3 fat that is extremely important to brain and eye health for humans.   These new breeds of chicken are not able to make DHA in their muscle tissue like old chickens. They are so much lower in DHA that it would take eating 6 current day chickens (about 9000 more calories worth of chicken) to equal the DHA level in one chicken form 1970!  Some researchers have theorized that this drastic decrease in omega-3 DHA could be one reason that there has been such a dramatic increase in Alzheimer’s and other mental health disease over the last 20...

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A Tomato a Day Keeps Heart Disease Away!

A Tomato a Day Keeps Heart Disease Away!

on Dec 2, 2014 in Nutrition, Wellness Blog

If you live in an industrialized nation, you formed plaque in your arteries before you finished your teen years.  But research clearly shows that damage to arteries can be reversed with diets that emphasize whole, plant-based foods.  Fruits and vegetables in particular, have protective factors for heart disease because they contain plant nutrients that decrease platelet aggregation (which can lead to clots, strokes, heart attacks, etc.)  The top fruits that help keep your blood flowing include tomatoes, kiwis, grapefruit, and strawberries.  The greatest of these are tomatoes, particularly tomato seeds. You know, the gushy mess inside a tomato that a lot of us toss out. It seems that the yellowish liquid that surrounds tomato seeds contains powerful nutrients that decrease clotting factors in your blood and reduce plaque. So powerful are these nutrients that they are more effective than taking an aspirin a day. Unlike aspirin which thins the blood and increases risk of unwanted bleeding, the nutrients in tomatoes decrease platelet aggregation and plaque build-up without affecting normal blood clotting; meaning your blood clots when you need it to , but not when you don’t. “Let Your Food Be Your Medicine and Your Medicine be Your Food”...

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