HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!!

I hope that you all have a very happy and healthy turkey day!! Make sure to watch those portions! it feels MUCH better to not eat until you are green! Get your family together after dinner and do something active, like go for a walk, hike or if you are lucky to live where it is warm, get out and play a game (like volleyball)

AND I WOULD LIKE TO GIVE A BIG BIRTHDAY HUG AND KISS TO MY HUSBAND JOHN!!

I LOVE YOU AND WOULD BE LOST WITHOUT YOU! THANK YOU FOR ALL THE SUPPORT AND LOVE YOU GIVE EVERYDAY! AND THANK YOU FOR TEACHING ME ALL ABOUT PHOTOSHOP! THANK YOU FOR HELPING ME PUT THIS WEB PAGE TOGETHER! AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR FRIENDSHIP.

I LOVE YOU LOT'S !!!

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

I have found yet another good article on the subject of eating healthy, which is something we should all keep in mind, this holiday season.

This was on the front page of MSN today.

Please read! this has some great info!

"What’s the secret to a long and healthy life?" When I asked my great-grandmother that question on the occasion of her 90th birthday, her answer took everyone by surprise. "I always make sure to eat the fat and gristle off meat," she said.

Fat and gristle?

We all laughed at the time, Great-Grandma included, but no one dared argue with her. What her pet theory lacked in scientific evidence it more than made up for by personal example. She lived a jolly, healthy, sharp-minded life well into her nineties.

Since then, whenever the headlines tout a new breakthrough in longevity—whether it’s green tea, red wine or a supercharged antioxidant supplement—I haven’t paid much heed. Lately, though, I’ve begun to wonder if it isn’t time to take a fresh look at the field of anti-aging research—and not only because I’m halfway through my fifties.

Increasingly, serious scientists have joined the quest for a fountain of youth. The National Institutes of Health is spending millions to explore ways to increase life span, including research into drugs, nutritional supplements and calorie restriction. Last year, headlines announced that a new anti-aging drug, based on a substance called resveratrol found in wine and grapes was being tested in people. If the booming science of anti-aging medicine has turned up anything that really works, I decided, I want to know about it.

So a few months ago I set off on my own search for a fountain of youth. From the start I decided to rule out things like potions of mysterious-sounding Chinese herbs, anti-aging vitamin formulas and injections of pituitary-gland extract at mountainside Swiss clinics. Maybe they work, maybe they don’t; so little evidence exists either way that the claims are almost impossible to evaluate. What I really wanted to know was simple: can the foods we eat and the way we live make a measurable difference in life span? Beyond that, is there any way to actually slow the hands of time and push the limits of longevity?

I decided to start my investigation with the people who should know best—those who live the longest.

Secrets of Long Life From Around the World

For years scientists have been trekking the globe in search of communities of people rumored to live unusually long and healthy lives, trying to pinpoint their age-defying secrets. In the last few decades, they’ve come up with a handful of promising candidates. For example, research suggests that olive oil (see below) has helped the Greeks beat heart disease. For native Inuits of Alaska, diets containing extraordinary amounts of fish provide cardiovascular protection. The secret of longevity on the San Blas islands, off the coast of Panama, may be the most unexpected—and welcome—of all: chocolate, which happily turns out to be a rich source of compounds that help keep blood vessels healthy.

But some of the most compelling findings on longevity and diet comes from the islands of Okinawa in southern Japan. People here are five times as likely to live to 100 than people in the United States or other industrialized countries. (In Okinawa there are about 50 centenarians per 100,000 people versus 10 in 100,000 in the U.S. and most other developed countries.)

When I contacted Bradley Willcox, M.D., co-principal investigator of the Okinawa Centenarian Study, to ask what accounts for the Okinawans’ longevity, his answer startled me. "Sweet potatoes," he wrote back. It turns out that sweet potatoes are a staple in the Okinawan diet, along with bitter melon (a tropical fruit often used in stir-fries) and sanpin tea (a blend of green tea and jasmine flowers). All three foods are exceptionally rich in antioxidants, which may help protect against cellular wear and tear from unstable oxygen molecules generated by our body’s biochemical processes. Although researchers still aren’t exactly sure why we age, one theory is that oxygen radicals keep chipping away at healthy cells, damaging and ultimately destroying them. The antioxidant theory may help explain why another group recognized for exceptional longevity—the Seventh-Day Adventists—typically outlive their neighbors by four to seven years. Their religious denomination, founded in the U.S. in the 1840s, emphasizes healthy living and a vegetarian diet starring vegetables, fruit, whole grains and nuts—all foods packed with antioxidants.

Dinner at the Longevity Cafe

The more I poked through the research, the longer my list of age-defying foods became. Wine or other alcoholic beverages deserve a place at the table; they’ve consistently been associated with lower mortality, as long as they’re consumed in moderation. Blueberries, too, as they’ve been shown to ward off age-related brain impairments.

I was hoping to add an item or two to the list when I put in a call to Katherine L. Tucker, Ph.D., director of the nutritional epidemiology research program at Tufts University. Tucker has been sifting through 50 years of data from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, the longest-running study of aging in the world. When I asked her what foods have popped up in her findings, she gently steered the question in a different direction. What mattered more than single foods, she said, was overall food patterns.

"It’s always been tempting to look at a particular food and then home in on what it contains. That’s how a lot of nutrition science has been conducted," she explained. When fruits and vegetables rich in beta carotene showed up in many studies, for instance, researchers rushed to test beta-carotene supplements—experiments that went famously wrong when the pills offered no special benefits and posed some danger. The experience encouraged many nutrition scientists to go back to studying eating patterns, since people eat foods in combination, not one at a time.

Tucker pointed to results from a recent analysis she did of 501 men from the study. Over time, those who helped themselves to lots of fruits and vegetables were less likely to develop heart disease and more likely to be alive at the end of 18 years of study. Each serving of fruits and vegetables was associated with a 6 percent reduction in risk of death from any cause. Men who limited their saturated fat also reduced their risk of heart disease. But far and away the most impressive benefits fell to men who served up fruits and vegetables and cut back on saturated fat: they slashed their risk of dying of heart disease by 76 percent and of any cause by 31 percent during the study period.

Current health recommendations don’t stop with fruits and vegetables and saturated fat, of course. Most of us know the advice by heart: 1) Get plenty of whole grains; 2) Eat fish a couple of times a week; 3) Eliminate trans fats; 4) Take a glass of wine with dinner if you’d like; 5) Don’t smoke. What’s the payoff for following all the best advice to the letter? To find that out, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health looked at more than 84,000 women enrolled in the Nurses’ Health Study. Those who got a gold star for following each of these five "commandments" cut their risk of heart attacks and other coronary events by a spectacular 82 percent.

Because so many variables are involved, scientists can’t say exactly how many extra years of life you or I will gain by eating well and staying active. But when I asked Harvard nutrition scientist Meir Stampfer, M.D., Ph.D., he estimated that the women in the Nurses’ Health Study who followed all the best health advice might be adding an additional 14 years to their lives. Joan Sabaté, M.D., Ph.D., chair of nutrition at Loma Linda University, told me the Seventh-Day Adventists add an extra 10 years to their lives, on average, thanks to five lifestyle factors: being vegetarian, not smoking, exercising frequently, maintaining a healthy weight and eating lots of nuts.

How to Live to be 120

A lifestyle that helps avoid chronic health problems isn’t the only thing that determines how long you live, of course. Genes, too, help decide whether one’s life span ends up being average (which is about 78 in the United States) or extraordinary (like that of Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, the oldest person on record, who died in 1997 at age 122). If I manage to live into my nineties, the genes I inherited from my gristle-eating great-grandmother will be partly to thank for it. Thomas Perls, M.D., who directs the New England Centenarian Study, believes that good health habits may be enough to carry many of us into our mid-eighties. To live longer than that, though, we need lucky genes.

But is that the whole story? What about that most elusive fountain of youth—a way to actually slow the aging process and extend the limits of longevity? A growing number of experts think they’ve found it. For years, in fact, researchers have been aware of a sure-fire way to put the brakes on aging.

In 1935, a team of Cornell University nutritionists discovered that mice fed one-third fewer calories than normal lived about 40 percent longer than mice that ate as much as they wanted. Since then, scientists have tested a Noah’s ark of creatures—from yeast cells and fruit flies to monkeys. In most studies, calorie restriction appears to increase life expectancy and protect against a host of diseases. Well into old age, animals typically remain more active and younger-looking, as well.

Scientists don’t know exactly why cutting calories may lengthen life, but the leading theory goes like this: When calorie intake falls short, cells sound an alarm, switching their priorities from reproduction to repair and maintenance, fending off genetic damage and the wear and tear caused by the effects of unstable oxygen molecules. Controlling this switch, researchers have learned over the past few years, are a class of enzymes called sirtuins, which affect how energy is delivered to cells. In a 2006 experiment straight out of science fiction, University of California, San Francisco, biochemistry researcher Cynthia Kenyon, Ph.D., tinkered with the equivalent gene in roundworms. The result: a mutant species with a life span six times longer than normal.

Eat Less, Live Longer?

Maybe gene manipulation will allow us to live to 200—someday. Until then, there’s calorie restriction (CR). Three large studies are under way to test the principle in people. Early findings show promise. In 2007, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis reported that CR improved heart function and lowered inflammation levels in a group of volunteers—two signs that could mean better health and longer life down the road. In a study of 48 volunteers, Eric Ravussin and his colleagues at Louisiana State University’s Pennington Biomedical Research Laboratory found that after six months those men and women who cut calories by 25 percent reduced their insulin levels and their core body temperature—two changes associated with longevity. They also had fewer signs of the kind of chromosomal damage that is associated with aging and cancer.

Clinical trials are far from proving that CR dramatically extends life span in humans. Still, an estimated 50,000 Americans subscribe to CR, a practice popularized by Roy Walford, M.D. Walford, a pathologist at UCLA, wrote several books—including Beyond the 120-Year Diet—on the health benefits of eating a low-calorie, high-nutrient diet. (Walford died in 2004, at age 79, from complications of Lou Gehrig’s disease.)

Peter Voss, 53, is an expert in artificial intelligence who runs a start-up firm in Los Angeles. A Google search led me to Voss’s lively website about his experiences with CR (optimal.org), which he began in 1997. He now consumes just 1,850 calories daily, which he guesses is about one-third less than what he ate more than a decade ago. "The more I read about calorie restriction, the more interested I became, until I finally decided to give it a try," he told me when I reached him. Five foot 10 inches tall, he now weighs 130, down from 155 pounds 10 years ago. His blood pressure, good to begin with, resembles that of an active teenager, about 100/60. His triglyceride and cholesterol levels are rock bottom.

In the beginning Voss scrupulously counted calories and scoured nutrient labels. Now he monitors his progress by keeping his weight stable. Voss’s diet is Spartan by any standard. Steel-cut oatmeal with fruit and skim milk is a special treat. But Voss insists that he isn’t always hungry. "I eat whenever I feel like it," he says. Instead of reaching for a cookie for a snack, however, he crunches a carrot or a red pepper. At restaurants, he sticks with appetizers or a first-course salad. His girlfriend, a marathon runner, also follows a CR diet, which probably helps him stick with the program.

There are downsides. Calorie restriction reduces testosterone levels, which in men can mean lower libido. (Researchers don’t have much data about the way CR affects female hormones.) Voss is now so thin that sitting on a hard chair gets uncomfortable. But he insists he still has all the energy he needs to work the 14 hours a day required by his company, and to squeeze in an hour or so of power walking most days.

Not everyone thinks CR will buy Peter Voss much extra time. Recently, John Phelan, Ph.D., a researcher at UCLA, published a mathematical model predicting that calorie restriction is likely to offer at best a 7 percent increase in human life expectancy. As evidence he pointed out that the average Japanese male consumes about 2,300 calories a day. Men on Okinawa consume about 17 percent fewer calories—very close to Peter Voss’s 1,850 a day—but they only live a little less than a year longer than Japanese mainlanders. Calorie restriction may have its most dramatic effects in species that have experienced periodic famines, forcing them to evolve extreme measures to shut down reproduction and focus on staying alive until food supplies return. We humans, naysayers argue, aren’t likely to be among them.

Still, many researchers are excited about the potential benefits. In August, just back from an Experimental Biology conference where the latest findings on CR were presented, Susan Roberts, Ph.D., who is directing a calorie-restriction experiment at Tufts University, wrote in an e-mail: "The human data on people who are already doing CR themselves is extremely impressive. I was sitting in the meeting virtually ready to sign up…myself!"

Practicing the 80 Percent Solution

That’s all I needed to hear. The next day I gave CR a try. For about 14 hours. The experience made me understand why even researchers who are convinced that calorie restriction will extend life span doubt it’s of much practical use. Let’s face it: it’s hard enough to get people to make the changes that are already proven to increase the odds of a long and healthy life, like eating more vegetables and exercising half an hour a day.

There’s a delicious paradox here. Research into calorie restriction comes at a time when people around the world are consuming more calories than ever—and packing on the pounds. Calorie-restriction diets may seem extreme. But the truth is, most of us would do well to follow the basic tenet, which is to favor low-calorie, nutrient-rich foods. To offer support and advice for people trying calorie restriction themselves, a group of enthusiasts started the CR Society in 1994 (calorierestriction.org). Their advice is anything but controversial: avoid simple sugars and flours, eat lots of leafy greens and other vegetables, choose monounsaturated fats and omega-3 fats and avoid saturated fat. Peter Voss’s typical daily fare is a nutritionist’s dream: strawberries with nonfat yogurt, almonds, steamed vegetables, salmon, five-bean chili, peanut butter and bananas. If more of us helped ourselves to a menu like his, we’d be healthier for it even if we didn’t cut calories. And probably add years to our lives.

Long before the verdict is in on calorie restriction, in other words, and even longer before effective longevity pills hit the market, there’s a lot most of us can do to better our odds of living long and staying active and alert. For my part, I decided to dish up a few extra servings of vegetables, snack on nuts, treat myself to a small square of dark chocolate for dessert and get to the gym a little more often. Oh yes, and to take a page from those long-lived Okinawans, who have been practicing their own simple form of calorie restriction long before modern science came along. According to Bradley Willcox, the Okinawans have traditionally followed hara hachi bu, a custom of eating until they are just 80 percent full. The practice allows them to consume fewer calories without bothering to read nutrition labels—and it means they don’t have to obsess about what to eat and not eat but can go about enjoying themselves.

And that, in the end, may be even more crucial to their longevity than, well, sweet potatoes or sanpin tea. Finding delight in family and friends, having something to look forward to every day: studies of centenarians around the world suggest that these intangibles, even more than the specifics of diet, may be the most powerful secret to longevity. The Okinawans have a name for it: ikigai, or "finding your reason to live."

 7 FOODS THAT KEEP YOU YOUNG!

Olive Oil

Four decades ago, researchers from the Seven Countries Study concluded that the monounsaturated fats in olive oil were largely responsible for the low rates of heart disease and cancer on the Greek island of Crete. Now we know that olive oil also contains polyphenols, powerful antioxidants that may help prevent age-related diseases.

Posted by amystebbins at 10:03 AM | Permalink

RESPONSE TO EMAIL QUESTIONS

Hello and Good Morning all!!

I want to share with you a question I received via email.

“How can you make stuffing healthy? What are good brain foods and how can you make them kid friendly?”

Great question! I would like to share the answer with everyone!

To make stuffing healthier this holiday season, simply omit all the butter!! Just moisten your stuffing mix with chicken broth or vegetable broth instead! It is just that simple. You will not miss the butter! The broth gives it great flavor as well.

 I usually take my broth and add crushed garlic, minced onions, and finely minced celery, carrots, mushrooms and even some dried cranberries! Simply bring your broth to a boil with all your ingredients in it. Then simmer for about 5 to 10 minutes, and then add your broth (with all the goodies in it) to your stuffing mix!

If you are REALLY missing that little bit of fat in your stuffing…replace it with 1 tbsp of a good quality olive oil!

You can get so creative with your stuffingJ Try cornbread stuffing with cranberries and pecans! Try mushrooms and walnuts! Or walnuts and diced apples!! The possibilities are endless! JUST MAKE SURE TO GET RID OF THE BUTTER!

As for good “brain foods”- it is no secret that omega-3’s are king.

Flax oil, and freshly ground flax seed, fish oil supplements, wild salmon, and walnuts are some of the best sources of these omega-3’s (see my blog archives for more articles about this!!)

ALSO- this just in!! EAT CARROTS, CANTELOPE AND ORANGE SQUASH!! By increasing your beta carotene intake, you are helping your brain, and improving cognitive function! So eat orange foods everyday! They have found this only made improvements over the long term…so include them in your diet daily and for the rest of your life.

By increasing your daily consumption of whole grains, fruits and vegetables and nuts, and eating less animal products, you not only increase your vitality, you can keep your weight in control. Stay away from all processed foods!! There is no room for these in a healthy diet. PERIOD!

As for making foods kid friendly….

You need to be creative, AND YOU MUST SET THE EXAMPLE! If you want your kids to eat more veggies and fruits, then presentation is key! Lay them out on their plates in cute shapes! Make a face with them, use cookie cutters on apples and have different nut butters to spread on your cut outs! (Just cut your apple crosswise into slices and then use the cutters on the slices) Have them create veggie and fruit animals! Use NATURAL (the ingredients should say PEANUTS that is it!) peanut butter as glue! Make “ants on a log” take carrot sticks and celery sticks, cover them with peanut or almond butter, and dot them with raisins or make “lady bugs on a log” by exchanging the raisins with dried cranberries or cherries!

When cooking veggies, HAVE YOUR KIDS MAKE THEM!!! The more your children take part in preparing the meals, the more likely they will eat them! It works!!!

Have your children GROW their own food as well…nothing tastes as good as vegetables you grow yourself.

Have your kids eat vegetable soups for lunch! Have them prepare them (or help them if they are too small to do it alone) stay away from creamed soups. Make them broth based.

While you are preparing these foods, explain to them WHY you need to eat these things!! Tell them that veggies and fruits and whole grains make you smart, healthy, strong, and beautiful! (Explain how they improve skin, eyes, hair, nails, and brain function!) Tell them GOD made these foods! And if they are good enough for God, then they are good enough for YOU! Tell them God made these things, because that is what we are supposed to eat! (God did NOT make twinkies!) And just who is going to argue with God?

Explain to them that by eating junk foods, and processed foods, that they will be HARMING themselves! Diabetes, heart attack and strokes are some good things to bring up. You can also tell them that it causes obesity!  SHOW THEM PICTURES of what a liver looks like with cirrhosis!

NOW HERE COMES THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU NEED TO DO!!!!

Are you paying attention???

Here is the number one rule….

DO NOT BUY ANY PROCESSED FOODS OR JUNK FOODS EVER!!!!!!

If you do, then YOU are the direct cause of your children’s poor health!! (So go over to a mirror and say to yourself that you will NOT buy these things, and that if you do, you are not helping your kids OR YOURSELF!)

Who CARES if your kids complain and whine about wanting that bag of cookies, or sugar filled crappy cereal…TOO BAD!!! Suck it up kids! You are NOT going to eat that while living under my roof!! When you are bringing in a paycheck and helping to pay the bills, then you can buy what ever you want to eat (but as long as you instill good eating habits, you will not have to worry about your kids eating poorly!)

EXPLAIN TO THEM THAT BY DOING THIS YOU ARE BEING A VERY GOOD MOM OR DAD!!! And that there are thousands of kids out there who do NOT have a mom or a dad who cares like you do, and that your little ones are DARN LUCKY to have one that does!!!

Tell them that you are helping them to grow up and be responsible healthy adults, who will in turn, help others by setting the example for good habits!!!!!!

IF AFTER ALL THIS, your kids refuse to eat the food you give them….then let them GO HUNGRY! Seriously…BELIEVE ME. They WILL come around and eat that healthy food!! YOU MUST STICK TO YOUR GUNS!!! Don’t wimp out. EVER.

IF YOU SHOW THAT YOU ENJOY YOUR HELATHY FOOD THEN THEY WILL!!!!! YOU ARE THE BIGGEST TEACHER AND INFLUENCE IN YOUR CHILDRENS LIVES. THEY LOOK TO YOU TO LEARN HOW TO BEHAVE!!!! THEY ARE WATCHING YOUR EVERY MOVE!!! SO SET THE EXAMPLE AND TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR ACTIONS ALWAYS.

Make eating FUN AND A FAMILY AFFAIR!!! Set your table with different table linens, have theme nights where you prepare foods from a certain country, or color or season…decorate accordingly! Have your kids make the décor! GET THEM EXCITED ABOUT BEING HEALTHY! GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO!! It works…trust me! I have used all these tricks in getting my children to eat new foods…it works GREAT. And YES, there were times when my daughter refused to eat certain things, and I told her “Too bad girl! This is what we have to eat, if you don’t like it then go hungry!”…she stormed off to her room, but then came back 20 minutes later and ATE THE FOOD!! Not only did she eat it, but SHE LIKED IT!

I am a firm believer in setting the example for our children. My kids are VERY loved, and they know it J but there are times when you just have to GET TOUGH, so that they understand that some things just aren’t good for you. YOU ARE NOT BEING MEAN, YOU ARE SHOWING THEM THAT YOU LOVE THEM!!!!!

 If you just said “oh screw it…go eat some cake, I don’t want to hear your complaining anymore.”  Then you are NOT being a good parent. It is showing that you could care less.

You have to be strong sometimes. That is just the way it is.

Your children will thank you later for teaching them to be healthy! I can’t tell you how many kids I knew growing up whose parents seemed to be “tough” on them with certain things, but now, as adults they are just awesome people! They are very thankful that their parents were so strict when it came to diet, or partying or earning the money to buy their own car.

Go ahead and try these methods out. I bet you will find success with them as I did, AS LONG AS YOU STICK TO YOUR GUNS. You have to put your foot down! And that is that! Like I said, your kids will thank you later.

I hope that my tips here will help you all out. I hope that everyone has a wonderful holiday season!

If there are anymore questions, recipe suggestions or the like, then please ASK!! I would love to hear more from all of you! I am pleased to help you J

Posted by amystebbins at 08:43 AM | Permalink

HI THERE EVERYONE!

October was quite a busy and stress filled month for me. November is proving to be just as fast paced!

Time is just flying by…everyday my kids look a little more mature, and taller!

The start of a whole new year is just around the corner, and with it comes a lot of changes!

My family will be moving this summer to a new home. We will be finding out just where at the beginning of the year. I am excited and nervous at the same time. My children are looking forward to having “brand new bedrooms.” And a “big garden”

With all the excitement, and running around getting ready for the holidays, please make sure to make time for yourself. DON’T FORGET YOUR WORKOUT ROUTINE! Use your daily exercise time, as a special “me” time…where you can forget your worries and what you have on your to do list, and just feel free.

I love to go for a long trail run…getting fresh air does wonders for stress, and the endorphin rush, just makes you feel great.

DON’T FORGET TO EAT HEALTHY TOO!!! Just because there is turkey dinner and pumpkin pie, does not mean you have to eat until you turn green. Remember your portion sizes, and don’t go overboard on the dessert!

That being said, I know a lot of people will be attending parties and want to look their very best. So what type of workout will be the most effective? Which workout burns fat and gets you there faster? Which workout is most effective when we are short on time?

I would have to say lifting heavier weights with shorter rest periods.

A study from the college of New Jersey (Ewing) reported that when men bench –pressed with just 30 seconds of rest between sets, they burned more than 50% MORE CALORIES during  the workout, than when they rested for three minutes!

Also researchers from Norwegian University of Sport and Physical Education discovered that using a weight that allows for only 6 reps increased resting metabolic rate higher and for longer after a workout that 12 rep sets.

So to burn more calories during and after workouts, which helps burn excess body fat, use a 6-8 rep range and keep rest periods to less than one minute!

Follow your weight workout with at least 20 minutes of cardio, and you will see fat drop off.

The key here is to be INTENSE. Do not talk or socialize during your workout. You have to move quickly, and concentrate on what you are doing. Put on your favorite music and go, go, GO!!

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE HEALTHY HOLIDAY RECIPES?

Tell me! I would love to hear your requests and also how you make your holiday’s healthy ones!

Write to me!! Amy@risingstarfitness.com

Stay healthy and happy!

Posted by amystebbins at 12:54 PM | Permalink