Healthy Vegetarian/Vegan Eating!

May 29th, 2009

I received an email from a subscriber, Bill, that I want to share with all of you.  I couldn’t have said it better!

Thanks for your efforts to encourage wellness.  My wife and I have followed a largely vegetarian diet for the past two years and have seen significant benefits. Our original motivation was to save a few animal lives, especially given the cruelty in factory-farm food-animal production and slaughter. The positive health consequences were an unexpected benefit. There is also the satisfaction of knowing that reductions in meat eating will reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

(Here’s a bit more of their story from a separate email……)

My wife and I attended a meeting two years ago of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). On the way there, knowing we would be would be having no meat during the conference, we had double cheeseburgers at a fast-food place, and joked whether we would be doing the same following the conference, as we anticipated no long-term change in our eating habits.

Halfway through the conference, we realized what great vegan food we were having and had a better understanding of the cruelty associated with much of the meat industry, and decided we would give vegetarianism a try. We have not been absolute by any means, but the health consequences were dramatic and surprising. I am about 20 pounds lighter and continuing to play tennis and full-court basketball at age 70. My wife Linda saw her previously astronomical cholesterol and triglyceride numbers plummet.

In short, whatever your own eating habits may be, I hope you will include some discussion of vegetarian options in your series on healthy eating.

Any other vegetarians or vegans want to chime in?  Do so at the comment link below…..would love to hear from you! 

Getting Serious about Fitness (finally!)

May 28th, 2009

The good news is I’m going to provide a free Team Fitness experience for you during the month of June. We’ll blog and comment and find our way to some serious fitness. I’ve been fooling around with fitness for too long, and as a 60-year-old exercise physiologist who coasted through my 50’s, it’s time to get serious again. My walks along the river are no longer enough (understatement).

I’ve got some inspiring stories to tell you and a book to recommend that is guiding my new fitness program–it’s really the bomb! It was published in 2004 and I can’t believe I’ve just recently cracked it open. For me it’s a page turner and is finally getting me off my usual fitness routine and into a healthy aging fitness routine. I’ll tell you about the book in June when I start the new blog series.

Be looking for my email on June 1 – we’ll start gearing up our bodies for healthy, happy living…in this lifetime.

The bad news is that after returning from my aunt’s memorial service in Coldwater, KS, I got a call that my mother had a stroke and my father who has dementia was home alone…so to speak. More on that story here:

So it’s been an unusually hectic week and I don’t have the enthusiasm or energy to write a full-blown newsletter. I’ve been writing the newsletter since 2003 and I think I’ve earned a pass. If you were licking your lips to read the newsletter, visit this link and take your pick of the past issues – I bet you missed at least one of them.

So be looking for an email on June 1 unveiling the new Team Fitness 30-Day Blog series at CherylMillerVille. If you play along with us, it will change the way you age. That’s a big promise I aim to prove.

Want to guess what the book is?  Make your comments (about the book or the topic) at the comment link below.

Healthy eating when life is overwhelming

May 27th, 2009

I just got back from Coldwater, Kansas.  I attended my aunt’s memorial service.  She was 88 and lived a long, loving life.  We will all miss her. 

It was a busy Memorial Day weekend and for several days we ate on the run between this event and that activity.  Ponder this:  How do  you eat healthfully when you’re out of town…..on the run (and a little bit stressed)?  We just did our best, but eating healthfully was not a priority.

Then Tuesday morning I received a call at 7am informing me that my mother had a stroke and was taken by ambulance to the emergency room leaving my father with dementia to fend for himself.  Ponder this:  My parents live in North Carolina and their kids live in Kansas, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan – all two days’ drive away.

Suddenly meal planning and healthy eating dropped (ka-thunk) to the bottom of the to-do list. 

Solution:  If this happens to you (and it inevitably will), don’t beat yourself up.  Do the best you can and get back to healthy eating as soon as you can.  I for one am going to eat a spinach salad for dinner!  Back on track with healthy eating……

How do you recommend handling these kinds of situations? Any suggestions?  Please share your comments at the comment link below.

How to start a wellness program today

May 20th, 2009

As a member of SparkPeople I get interesting articles on a regular basis.  I thought you’d enjoy this one about how to start a wellness program right now – today.

Do you use natural kitchen cleaners?

May 19th, 2009

Have you ever walked down the cleaning aisle at your grocery store or one of the big box stores and felt that you had to plug your nose or be asphyxiated?  I used to rush down that aisle, grab what I needed and then dash to catch a breath of clean air.  One day it occurred to me that I didn’t need to buy those highly chemicalized cleaners.  Duh! 

Now I either make my own natural cleaners (vinegar and water), baking soda, etc…..or I purchase natural cleaners from our whole foods store.

Through all the years of watching cleaning product commercials, we’ve been sold a bill of goods on what clean looks and smells like – it smells like lemon and a whole bunch of other strong chemicals.  And it looks like bubbles.  If either of these is missing, we worry that we’ll miss the clean. 

I used Dr. Bronner’s soap the other day to wash dishes and I had no idea if it was cleaning effectively because there were absolutely no bubbles and the water was milky.  Other dish detergents are souped up on chemicals that cause bubbles, smells, the squeaky clean feeling and all the rest.  My compromise is to go back to my biogradable all-purpose cleaner … until I think of a better solution. 

Your Turn:  Look under your kitchen sink and take an inventory of how many household cleaners you have.  Do you need all of them?  Are they natural cleaners…and do you care?

Do you ever make your own cleaners using natural ingredients? Would you share your recipes? If you buy natural cleaners, what brand names do like?

Have you changed eating habits for better or worse?

May 18th, 2009

Have you ever changed your eating habits……for better or worse?  Like did you decide to get fit and sleek before your wedding, or get in shape after a diagnosis of diabetes, or did you gain weight while getting a degree?  Did you gain weight after starting a family or lose weight after getting a divorce?

I think it’s interesting to think about how our life’s path has led us to better (or worse) eating habits.

For me, I dramatically improved my diet and fitness routine after listening to a professor at the University of Kansas give a public presentation on the interaction of diet and exercise.  In fact, I was so psyched, I signed for a Master of Science program in Exercise Physiology.  I started eating really well and exercising like crazy.  And I quit smoking.  I became a runner, participated in two triathlons, and biked across Kansas (2x), Iowa and Michigan. 

The next big shift came almost 20 years later when my professional career heated up and I had a lot of demands placed on me – personal time was at a minimum and I was under a lot of stress to perform.  You guessed it, I started eating on the run and slacking off on my fitness routine.  I still walked regularly, but with the 20 year age gain, I needed to do a lot more! 

Now I’m ready for the third shift – back to taking care of me – no matter what else is going on.  I think that’s a neato place to be.  Now what about you?  Have you improved your wellness lifestyle?  Have you slacked off?  Tell us your story….everybody has a story.  And if you’ve maintained a steady wellness routine, we definitely want to hear from you…tell us your secrets.  Share your comments at the comment link below.

Could your kitchen make you fat?

May 16th, 2009

Instead of going on about what I think, I’m going to ask you to answer this question and I’ll comment on your comments:

Do you think your kitchen could make you fat?  How so?  Tell us at the comment link below.

Unused Kitchen Gadgets (kitchen clutter)

May 13th, 2009

What kitchen tools, equipment, and gadgets have you purchased but don’t use?

I use almost all of the tools, equipment, and gadgets in my kitchen because a couple of years ago I went through every drawer and cabinet and got rid of everything that was just taking up space. 

For some reason I had 5 tea balls, and I don’t really drink tea – but I obviously think I should! 

Do you have a ton of plastic containers that fall on your head when you open the cabinet where they’re crammed in?  And do you have lids that you don’t know what they go with?  I got rid of most of my plastic containers and replaced them with glass containers.

I moved my hard-to-clean juicer to the garage (for a garage sale that got rained out) and I hope that somebody steals it! 

If you have knives or potato peelers or other tools that don’t work well, are hard to clean, or don’t relate to the kinds of foods you like to cook and eat, give them to Goodwill or another thrift shop of your choosing.  Check to see if your church kitchen or local soup kitchen could use these items.  If you’re a member of www.freecycle.org, advertise it to that list and give away your kitchen clutter. 

Now it’s your turn:  What kitchen tools, equipment, and gadgets have you purchased but don’t use?  Is it time to let your kitchen clutter go?  Where are your favorite places to donate these items?  Tell us all about it at the comment link below.

What are your children’s favorite health foods?

May 11th, 2009

In this lifetime I just have pets, no kids.  So I can only speak about feeding kids from theory. One thing I know is that it’s important to start kids on a healthy diet when they’re first introduced to food from a bowl or a plate.  It gets harder and harder as they get older to change their diet from cheese burgers, fries, and soda pop to stir fries, salads, and water.  Their food patterns can get set – just like yours may have gotten set.  But, it’s never too late to introduce healthy foods into our family’s diets.

Let’s hear from the parents out there–whether your kids are still at home or on their own.  

• What do you (did you) feed your kids? 
• How do you (did you) get them to eat more healthfully? 
• What are (were) their favorite health foods?

Give us all the gory details please and share your secrets (or challenges!) at the comment link below….because this is such a big important topic!

What are your favorite kitchen tools and gadgets?

May 10th, 2009

Efficiency in the kitchen is important….we’re all so busy!  So let’s share what our favorite kitchen tools are.  They can be electric or manual. 

Here are a few of my favorites:

• salad spinner – a must if you eat a lot of salads
• sharp knives – several sizes
• large wooden cutting board
• plastic roll up cutting board for meat that I can pop in the dishwasher to sanitize
• blender to make my daily smoothie
• tea kettle (is that a tool?)

Your Turn:  What are your favorite kitchen tools and gadgets?  Click the comment link below and share…