Healthy Fast Food Kitchen™ . . .
make it fast, eat it slow

Have you tried to eat a healthier diet but were confronted with junk foods everywhere you looked? We live in a junk food culture. Advertisers stick food in your face at every opportunity. They use seductive marketing practices. Did you know that the mission of one fast food company is to have a restaurant every ½ mile because they know that fast food is an impulse buy? They want to be there to create and satisfy that impulse.

One advertisement for an obscenely large burger says “please don’t lick the billboard.” And you definitely want to. That photo is drop dead compelling. By nature we’re hunters and gatherers. So when we see food, we want to gather it. And gather it we do at all-you-can-eat buffets, the candy aisle, vending machines, check out counters, sporting events, treat days at work, etc.

The Center for Disease Control reported that 1 in 3 children born after the year 2000 will have diabetes in their lifetime. This shouldn’t surprise us. Think about the kinds of foods we are offered – high fat, low nutrient, highly processed convenience and junk foods.

We’ve been groomed by advertisers to eat junk food snacks. They make these foods look really appealing – even fun. Parents often feed their children a steady diet of junk food snacks because they don’t realize how bad this “food” is for their kids. It's been marketed and packaged in such tricky ways that people begin to think that they’re a lot healthier than they are. Everybody's eating it. It must be OK. When we get conscious of how big business is marketing to us, their advertising tricks will become very noticeable. Let’s get conscious and read labels.

Ask yourself “Is this food nutritious and good for me and my family?” Can I pronounce the ingredients? Is there real food here? Can these foods build healthy, strong bodies? Simply become aware of how often you’re being led (by the nose?) to eat unhealthy foods.

If you’re interested in eating more healthfully, a great place to start is by eating healthier snacks. If you normally eat junk food snacks, you can dramatically improve the quality of your diet by improving the quality of your snacks. Check out my free 21-Day healthy Snack Challenge. Here’s a link to get more info and subscribe: http://www.cherylmillerville.com/hffk/21snacks/join.htm And feel free to share it with your friends and colleagues.

We need to give the junk food industry some competition.

Packrats, Paper Hounds & Procrastinators™ . . .
life is too big to drag it around with you

Have you noticed that everywhere you go, you can buy something? In the good old days, you couldn’t buy a television and DVD player at the grocery store. Media and advertising have created an insatiable urge to shop and own things. We’ve become buying machines – even if we don’t have the money or the need. It’s our entertainment. And we “deserve it” because we work so hard. We also deserve to work in homes that aren’t cluttered with stuff we don't need and have no place to put. And we deserve to be able to pay off our credit cards and sleep well at night knowing that our finances are in order. And we deserve not to be seduced into such a financial fix that we resort to visiting the pay day loan sharks.

Before we became a consumer society, people made many of their own goods. And when they bought something, they paid cash. Today we’ve got plastic – which is kind of like not paying for anything, at least that’s how it feels. So we max out our credit cards, transfer the balances, and pay the minimum due. We end up with big debt and a lot of stuff we don't need.

In the past 20 years, organizing businesses and container companies have exploded on the scene due to the demand for help digging out from under the burden of excess. I think that genetically a small percentage of people are hard wired to be packrats, but the U.S. has become a nation of packrats. We over consumes on many levels. Most home and family magazines feature at least one article about simplifying and decluttering. People really want help. They're looking for answers.

So where do we start? I recommend that we start by buying less and getting in the habit of paying cash more often. And setting up a budget would be a fab idea too for people who run out of money before the next check gets deposited in their bank account. It’s not a sexy solution, but people who try it will sleep better at night.

Move More. . . your body
thinks it's dead unless you move™

Most of us have sedentary jobs. We’re encouraged to sit sit sit at desks, computers, Game Boys, X-Boxes, televisions. And we’re also conditioned to hate going outside because it’s not temperature controlled like our cars, houses, restaurants, shopping centers, entertainment centers, and offices. We think it’s too hot, too cold, too windy, too wet, too dark, or too humid to go outside.

One of the reasons we have environmental problems is that we’re growing increasingly disconnected from the earth. When people plowed the fields and traveled the plains, they understood animal behaviors, the nuances of bird calls, the path of the sun and the moon. They knew when it was going to storm and how much. They didn’t need a weather channel because they were out in it and had a powerful understanding of the earth. We’ve lost much of that awareness because we live indoors. On average, we spend less than 2% of our lives outside.

It’s time to GO OUTSIDE! Take a walk, kick a ball, throw a ball, bat a ball, tumble with your kids, watch birds, look at the stars, stand on the bank of the river and watch. Sit in the park and look at the insects. Speaking of insects, have you noticed the insect aversion we have? Eeeeuuw. People hate insects. That’s the silliest thing to me. We need insects for innumerable processes that we’d be lost without. There’s pollination, clean up of decay and deterioration, and soil aeration to name just a few. And they provide food for other critters like birds. Let’s make peace with insects and stop the crazy rush to kill every last one. Let’s watch and enjoy them as we spend time outside. Go hug a bug.

Simple, Clean Green Living . . .
for busy people who love the planet™

In a simpler world, real people used to help real people with

problems. Now machines try to help us. I say try because they don’t do

an adequate job. Have you been as frustrated as I have been when

calling for customer service? The electronic voice tries to send you to a

web page for your answer, but my questions are rarely the kind that

can be answered by a canned FAQ sequence. I need to talk to a real human to get a real solution. I’ve recently discovered an awesome

consumer movement to "get the human" back into customer service.

The goal of www.gethuman.com is to improve the quality of customer service and phone support. Their free, non-profit website is run by volunteers and is powered by over one million consumers who demand high-quality phone support from the companies that they use.

Visit the Gethuman Database before calling for customer service:

http://www.gethuman.com/us/

At this site, you will find the code to go straight to a living person to get the help you need without having to jump through the annoying electronic hoops. I’ve tried it and loved it. Be sure to leave feedback so Gethuman can continue to improve this wonderful service.

Smoke Now, Quit Later . . .
smoke guilt-free while you get ready to quit™

In our consumer society, we’ve learned all about immediate

gratification. We get immediate gratification from cigarettes, food,

alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, and shopping. But short-term

gratification often has long-term consequences.

When it comes to smoking, it’s good to go for a long-term fix. The

long-term fix includes learning how to reduce stress and then manage

the rest, have compassion for yourself and others, enjoy living, slow

down, and get busy – find something that compels you to stay

engaged with life and do it. Maybe it’s a hobby, a different job, or a

new relationship. Would you like to volunteer, have an avocation, or be

an activist?

Fill your life with meaningful things and your urge to smoke

will subside. We do what we do until something more compelling comes along. Find what's compelling and get engaged with it.

And if you’ve got to have a quick fix, go outside and watch a bird,

smell a flower, breathe some fresh air, or take a little walk. Those quick

fixes are free and right outside your door.

Perfect Environments for Healthy, Happy Living . . .
let the environments do the work for you™

The best solution to keep from falling prey to unhealthy cultural traps is to design our own healthy environments. If we don’t do it, somebody else will. I’ve given at least one example of healthy environments in each of the tips in this issue. Can you think of others?

In previous newsletters, I’ve written a lot about creating your own healthy environments. Check out the free articles here.

Comments Please

I’d like to hear about the environments you have designed. Please email me about your successes and challenges.

Again, if you're from a culture that influences your healthy habits in ways different from the ones I've described here, I invite you to email me and tell me about them.