Exercise Helps Lift Your Mood!

Experts at the University of Maryland found that there's a strong link between watching lots of TV and being unhappy. So toss the remote and get out and see friends or go to the gym. It'll boost your mood on the spot!

The warm water of an indoor pool beckons on a cold winter’s day, and swimming is excellent exercise for any age. But before you jump in, keep these tips in mind:

• Stretch It Out - Before you get into the pool, be sure to stretch your arms, shoulders, chest, lower back and legs for a few minutes to warm up.
• Shake It Up - Break down that mile you usually swim into a series of sprints, followed by brief rests. For example, swim five lengths as fast as you can, then rest 15 seconds, and repeat for 10 lengths.
• Go Deep - Tired of laps? Put on a lifejacket and head for the deep end. In the water, run in place, pretend you’re skiing, kick, twist around - whatever is fun for you. Just don’t overdo it - water provides 12 times the resistance as exercise on land.

Kids and Smart Snacking

Be a role model for your kids when it comes to healthy meals and healthy snacking. If you keep healthy snack items for your children in the house, it helps them get used to healthy flavors. Try some of these with your kids:

• 2% fat String cheese
• Fat Free flavored Yogurt (Best yet, take plain yogurt and use stevia (natural sweetener) and vanilla extract.  Yummy!
• Toasted Almonds – “dust” with cinnamon and stevia (natural sweetener)
• Apples with peanut butter
• Veggies and low-fat dip
• Snap peas and salsa – kids love crisp, slightly sweet veggies

Dr. Christina Winsey, The “I Can” Doctor: www.TheICanDoctor.com

Insulin Resistance – linked to Diets high in High-Fructose Corn Syrup

High-fructose corn syrup is a sweetener found in most sodas and many other processed foods.  In a new study on mice, this sweetener is shown to be at least partially the cause of insulin resistance.

How would you like to eat something that turns to fat quicker than sugar?  Fructose is the culprit – it is metabolized into fat storage over glucose storage in the liver.  What is worse, in the process it can lead to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which then leads to an insulin resistance of the liver (“hepatic insulin resistance” and eventually type II diabetes!

New cases of diabetes have ballooned.  The increase doctors have seen is 90% in the last ten years!  One in four Americans is now afflicted with either pre-diabetes or diabetes.  What are we doing to ourselves?

On top of this, food – particularly sugar – is an addictive substance for those who have what used to be considered just an “alcoholic gene.”  In fact, there are five major addictions, all of which are the same disease.  Approximately 20% of the population is born with this “alcoholic gene”.  What they’re born with is an inability, due to the right brain chemicals, to feel good.  Called the “Reward Deficiency Syndrome,” the startling fact is that this syndrome is why all five addictions: alcohol, drugs, food, sex, gambling and work, become the “substance of choice” to feel good.

But I couldn’t end this blog without urging that if you or someone you love or care about seems to have an addiction problem – if you even think there is one – please seek out an addiction expert in your area, or alcoholics anonymous (AA).  AA has lists of meetings related to the other addictions as well.

In my next blog I will clarify how sex, gambling and work are considered addictions that have a chemical basis, and I’ll share with you some answers about how to get help.  I’ll also share with you some simple amino acid therapies that assist in reducing addictive cravings and what the cutting-edge successful treatments for addiction (now being successfully used by some many drug courts around the Country).

Sources:

-Science Daily March 3, 2009

-Cell Metabolism March 2009; 9(3):252-64

-The Reward Deficiency Syndrome by Kenneth Blum, Ph.D., D.A.C.A.C.D. and Jay M. Holder, D.C., M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Christina Winsey, The “I Can” Doctor: www.TheICanDoctor.com