Creamsicle Smoothie

This sounded really good and with the spring season upon us.... it's smoothie time!

Creamsicle Smoothie

Ingredients:

1 navel orange, peeled

1/4 cup fat-free half-and-half or fat-free yogurt

2 tablespoons frozen orange juice concentrate

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 ice cubes

In a blender, combine the orange, half-and-half or yogurt, orange juice concentrate, vanilla, and ice cubes. Process until smooth.

For nutritional info visit recipes.prevention.com

Rules for Faster Weight Loss

Fiber - Eat at least 20 grams of fiber per day from whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. Fiber helps keep you feeling full longer. Each gram of fiber eaten correlated to 1/2 pound less body weight. The researchers suspect that the higher fiber intake led to a reduction in total calories over time.

Calcium & Vitamin D - Strive for three servings of calcium- and vitamin D-rich foods a day. These nutrients often occur together in foods, especially dairy. Calcium and vitamin D work together in your body, primarily to strengthen your bones. But if the latest research is any indication, both of these nutrients may flex some muscle in your weight loss success.

Good Fats - These include monounsaturated fatty acids and omega-3 fatty acids, found in oils, nuts, avocados, certain fish—and yes, even chocolate! Eat three to four servings daily.

Protein - Aim for three servings of lean protein (such as fish, white meat chicken and turkey, pork loin chops, and lean beef sirloin) per day. In addition to being an essential nutrient, protein helps to keep you feeling full longer.

Green Tea- Sip at least 3 cups of green tea every day. Catechins, the weight loss antioxidants found in high amounts in green tea, have been shown to be helpful in promoting, specifically belly fat. If caffeine is a concern, decaf tea is an option. Some decaffeination processes, however, can lower the antioxidant content so you might want to have an extra cup or two.

Foods with Superpowers

Bananas - Bone Builder

Athletes and performers are familiar with the calming effect of bananas — a result of the fruit's high concentration of tryptophan, a building block of serotonin. But their real benefit comes from potassium, an electrolyte that helps prevent the loss of calcium from the body. "Bananas also bolster the nervous system, boost immune function, and help the body metabolize protein," says Bass. "One banana packs a day's worth of potassium, and its carbohydrate content speeds recovery after strenuous exercise."

Ginger -Immunity Booster

Contrary to popular belief, ginger—a piquant addition to so many Asian dishes—isn't a root, it's a stem, which means it contains living compounds that improve your health. Chief among them is gingerol, a cancer suppressor that studies have shown to be particularly effective against that of the colon. Chop ginger or grind it fresh and add it to soy-marinated fish or chicken as often as you can. The more you can handle, the better.

Grass-Fed Beef - Muscle Enhancer

Nothing beats pure protein when it comes to building muscle. The problem with most store-bought beef, however, is that the majority of cattle are grain fed, which gives their meat a relatively high ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids. That, in turn, contributes to inflammation. The fatty acids in grass-fed beef, on the other hand, are skewed toward the omega-3 variety. Such beef also contains conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which studies have shown help reduce belly fat and build lean muscle. "Shoot for two six- to eight-ounce lean cuts [e.g., flank or tenderloin] a week," says Bowerman. "But don't grill it. Charring is carcinogenic. Roast or pan sear."

Almonds- Inflammation Fighter

These energy-rich snacks lower bad cholesterol, thanks to plant sterols, and benefit diabetics by lowering blood sugar. They're also rich in amino acids, which bolster testosterone levels and muscle growth. "Eat a third of a cup a day with the skins on. The skin is full of antioxidants," says Bowerman.

Read more: menshealth.com/nutritious_foods_for_a_healthy_body

The Money Connection

The Money Connection
If you're not counting calories, you're probably racking up debt

Financial guru Suze Orman makes a return visit to The Biggest Loser last week and tells the contestants, "You're not just made up of your health, you're made up of your wealth. And the two of them are totally connected."

Some people scratch their heads at the connection between their waistline and their checking account, but it's about mindfulness. As long as you're writing down what you eat, you're more aware of the calorie count. The Biggest Loser nutritionist Cheryl Forberg says that when contestants first meet with her, they usually underestimate how much they're eating. They just have no idea. And it's the same with the bank balance. If you don't write it down, you're probably going to come up short at the end of the month

Organizing your life is taking responsibility for it. And that applies to every phase from eating to exercise to keeping track of your finances. Want some tips on eating and organizing your pantry on a budget? Biggest Loser Club has tons of tips and advice for losing weight on a budget.

For more info visit www.nbc.com/the-biggest-loser

Blueberry Banana Pancakes

• 1 overripe banana mashed
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup (4oz) chocolate almond
• 3/4 cup (90g) whole wheat flour
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• About 1/2 cup frozen wild blueberries

Mash the banana in a medium bowl. Add the egg and milk. Whisk until frothy.

In a smaller bowl, add the flour, baking soda, baking powder and nutmeg. Sift into the banana mixture. Mix until just blended.

Using a soup spoon pour the batter by the spoonful in a non-stick skillet or griddle over medium heat sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. The batter is thick so just spread with the spoon. If you like a thinner batter add a splash more milk.

Sprinkle the desired amount of blueberries on top pressing in a bit with the spoon.

Cook about 1-2 minutes a side, small bubbles will form but not as many as traditional pancakes. Just peaked underneath for a light brown color, then flip.

You can get 8-10 depending on how big you make them. The nutritional info for the original recipe based on 9. The info below is for 8 and give you the per cake estimated figures. The original is about 60 calories a cake. (1 WWP)

Approx Nutritional Information per serving - 8 servings (1 cake per serving)

Calories 120
Fat 4g
Fiber 2g

WW pts - 2

source: greenlitebites.com/blueberry-banana-pancakes

CCJasper Group

CCJasper group update - This week brings our CCJ Healthy Habits group to a close for the 12 week program. We had a great time, learned about a lot of different things (i.e. portion sizes, organic options and their benefits, exercise techniques, etc.). We will have our last meeting Thursday 4/15/10 and are taking the summer off. If you are interested in joining us for the next go around we will be starting back up MONDAY, AUGUST 30^th!! So mark your calendars and we’ll see you there. More information will be posted closer to the startup date so be watching! Also please visit our website DAILY for tid bits of information on health, nutrition, exercise, recipes, tips, tricks and other odds and ends. We typically post Monday thru Friday with some surprise posts on the weekends…

Celestine Group update

We ended our most recent 12 week group of Healthy Habits last night and will be looking to start our next group after a two week break. We will probably start our next group in the first week of May. With summer schedules being so busy, we will most likely have to look at a different day of the week to accommodate everybody’s baseball/softball schedules. We will finalize that tonight, but wanted to give you a heads up on our upcoming sessions.



With the summer schedule being so busy, we will only have a 7 week commitment. The first meeting will be to weigh in and information sharing. The six meetings after this, we will actually begin training for a 5K. For some individuals their goal will be to simply walk a 5K, for others, their goal will be to run a 5K. We will have 4 groups, with 4 group leaders. We will have a group for walkers, a group who want to walk 75%, and run 25%, a group that will walk 25% and run 75%, and a group who wishes to run the entire race. You will decide what your goal is, and you will be able to adjust it throughout the 6 weeks if you decide that you want to run more, or less. During this time, we will weigh in and have our top 15 Losers listed, with the top three losers winning money at the end, just as in the past. The cost is $15.00 each participant.

As a follow up to the 5K training, the following 12 week session we will begin to train for a ½ marathon with the same principle of having the 4 groups as in the 5K training. Remember, you can train with us for the benefits of training and to workout in a group, but if you choose not to do the ½ marathon that is up to you (We will look into doing the one in Evansville on October 10th). Again, I will have additional information after Tuesday’s meeting. If you have any questions, please feel free to give me a call at home, 389-1323 or e-mail me - Angie Sander (humdc@psci.net)

Blog Alert

Roni's Weigh is this week's blog alert! Roni has an amazing story...but really her story is a lot like "our" story.

Roni's story...

My weight loss journey began many years ago. Very early in my life I was a normal active child. In fact, I was thin. I have specific memories of eating dinner with my family and it being pointed out that I could eat whatever I wanted and still be thin. I was about seven or eight. Why this was an accomplishment, I’ll never know. But I remember eating more then, why not? I “couldn’t get fat” and let’s face it I like to eat!

Then puberty hit, along with a small hypoactive thyroid problem. I gained a few pounds but I was far from obese. I was just a little, dare I say, chunky? I stayed chunky heading into my pre-teen years, and I was aware that others saw me as so. My father on more then one occasion would point out my 10-20 extra pounds.

Learn/read more at her blog: ronisweigh.com/my-story

Surf around her site...she has a ton of great information on there.

Favorite FRESH snack to bring with you on the go?

What are your favorite FRESH snack to bring with you on the go? - the key to weight loss and maintaining is PLANNING! When you are grocery shopping - keep in mind "snacks to go".

Grab your favorite fresh veggies..when you get home, clean all your veggies off & put them in snack size plastic bags. When you're in a hurry, starving @ lunch, or just need a snack - you'll have snack size bags of veggies ready!

Deck of Cards...

Get a deck of cards and get ready to sweat! Decide how many cards you will be using. Here is a general guideline:

If you are a beginner exerciser start with 5 cards
If you are moderate exerciser start with 10 cards
If you are an advanced exerciser, start with 20 cards
If you are hardcore-go for 30 or more cards

As always, if you feel you need to stop and take a break, please do so. Everybody’s fitness level is different, the purpose here is to challenge YOU at your current level.

Now are you ready?!

Red cards are jumping jacks
Black cards are push ups
Face cards equals 10
Aces are high (equals 11!)

So, for every card that you pull, you are to do the specific exercise and number that corresponds with the card. For example, this is what it looks like for the first 3 cards I pull:

red 9= 9 jumping jacks
black 4= 4 push ups
red 2= 2 jumping jacks

The workout should be done quickly but do not sacrifice speed for form. Focus on what you are doing and the muscles that you are using.

This is a fun workout that can be done at any point during your day, so no excuses!!

Get moving and let me know how it went!

Source: workoutmommy.com

Junk Food is Addicting??

(HealthDay News) -- Obese people often say they'd like to eat less but feel almost powerless to stop indulging, and now new research suggests that explanation might be all too true.

The theory stems from a study in rats. When researchers gave the rats unlimited access to a calorie-laden diet of bacon, pound cake, candy bars and other junk food, the rats quickly gained lots of weight. As they plumped up, eating became such a compulsion that they kept chowing down even when they knew they would receive an unpleasant electric shock to their foot if they did so.

Meanwhile, rats fed the human equivalent of a well-balanced, healthy diet -- and given only limited access to the junk food -- didn't gain much weight and knew enough to stop eating when they received the cue that a foot shock was imminent.

Even more startling, the researchers report, is that when they took away the junk food from the obese rats and replaced it with healthier chow, the obese rats went on something of a hunger strike. For two weeks, they refused to eat hardly anything at all. When researchers looked at the obese animals' brains, they noted there were declines in the dopamine D2 receptor that previous research has implicated in addiction to cocaine and heroine....

To read the rest of the article click here.

Blog Challenge!!!

Ok, ladies...the last week of Healthy Habits is NEXT WEEK! Can you believe it?! So, a final challenge for you (lucky this is an easy challenge, since we've been seriously slacking on the challenge part this time around!!).

All you have to do is visit the blog and post a comment on EVERY SINGLE POST that's posted between now and the day before our last meeting next week.

This is a seperate challenge for both groups. Meaning, that there will be 2 winners....a Celestine group winner and a CCJ group winner! I will tally up who all posts the most and the winner will get a SURPRISE on the last meeting!

Easy, peasy, right?! Now get posting!!!!

Little changes - Big help!

Make a few small changes and it might make a BIG difference:

Start cooking your pasta Al Dente (with a little bite to it). When you boil pasta for 5 minutes, its glycemic index is 38; after 20 minutes, it shoots up to 61. The higher the glycemic index, the SOONER you'll be hungry again!

Chew gum while cooking dinner. It burns 11 calories an hour and can prevent those B.L.T. (Bites, Licks and Tastes).

Eat s-l-o-w-l-y. In one study, women who took half an hour to eat a pasta lunch consumed almost 70 fewer calories than those who scarfed it down in 9 minutes.

Blog Alert

Blogs.... do any of you have a blog? I (Jennifer Herman) do - where I post pictures, recipes, updates about our family, etc. It's kind of like a on-line journal...I love looking at other people's blogs for random reasons. So from time to time I come across some really good blogs....with recipes, weight loss tips, or really cool photography - which won't help you lose weight but it's still neat to look at their pictures.

So on to my point.... Here's one that I found that has all kinds of weight loss tips including the article below which goes along with what our group Healthy Habits is learning to do:

Weight loss = lifestyle changes

If you want to lose weight, keep the weight off, and remain like that for the rest of your life, you have to realize and understand a few weight loss tips. First and foremost, in order to maintain weight loss, you will have to create a specific, long-lasting lifestyle change. This means finding the right diet for you, adding in your own personalized exercise program, and sticking with it for the long haul. You will be making a commitment to lose weight, for a new healthier life.

Creating your own diet and exercising plan will be difficult and stressful. All it really takes is a bit of experimentation. That means that you will not lose weight quickly. It is important to remember that losing pounds fast is very unhealthy. When you lose a lot of weight in a short period of time, you are actually losing water and muscle. This will leave you feeling groggy and probably sick.

The best method to lose weight is to take it deliberately, steady, and slow. Why rush it? A good rule of thumb is about 2 pounds a week. Finding the right diet for you may take a bit of trial and error, or even may require a professional nutritionist. It is important to remember that you want to make a diet that you can easily continue with for the rest of your life.

To read more, visit: www.johnisfit.com

The rest of the 6 rules of Nutrition...

Continuing from yesterday...

4. Drink responsibly - Too many of us keep in mind the adage “watch what you eat,” and we forget another serious threat to our health: We don’t watch what we drink! In fact, according to research from the Univ. of NC, Americans now slurp up nearly 25% of their calories in liquid form—nearly double the rate we used to drink just 20 years ago. One study found that sweetened beverages constituted more than half (51%) of all beverages consumed by fourth- through sixth-grade students. The students who consumed the most sweetened beverages took in approximately 330 extra calories per day, and on average they ate less than half the amount of real fruit than did their peers who drank unsweetened or lightly sweetened beverages. One important strategy is to keep cold, filtered water in a pitcher in the fridge. You might even want to keep some cut-up limes, oranges, or lemons nearby for kids to flavor their own water with. Also be careful of the "fruit juices" you buy - the calories and sugar can be more than a soft drink.

5. Eat more fruits and veggies, less science experiments! - Here’s a rule of healthy eating that will serve you well when picking out foods for your family: The shorter the ingredients list, the healthier the food. (One of the worst foods we’ve ever found, the Baskin-Robbins Heath Shake, has 73 ingredients—and, by the way, a whopping 2,310 calories and more than 3 days’ worth of saturated fat! The FDA maintains a list of more than 3,000 ingredients that are considered safe to eat, but we’ve found reasons for concern for a number of the additives on that long list, and any one of them could wind up in your next box of mac ’n’ cheese.

6. Set the Table - Children in families with more structured mealtimes exhibit healthier eating habits. Among middle- and high-school girls, those whose families ate together only once or twice per week were more than twice as likely to exhibit weight control issues, compared with those who ate together three or four times per week. While we can’t always bring the family together like the Cleavers, we can make some positive steps in that direction. One busy family I know keeps Sunday night dinner sacred—no social plans, no school projects, no extra work brought home from the office. Even keeping the family ritual just once a week gives parents the opportunity to point out what is and isn’t healthy at the dinner table.