Embracing My Health

CNN published an article today titled: “Happiness is contagious in social networks.“  Here are a few excerpts:

If you’re feeling great today, you may end up inadvertently spreading the joy to someone you don’t even know.  New research shows that in a social network, happiness spreads among people up to three degrees removed from one another. That means when you feel happy, a friend of a friend of a friend has a slightly higher likelihood of feeling happy too.

Also interesting to me – it appears that if you are healthy and happy, there is a larger chance that your friends will become so too!  That’s exciting… what we do does make a difference for our friends and family.

“Like happiness, both smoking behavior and obesity seem to spread within three degrees of separation in a social network.”

It’s like your mom always said… who your friends are DO matter.  On the road to embracing love, life and your health, it’s good to pick the right friends.  And, remember, who you are matters to your friends too!

Embrace Love, Embrace Life, Embrace Your Health!

At a restaurant and don’t have a clue what to choose? Problem solved.  Diet.com and Nutrition on The Go have put together this handy service.

You can now text message the restaurant and meal name to “diet1″ (34381).

You’ll receive a quick text reply with the nutritional facts on more than 36,000 restaurant-chain meal items.

Voilà!  You knew text messaging could have a greater purpose… and now it does!

Shopping the produce section can be disheartening these days. Paul & I LOVE avocados and we’ve been doing without more often because they cost $3 a piece! Grocery prices have gone up in every aisle. Most of us are looking for ways to stick to our commitment of eating healthier without eating through the cash in our wallets at the same time.

I’ve always preferred buying organic produce, and after Amira was born, it was even more important to me. But we’ve been on harder times financially in recent years and buying all organic produce just isn’t practical or possible. When lists came out giving me invaluable information on which produce items are most heavily sprayed and covered with pesticides and those that aren’t… now that’s some information I can use! So here’s a quick cheat sheet for you!

12 fruits and vegetables that you can BUY CONVENTIONAL if you can’t afford the organic:

• Broccoli
• Eggplant
• Cabbage
• Banana
• Kiwi
• Asparagus
• Sweet peas (frozen)
• Mango
• Pineapple
• Sweet corn (frozen)
• Avocado
• Onion

12 fruits and vegetables that you should try to always BUY ORGANIC:

• Peaches
• Apples
• Sweet bell peppers
• Celery
• Nectarines
• Strawberries
• Cherries
• Lettuce
• Grapes (imported)
• Pears
• Spinach
• Potatoes

Click here for a complete and printable list of 43 fruits and vegetables from the best to worst in terms of pesticides. And to read detailed information on pesticides, nutritional variations between organic and conventional produce and GMO produce, read this article on Dr. Mercola’s website.

I happened across this site while searching for the nutritional information for the butter spread I used on the broccoli.

A similar idea to FitDay, http://www.thedailyplate.com/ is a free online calorie counter, food journal. What I dig about it is the wealth of nutritional information on the site. Super handy.

Keeping a diary of what you eat every day works. We are pretty unconscious creatures and even when we think we are aware of what we are doing, a lot slips our notice. Therein lies the value and importance of keeping a food journal.

I have used the PC version of FitDay for a couple years now. It’s handy and easy to use. They offer a free version online with a few less features, but still excellent. I’ve started an online version for this site – so you can click through anytime to see what foods I am eating each day and so on. Here’s the link. I’ve also placed a link to the journal on the right for future reference.