Key Strategies for Staying Healthy This Winter

Our Best Prevention Strategies:

Why is it that science is still no closer to a cure for colds and flu? It's because we're dealing with smart viruses. Any one of hundreds of viruses could launch a cold or flu attack, and chances are that this year's flu virus won't be the same as last year's making it nearly impossible to develop a simple cure. But there's still much you can do to stay strong and healthy all winter.

Take Good Care of Yourself: As always, the best place to start to maintain a good immune system is with the basics. Make sure to keep exercising, sleep well, reduce stress, drink alcohol in moderation, and eat a low-fat, low-sugar diet.

Wash Your Hands: Washing hands remains the most effective way to protect yourself and your family from colds and flu. Lather, rinse, repeat throughout the day. Do it long enough to sing "Happy Birthday" twice.

Boost the Beneficial Bacteria: 80 percent of your immune system surrounds your digestive system. Research supports a healthy gut flora and overall immunity. 

Add Foods that Support Immune Health: There are many foods with medicinal properties, make sure you include as many as possible. Think about combining a lot of the ingredients below in chicken soup. 

Oranges, strawberries, bell peppers, potatoes and other vitamin C and E rich fruits and vegetables are all good for your immune system.

Shiitake, Maitake, and other mushrooms have been used, especially in Traditional Chinese Medicine, for boosting the immune system. 

Garlic and Onions not only taste great but have also been researched for their ability to modulate immune function. 

Helpful Herbs: Research supports the immune modulating activity of tumeric, oregano, ginger, Echinacea, Larch, and elderberry. A unique combination of plant extracts discovered in Japan, using pumpkinseed, safflower flower, Asian plantain, and Japanese honeysuckle were shown in a study to stimulate the immune system response.

Make Sure You are Getting the Right Nutrients: Your immune system needs to be well nourished to function at its best. Stock up on the following nutrients:

Macro-Nutrients: the macro-nutrients are proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. Focus on good proteins; it is essential for a healthy immune system. 

Supplement with EPA and DHA, or eat fish twice a week for those healthy fats.

Vitamins and Minerals: Vitamins such as vitamin A, B6, B12, E C, folate, and the minerals zinc, copper and iron all support an effective immune response. 

Vitamin D: vitamin D, in particular, has been the focus research on optimal immune system functioning. Vitamin D plays a role in the improving mucus membrane barrier functioning, the production of anti-microbial peptides (small proteins), and in general overall immune support. 

Take care of your immune system by starting early, taking good care of yourself, and feeding your body the nutrients it needs to stay strong.

Info and sources thanks to Shaklee Health Wise Blog

Have a healthy and productive weekend! 

MJ 

Shaklee, America’s number one natural nutrition company since 1957. Check us out at http://mjshealthyway.com  

A healthy New Year

How have your New Year resolutions gone in the past? If the results have been less than stellar, try following these steps to make them stick.

The first step is to forget the dramatic changes such as quitting your job and moving to Aruba, learning a foreign language while you sleep, or losing 50 pounds by month’s end—most of these are destined to fail.

Next, make your new year resolutions more like mild lifestyle tweaks instead of full-blown makeovers. I tend to choose small changes that also have the potential for a big health impact; that way, I am most likely to be successful—because who wants to fail?
Here is what I am committing to for 2014. Why don’t you join me and make this year your healthiest:

Go green: Eat something green with every meal. (Yes, this includes breakfast.) Try spinach, kale, broccoli, or any dark-green leafy vegetable. These vegetables are packed full of nutrition and are low calorie. Eating more greens is not only good for you, but good for the environment too! I am good at getting green veggies at lunch and dinner—so I am committing to green Energizing  Smoothees or spinach scrambled egg whites in the morning.

Stop the sugar madness: When people ask me what they should drink, I always say “just water,” that is because the largest single source of unneeded calories in your diet comes from both soda and fruit juices. See how close you can get to just drinking water.
Clean up your water: Since you are now only drinking water, you need the best. This means your water must be filtered. Bottled water is not a healthy choice. It is full of chemicals you don’t want in your body and plastic bottles are an environmental disaster. So avoid them if possible. If you want to get the whole scoop on water, check out our clean drinking water post.

Count your steps: Buy a pedometer and commit to 10,000 steps every day. I must confess to starting early on this resolution by buying a new high tech pedometer called a Fitbit® Zip™ over the Thanksgiving weekend. I haven’t had a day less than 10,000 steps and I am feeling even greater energy than usual!

Prioritize sleep: Modern life makes a good night’s sleep very difficult. (There is just too much to do!) The problem is that losing sleep makes you less smart and more forgetful, reduces your sex drive, depresses your mood, makes you crave carbohydrates, and leads to weight gain. Commit to at least seven hours of sleep every night (eight would be better) and you will see dramatic improvements in your health. I find that I feel so much better when I get at least 7 ½ hours.

Check vitamin D levels: Research on how valuable vitamin D is to our health is exploding. Vitamin D helps support bone health, maintains the immune system, is associated with maintaining brain function, and may be a factor in reducing development of chronic diseases such as arthritis. Have your doctor check your vitamin D blood level (25-hydroxy-vitamin D), and supplement (or get enough sun) until your levels are between 50-80 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml).

Along with the above, I make the following resolutions every year: Keep learning (make education a top priority) and enjoy life to the fullest! Even when I am having a stressful day, I try to find something to laugh about—since laughter is the VERY best prescription I can give you! Too often, we are bogged down with what we have to do just to get by and these two resolutions have served me well throughout my life.
Would love to hear from you about your goals! Post in the comment section and commit with me to a healthy new year.

Info thanks to Shaklee Health Wise Blog

Have a healthy and productive 2014!

MJ

Shaklee and Shaklee 180, providing natural weight loss solutions since 1957! Check it out at http://mjshealthyway.com 

Are You Vitamin D Deficient?

Probably … if you live anywhere north of a line that links Atlanta to LA or your skin is any shade darker than a notepad!

Season variations in vitamin D status are well documented in released studies. A recent College of California-Irvine and Mayo Facility research with 3.44 million blood samples of discovered that serum vitamin D levels are greatest in August and most affordable in February. From November through March, the absence of UVB rays in the Northern Hemisphere implies we cannot produce vitamin D from sun exposure to our skin.

“If you live north of a line that connects Atlanta to L.a, you essentially cannot make any vitamin D in your skin from November through March,” states Michael Holick, Ph.D., M.D., Teacher of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and among the world’s foremost authorities on vitamin D.

Vitamin D improves calcium to keep bone wellness, but hundreds of other published researches reveal that vitamin D might assist avoid autoimmune diseases like type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis. The nutrient could likewise play a duty in preventing particular types of cancer and state of mind disorders, and is linked to improved muscle strength and athletic efficiency and may play a function in weight management.

“Vitamin D is known to assist regulate– straight or indirectly-some 2,000 genes that manage everything from immunity, programmed cell death as well as appetite regulation,” explains Holick. “If you’ve receptors for D in practically all your cells and tissues, there’s a reason. Vitamin D appears to act like a surveillance mechanism for overall health.”

How Much Vitamin D is Enough?

It’s difficult to figure out how much vitamin D is required daily due to the fact that sunshine supplies the bulk our vitamin D from April-August. However, dark-skinned individuals, sunscreens, air pollution and various other factors all adversely affect the body’s ability to produce vitamin D. According to the Workplace of Dietary Supplements of the National Institutes of Wellness, the main is to get enough vitamin D with reasonable sun exposure, diet and supplements to keep an optimal blood level of a minimum of 30 nm/L of 25-hydroxyvitaminD.

The Institute of Medicine recommends 600 IU per day for adults (800 IU for those 70 and over) and a ceiling of 4,000 IU per day, The Endocrine Society’s specialist panel suggests 600-1,000 IU daily and a tolerable upper limit of 10,000 IU/day. Dr. Holick and lots of other vitamin D experts advise 2,000 IU per day. Considering that you are most likely getting less than 600 IU per day right now, try incorporating even more vitamin D-enriched foods into your diet plan to obtain at least 600 IU per day. Then, think about a vitamin D3 supplement if you live north of the 33 degrees latitude.

Vitamin D Lacking in US Diet

Vitamin D is among the hardest nutrients to satisfy your everyday requirements for due to the fact that it’s found in really couple of foods normally. Natural sources consist of cod liver oil, fatty fish, egg yolks, liver and mushrooms. Some 90-95 % of the vitamin D in the body comes from UVB rays that we transform in the skin to the nutrient. From November-March, strengthened foods and supplements end up being significantly necessary to obtain optimal amounts of vitamin D in your diet. A research from The Journal of Nutrition reported that more than 90 % of UNITED STATE adults fail to fulfill the recommended intakes from diet plan alone.

Food Sources of Vitamin D

1 Tablespoon cod liver oil, 1,360 IU

3 oz wild salmon, 800 IU

1 Tablespoon strengthened spreads, 100-200 IU

3 oz sardines, 192 IU

3 oz canned tuna, 154 IU

1 huge Eggland’s Best Egg, 120 IU

1 cup Vitamin D Fortified Soymilk, 120 IU

1 cup fortified Orange Juice (check labels for quantities), 100-130 IU

3 oz beef liver, 50 IU

1 large egg yolk, 40 IU

Vitamin D Supplements

Taking a vitamin supplement in the winter season is also a great option for many individuals. Shaklee offered a vey affordable vitamin 3# supplement for all. Here is the link to check it out: http://mjshealthyway.myshaklee.com/us/en/products.php?sku=21214

Info thanks to Diet Nutrition Advisor

I hope you have a healthy and productive holiday season. 

MJ 

Check out the Shaklee opportunity at http://mjshealthyway.com 

Nutrients for longevity

Dr Joseph Mercola and various other professionals have actually identified some ingredients that’ll help you live a healthier, longer life. We highlight six of the best: 
 

• Vitamin D In one study of more than 2 000 ladies, those with higher vitamin D levels were discovered to have fewer aging-related changes in their DNA, in addition to decreased inflammatory feedbacks. Women with higher levels of vitamin D are more likely to have longer telomeres, which means they could mature more gradually. 

• Co-Enzyme Q10 Used by every cell in your body, Co-Enzyme Q10 is important for your body’s daily function. It’s called “ubiquinone” since it’s “common” in the human body. If you are under 25 years of age, your body is capable of changing CoQ10. However, if you are older, your body ends up being more challenged to convert the oxidised CoQ10 to ubiquinol. 

• Krill oil According to a professional on omega-3 fats, Dr William Harris, these fats appear to play a role in activating telomerase, to reverse telomere reducing. Krill oil also has a variety of advantages not discovered in various other omega-3 supplements, as it contains normally happening astaxanthin, which makes it almost 200 times more resistant to oxidative damages compared to fish oil. 

• -Magnesium According to study, magnesium plays a crucial role in DNA duplication and repair work, and RNA synthesis. Dietary magnesium has been shown to positively correlate with enhanced telomere length in females. Inadequate amounts of magnesium also lower your body’s ability to fix damaged DNA. 

• -Polyphenols These are a variety of powerful antioxidant substances in plant foods. Grapes consist of resveratrol, which deeply passes through the center of your cell’s nucleus, providing your DNA time to repair complimentary radical damages. Cacao is another potent antioxidant and has actually been discovered to benefit your sugar metabolism, blood pressure and cardio wellness. The polyphenols in green tea are focused, meanings you are consuming a relatively powerful option in each cup. 

• Folate or vitamin B9 According to a research in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry and biology, folate plays an important function in the maintenance of DNA stability and DNA methylation, both of which impact the length of your telomeres. It serves for preventing depression, seizure conditions and brain atrophy. Folate deficiency can lead to raised homocysteine levels, which can be a major factor to heart problem and Alzheimer’s disease. 

Shaklee can help with these natural supplements: http://mjshealthyway.com

Have a healthy and productive weekend!

MJ

Best Supplements for Your Bone Health

Strong bones, bone density, ideal bone mass, bone growth, and bone renewal are all topics crucial to the quality of your wellness.

Bone Health Supplements
Everyone appears to be on the lookout for the best supplement to take care of their joint and bone health. Yet, there really is nobody supplement that can be able to take care from all of it. Instead, a blend of the right supplements might help enhance bones and joints while helping to relieve those aches and discomforts.
Installments of severe loss result in osteoporosis, that’s particularly usual in older women. Certain health conditions can likewise affect bone density. While supplements can be able to not entirely reverse bone loss, medical professionals do advise taking certain supplements to help regrow bone to some extent.
Check with your doctor before supplementing with any kind of vitamin, mineral or natural herb. Preferably, you’ve to intend to get the bulk of recommended vitamins and minerals from diet plan.

Calcium
This may be the most obvious of them all, but calcium is important to wellness bone development and life. The suggested day-to-day value for calcium reaches least 1000 mg getting excessive calcium is not really something to bother with because the body will just secrete anything it can not use.

Vitamin K
Your bones need vitamin K to produce proteins necessary for regrowth and aid in binding calcium towards the bone. You can be able to typically get the necessary quantity with your diet, rich sources include spinach, broccoli, cabbage and low-fat milk. If you do not or can not consume these sorts of foods, supplementing with 150 to 500mcg everyday. Use vitamin K supplements with care for anti-coagulant medicines, vitamin K works in direct opposition by promoting blood clotting. Talk to your doctor initially.

Vitamin D
The sun is our primary supply of vitamin D, but most women do not get enough of the nutrient and this spells not so great news for bones, as vitamin D assists the body take in calcium. Look into the label to be sure you are getting vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol), most likely the most active form.

Glucosamine
Glucosamine is a supplement that’s naturally found in the wellness cartilage of bone. It’s actually been revealed that supplementation with glucosamine will help ease joint pain, reinforce bones, and keep your bones healthy. The advised day-to-day consumption to have an adult woman is around 1,200 mg per day. You’ll find this at most any drug or supermarket.

Omega-3 Fatty Acids
Research has actually revealed that omega-3 fatty acids may advertise bone regeneration. Demonstrated actions consist of increasing calcium absorption and individually promoting bone growth. Recommended dose is all about 4,000 mg daily, higher than the daily dosage usually recommended for general use, seek advice from your physician prior to using fish oil or various other necessary fatty acid supplements, specifically if you take blood-thinning medicines.

Shaklee offers all these supplements to promote bone health!
Check it out at http://mjshealthyway.com 

Have a healthy and productive week!

MJ

Bone Health Part 1

Most people think that bones are hard, lifeless parts of their bodies. Actually bones are living organs full of blood and cells that are an active part of our overall health. Far from static, our bones are constantly rebuilding themselves and growing stronger or weaker depending on how active we are and how well we are supplying the nutrients they need.

It is a fact of life that our bones lose minerals as we age. Bone loss starts around 30 years old. If left unchecked, bone loss can lead to osteoporosis, a disease in which the bones lose minerals such as calcium until they become fragile and break easily.

What are the challenges?

• There are many risk factors for osteoporosis:

• The amount of bone mass you start with has a big impact on your risk of osteoporosis. If you are female, petite, white, Asian, or have a family history of osteoporosis, then you have a greater risk.
• Research suggests that tobacco, heavy alcohol use, and low physical activity can all reduce bone mass.
• Gastric bypass, low testosterone, high thyroid, and certain medications (such as steroids or thyroid) can all increase risk.

• It is estimated that there are 10 million Americans affected by osteoporosis and at least 80% are women.

• Bone loss rapidly accelerates after menopause; women can lose up to half their bone mass in the 5-10 years following the end of menses.

• More than 1.5 million fractures occur every year because of osteoporosis. It is estimated that one half of women and up to one in four men age 50 and older will break a bone because of osteoporosis.

• One in five people over the age of 65 who break a hip end up in nursing home within a year, and they are three times more likely to die within three months.

What can I do?

The good news is that you can begin making changes today that will improve your bone health.

Here is your action plan:

Start early: Remember that bone loss starts around 30 years old. While it is best to start taking care of your bones when you are young, it is also never too late to start nourishing your bones.

Include weight-bearing exercises in your routine: Weight-bearing activity increases the density of your bones because bones become stronger when put under pressure; that is why weight-bearing exercises work to build bones and slow bone loss. Consider weight lifting, walking, running, hiking, dancing, and tennis.

Make healthy choices: Don’t smoke, limit alcohol use, and maintain a healthy weight.

Include plenty of calcium: Calcium is the most abundant mineral in our bones.

• Your diet should include high-calcium foods such as milk and other dairy foods, leafy green vegetables, and soybeans.
• If you’re one of the many who aren’t getting enough from your diet, supplementation is key. 1000 milligrams of calcium a day in food or supplements is the recommended amount to help maintain bones for most adults; that amount increases to 1200-1500 mg per day for women who are post menopausal and men over 70.

Vitamin D is essential for the proper absorption of calcium from the digestive tract.

• Even though vitamin D is the “sunshine” vitamin, most people aren’t getting enough because of the use of sunscreens, where you live, time of year, if you are overweight or simply not spending much time outdoors.
• A new study links vitamin D deficiency to accelerated bone aging. If you don't have enough vitamin D, it could lead to reduced bone density, reduced bone quality, and increase the aging of bones.
• The best approach for determining the proper amount to take is to have your blood levels checked and then supplement to achieve your optimum levels. Most health practitioners suggest around 1000-2000 IU a day.

Magnesium is the second most abundant mineral in bones and getting around 400 mg a day is essential for good bone building.

Vitamin K is less well known than other vitamins, but just as essential for bone building. For good bone maintenance, use between 40-80 mcg a day

Start taking care of your bones today, all it takes is a little effort to have a huge payoff later in life.

Have a healthy and productive week! 

MJ 

Shaklee, keeping bones healthy since 1956! http://mjshealthyway.com  Info thanks to the Shaklee Corp. 

Looking for Natural Energy?

Looking for an alternative to them sugary and high calorie energy drinks? I recommend Shaklee Energy! Pure energy chews! 

Shaklee Energy Chews provide a clean burst of healthy energy to help you get that extra edge when you need it most. Each chew contains a scientific blend of caffeine from natural green tea extract, plus L-tyrosine, L-theanine, B vitamins and vitamin D. And there are no artificial flavors, sweeteners or added preservatives you'll find in other energy products. 

Finally, a healthy alternative to high calorie, high volume energy drinks! Scientifically formulated Shaklee Energy™ contains the right ingredients to help energize your body and support alertness, focus, cognitive function, and mood.*

• Energy-releasing B vitamins, immune-supporting vitamin C and bone-building vitamin D
• Key amino acids L-tyrosine and L-theanine associated with mental alertness and focus*
• Natural caffeine from green tea extract associated with energy and performance*
• No artificial flavors, sweeteners, or added preservatives and it's gluten free

Healthy ingredients work fast to help:*

• Sustain energy
• Improve performance
• Stay alert
• Sharpen focus
• Improve mood

That is pure energy! 

Check out Shaklee Energy>> http://mjshealthyway.myshaklee.com/us/en/products.php?sku=20158 

Have a healthy and productive week! 

MJ

Shaklee, creating natural earth friendly alternatives since 1956! 

Check them out at http://mjshealthyway.com