Relaxation and Exercise
Summer is often a time for serious play, time off and deep relaxation. Many of us use the summertime to rebuild our reserves for the rest of the busy year. In our work-crazed society we can lose sight of the benefits of slowing down and taking time to rest. Now that summer is in full swing, it’s time to enjoy the restorative powers of reconnecting to your body through movement and relaxation.
The body loves to move. Even though our body is healthiest when it is getting appropriate physical activity, we often feel dread and boredom when we hear the word “exercise”. Think for a moment of what type of movement you would consider fun as opposed to torturous. Perhaps you loathe the idea of a gym, but miss taking dance classes. Maybe you secretly want to try yoga or rollerblading. You could play touch football with your kids, walk with a neighbor in the mornings or go for a swim. The summer offers so many choices – it’s simply up to you to choose which style of movement excites you. Your heart will thank you, your soul will be gratified, your limbs will be more fluid and you’ll sleep better at night.
Summer is a unique time of year when we can do both our relaxation and our movement out in nature. Take a nap in a hammock and enjoy the smell of freshly cut grass. Go to the park and meditate or read under a favorite tree. One of the greatest places to rest in the summertime is by the water. There is something magical and restorative in water, and we naturally crave to be near it, by it or in it. Heading to the water, whether it is the beach, a lake or a kiddy pool, can be relaxing and rejuvenating. Whether you are relaxing, exercising or both, notice that being outside in nature has a profound way of quieting the mind and reconnecting us to ourselves. Often this relaxation and peace of mind are what our bodies crave the most. So while summer is with us, strap on your sandals and enjoy the rich elements of sun, wind and water and the nourishment that they bring.
Food Focus: Water
Most of us are aware of the importance of drinking enough water. Getting our daily dose of water helps our organs perform their functions, keeps our skin clear and hydrated, and allows physical action in our bodies to flow smoothly. Even with this knowledge, it can still be challenging to drink all the water our bodies deserve daily. In the summer, when we tend to play hard, sweat and spend prolonged time in the sun, drinking plenty of water is critical. Those who are not drinking enough may experience poor digestion, sluggish thinking, skin breakouts, headaches, bad breath and general fatigue.
To start your day right, set a large glass of water by your bed each night and drink it when you wake up. Drinking water first thing in the morning pulls out toxins from the previous day and freshens your system for the day ahead. Keep a bottle of water accessible throughout the day, whether you are on the go or at a desk. Having a bottle of water close by will remind you to take a sip when thirsty. The first sip will usually let you know how much more water you need. A sip or two may be enough, or you may need a big glass. If you drink most of your daily water before early evening, you most likely will not be thirsty before bed. This is good, because drinking before bed and then waking to use the bathroom disturbs your peaceful night’s sleep.
What about quality? Some people like bottled water, while others prefer filtered water. The key is to like the taste of the water you are drinking, and the water should agree with your body. If the taste of plain water is unappealing, experiment to see how you can make it tasty and drinkable. Try adding a few mint leaves, a wedge of lemon, a sprig of parsley, slices of cucumber, a twist of lime or a squeeze of orange to make water more tempting, or to jazz up your routine. Also, drinking tea or juice and eating raw fruits and vegetables contribute to the hydration process. So, splash in the waves, swim in the sun, drink plenty of water and enjoy the summer fun!

Recipes of the Month:
Sun Tea Prep time: 2 minutes Cook time: 24 hours Yield: 2 liters Ingredients: 3-4 tea bags of your choice water Directions: 1. Fill an extra-large mason jar with water, add 3 or 4 of your favorite tea bags and cover with lid. 2. Place in sun for one full day and let the shining rays pour in heat and energy, bringing out the wonderful tea flavors. 3. Sweeten if so desired with natural sweetener and serve at room temperature or cold over ice. Note: Garnish with mint leaves or lemon wedge. Ginger Drink Prep Time: 7 minutes Cook Time: 24 hours Yield: 6-8 servings Ingredients: 1 pound fresh ginger root 2 quarts water juice of 2 limes maple syrup or agave nectar to taste Directions: 1. Thinly peel the fresh ginger, grate and mix with water in a large saucepan. 2. Bring to a boil and simmer for 4 minutes. Cover the pan and turn off the heat; leave for 24 hours. 3. Strain the liquid through a fine mesh sieve. 4. Add the lime juice and maple syrup or agave. Stir until dissolved. Serve chilled.

Forward to a Friend It’s such a pleasure to help those closest to us become happier and healthier. Please forward this newsletter to friends, family members or colleagues who might be interested and inspired by it.

? Try your favorite leafy lettuce with various sliced, diced or grated veggies. The possible combinations are endless.

? Fresh herbs are a wonderful option to mix in, as they are packed full of flavor.

? Experiment with adding some raw protein to your salads, such as nuts and seeds

? Pick up a light and healthy dressing at your local health food store, or mix up

something easy, like lemon juice, black pepper and olive oil.

This is a great opportunity to try a new vegetable from your market. What are some creative flavors you’ve never tried before? Fennel and mint? Daikon radish and arugula? Summer squash with watercress? Whatever you choose, have fun with your food and stay cool. Happy summer!

Recipes of the Month: Bok Choy Apple Slaw Prep time: 7 minutes Yield: 4 servings Ingredients: 6 stalks bok choy (about 1/2 head), thinly sliced 1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced 1 granny smith apple, sliced 1/2 cup toasted sunflower seeds Dressing: 1 teaspoon ground coriander 1 teaspoon dijon mustard 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar (or lemon juice) 1/4 cup olive oil 2 teaspoons honey, salt and black pepper to taste Directions: 1. First make the dressing by combining all the ingredients and whisking well. 2. Chop all the salad ingredients, leaving the apples until last. Mix in a salad bowl. 3. Toss salad with half the dressing. Add additional dressing if desired. 4. Eat immediately, or chill for up to one hour and then add the apples just before eating.

Please forward this newsletter to friends, family members or colleagues who might be interested and inspired by it.

The world belongs to those with the most energy.
-Alexis de Tocqueville

Snack Attack
There’s no denying that everyone, at one time or another, has had a snack attack. Views on snacking differ. Some feel that snacking is bad and that eating between meals leads to weight gain. Others believe that eating many small meals and snacks throughout the day is healthy for maintaining energy levels and optimal weight. If there were one way of snacking that was right for everyone, we would all be doing it!

To alleviate snack attack guilt, try to understand why you are snacking and what snacks work best for your body. Perhaps you snack because your daily diet is missing nutrition, or because you are eating too little at meals. You might be snacking to soothe jangled nerves when you are emotional, or to entertain yourself when you are bored. Whatever your reason, acknowledge it and start thinking about how to create a life that is nourishing and truly satisfying.

Although snacks are no substitute for loving your life, they can be great energy boosters. Many convenient snack foods are highly processed and full of chemicals, additives, damaging fats and refined sugars. When a snack attack hits you, try foods that are filling and satisfying, but also nutritious. Here are some tips:
• Snack on things that don’t come in a plastic wrapper or a box, like fresh fruit, vegetables or flax crackers with almond butter and fruit spread.
• Make your own signature trail mix, organic hot chocolate made with almond milk sweetened with agave nectar, or raw corn chips with hummus.
You can also try “upgrading”:
• If you are craving something crunchy, upgrade from potato chips to raw carrots, apples or flax crackers.
• If you are craving a candy bar, upgrade to a handful of nuts and dried fruit or raw cacoa
• Instead of a cup of coffee, upgrade to green tea.
Instead of ice cream, upgrade to applesauce with cinnamon, try making some raw desserts.
Upgraded snacks are high in nutrition and give you a greater sense of satiety and satisfaction; you won’t feel physically or psychologically deprived, and you’ll have plenty of energy to sustain your activities for hours.

Snacking is enjoyable and there is a wide variety of healthful goodies for whatever you’re craving, be it sweet, crunchy, salty, creamy or spicy. Dive in, be creative and enjoy your snack attack.

Food Focus: Fruit
A healthy lifestyle is the key to longevity, optimum weight, abundant energy and balance. By using fruit to satisfy our taste for sweetness, we can leave behind the use of chemical, processed and refined sweeteners. Fruits are easy to digest, are cleansing and cooling and are great for those who are overstressed and overheated from excessive mental strain or hot climates. Fruits are filled with fiber and liver stimulants, which act as natural, gentle laxatives. Whenever possible, buy fresh, locally grown fruit as opposed to imported fruits shipped from far-off places. This keeps you eating in season, and more in harmony with your environment and climate.

Eating raw fruit in summer months is highly cooling. Fruit in the form of juice is a great choice for cleansing the body, but be aware that juice rapidly raises blood sugar levels, leading to an energy crash soon after. I recommend juices with lots of greens to balance out the sugars. Frozen, whole, puréed or juiced fruit can make great summertime cool-down treats. Try frozen grapes, banana-coconut smoothie popsicles or lime juice ice-cubes in iced tea!

Whether you are having fresh fruit for a light early morning breakfast, a midday snack or evening treat, enjoy nature’s sweetness and whenever possible buy organic. Here are a few summer fruits and their health benefits:

Apricots: Great for lung conditions and asthma; used to help treat anemia due to their high copper and cobalt content.
Bananas: Help to lubricate the intestines, treat ulcers, detoxify the body and manage sugar cravings; are rich in potassium (which helps hypertension).
Cherries: Slightly warming in nature; increase overall body energy, remedy arthritis and rheumatism and are rich in iron, which improves the blood.
Grapefruits: Treat poor digestion, increase appetite during pregnancy, alleviate intestinal gas and reduce mucus conditions of the lungs.
Papayas: Tone the stomach, act as digestive aid, moisten the lungs and alleviate coughing; contain carpaine, an anti-tumor compound.
Raspberries: Benefit the liver and kidneys, cleanse blood of toxins, regulate menstrual cycles, treat anemia and can promote labor at childbirth.

Recipe of the Month: Fruit Nut Smoothie
Prep time: 5 minutes
Yield: 2 servings

Ingredients:
1 banana
1 cup Almond milk
1 cup berries
1 cup diced melon
2-4 ice cubes

Directions:
1. Mix in blender for 1-2 minutes and serve.
Note: You can add other ingredients for added nutrition such as a spoonful of bee pollen, coconut oil, flax seed oil, spirulina powder or a scoop of protein powder.

This Smoothie is not for weight loss. It is a special treat!

Forward to a Friend
It’s such a pleasure to help those closest to us become happier and healthier. Please forward this newsletter to friends, family members or colleagues who might be interested and inspired by it.

Getting my weight under control has come from a process of treating myself as well as I treat others in every way.
-Oprah Winfrey

Why Weight? Diets Don’t Work
You can’t turn on the TV, drive down the road or go to a party without being confronted with America’s hottest obsession: weight. Diets are a billion-dollar industry; companies spend millions and millions luring you to try the latest diet (low carb, high protein, low fat, no fat, you name it) with promises that this will (finally!) be the solution—your shortcut to a thinner body. Advertising efforts also deeply affect our children, who develop distorted body images and are often on diets as early as nine or 10 years of age.

Our culture touts diet pills, celebrity workouts, convenience foods and trendy diets to help us achieve our desired weight, but these quick-fix solutions have backfired. America’s populace has reached its highest weight in history. About half of Americans are overweight; one-third are obese. Diets steer us away from our common sense and dip deeply into our pocketbooks while eliciting few, if any, lasting results. Why?

• Diets don’t work because each person is unique, with different needs based on gender, age, ancestry and lifestyle; how could one diet be right for everyone?
• Diets don’t work because they are extreme solutions. As in physics, if a pendulum swings to one extreme, it has to swing equally to the other. A diet might work for a short amount of time, but research shows that almost all diets result in a 10-pound gain once off the diet.
• Diets don’t work because they are too restrictive. People who fail on diet plans are not flawed or weak. Diets by nature require discipline and restriction at levels that are unsustainable by a healthy human body.
• Most people are disconnected from why they gain weight and see diet as the only culprit. For example, ignoring or discounting emotions is often the first thing to cause weight imbalances.

In our fast-paced world, we have lost sight of many aspects of life that truly nourish and balance our bodies, such as slowing down, eating a home-prepared meal and spending quality time with loving people. Eating consciously and making simple lifestyle changes will create positive results and release you from the endless cycle of dieting.

Given half a chance, your body will balance out by itself, but this is only possible by getting out of the diet mentality and listening to what you truly need. Imagine taking all of the outward energy you expend on diets, fads and gimmicks and turning it inward, so that you can listen to your heart and inner wisdom. There is no such thing as a quick fix; you already have everything you need within you. With careful thought and loving reflection, you can feed yourself in a nourishing way. Working with your body rather than against it will bring you increased energy, stabilized weight and sustainable health.

Food Focus: Sprouts
In the spring season, seeds flaunt their vitality and energy by sprouting. Sprouts of all varieties contain the building blocks of life in the form of vitamins, enzymes, amino acids and simple sugars. In their early growth state, sprouts are very easy to digest, allowing our bodies to access many wonderful nutrients. Recent research by the American Cancer Society has backed what holistic nutrition has known for years: that sprouts contain anti-cancer properties, high levels of active antioxidants, concentrated amounts of phytochemicals and significant amounts of vitamins A, C and D.

In their raw form, sprouts have a cooling effect on the body, and therefore are best consumed in warm weather or by robust, warm body types. Those who tend to feel cool can try steaming spouts or adding them to warm dishes such as stir-fries and soups, to reduce the cooling effect. There is a wide variety of edible and delicious sprouts, each with a different texture and flavor: alfalfa, mung bean, lentil, radish, clover, sunflower, broccoli, garbanzo and adzuki.

Here are some great ways to serve up sprouts:
• Add to salads.
• Combine with other vegetables in wraps, roll-ups or just plain
• Use as garnish on top of soups
• Add to rice or whole-grain dishes.
• Use in sandwiches instead of lettuce.

Spring has arrived! Eat sprouts and feel alive! Look under the recipe section for the recipe of the month.

You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present.
-Jan Glidewell

Spring Cleaning
People like “stuff”. We tend to hold onto it year after year. We save and stock up on things that we don’t know what to do with anymore. Maybe we keep things because they hold precious memories of days gone by, or they remind us of our parents, grandparents, past loves or childhood. To part with these precious possessions seems out of the question. There is a saying that goes, “You have to get rid of the old to make way for the new.” If you are feeling stuck or stagnant in your life, try spring-cleaning. Throw out some of that stuff, say goodbye to your past and welcome the new energy of your happy, healthy future. Try these three ideas:

1. For good mental and physical health, we actually have two “houses” that need to be spring-cleaned: our physical homes and our physical bodies. Just as we accumulate “stuff” in the form of outgrown clothes, magazines, rusty bicycles, tools and random keepsakes, so do our bodies accumulate old food residues and toxins that need to be cleaned out.

2. To spring clean your body, give it a break from rich and complicated foods by either cleansing or fasting for a short period of time. Cleansing means paring down your food to just simple fruits and vegetables, lots of water and perhaps whole grains. Fasting means limiting most foods and drinking lots of water, fresh vegetable and fruit juices, teas and soups. Without much energy going toward digestion, more energy is available to the rest of your body and mind. Cleansing and fasting can sharpen your concentration, help you gain insight and promote spiritual awareness. It can also bring improved immune function and better digestion.

3. While you’re cleaning out your body and home, don’t forget to spring-clean your heart. Throw away negative thoughts and habits you’ve been harboring that no longer serve you. A clean, open heart will allow you to receive all the good that awaits you each and every day. If your heart and mind are cluttered, there is no room for life’s gifts and surprises to enter.

Food Focus: Greens
Leafy greens are some of the easiest and most beneficial vegetables to incorporate into your daily routine. Densely packed with energy and nutrients, they grow upward to the sky, absorbing the sun’s light while producing oxygen. Members of this royal green family include kale, collard greens, Swiss chard, mustard greens, arugula, dandelion greens, broccoli rabe, watercress, beet greens, bok choy, napa cabbage, green cabbage, spinach and broccoli.

How do greens benefit our bodies? They are very high in calcium, magnesium, iron, potassium, phosphorous and zinc, and are a powerhouse for vitamins A, C, E and K. They are crammed full of fiber, folic acid, chlorophyll and many other micronutrients and phytochemicals. Their color is associated with spring, which is a time to renew and refresh vital energy. In traditional Asian medicine, the color green is related to the liver, emotional stability and creativity. Greens aid in purifying the blood, strengthening the immune system, improving liver, gall bladder and kidney function, fighting depression, clearing congestion, improving circulation and keeping your skin clear and blemish free.

Leafy greens are the vegetables most missing from the American diet, and many of us never learned how to prepare them. Start by looking in our recipe section, Get Your Greens/Kale Salad. Then each time you go to the market, pick up a new green to try. Soon you’ll find your favorite greens and wonder how you ever lived without them.

Forward to a Friend
It’s such a pleasure to help those closest to us become happier and healthier. Please forward this newsletter to friends, family members or colleagues who might be interested and inspired by it.

Are you ready to get healthy?
Do you have nagging pounds that you just can’t seem to shed?
Are you ready to get your children to start eating better and you just don’t know how to begin?
Do you have health concerns that aren’t addressed by your doctor or health care provider?
Have you tried many diets and failed? Are you confused about what approach will work for you and your family?
Are you discouraged about your weight, feel like its hopeless to diet and that you have a willpower problem?
If you can answer yes to any of these questions or have any other questions about your health and lifestyle goals, then my health program is for you. We’ll focus on both your Primary Food (Relationships, Physical Activity, Job and Spirituality) and your Secondary Food (the food we eat). I’ll be your personal Health Coach with a step by step program. Together, we will discover a new even better you!

Health Counseling is a unique, exciting innovation in health and nutrition. As a Health Coach, I have studied all the major dietary theories and will help you discover what approach works best for you at this point in your life.

While most dietitians dwell on calories, carbs, fats, proteins, restrictions and lists of good and bad foods, I work with my clients to create a happy, healthy life in a way that is flexible, fun and free of denial and discipline.

No one diet works for everyone. I will guide you to find the food and lifestyle choices that best support you. I will also help you to make gradual, lifelong changes that enable you to reach your current and future health goals.

Getting Started

When was the last time you talked with someone about your health and received the personal attention you deserve?

It’s rare for anyone to get an hour to work on their nutrition and goals with a trained professional. As a health counselor, I am here to create a supportive environment while we explore what really works for you.

Could one conversation change your life?

Find out by scheduling a free consultation with me.

We will discuss your unique situation in depth and determine how I can help you and your family reach healthy and personal goals.

In Celebration of International Women’s Day, we are honored to present:
W.I.S.H.
Women’s International Summit for Health
40 of the World’s Leading Experts in Health and Wellness Have Come Together to Share Their Wisdom with Women and You Can Listen to Them
All in the Comfort of Your Own Home

Never before have women had such a remarkable, wide-reaching opportunity to
improve their health and their lives.

Introducing…
W.I.S.H.: Women’s International Summit for Health

On March 8, 2010, for 10 consecutive days, the strength, wisdom and love of hundreds of thousands of women from around the world will come together in search of the answers they’ve been looking for.

W.I.S.H. stands for Women’s International Summit for Health and it’s idea stems from the fact that women, since clocks started ticking, have come together to support one another in times of need.

With more than 40 star-studded interviews, and 10 different life areas being addressed, WISH promises to be the best event of its kind for women.

www.wishsummit.com/summit

One of the things I am visualizing this year is posting more blogs to you. I am working on my Nutrition Certification and will be graduating in July. During this time I will be posting weekly blogs and more recipes. If there is something you would like to hear about regarding health and raw foods please let me know. I welcome your feedback and hope to continue offering you my perspective on living a raw food lifestyle.

Happy New Year everyone!

Check out Penni’s web site and join; Raw Food Rehab.