Healthy Benefits of Chia Seeds

If you are looking for a food with the equivalent health benefits of flax seeds but doesn't require grinding, Chia Seeds are your salvation.


What Are Chia Seeds?

Chia seeds come from a desert plant that grows in Southern Mexico called Salvia hispanica.

Both the Aztecs and Mayans regularly consumed these seeds due to their ability to sustain energy and stamina over long periods of time. This is one of the reasons why these seeds were a big hit with the warriors of these tribes.

Chia Seeds Nutrition - Omega 3 Fatty Acids

These seeds have 3 times the amount of omega-3 fatty acids as omega-6 fatty acids. Compared to the same amount of flax seed, chia seeds have 77% the amount of omega-3 fatty acids.

However, you have to grind flax seeds to absorb its omega-3 fatty acids. Chia seeds do not have to be ground. You can eat them as is to absorb their full nutritional value.

Chia Seeds Nutrition - Fiber

The American Heart Association recommends that we get 25 to 30 grams per day of fiber from foods. Just one serving a day, three tablespoons, of these seeds delivers 37 to 44% of the recommended amount of fiber.

Chia Seeds Nutrition - Calcium

One servings of these seeds, or three tablespoons, gives you 177 mg of calcium, which is 14 to 18% of the daily recommended requirements, depending on your age.

Chia Seeds Nutrition - Protein

One serving or three tablespoons delivers 4.4 grams of protein, which is 9% of your daily requirements.

How To Eat Chia Seeds

1. These tasty seeds can be sprinkled on salads or cereals.
2. You can make a fruity pudding by adding 3 tablespoons of these seeds to one cup of any fruit juice of your choice. Let the mixture set for 15 to 30 minutes to form a pudding texture.
3. Add 3 tablespoons to your favorite yogurt.
4. You can grind them and add the ground seeds to your favorite muffin, cake, pancake, or any baked goods recipe.
5. Make a "Chia Fresca" by adding 3 tablespoons lemon juice to a cup of chilled water and sweeten to your preferred taste. Then add 1 teaspoon of chia seeds to the water-lemon mixture. Let the seeds soak up the water for 10 minutes, and then serve.

Eating these delicious chia seeds will add healthy omega-3 fats, calcium, protein and fiber to your diet. What a great way to enhance your health and fitness.

Charles

References:

American Heart Association - Fiber
Nutrition Data - Chia Seeds
Nutrition Data - Flax Seeds
Convert To - Chia Seeds
The Dr. Oz Show - Chia: Ancient Super-Seed Secret
Dr. Weil - What is Chia?
About.com - Chia Fresca

An Aspirin A Day May Keep Cancer Away

Are you looking for a simple and relatively safe way to help reduce your chances of developing and spreading cancer cells throughout your body? Taking an aspirin a day may be your cancer solution.


Researchers at Oxford University have reported that "Daily Aspirin Could Help Prevent and Treat Cancer."

It has been reported before that long-term use of aspirin helps prevent cancers, such as colorectal cancer, but this new study is also suggesting that aspirin can help prevent the chances of tumors from spreading to other parts of your body.

Results of the Oxford Studies

1. Aspirin reduced the risks of death from cancer by 15%.
2. Taking an aspirin a day for 5 years or longer reduced the risks of death from cancer by 37%.
3. Taking a low dose of aspirin daily for 3 years and longer reduced the occurrence of cancer by 23 to 25%.
4. Aspirin reduced risks of cancer spreading throughout the body by 36%.

Cancers Most Affected By A Daily Dose Of Aspirin

The cancers that are most affected by aspirin in preventing their spread throughout the body are

1. Colorectal Cancer
2. Cancers of the lung
3. most breast cancers
4. and most prostate cancers

In preventing new cancers from forming, the cancers that are most affected by a daily dose of aspirin are

1. Colorectal Cancer
2. And esophageal cancer

Consult your primary health care provider to determine if a daily dose of aspirin is beneficial to your overall health and fitness.

Charles

How To Increase Your Exercise Motivation By Cooling Your Hands

If you refuse to exercise because you quickly get hot, sweaty and tired, there may be an easy solution to increasing your exercise motivation by cooling your hands.

Researchers at the Stanford University in California have found through a small study that keeping the palms of your hands cool may increase your motivation to exercise longer.

The researchers tested 24 obese women who typically have a difficult time exercising because they quickly get hot and tired. Half of the women used a device that kept their hands at 60.8 degrees Fahrenheit, and the other half had their hands kept at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

The group with the warm hands dropped out of the study quickly. The group with the cooled hands stayed in the study for 3 months and had the following results:

1. They reduced their 1.5 mile walking time by 5 minutes.
2. Reduced their waist size by almost 3 inches.
3. And lowered their resting blood pressure and raised their exercise heart rate.

In general, the group with the cooled hands

• felt cooler while exercising
• was able to exercise longer
• was more willing to continue on an exercise program.

Apparently, keeping the palms of your hands cool, allows the blood vessels in your hands to remove enough heat from your body to help you feel more comfortable while exercising. This in turn helps you to improve your exercise motivation enough to continue with an exercise routine to help you improve your overall health and fitness.

A few inexpensive ways to keep your palms cool while you exercise are

1. hold two refrigerated bottles of water in your hands while you exercise. The extra weight will also exercise your hand and arm muscles.
2. hold two refrigerated ice packs, like the Blue Ice Pack, in your hands while you exercise. You may find that the ice packs are easier to hold.

Charles

How To Make Cauliflower Rice To Reduce Your Carbs

Do you need to reduce your carb intake, while at the same time have a nutritional and filling meal? This Cauliflower Rice Recipe may be for you.

We do need some carbs for energy, but too much carbs can make you gain unwanted weight, and increase your LDL number. I'm currently finding ways to reduce my carbohydrate intake to help reduce my serum LDL.

One of the things that I found in my search for ways to reduce my carbs is Cauliflower Rice as a rice substitute.

Having been raised in New Orleans, one of my favorite meals is Beans 'n Rice. However, even nutritional brown rice has a relatively high glycemic load of 22. In contrast, raw cauliflower has a glycemic load of just 2.

However, I didn't want to completely give up eating brown rice, so I replace just half the rice with cauliflower rice to reduce my carbohydrate consumption with the expectation of lowering my LDL number.

Cauliflower Rice Recipe

First, this is how you make Cauliflower Rice:

Ingredients

1 cauliflower head
1/4 tsp salt or lite salt - or salt to taste

Cut the cauliflower small enough to fit into your food processor feeding tube. Using the grating disc of your food processor, cut the cauliflower into pieces the size of rice grains. You can cut the cauliflower by hand if you do not have a food processor, but the food processor is easier.

Put the grated cauliflower into a microwave safe bowl with a glass lid. I use a microwave safe casserole dish with a glass lid. Toss the cauliflower with salt to taste. DO NOT ADD WATER!

Cover the dish and place it in the microwave. Microwave the cauliflower on high for 6 minutes. Be careful when you remove the lid off the hot cauliflower, since hot steam will come out. After fluffing with a fork, it is ready to eat.

I mix about 2 cups of the cooked cauliflower rice with 1/4 cups of raw brown rice. This is how I prepare the brown rice for the mixture:

Brown Rice Recipe

Ingredients

1/4 cup raw brown rice
6 chopped crimini mushrooms
1 chopped bell pepper
1 tsp chili powder
Dash ground red pepper (Cayenne)
1/4 tsp chopped garlic
1/4 tsp salt or lite salt - or salt to taste
1/2 cup water

Place all ingredients in a covered pot. Bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes. If there is still a lot of water in the pot after 30 minutes, uncover and boil down some of the water.

I then mix 2 cups of cauliflower rice with the cooked brown rice. I then cover the rice mixture with cooked black beans, or you can use any bean of your choice. The extra cauliflower rice can be frozen for future use.

This is how I still enjoy my favorite dish of beans with cauliflower and brown rice. I still have an enjoyable and nutritional dish with a lower glycemic load to help improve my overall health and fitness.

Charles

5 Important Habits Of People Who Have Lost Weight And Kept It Off For Over A Year

Are you having trouble losing weight and, more importantly, keeping your weight off? If this is you, then keep reading and learn the 5 important habits of people who have lost weight, and kept it off for over a year.

The National Weight Control Registry

The National Weight Control Registry was created by Rena Wing of the Brown Medical School and James O. Hill from the University of Colorado back in 1994. The NWCR has compiled beneficial information on the characteristics of people who have succeeded at long-term weight loss.

5 Habits of People Who Have Succeeded at Long-Term Weight Loss

1. They have modified their food intake in some way to lose weight. Basically, they eat fewer calories. On average, they eat about 1400 calories each day.
2. They increased their physical activity with walking being their favorite activity. On average, they exercise 1 hour a day.
3. They eat breakfast everyday. Research has shown that a protein rich breakfast will help you snack less often.
4. They weigh themselves at least once a week. Actually, research at the University of Minnesota determined that people who weighted themselves every day lost twice as much weight as people who weighted themselves less often.
5. They watch less than 10 hours of TV each week. This helps them to stay more physically and socially active.

In addition, these successful weight losers limited their fast food intake, cut back on sugars and sweets, and ate more fruits and vegetables.

Additional Habits of Skinny People From Men's Health

Here are some additional habits of skinny from the Men's Health article "20 Habits Skinny People Live By":

1. Eat an early dinner. Don't eat anything 3 hours before you go to bed.
   
2. Eat low-sugar, high-protein snacks
3. Drink a glass or two of water before each meal
4. Choose whole grains for a filling meal of fiber
5. Eat spicy foods to boost metabolism
6. Get at least 6 to 8 hours of sleep. A lack of sleep has been shown to increase appetite and cravings for high-calorie foods.
7. Take stairs and walk further in the parking lot to help increase your physical activity.
8. Chew more and eat slowly helps you ingest fewer calories.
9. Walk after meals to lower blood sugar and prevent your body from storing fat.
10. Eating protein helps you feel full, increase muscle mass and increases your metabolism. Eat more cold water fish and legumes.

These people have proven that it is possible to lose weight and keep it off to improve their overall health and fitness levels. It does take, however, healthy lifestyles changes and self-motivation to stick with those healthy lifestyle changes.

Charles

How To Lower Your Cholesterol Without Statins

If you are tired of all the side-effects of statins, or just concerned of the potential dangers of taking statins and their high cost, the following story is for you.

I found a great article titled "Escape from Statins," by Michael Perry, while doing the research for this post. The article is about Michael's journey in reducing his serum cholesterol without the use of statins.

With a diet change and an exercise routine, he was able to lower his LDL from 178 mg/dl to 120, and increase his HDL from 39 to 45. The diet change that reduced his LDL is called the "dietary portfolio of cholesterol-lowering foods."

Dietary Portfolio

The dietary portfolio of cholesterol-lowering foods was created by researchers at St. Michael's Hospital and the University of Toronto. As described in the Harvard Health Publications article "Portfolio Beats Low-Fat Diet For Lowering Cholesterol," this diet did a better job at lowering cholesterol than the low-fat diet recommended by the American Heart Association. It basically consists of

• Margarine enriched with plant sterols
• Oats
• Barley
• Psyllium
• Okra
• Eggplant
• Soy protein
• And whole almonds

More specifically

"All participants in the study followed a heart-healthy diet that was low in saturated fat (minimal butter and other dairy fats, beef fat) and rich in fruits and vegetables, beans and whole grains. Those in the portfolio group added cholesterol-lowering foods. For someone eating 2,000 calories a day, these included:

• A handful of nuts each day.
• Two teaspoons of sterol-enriched margarine, such as Benecol or Take Control.
• Two servings a day of soy-based foods, such as a glass of soy milk or a soy burger.
• Two servings a day of foods rich in soluble (viscous) fiber, such as oatmeal, psyllium-enriched cereals, barley, and vegetables such as okra and eggplant."

11 Foods That Lower Cholesterol

In another Harvard Health Publication titled "11 Foods That Lower Cholesterol," it states that foods rich in soluble fiber, which is also known as viscous fiber, is best for lowering cholesterol. This type of fiber binds with cholesterol and removes it from your digestive system before the cholesterol can be absorbed into your bloodstream.

The 11 foods are

• Oats - good source of soluble fiber
• Barley - an excellent source of soluble fiber
• Beans - good source of soluble fiber
• Eggplant and okra - excellent sources of soluble fiber
• Nuts, especially almonds, walnuts and peanuts, reduce LDL
• Vegetable oils in place of butter - especially extra virgin olive oil and canola oil
• Apples, grapes, strawberries and citrus fruits are good sources of a soluble fiber called pectin, which lowers LDL
• Foods fortified with sterols and stanols. Some spreads that are fortified with Plant Sterols are Benecol, Taking Control and Phytrol.
• Soy protein found in soy beans, tofu and soy milk can lower LDL
• Cold Water fish like herring and sardines are rich in omega-3 fats, and reduces LDL levels by replacing red meats which tend to boost LDL levels. These fish also reduce triglyceride levels.
  
• Fiber Supplements containing psyllium provide soluble fiber.
  

Changing your diet to one that is rich in these 11 foods in combination of an exercise routine will increase your health and fitness, and reduce your risks of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and strokes.

Charles

How To Improve Your Working Memory

I found a great article at SeniorCare.net that highlights 6 Highly Entertaining Activities That Aid In Memory Retention.

Memory loss as we age is a concern of many of us older folk. However, not everyone experiences reduced cognitive abilities as they get older. So, why do many people suffer some form of memory loss or even dementia as they get older, while others perform mental activities almost as well as 20 year olds?

In the article " A Sharper Mind, Middle Age and Beyond ", it is pointed out that older people who perform mentally as well as younger adults have 4 characteristics in addition to a higher education. They:

• exercise frequently
  
• are socially active
• frequently visit family and friends
• frequently volunteer or attend meetings
• remain calm in stressful situations
• and feel more in control of their lives.

It is believed that all of these factors work together to improve mental capability and health.

In a UCLA study, it is found that simple life changes can improve brain function and efficiency. After just 14 days, the study participants significantly improved their cognitive function and brain efficiency by

• doing memory exercises like crossword puzzles and brainteasers every day
• taking daily walks
• improving their diet by eating 5 small meals each day loaded with omega-3 fats, antioxidants and low glycemic carbohydrates
• and performing daily relaxation exercises.

Another study demonstrated that meditation changes the structure of our brains in ways that may boost concentration, memory capability and positive emotions. The brain changes by meditation also helps our ability to

• regulate our emotions
• control our stress levels
• and feel empathy for others.

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic have also determined that we can protect against memory loss as we age by engaging in cognitive exercises. They found people were less likely to suffer memory loss if they

• read books often
• play games frequently
• participate in computer activities
• do crafting activities
• watch less TV
• participate in social activities
• and read magazines.

It is becoming more obvious that to maintain our cognitive and memory health as we age, we must remain mentally, physically and socially active. You may also want to check out the brain and memory exercises at " Working Out Your Working Memory."

Charles