Marc's commitment

My friend Marc is making a commitment to stop smoking
and wanted to share it with you because there is power
in the written word. --Joan Clout-Kruse

-----

dear friends,
today is my first day at stopping smoking. many people consider addiction
to nicotine to be just as powerful as heroine
and other major drugs. i would agree. the worst times are not moments such
as now when i am doing fairly well.
the difficult times will be moments of loneliness, depression and sadness
when there seems to be no other alternative, no hope.

i will have to bear these moments alone, as they usually come in the middle
of the night.

thank you for your prayers.
marc

Nutrition Tip: Know about Selenium

- By Shari Liberman, PhD, CNS, FACN
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In humans, a link has been found between selenium and heart disease. People found to have overt selenium deficiencies - alcoholics with cirrhosis of the liver and people receiving long-term intravenous feeding - have also been found to suffer from heart problems that respond to selenium supplementation.

In eastern Finland, which has one of the highest mortality rates from heart disease in the world, it was found that low selenium in the blood was associated with up to a six - or sevenfold increase in the risk of death from heart disease. In addition, children in certain areas of China in which the selenium content of the soil is low are known to develop a heart disease called Keshan's disease. Their heart problems, too, respond to selenium supplementation.

This article came from…

Optimal Performance Institute
www.opi.edu
1030 East El Camino Real #322
Sunnyvale, California 94087
1.866.796.6716

Simple Ways to Jump Start Weight Loss

By Chuck R Stewart

Many people are wondering these days if they should just throw in the towel when it comes to trying to lose weight and then keeping it off because they may have tried a lot of different weight loss programs or maybe they have tried to go on many different diets and even if they have had the endurance to go through them they may not have had success on one of these or many of these programs before. But there is no reason to just give up and to abandon all hope and go out and buy industrial scales and electronic scales. Because you should not give up hope and just resign yourself to the fact that you can not get into shape, because you can even if your genes seem to be saying that you can not.

The hardest part of going on a diet and starting an exercise plan is sticking to it and most of that is a mental struggle that you will have to win against yourself, and this can easily be the hardest thing to do if you do not try to make sure that you win the internal battle before you try to win the external battle with your body which depends so much on the mindset that you have when you are doing the program for it to be successful and work well for you personally.

One of the first things you can do to make going on a diet easier is to do the simplest thing which is similar to one method of going on a special diet which is to count the calories that you take in and this method is to just cut down on the amounts that you eat at each meal, and this can be as simple as having one cheeseburger instead of two or if you usually take two scoops of whatever side dish grandma serves at thanksgiving you may start taking one or even one and a half, cutting back wherever you can so that you will slowly be denying your body unnecessary calories that will just be stored as fat and unwanted body weight that will be difficult to get rid of if you want to.

Another thing you can do that will be a change in your eating schedule, but that will benefit you more than you may imagine is to eat more meals a day, and this does not mean eating two breakfasts or two lunches or two dinners, but what it means is that you should eat small helpings and if you try to do this and eat a lot of small meals throughout the day then you will be able to curb your appetite more and this will be good because getting stuck in the concepts of eating only three official meals a day is not what our bodies were designed to do and a lot of people are not able to alter their metabolism to this sudden change in the way we consume food so it can't keep up.

Chuck Stewart recently spent time researching electronic scales for a customer he does work with. He also researched industrial scales for the same customer.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Chuck_R_Stewart
http://EzineArticles.com/?Simple-Ways-to-Jump-Start-Weight-Loss&id=2632165

Get Healthy - Live Longer

Are you ready to get healthy and live longer? In the newspapers, magazines, the Internet the headlines are forever telling us to lose weight. They all have different methods from programs like Weight Watchers, taking diet pills and prepared frozen food, fitness programs, and much more.

There is no excuse not to lose weight and get healthy if you want to. That is the key... I WANT TO LOSE WEIGHT AND GET HEALTHY!

Even when the doctor tells us to diet and eat healthy foods or die we still have a hard time doing it. Everyone who smokes knows it could kill them but they still do it anyway. It is SO HARD to quit a bad habit.

Attention 20-40 year olds... If you don't do it now it is almost impossible to lose weight after age 40. Oh, some do it (like me) but believe me it is MUCH HARDER after 40. And harder to keep it off once you've lost it.

My daughter, Nancy, came from Southern California to visit us for a week here in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a director on "The Simpsons" television show. We had fun. Went to a Tea Room Cafe, ate at nice restaurants, it was awesome.

I figured I'd gain a couple of pounds, and I did. :-) Now I will work off the 2 pounds by eating Oatmeal in the morning. It is amazing how that meal works. It is better than dry cereal. I'm just guessing but I think it is because dry cereal has sugar in it even though I get the lowest count. But also it doesn't have the lasting power of Oatmeal. I get hungry faster if I eat dry cereal.

This was my first test at socializing and eating out more than one day since I lost my 18 pounds. Actually Nancy and I shared a salad and chicken dish. I highly recommend sharing if you eat out. You eat much less and as you lose weight you won't need as much food.

When I feel full now I feel guilty--like I ate too much. Then when I think about it my "full feeling" is light compared to last year when I would eat everything in sight!

Enjoy eating with friends and family and "eat oatmeal" the day after. You will be okay.

(c) Joan Clout-Kruse

Good News from the Doctor

Yesterday I visited the Doctor for my first checkup in six months since I lost the 19 pounds. The Doc was pleased. I don't have to take another pill -- that was my original motivation: lose weight and hopefully my triglycerides count will go down and I won't have to take another pill. It worked! No pill, thank goodness.

Now I have to go into some kind of exercise routine. Doc suggests Yoga (beginning) to help tighten up some of the loose skin (ugh!) I have accumulated since losing weight. There is always something else that I need to do to get back into shape.

A note to the younger set: 1) Stay in shape, 2) eat sensibly, 3) avoid processed sugars and carbohydrates as much as possible, 4) Exercise and stay active, and you won't have to go through what I and thousands of other people have to do to get back in shape and improve our health.

What are your experiences? Leave me a message below by selecting the "comments" link.

Happy, healthy eating,
Joan Clout-Kruse

(c) 2009 Joan Clout-Kruse

AnnaCoulter.com Vegan Food

Hi Everyone:

I was invited to a Zen meeting at the home of Anna Coulter and her husband this past weekend. I was invited by my friend Marc Isaac Potter who is a Zen leader.

Anna presented a vegan meal afterwards. I am not a vegan
so this was a new experience for me. Anna's meal was
unbelievable! I thought Korean Food was colorful and terrific
and healthy, but I never thought I would enjoy a Vegan meal
completely. This one was out of this world. Thanks to Anna
for such a terrific job.

Anna has a beautiful website as she is an artist. Her home also displayed many of her paintings--all make you feel at peace. They have a comforting effect. Her website includes some recipes and she is into "healthy eating forever." I hope to get some of her recipes and try them. It looks like a lot of work, though. For the healthy salad she had dried onions, blueberries, olives, and many other items to add to the salad. Some I didn't even know what they were--I just ate them! She had delicious avocado stuffed mushrooms.

I didn't even know it was a vegan meal. I thought I was eating bits of chicken in one dish, but not the case. Go to Anna's website www.AnnaCoulter.com and find her recipes. Her food is unbelievably nutritious.

Happy Eating, Joan

(c) 2009 Joan Clout-Kruse

Healthy Eating Works

Hi Everyone:

Below is a message I sent in February to my daughter about my
 weight loss. I was five weeks into my program and still trying 
to adjust to new eating habits.Email message sent to daughter 
on February 10, 2009:  Happy to say I've lost 10 lbs in the past 
5 weeks. My nutritionist said give up  sugar, potatoes, white 
breads, and to read "The South Beach Diet."  I am  reading it and 
although I am only following a some of their diet suggestions,  
I did learn how carbohydrates turn into sugar, plus it has lots of 
info on how  foods digest in our body  and affect our system.  
It was quite helpful and  motivated me more to want to watch 
what I put in my mouth. So I have  learned how to change my diet 
and eat in moderation.  

The most interesting thing is that my constant lower back pain 
has gone away!  Obviously, the extra weight contributed to my 
body aches and pains. I can now climb the 100 steps in BART S.F.
transportation system without huffing excessively.  

Blessings, Joan  

P.S. (Hubby) and I did go to visit his cousins in So.Calif. a 
couple of weeks ago  and he loves "Polly Pies"--a restaurant 
with the best pies ever. This guy doesn't  have to watch his 
weight so see what I am up against! Anyway, Polly's 
had  sugar free Cherry Pie and I ordered one. It was regular 
size and I ate the  WHOLE slice.  (Of course I shared a sandwich 
and other food with a cousin who also eats lightly. Splitting 
a meal is a new thing for me and it works.)  
Anyway, despite eating that pie I continued to lose weight--
a couple days later I weighed myself and I still lost one pound.  

(c) 2009 Joan Clout-Kruse  
www.Words4Money.com