QUINOA ALL ABOUT IT – CUCKOO FOR SUPERFOODS

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Quinoa Superfoods

So what is a “superfood”, anyway?

The Macmillan Dictionary defines it as a food that is considered to be very good for your health, and may even help some medical conditions. The Oxford Dictionary definition states it’s a nutrient-rich food considered to be especially beneficial for health and well-being. A simple search for the word, reveals close to 10 million results—predominantly from health and nutrition blogs, online newspapers and magazines, and providers of so-called nutritional supplements. The term “superfood” was coined by the authors of a book called Superfood in 1990. If you really want to be a stickler about it, the concept of superfood goes all the way back to the 1950s when the world’s first superfood—spinach—was made famous by cartoon character Popeye the Sailor Man (this is a major fun, eye-popping Google) who inhaled tons of the green stuff for strength. Actually, there really is no legal or medical definition of superfood. But the term “superfood” has become a popular buzzword, today’s silver bullet for head to toe health—inside and out. It seems like a new superfood pops up every single day. Recent research found that 61 per cent of people have bought a food or drink because it had been labelled as a superfood. “Bought” being the operative word here. But more on that later.

SUPER-FOOD OR SUPER-DUPED?

The term “superfood” is not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. Still, the world is in a current frenzy over superfoods. But in a world of growing health paranoia, many think superfoods are a gimmick, a murky, magical panacea created by dollar-hungry and extremely clever marketing mavens who use the same aggressive techniques to sell superfoods that it used a few years ago to convince us we would all have perfect bikini bodies if we ate little more than Snack Wells.  Promoted by the right people, superfoods fly off store shelves.

And the public is eating it up (pun intended).

ORGANIC OR NOT

Organic, good—non-organic bad. That’s what it’s come down to for the health-crazed looking to live forever. There is some truth to the organic “good” part of the equation (other than the shell shock at the cash register). Organic food refers to the way agricultural products are grown and processed. Organic crops must be grown without the use of synthetic pesticides, bioengineered genes (GMOs), petroleum-based fertilizers, and sewage sludge-based fertilizers. Organic livestock raised for meat, eggs, and dairy products must have access to the outdoors and be given organic feed. They may not be given antibiotics, growth hormones, or any animal-by-products. In addition, organic farming practices are designed to encourage soil and water conservation and reduce pollution. It’s important to know that “natural” and “organic” are not interchangeable terms. You may see “natural” and other terms such as “all natural,” “free-range” or “hormone-free” on food labels. These descriptions should be truthful, but don’t confuse them with the term “organic.” Only foods that are grown and processed according to USDA organic standards can be labeled organic.

THE DIRTY TRUTH

You don’t have to buy organic items of every food item to make a difference in your health. But below are foods to buy organic because they are highly sprayed with pesticides:

  • Peaches
  • Apples
  • Sweet Bell Peppers
  • Celery
  • Nectarines
  • Strawberries
  • Cherries
  • Pears
  • Grapes
  • Spinach
  • Lettuce
  • Potatoes

“Yikes! But I eat these all the time! I’m pesticide riddled…”

COMING CLEAN

In 2016, the Environmental Working Group released an updated version of their report “Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce” in which they reported on pesticide residues found on 48 popular fresh fruits and vegetables. Their report was based upon an analysis of 32,000 samples tested by USDA and FDA scientists. The following are the 15 fruits and vegetables that they found least likely to have concentrated pesticide residues. They call this list the “Clean 15”:

  • Avocados
  • Sweet Corn
  • Pineapple
  • Cabbage
  • Sweet Peas — Frozen
  • Onions
  • Asparagus
  • Mangoes
  • Papayas
  • Kiwi
  • Eggplant
  • Honeydew melon
  • Grapefruit
  • Cantaloupe
  • Cauliflower

The thing to remember is that you don’t have to eat organic 24/7. Organic foods could give some people brain freezes when they see the prices. Relax. If you can’t afford to go organic just make sure you buy a variety of non-organic fruits and veggies, and wash them well. If there’s a Farmer’s Market near you, grab your biodegradable bag and go for it.

THE SUPER ANSWER

YOU CAN TALK ABOUT THE MIRACLE POWER OF SUPERFOODS, BUT THERE IS REALLY NO EVIDENCE OR SUBSTANTIAL STUDIES THAT CAN PROVE THAT. IT’S A HIT OR MISS PLAN FOR OVERALL HEALTH. AND IT DOESN’T HELP BALANCE YOUR HORMONES.

THAT, IS A FACT.

WHEN YOUR HORMONES ARE OUT OF BALANCE, YOU CAN BE PLAGUED BY A HOST OF PROBLEMS AND MEDICAL ISSUES. SINCE HORMONES ARE THE BODY’S MESSENGERS CONTROLLING HOW YOUR CELLS AND ORGANS DO THEIR WORK, UNBALANCED HORMONES LEAVE YOUR BODY OUT OF CONTROL. A SUPER SMART SOLUTION TO GETTING YOUR HORMONES IN BALANCE IS TO SEE DR. STEPHEN A. GOLDSTEIN M.D., F.A.C.S. AT DENVER HORMONE HEALTH. WITH SIMPLE TESTS, HE CAN MEDICALLY DETERMINE WHAT YOU NEED TO FEEL YOUR BEST. DEPENDING ON THAT, HE CREATES A UNIQUELY TAILORED HORMONE REPLACEMENT PLAN TO HELP WHERE YOU NEED HELP. READY TO GET ON WITH A SUPER LIFE? CALL NOW FOR AN APPOINTMENT.

SUPER.

MORE THAN JUST A WALK IN THE PARK – NEVER SAY “PHOOEY” TO FITNESS

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Walk in the Park

Some people think exercise couldn’t be more boring than just walking or getting on a treadmill going nowhere. Well, exercise is nowhere like that. You’ve got choices. More choices than a Taj Mahal of ice cream flavors or the bizarre choices of donuts today. Below are just some of the alternatives:

  • Tai Chi or yoga
  • Zumba or dance. Street up your moves with a hip hop class. No one is watching you anyway.
  • Skating- blades or wheels…whichever
  • Water skiing
  • Baseball, football, any kind of ball including kettle. Just have a ball.
  • Tennis or racquet sports (run to avoid being hit by flying racquets of poor sports
  • Hills, mountains, inclines
  • Canoeing, kayaking, rowing
  • Skiing /snowboarding
  • Hockey
  • Soccer
  • Biking
  • Sword fighting (preferably non-lethal)
  • Martial arts (black belt optional)
  • Running
  • Boxing
  • Any kind of “athalons”
  • Exercise bands
  • Jump-like-crazy Mick Jagger moves

Be creative. Fitness involves increased focus and imagination. And yes, even fun.

THE GYM WHIM

Of course, if it’s not walking, the first thing people think is “I’ll join a gym and go 20 times a week and a trainer will guide me through the machines and give me a schedule for the 100 different classes they offer and they’ll convince me that shelling out as much as $5000 a year is the very best thing for my health and I’ll lose weight and get glutes and perk up my posterior and save myself from dropping dead from a heart attack all in a funky fun environment with      sonic soundtracks attacking my senses.  Fact is, January hits, and gym memberships soar. People will pay top prices, thinking the more they pay, the greater the chance they’ll stick with it. No chance. Gung-ho quickly skids into “oh no” by mid-February. But you’re stuck in a contract. Total consumers joining gyms top 63 million. More than 34,000 U.S. clubs generate $24.2 billion in revenue. Close to 67% of people with gym memberships never use them. It’s what gym owners count on, insanely salivating over their extreme good fortune.

And then there are the one-on-one personal trainers who promise one-on-one results (they’ll even come to your house) They get paid the price of buying a small country, too. And guess what? Surprise. People start…then stop, still left to foot the bill.

Oh, and how could we forget? Home gyms. People turning their man or woman caves into sanctuaries of health. They don’t go to the gyms. They bring the gyms to them. Along with the machines they won’t use there, either. Stop and recognize the red flags flying before you sign anything.

FUN BARRE NONE

Every day a new kind of class is popping up across the country. Gym owner brainchildren are pumping up their how-can-I keep-workout-masochists coming minds and coming up with some classes you wouldn’t believe. Here’s a few:

POUND–  a full-body cardio workout that uses lightly weighted “drumsticks” called ripstix (probably with the promise of ripped abs)

ANIMAL FLOW– this taps into your primal instincts to get your body moving in ways you’ve never imagined before-expect a lot of growling and howling

POLE CONTROL– those hip-to-strip poles have come back from the dead years after Demi Moore in Striptease

ROPES GONE WILD– this involves creating wave-like patterns in long ropes with your body

SURFSET CLASSIC– pop up beach-like pain on the RipSurfer X, a machine that looks like a real surfboard –at least no sharks

DEEP EXTREME– yoga mixed with tribal dance

BARRE BRAWL– kickboxing-meets-barre routine that will earn you a knockout body if you can stand long enough for it not to knock you out first

BOKWA– based on the alphabet. You’ll draw letters and numbers with your feet while performing a calorie-torching cardio routine

PILOXING– blends standing Pilates with boxing and dance moves (can a body bend that way?)

BODY BLADE– a futuristic looking tool using vibration

PARKOUR–  basically the fitness equivalent of those gravity-defying movie stunts when the hero leaps between buildings, runs through alleyways, and scales up walls

“No…” you’re thinking. “Yes”.  There’s nothing to think about. Fitness has moved light years beyond funk. And fitness is far flung. You’ll find feisty foreigners and locals working out as much as we do in Tokyo, Thailand, Ukraine, Uganda, Milan, Peru, Rio de Janeiro, Edinburgh, Philippines… spin a virtual globe, stop anywhere and follow the heavy breathing.  It’s there.

HOME BODIES CAN BE HOT

Dumping the home gym option in the dust, there are other ways to fit fitness into your life in the absence of sweat and spandex

  • Set up a circuit training route in front of your TV
  • Do lunges while you watch TV. You can do lunges in place or walking lunges around the room while your shows are on
  • Walk in place as you catch up on your favorite show
  • See how many squats you can do
  • Watch exercise shows on TV and move along with them. UTube has gobs of them.

Switch it up and the real switch just might be you sticking with it.

EXERCISE TIPS AND TIDBITS                                                    

  • The point of joining a gym is to show up
  • Diddly squats don’t count as exercise
  • Kim K’s booty is not a rational goal
  • When it comes to 6-packs, even a half is an improvement
  • Ripping open the mail doesn’t count as getting ripped
  • “Strenuous” doesn’t mean thinking hard about whether to exercise
  • Think buns of steel vs cinnamon buns
  • You don’t need a body capable of posting naked selfies
  • Stomach crunches trump the crunching of a mouthful of chips going down
  • If you aim to get in shape, that shape shouldn’t be round and fluffy
  • Heavy breathing shouldn’t be confined to sex
  • Lifts don’t refer to beers
  • If machines scare you, you’ve watched the Matrix too many times
  • Consider bikes life cycles
  • Clothes don’t make the athlete

REPS DON’T MEAN REPEATEDLY GIVING UP

How hard is it to put one foot in front of the other? (Standing.)

Finding the right workout starts with the right mindset. If you want to stoke the fat-burning and health-inducing fires, you have to light a fire under yourself. Excuse is not an exercise. You have to get a program and be active sticking to it or getting stuck. (You’d be amazed at the amount of quicksand hiding around). Who hasn’t heard “Just Do It?” Well don’t “Just Over-Do it.” Take it a bit further and “Just Do It more.”

Exercise…reeeeee-peat. And reeeeee-peat. And, oh you probably get it by now.

PUT SOME MUSCLE IN YOUR HORMONES

RESEARCHERS ACROSS THE COUNTRY GIVE A LOT OF WEIGHT TO THE DAMAGE UNBALANCED HORMONES CAN DO TO YOUR BODY. BUT DON’T SWEAT IT. NO ONE CAN COMPETE WITH DR. STEPHEN A. GOLDSTEIN, M.D, F.A.C.S. AT DENVER HORMONE HEALTH IN HELPING RESTORE YOUR HORMONE BALANCE TO PRIME CONDITION. WITH YEARS OF EXPERIENCE HE’S EXPERT AT DIAGNOSING WHAT’S BRINGING YOU DOWN AND CREATES A UNIQUE TREATMENT PROGRAM TO GET YOUR BODY (AND PEACE OF MIND) AT PEAK PERFORMANCE.

CALL FOR AN APPOINTMENT NOW. AND MAKE YOUR WORKOUTS WORK FOR YOU.

THE FITNESS BIGGIES – NEVER SAY “PHOOEY” TO FITNESS

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Fitness Biggies

Researchers have grouped the type of exercise we all need into four major groups:

ENDURANCE

Endurance, or aerobic  activities increase your breathing and heart rate. They keep your heart, lungs, and circulatory system healthy and improve your overall fitness. Building your endurance makes it easier to carry out many of your everyday activities.

STRENGTH

Strength exercises make your muscles stronger. Even small increases in strength can make a big difference in your ability to stay independent and carry out everyday activities, such as climbing stairs and carrying groceries. These exercises also are called “strength training” or “resistance training.”

BALANCE

Balance exercises help prevent falls, a common problem in older adults. Many lower-body strength exercises also will improve your balance.

FLEXIBILITY

Flexibility exercises stretch your muscles and can help your body stay limber. Being flexible gives you more freedom of movement for other exercises as well as for your everyday activities.

TAKE NO PRISONERS

OK, so here’s the big question. Too little? Too Much?  Exercising is sort of like Goldilocks with her “This one’s too big…this one’s not enough.” Finding your “this is just perfect” should be the goal. The current broad guidelines from governmental and health organizations call for 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week to build and maintain health and fitness. 150 minutes? Sounds like a lifetime. According to The Mayo Clinic it seems much less mind boggling to break it down. As a general goal, aim for at least 30 minutes of physical activity every day. Even brief bouts of activity offer benefits. For instance, if you can’t fit in one 30-minute walk, try three 10-minute walks instead. Or put on your animal hides. A growing body of clinical research maintains that the ideal fitness regimen is one that mimics our gatherer ancestors, which included short bursts of high-intensity activities. Run after buffalo, stop and take down buffalo, get 1400 lb. beast back to village.  Forage, scavenge, get those arrows soaring. All guaranteed to up your fitness factor. These ancestors didn’t suffer from many of the diseases that plague us today. They were, however, motivated by the downside of being eaten first. Intensity is important, but “strenuous” doesn’t mean thinking hard about whether to exercise. No one says you have to do “marathon” anything.

OBSESSION ISN’T SPORTING

We’ve created a cult-like mass of fitness maniacs who believe if it doesn’t hurt like hell, it’s not worth doing. Sweat, grunt, push, scream, lose enough fluids to make you too weak to hit the wall, let along get close to it. A blond woman in a hot pink spandex tank hoists a sledgehammer over her shoulders, then slams it down with a dull thud onto the big tire in front of her. Beside her, another woman swings her sledgehammer even higher, grimacing and groaning with the effort. Why not join a roofing crew for a few hours instead? Surely, there’s a tunnel somewhere that needs digging, or at least some hot tar that needs pouring. We don’t have to pump up like Roman Spartans or Gladiators. We don’t have to work Thor-like to keep an empire alive. Yet we watch obsessed by shows like American Ninja Warrior and punish ourselves because we can’t capture the zealot-like performance they demonstrate.  Accept it with rational grace: your max isn’t the other guy’s max. You can’t be expected to waltz (Aerobic Tango would be more appropriate) in anywhere and compete this way. Sometimes going for the burn ends up “going to the emergency room. There are injuries galore on Dancing with the Stars. Now that’s real pain.

HORMONES GONE ROGUE

A “DO OR DIE” WORKOUT ATTITUDE CAN TAKE A REAL HIT ON YOUR HORMONES.

EXERCISE IS A STRESS ON THE BODY OFTEN CAUSING A DEBILITATING HORMONE IMBALANCE. WHEN YOUR HORMONES ARE IMBALANCED IT CAN ACTUALLY CAUSE YOUR BODY TO BREAK DOWN. THE SUREST WAY TO LIFT YOURSELF BACK UP IS WITH A VISIT TO DENVER HORMONE HEALTH. DR. STEPHEN A. GOLDSTEIN, M.D, F.A.C.S. CAN HELP YOU GET BACK IN GREAT SHAPE WITH AN ASSESMENT OF YOUR PROBLEMS AND AN INDIVIDUALIZED PROGRAM THAT WILL RESTORE YOUR PERFORMANCE HELPING YOU REACH THE MOST IMPORTANT GOAL OF FEELING GREAT.

TAKE A TIME OUT TO CALL RIGHT NOW. AND UP YOUR GAME.