7 Heart-Smart Dinners: Quick and Easy Recipes for a Healthy Heart Can mouthwatering meals be cardio-friendly?

Here’s proof: a week’s worth of family-pleasing, quick-prep suppers loaded with just the right nutrients.

See Heart Smart Dinners

To curb appetite, many different tactics have been employed.  Some beneficial and worthy of your use to curb appetite and others just a bit goofy.

Here is a simple one which may stimulate the alertness region of your brain.

Research suggests lighting a peppermint candle the next time you’ve got that junk food craving.  It’s often these transient hunger impulses that sabotage dietary goals as little thought is used in search for relief from these short term cravings.

Other noted benefits of Peppermint Aromatherapy:

Anti-inflammatory; relieves pain, muscle spasms, and cramping; relaxes the nerves; kills viral infections; decreases gas and indigestion; clears lung congestion; reduces fever

Yogurt has long been consumed for its health benefits and is a diet staple enjoyed by many cultures across the globe.  Now, experts say that yogurt may also reduce the risk of developing gum disease by as much as 60% when conpared with other dairy products.

Yogurt contains large amounts of healthy bacteria called lactobacilli, which inhibit the growth of harmful oral bugs that can lead to periodontal disease. (From IDEA Fitness Journal 10/09)

Make sure yogurt is a regular entry to your Diet Grader report. Your gum health will appreciate it.

It is pretty common sense that an unhealthy diet & lifestyle is not a good thing… yes?

Did you know an unhealthy diet & lifestyle account for at least 80% of heart disease, 90% of type 2 diabetes & 70 + % of strokes? (as posted by Sibu_Beauty)

The Point is your diet is huge when it come to a healthy vs. unhealthy lifestyle.  It is not just a gigantic piece of your more visible weight loss or weight gain goals.

Whether you utilize the Diet Grader, another tool, or simply research and discipline yourself, it really doesn’t matter.  What does matter is that you understand the significant role your diet & lifestyle play in your all around health… and act accordingly.

Hippocrates, the ancient father of western medicine, famously said: “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” Though modern physicians tend to rely less heavily on dietary practices to treat disease than doctors of the past, evidence is clear that for some diseases the right combination of nutrients can prove life-altering.

This was the opening paragraph to an article written by Natalie Digate Muth, M.D., M.P.H., R.D. in an ACE “Fitness Matters” journal.

While those who practice medicine, at least back to the time of Hippocrates understood the link between food consumption and health it seems to have been forgotten along the way.  Now more and more scientific studies are again proving the links between certain foods and the treatment of certain ailments.

There is continued research in many areas, but with the ongoing findings of the importance of balanced diet on optimal health, you need to utilize a tool such as the Diet Grader to evaluate and optimize your personal well-being.

When it comes to eating enough veggies and fruits, Americans are failing miserably. The CDC estimates that only 14 percent of adults and fewer than 10 percent of teenagers in the US eat three servings of vegetables and two servings of fruit on a daily basis… 5 servings is the minimum.

Fit Sugar posted the State by State ranking of how different areas in the US are doing with their own fruit and veggie servings.

Here in our State, we are apparently at 15.1%… How about where you’re from?  Do you match the averages?