We live in stressful times, and all that stress can lead to serious bouts of depression. Typically, when we’re depressed, we turn to quick fixes. A tub of ice cream, a candy bar or a box of chocolates. But these only give us a temporary, artificial high, and we…
Diet & Fitness / Healthy Eating
Forget all the fancy claims on the front of the package – “Lite,” “Low Sodium,” “Reduced Fat” — they tell you nothing. What you need is a direct means of comparison between products, and this is found in a little box on the bottom or back simply labeled “Nutrition Facts.”…
by Richard van Beek Researchers are actually telling us to eat dark chocolate for heart health. How is this possible? Up until now, we’ve always thought chocolate was bad for us! It turns out that dark chocolate made from unprocessed cocoa contains high amounts of flavonoids and phytochemicals. These are…
Diet & Fitness / Healthy Eating
by Dr. Lynne Kenney Families today are busy. With after-school sports and other activities driving of our lives, a sit-down dinner often falls off the “to-do list.” But a family dinner is more than just eating vegetables; research shows that sitting down to dinner is an important protective factor in…
We bet you didn’t know it was National Sleep Awareness Week. According to the National Sleep Foundation, this year’s focus is on “springing forward,” the process of losing that precious hour of sleep for Daylight Savings Time. The amount of rest you get is directly related to how you perform…
As a psychiatrist I know that there is more to overeating and obesity that meets the eye. One big reason that many diets fail is that traditional weight loss programs don’t factor in how we process subtle energy, what Chinese medicine terms “life force” or “chi.” Subtle energy penetrates and…
Diet & Fitness / Healthy Eating
Preparing foods that are both nutritious and delicious is always a challenge. If, like most families, you have a picky eater or two, there are a few tricks you can use to boost the nutritional value of the foods your family loves. One such trick is to “sneak” or “hide”…
Emotional eating can wreak havoc on even the most determined dieter. It’s a way to suppress or soothe negative feelings like boredom, grief, fear and anger. Triggers may include unemployment, financial stressors, relationship strain, health problems or simply fatigue. Our first reaction when anxiety rears its ugly head is to…
Diet & Fitness / Healthy Eating
I know a person who spends hours working out every day – 6 days a week. He has been doing this for the last 60 days and has not lost a single pound. How is that possible? The answer is quite simple – he never changed his diet! When it…