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5 Ways to Eat Healthy Year-Round

Whether it’s a holiday buffet or a backyard bash, special events that can sabotage healthy eating seem to pop up all year long. Armed with the right strategies, however, you can easily beat these binge moments and stay on a nutritious track.

Holistic chef and certified healing foods specialist Shelley Alexander, author of “Deliciously Holistic,” offers five tips for quick and convenient healthy eating during ultra-busy weeks, holidays, and special occasions:

1. When shopping, check labels and avoid foods with a long list of ingredients. The best whole foods have one or just a few unprocessed or minimally processed, easily recognized ingredients. Among ingredients to avoid: chemicals, artificial sweeteners, high fructose corn syrup, nitrates, MSG, genetically modified ingredients and preservatives (indicated by the initials BHT, BHA, EDTA and THBQ.)

2. Set aside a few hours each week to prep foods to eat in the days ahead. Cut up produce and store it in airtight containers. Lightly wash produce before using with natural vegetable wash or use one part white vinegar to three parts water. Make several homemade vinaigrettes or dressings to last all week so you can make leafy greens and vegetable salads in minutes. Clean and marinate enough meat or poultry for dinners over the next few days.

3. Start your day with a green smoothie. Cut and freeze organic fresh fruit to use in green smoothies. You can also buy frozen fruit that’s already cut up. Add organic kale or spinach, coconut water or nut and seed milks plus natural sweeteners such as dates or stevia for an energy-boosting beverage.

4. For your holiday dinners, plan on making at least three to four dishes that are both delicious and nutritious. Good examples are pasture-raised, wild turkey with sage and garlic, baked wild salmon with lemon and herbs, steamed greens, roasted heirloom root vegetables drizzled with balsamic glaze, pureed winter squash soups, and desserts made with seasonal fruits, spices, and healthy sweeteners like coconut sugar or raw honey.

5. Make batches of fermented vegetables twice a month. Alexander recommends eating fermented vegetables every day to keep your digestive system healthy. They’re loaded with probiotics – the good bacteria your intestines need. Mix a variety of organic vegetables, such as carrots and celery, into brine with warm filtered water, unrefined sea salt, and cultured vegetable starter or liquid whey, and mix with shredded cabbage heads. Pack the mixture into sterilized glass jars and allow the vegetables to ferment for five to seven days. Once done fermenting, store in the refrigerator for up to six months.

4 Budget-Friendly Ways to Learn a Fun New Skill

Learning a new skill is not only a fun avenue to a new hobby, but the act of learning that skill can challenge your brain in new ways. This can lead to better cognitive function and can even reduce your chance of developing dementia. While learning a new skill can seem daunting, especially if you’re on a tight budget, there are a lot of options to ensure you don’t have to invest a lot to become a lifelong learner and find your new favorite pastime. 

Craft Store Classes
From small local shops to large chains, many craft stores offer classes on how to use their products. Take a weekend to explore the world of cake decorating or tackle that scrapbooking project you always wanted to do. These low-cost classes do require some investment in the form of materials and a nominal class fee, but they can be an excellent way to jumpstart a new hobby. Bonus? Attendees often have access to coupons to cover materials for your next out-of-class project.

Home Improvement Store Classes
Learn the basics when it comes to DIY. Your local home improvement store likely offers group classes that cover home improvement basics and fun projects. Whether you learn how to properly use a specific tool or discover how to DIY a wooden planter box, these lessons are sure to come in handy.

Local Clubs
While you might think joining a club is something you do after you have developed a particular skill, chances are your local clubs are interested in welcoming anyone with a penchant for their favorite hobby. There’s a club for almost every interest and skill level. If you’re unsure if your local club would welcome a beginner to the group, simply ask! You may find an avenue to hone a new skill and even a few lifelong friends.

Community College Courses
You don’t have to be seeking a degree to benefit from your local college. Classes are often welcome to community members and some colleges will even offer free or reduced course tuition to seniors or adults wishing to learn about a subject without receiving college credits. Brush up on your cooking skills, or deep dive into your love of Shakespeare without the stress of grades holding you back.

7 Great Up and Coming Career Options

As a new crop of high school grads heads off to college, it’s a good time to think about career majors and where the best jobs will be. Kiplinger’s business editors put themselves to work to identify some of the most promising career options we can expect to see going forward:

Speech/Language pathologist – Many speech therapists work with kids in school who stutter or have other language disorders. But in an aging population, they are also working with older people with hearing loss, a history of strokes, or other disorders related to aging. A licensed therapist will have a Master’s degree and earn about $70,000 annually.

Community Service Manager – An aging population increases the need for adult day care centers, meal delivery systems, and similar programs. With a bachelor’s degree in social work or public administration, a CSM can expect a yearly salary of about $60,000.

Computer systems analyst – In the nerd’s world we live in, a liberal arts degree and a talent for tech can prepare you to earn $80,000 per year or more by ensuring that an organization’s technological security needs are met and are constantly improving.

Apps developer – You may be able to earn more than $90,000 annually if you can develop new and better mobile strategies and/or computer operating systems. You will need a degree in computer science, software engineering or a related field.

Registered Nurse – Already the fifth largest workforce in America, registered nurses are expected to grow by some 450,000 jobs by 2024. A bachelor’s of science degree in nursing, or a diploma from an accredited nursing program, should command a median $66,000 annual salary.

Information security analyst – Thanks to an abundance of cybercrime, this career is growing by leaps and bounds. With a bachelor’s degree in computer science, programming or another tech-related field, and some experience as a network or systems administrator, you should be able to find work in government offices, hospitals or almost any large corporation and earn $90,000 a year or more.

Health services manager – These are the people who oversee the functions of an entire medical practice or facility or a specific department, such as clinical manager for, nursing, surgery or physical therapy. With a bachelor’s in health administration, you can expect to earn over $85,000 annually.

6 Tricks for Getting More out of Your iPhone

If you’re an iPhone user, you probably already know how to call, text, and check email. But, say the communications experts at Business Insider, there are tips and tricks that can help you maximize your time and effort. Bonus: most of these tips will work just as well with your iPad.

• Turn off LTE to save battery – On the iPhone 5, you can save battery life in a pinch by going to Settings, then General, then Cellular. Or choose the Enable LTE toggle; if you need to save battery and can spare some Internet speed, turn this option off.

• Lock the screen orientation – To lock your screen orientation, double tap the home button and swipe to the right. You’ll see a gray circle opposite the rewind button. Tap that once and a lock will appear, so when you turn your phone sideways the orientation will stay put.

• Automatically download new apps – A handy feature if you have several Apple devices: New apps and music will download automatically to all of them if you go to Settings and navigate to the middle of the page. Select the Store option, and once inside, under Automatic Downloads, switch on options for music, apps or both.

• View websites in full screen – While browsing a web site in Safari, turn your iPhone to the side (landscape) and tap the full-screen icon (arrows coming together in the bottom right) and you can view a website without distraction.

• Create a custom vibration – This can let you know who is calling or texting without having to look at the phone. Go to Settings, then tap Sounds at the bottom of the page. You’ll be able to select custom vibration or record your own – and you can adjust the length of it, too.

• Use Siri to set location-based reminders – Siri can be used to set a reminder, like saying “remind me to call mom at 4 today.” But you can also set location-based reminders on your iPhone 4S. Say “Remind me to call mom when I get home,” and you’ll be notified accordingly.

Six Secrets to ‘Clean’ Eating

Eating ‘clean’ isn’t always practical or feasible because of a fast-paced lifestyle and limited food availability, but it’s possible to stay on track if you know the secrets to success. Making healthier choices is not as challenging as most may think, according to lifestyle fitness chef Jen Arricale.

“It’s really no secret at all,” Arricale reveals. “With the right information, you can make the most of what you put on your plate. Master the basics, and you’ll be on your way to a healthier lifestyle, even if you do get sidetracked once in a while.”

Arricale recommends these six not-so-secret tips for eating clean:

Organic is best; natural is great; but healthy is a lie. ‘Organic’ describes natural foods grown without chemicals. Sometimes organic foods cost more and aren’t always available. ‘Natural’ foods (canned, for example) are not highly processed. But foods labeled as ‘healthy’ may not be healthy at all. Don’t be fooled by labels. Read them.

Clean foods can come from a box. Even with pre-packaged foods, read the nutrition labels and make your own judgments. Don’t be swayed by billboard-life hype on the front of food packages – the fewer ingredients, the better.

Processed isn’t always bad. Highly processed foods may contain dangerous chemicals, especially those that are shelf-stable for years. But minimally processed foods can still be organic, natural and clean. Compare highly processed foods, such as lunch meat, to less processed ones, like canned tomatoes.

GMO isn’t always bad, either. Genetically modified foods, or GMOs, aren’t always Frankenfoods to be avoided. Some seeds have been crossbred to withstand drought or grow in harsh conditions, and it may be a natural mix of plants to yield something stronger. Ideally, we would avoid anything modified just to be safe, but in today’s industrialized world, most produce and grains have been modified at some level from their original heirloom seed.

Even clean eaters do dirt once in a while. What’s important is to acknowledge that one plan doesn’t fit all. Do what is best for your health and happiness.

The definition of ‘clean’ eating ultimately depends on you. We’re not cavemen. We don’t hunt and gather. And most adults rarely make meals from scratch anymore. A smart definition of eating clean is to choose ingredients you can pronounce and buy in the store.

3 Time Management Tips – Multitasking Included!

Time management can be a challenge—in fact, 60 percent of Americans recently surveyed by Moen wish they had a better handle on their daily to-dos. To rein in your schedule:

Prioritize. Never underestimate the power of a list. Listing out your tasks helps you visually separate what’s important from what’s not, as well as group similar items (e.g., chores, computer work), which streamlines your schedule. Rank your tasks with numbers in order of priority, and cross them off as you complete them—you’ll be amazed at what you accomplish!
 
Multitask—the right way. Seventy-one percent of Americans in the survey reported multitasking while watching television, and 67 percent multitask while cleaning. Multitasking can be effective—if you multitask one mental and one physical activity, like chatting on the phone while loading the dishwasher. Juggling too many mental activities at once can kill your concentration, and doing too many physically activities is, well, physically impossible!

Unplug. Your iCloud calendar can be a lifesaver when it comes to staying on schedule—but for all its benefits, technology can be a time-suck. Make an appointment for a weekend of R&R or a vacation (and avoid logging on during it!), or catch up on other activities you normally wouldn’t have time for, like quality time with family or volunteer work.
 
Source: Moen
 
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