FRUITS
As with vegetables, some fruits are good sources of many nutrients, including carbohydrates and fiber. In addition, fruits, unlike most desserts, can satisfy your sweet tooth without tipping the scales. Also unlike many desserts, fruits provide our bodies with a variety of important vitamins and minerals.
Choices include:
apple, fresh juice sauce
apricots, * fresh canned in juice dried
banana
berries, ** except strawberries strawberries
cherries
dates
figs, fresh and dried
fruit cocktail, fresh or canned grapefruit, ** fresh canned in juice juice
grapes
kiwi**
kumquats
mango
melon, *** except watermelon watermelon
nectarine***
orange, ** fresh Mandarin sections juice
papaya
peach, * fresh canned in juice
pear, fresh canned in juice
persimmon
pineapple, fresh canned in juice juice
plums
prunes
prune juice
raisins
tangerine**
* Good source of vitamin A
** Good source of vitamin C
*** Good source of vitamins A and C
Monday, June 23, 2008
Vegetables are vital to heart health
VEGETABLES
As excellent sources of vitamins, minerals, complex carbohydrates and fiber, vegetables are vital to heart health. To get the most nutrition from vegetables, eat them raw or minimally cooked (steamed). Keep in mind that each vegetable provides different vitamins and minerals, making variety important. As a role, if the outer portion of the vegetable is edible, that's where you'll find the majority of vitamins and minerals.
One unit in the vegetable group equals 1/2 cup cooked or 1 medium raw vegetable. Choices include:
artichoke
asparagus**
bamboo shoots
beets
broccoli***
Brussels sprouts
cabbage**
carrot*
cauliflower
celery
cucumber
eggplant
greens***(collard, endive, escarole, lettuce, spinach)
kohlrabi
leeks
mushrooms
okra
onion
parsnip
peas
peppers***
pumpkin*
radish
rutabaga
scallions
shallots
squash*
snow peas
string beans
sweet potatoes*
tomato**
tomato juice or tomato-juice cocktail, low-sodium turnips**
water chestnuts
yams*
zucchini
*Good source of vitamin A
** Good source of vitamin C
*** Good source of vitamins A and C
Note: Starchy vegetables higher in complex carbohydrates are found in the grains group. Tomato juice and tomato-juice cocktail are high in sodium. Select the low-salt variety or make your own!
As excellent sources of vitamins, minerals, complex carbohydrates and fiber, vegetables are vital to heart health. To get the most nutrition from vegetables, eat them raw or minimally cooked (steamed). Keep in mind that each vegetable provides different vitamins and minerals, making variety important. As a role, if the outer portion of the vegetable is edible, that's where you'll find the majority of vitamins and minerals.
One unit in the vegetable group equals 1/2 cup cooked or 1 medium raw vegetable. Choices include:
artichoke
asparagus**
bamboo shoots
beets
broccoli***
Brussels sprouts
cabbage**
carrot*
cauliflower
celery
cucumber
eggplant
greens***(collard, endive, escarole, lettuce, spinach)
kohlrabi
leeks
mushrooms
okra
onion
parsnip
peas
peppers***
pumpkin*
radish
rutabaga
scallions
shallots
squash*
snow peas
string beans
sweet potatoes*
tomato**
tomato juice or tomato-juice cocktail, low-sodium turnips**
water chestnuts
yams*
zucchini
*Good source of vitamin A
** Good source of vitamin C
*** Good source of vitamins A and C
Note: Starchy vegetables higher in complex carbohydrates are found in the grains group. Tomato juice and tomato-juice cocktail are high in sodium. Select the low-salt variety or make your own!
Learning to Relax
All nervous tension has a muscular element, the control of which helps your nervous and emotional as well as your physical state. You cannot command your whole body to relax at one time, but you can easily learn to relax one or two muscle groups at once. When you have learned this simple procedure, you can quickly relieve accumulated muscle tension at almost any time. In the process you will keep both nervous and muscular tension from building up, and maintain a much more emotionally responsive state.
Lie down in a quiet, darkened room. Hold your neck muscles slightly stiff, moderately stiff, quite stiff, then as stiff as you can make them. Now move backwards along the same scale, from totally stiff to quite stiff, to moderately stiff, to slightly stiff, to normal - and then one more step in the same direction, towards looseness and relaxation beyond the original base level. Go through this routine three or four times, until you definitely 'get the feel of it' and can relax your neck muscles at will.
Now you are ready to relax other parts of your body.
Relax your right arm, your right leg, your left leg, your left arm, your scalp, your face, your neck, your back and your tummy muscles. This order - around the clock, then top to bottom - is easy to remember. Do not strive for maximum relaxation of each part: you will relax more thoroughly in a given length of time by focusing your attention on each part only long enough to loosen its musculature through a single 'relaxation command', then shifting your attention to the next body part. After three or four 'go-rounds' you will find yourself drifting into a state of highly restful calm which you can easily maintain for some time.
When you first try part-by-part relaxation, twenty-minute rest breaks in a quiet bedroom work best. After a few weeks, however, you will become good enough at relaxing muscle groups that isolation and quiet are no longer necessary. You can sit in a straight chair with both feet flat on the floor, place your hands in your lap, let your head loll forward, and relax muscle groups in rotation just as if you were in bed. Even when children are playing in the vicinity or dinner is cooking on a nearby stove, you will find that you can readily relax. After two or three 'go-rounds', lift one hand up to shoulder height and let it fall back into your lap like a limp dishrag. Do the same with the other hand. Then resume part-by-part relaxation, perhaps for two to three minutes. Such brief 'refresher slouches' will definitely help to keep tension from building up, of ten with startling effects on your disposition, level of contentment, and sexual responsiveness.
A few more weeks of practice will improve your ability to relax to the point where a set position and chair- or bed supported posture are no longer entirely necessary. Whenever you become conscious of muscular tension you will be able to relax it without interrupting your activities.
Lie down in a quiet, darkened room. Hold your neck muscles slightly stiff, moderately stiff, quite stiff, then as stiff as you can make them. Now move backwards along the same scale, from totally stiff to quite stiff, to moderately stiff, to slightly stiff, to normal - and then one more step in the same direction, towards looseness and relaxation beyond the original base level. Go through this routine three or four times, until you definitely 'get the feel of it' and can relax your neck muscles at will.
Now you are ready to relax other parts of your body.
Relax your right arm, your right leg, your left leg, your left arm, your scalp, your face, your neck, your back and your tummy muscles. This order - around the clock, then top to bottom - is easy to remember. Do not strive for maximum relaxation of each part: you will relax more thoroughly in a given length of time by focusing your attention on each part only long enough to loosen its musculature through a single 'relaxation command', then shifting your attention to the next body part. After three or four 'go-rounds' you will find yourself drifting into a state of highly restful calm which you can easily maintain for some time.
When you first try part-by-part relaxation, twenty-minute rest breaks in a quiet bedroom work best. After a few weeks, however, you will become good enough at relaxing muscle groups that isolation and quiet are no longer necessary. You can sit in a straight chair with both feet flat on the floor, place your hands in your lap, let your head loll forward, and relax muscle groups in rotation just as if you were in bed. Even when children are playing in the vicinity or dinner is cooking on a nearby stove, you will find that you can readily relax. After two or three 'go-rounds', lift one hand up to shoulder height and let it fall back into your lap like a limp dishrag. Do the same with the other hand. Then resume part-by-part relaxation, perhaps for two to three minutes. Such brief 'refresher slouches' will definitely help to keep tension from building up, of ten with startling effects on your disposition, level of contentment, and sexual responsiveness.
A few more weeks of practice will improve your ability to relax to the point where a set position and chair- or bed supported posture are no longer entirely necessary. Whenever you become conscious of muscular tension you will be able to relax it without interrupting your activities.
Reducing your risk for developing coronary heart disease
In order to increase your chances of success in reducing your risk for developing coronary heart disease, follow these tips:
1. Consult your physician.
2. Monitor your eating and activity behaviors.
3. Familiarize yourself with foods that contain small or large amounts of cholesterol, fats and sodium.
4. Follow the suggested food-group units for a diet of 1600 or 2000 calories, or calculate your own individual energy needs. The less active you are, the fewer calories you can afford to eat without gaining weight.
5. Study the sample menus that follow to assist you in designing your own diet. What is important is that you generally eat as suggested, paying more attention to the types of food you eat and the way the foods are prepared than to exact amounts. Of course, this does not mean you should eat more than suggested if you are trying to lose weight or if you find you are gaining undesired weight. Use your common sense in these matters.
1. Consult your physician.
2. Monitor your eating and activity behaviors.
3. Familiarize yourself with foods that contain small or large amounts of cholesterol, fats and sodium.
4. Follow the suggested food-group units for a diet of 1600 or 2000 calories, or calculate your own individual energy needs. The less active you are, the fewer calories you can afford to eat without gaining weight.
5. Study the sample menus that follow to assist you in designing your own diet. What is important is that you generally eat as suggested, paying more attention to the types of food you eat and the way the foods are prepared than to exact amounts. Of course, this does not mean you should eat more than suggested if you are trying to lose weight or if you find you are gaining undesired weight. Use your common sense in these matters.
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