Back To School Nutrition: Lunches and After School Snacks!

Welcome back to part II in our Back To School Nutrition series. Today we’ll be sharing with you some delicious, yet nutrient-rich lunch and after school snack ideas for the kids, and you!

September is finally here and this means long days for our children. To keep their energy levels up all day, improve academic performance and overall health, proper nutrition is the fastest and easiest way to achieve such important goals.

While there is a movement to improve school lunch fare, many schools still serve nutrient deficient processed meals filled with hormones, antibiotics and pesticides, lots of white stuff, preservatives, corn syrup, sugar and food dyes.

Here are some very easy, nutritious lunch and after school snack ideas for the entire week to help you and your kids get off to a healthy start.

Back To School Nutrition: Breakfast For All Day Energy!

September! In many ways it is a welcome month. Some much needed free time from the children, a return to good habits, and if you’re like me, you get a lot more work done once summer comes to an end.

Returning to school can also bring up a bit of concern. Kids today have a very long day. They eat breakfast early, go for hours until lunch and often five or more hours until after school activities end and they can grab a snack. This is not enough fuel for their growing bodies. While there is a movement to improve school lunch fare, many schools still serve nutrient deficient processed meals filled with hormones, antibiotics and pesticides, lots of white stuff, preservatives, corn syrup, sugar and food dyes.

Here are some easy, nutrient-rich ideas for breakfast and for snacking to keep energy up, blood-sugar balanced and the brain clear. On Thursday I’ll be featuring part II, lunches and after school snacks.

Back To School: Nutrient Filled SNACKS

I can’t believe it is September already. Many of you will be getting your children ready for school. When doing so we usually remember notebooks, shoes, fresh pencils and new backbpacks. Well September is also a great time to prepare yourself and your kids for health!

This month we are reinstating our commitment to ourselves and our families’ health. In my next post I’ll share some healthy lunch choices for you and your kids, and I’ll also share some great supplements that you can begin now, as preventative measures for a healthy winter. The snacks on this list are all organic, nutrient-rich, and taste delicious. They provide energy that will keep your blood sugar balanced and keep you from overeating when meal time finally rolls around.

Nutrition IS Preventative Medicine!

An article in the New York Times this month made me so happy, I jumped up and did a little Snoopy Dance!

This article was about how doctors are actually giving prescriptions to patients, to go to their local farmers markets and purchase fresh fruits and vegetables! This speaks volumes about how very important nutrition is to good health.

At VIB we believe very much in the skill and necessity of our doctors and modern medicine in general. However, once we learn about what it is that might be ailing us, nutrition and exercise can usually go a long way in helping to cure us. Hippocrates, the father of medicine said “Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food” Well that old adage still rings true today.

Not A Lot of DIET In The Diet Sodas

By now you have probably heard that diet drinks and foods aren’t healthy. However, in an effort to lose weight, or maintain your weight, many people are still consuming them.

At VIB we believe that once you know why something isn’t good for you it becomes easier to change that habit.

Most diet soda, nutrasweet, equal, and about 5000 other grocery store items, contain the artificial sweetener Aspartame.

What It Takes To Lose 1 lb. of Fat…

The number one question I am asked by clients is, how long will it take me to lose weight? It takes 3500 calories to lose one pound!

Here is the breakdown of food and exercise that is required to lose 1 lb. of fat:

My Last Year In My 40s! An Invitation To You ALL…

Saturday was my 49th birthday. My very last year as a quadragenarian. Technically, I have entered my 50th year. Many of us forget that our birthday is really a conclusion of that year, not the first day of it. A child’s first birthday is a celebration of that first year, zero to one.

So here I am in the beginning of my 50th year, and although Karen has been sharing about her upcoming 40th year, she is already in it. Shhhhhhhh, don’t tell her!

Karen and I would like to invite all of you…

Protein: What To Eat Before You Workout!

In order to lose the most amount of weight and boost metabolism, you must eat breakfast.

Lean protein helps build muscle, burn fat, helps your muscles recover, speed up the chemical reactions of the body and help support immunity, and actually burn more calories than eating only carbohydrates. Carbohydrates help replenish energy stores lost during the workout.

On Vacation… Summer Reading List!

Summer vacation time!

It’s been Summer since June, but now I get two weeks with my family. Vacations always remind me of reading. A chance to unplug! A huge challenge for us as a nation. With all of our electronics it’s hard to relax.

Wellness of the soul, through quieting the mind is very important. These devices change our vibration and they don’t allow us to truly just be in the moment. Reading is great for the soul, it transports us, helps us to relax, reduces stress, and studies have shown that it makes us happy. The other great thing about reading? When you’re holding a book with both hands, you won’t be mindlessly snacking. Reading – the new healthy diet aid!

Mad At Your Partner? This Will Help…

Yesterday the Sunday New York Times ran an article titled ‘Can Exercise Moderate Anger?’. Try to read it if you can, it’s quite interesting. We often cite the many benefits of exercising, and its release of the feel-good endorphins, well now it it has been studied, quite positively, to benefit anger.