Tag: Fitness

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5 Tips For Building Healthy, Happy Children

We have the power to determine how healthy we are by the choices we make with our bodies. Our bodies are equipped with an incredible ability to go towards health when they’re supplied with the right building materials. For optimal health, children should eat right, move more, and enjoy life to the fullest (which happens to be the same advice for us adults).

The idea behind these five daily strategies are to build healthier kids, because as we know healthier kids are happier kids, and happier kids are more successful. Continue reading “5 Tips For Building Healthy, Happy Children”

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6 Tips For Establishing a Health Routine

healthy routine

The key to maintaining optimal health is follow through. Start with something small like stretching each morning. And then follow through. If you succeed at an easy one, it will actually strengthen your willpower, thereby improving your ability to succeed at the next, more difficult one.

Once you have a series of successes under your belt, you will be better able to tackle the really tough ones, like changing your diet or working out. Here are 6 tips to get you started on creating a health routine that works for you:

1. Make a List, Check It Twice. List making is a good organizational strategy. Make a list as part of your daily health routine the night before. When you make a list of the things you’ll do the next day, such as going to the gym, attending that meeting, picking up vegetables for dinner in the evening, you’ll be clear about at least 80 percent of your day. Knowing what to expect can help you hit the ground running when the sun comes up.

2. Do The Most Important Thing First. Early in the morning (after your coffee of course), you’re likely to have the most energy, and the fewest distractions. Start your day by focusing without interruption on the most important or challenging task you can accomplish that day.

3. Set Goals and Limits. If goals are excessively restrictive or vague, you will be less likely to rise to the challenge. Establish clear nutrition and health goals (dessert two times a week; a half-hour walk five times a week, etc.). Consistency is key to success with anything in life but especially when it comes to your health. Keep track of the foods you eat each day for free with My Fitness Pal.

4. Stick to Your Plan. It’s important to have a habitual routine – and to follow through with it – so you can streamline your schedule. Do the same things in the same order at the same time each day. Try out a routine for a few days to see what works best for you. Keep up with your workouts and chiropractic adjustments, and develop a consistent routine for healthy eating. Once you experience how great your body is designed to feel and function – you will feel sluggish and unsettled if you start missing your adjustments, workouts or eating unhealthy – which in itself is a strong incentive to get back on track.

5. Focus Your Positive Energy. One great way to start your new morning routine is by taking a few quiet moments after you wake up to focus your positive energy for the day. You can achieve this through meditation, thinking positive thoughts, doing affirmations, or practicing visualization exercises. Studies have shown that regular meditation may lower blood pressure, boost the immune system, and help relieve stress and fatigue.

6. Stop worrying. “The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.” You can’t fully appreciate today if you worry too much about tomorrow. Realize that tomorrow is going to happen whether you worry about it or not. And since worry has never accomplished anything for anybody, redirect your mental energy elsewhere.

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Weekly Health Roundup

veggies fruit

Welcome to True Health Family Chiropractic’s Weekly Health Roundup, where we’ll take a look at what’s making news in the world of health.

Research of the Week

Sugar is toxic. According to a new study, obesity doesn’t cause diabetes: sugar does. The study demonstrates this with the same level of confidence that linked cigarettes and lung cancer in the 1960s.

Interesting Articles

With spring coming soon (hopefully!), the NY Times explores the benefits of exercising outdoors. In virtually all of the studies, participants reported enjoying the outside activity more and, on subsequent psychological tests, scored significantly higher on measures of vitality, enthusiasm, pleasure and self-esteem and lower on tension, depression and fatigue after they walked outside. Bottom line – get outside when you can – there are benefits to exercising outdoors that can’t be replicated on a treadmill, a recumbent bicycle or a track.

Food for Thought

This chart (The Shelf Life of Food) does a great job at listing some common foods and how long they’ll stay fresh and safe to eat based on different storage methods (along with a few that you might be tempted to freeze but really shouldn’t).

Blog Posts Worth Reading

What most people don’t know about chiropractic care… This article explores the connection between your spine and your digestion. Nerves from many regions of the spine have a definite digestion connection.  The consequences of disturbing these spinal nerves are not necessarily limited to spinal pain, but can potentially involve any function affected by these nerves, including digestion.

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What is True Health?

Have you ever thought about what True Health means to you and your family? What is your definition of True Health? Dorland’s Medical Dictionary states that True Health is a state of optimal physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease. In other words, health is not limited to how you feel, but rather refers to your level of function and performance as a whole individual.

In simple terms, the premise of chiropractic is that, if the body’s frame is in alignment, then the nervous system – the brain, spinal cord and the millions of nerves extending throughout the body – can function at its best. And the nervous system, medical science now readily admits, is the master controller of all other bodily organs and systems. Having known that since 1895, chiropractors have always had a holistic approach to health care.

As Peter Senge, the leading exponent of systems thinking, says about the “crisis state” of today’s health care: “The need in health care is very simple. We need to think about health. Health is a systemic phenomenon. What makes you or me healthy is not just what diseases pop up. We need to think about the totality of health – how we live, how we work, what we eat, it’s our exercise – the totality of how we live.”

Chiropractic care views all areas of life as equal contributors to promoting or detracting from optimal health. So, we incorporate practical help and education about “how we live, how we work, what we eat” and how we exercise. Spinal alignment coupled with a healthy lifestyle means that body is the best it can be to throw off potential illness. That’s prevention, pure and simple. But that optimum condition of the body also means the best chance for optimum development – in the mental, emotional, social and spiritual aspects of our lives. The chiropractic perspective even heightens a person’s awareness of the critical importance of environmental health because if the environment is sick – we will be too.

In short, chiropractic offers the systemic, holistic, broad-view approach that facilitates getting better, staying well and realizing one’s full potential in life. Now that’s True Health.

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Fall into Better Health

Fall is my favorite season of the year, for many reasons (one being all things pumpkin). However, our health tends to be put on the back burner when the colder weather begins; combine that with the stress that the upcoming holidays can bring and we have a recipe for disaster. With that in mind, here are 6 ways to stay motivated and maintain your health routine this fall.

  • Set Goals and Limits – If goals are excessively restrictive or vague, you will be less likely to rise to the challenge. Establish clear nutrition and health goals (dessert two times a week; a half-hour walk five times a week, etc.). Consistency is key to success with anything in life but especially when it comes to your health.
  • Your Daily Game Plan – Make your daily routine habitual and try to keep things at the same time each day. Keep up with your workouts and chiropractic adjustments, and develop a consistent routine for healthy eating. Once you experience how great your body is designed to feel and function – you will feel sluggish and unsettled if you start missing your adjustments, workouts or eating unhealthy – which in itself is a strong incentive to get back on track.
  • Fall Superfoods – Eating seasonal fruits and veggies ensures your produce will be less expensive, more nutritious & definitely taste better – which in turn means you’ll be likely to eat more of these healthy foods. Summer may be ending, but with fall superfoods like pumpkins, apples and Brussels sprouts ripening now, eating in season can be just as healthy now.
  • Boost Your Immune System – Unfortunately for some, back to school time can also mean getting sick time. To help avoid that this fall, be sure to follow these simple tips: limit your sugar intake, eat simply and nutritiously, get regular adjustments, and boost up your supplements.
  • Stay Hydrated – This is an easy one to follow in the summer, but come fall, you may not feel as parched. However, staying hydrated is still crucial to keeping your body running at its best.
  • Keep Moving in the Cold – You don’t have to go outside to move more throughout the work day. Try fashioning a DIY standing desk or workstation, take meetings on the go or simply do a few laps around the office when you can as the weather cools.