Swine Flu - Avoid it by Boosting Your Immune System

The recent panic over swine flu is closing schools, canceling church services and scaring everyone. It appears that everybody who contracted Swine Flu in the United States has had a mild case and recovered quickly. However, nobody wants to get the flu. How to avoid getting the Swine Flu? By boosting your immune system which keeps you from ever contracting the virus in the first place.

To boost your immune system and avoid getting swine flu, you can follow simple health precautions, such as washing hands frequently and avoid touching your nose and mouth when you're out in public. You can also take certain supplements and eat certain foods to boost your immune system and avoid Swine Flu.

Boost Your Immune System with these Foods

• Green Tea -Avoid Swine flu by adding 4 cups of this antioxidant packed drink to your daily diet. Drink it hot or cold, with a little lemon juice. Vitamin C, when taken with green tea, boosts the absorption of the antioxidants by 20%.
• Garlic - Garlic is a terrific ingredient in your anti-Swine flu arsenal. Garlic is a natural antibiotic and anitviral. You ahve to eat it fresh and crushed or minced, to bring out the healthful properties. Add it to salsa, salad dressing or on a piece of buttered toast.
• Berries, especially blueberries, acai and gogi berries boost the immune system, but all kinds of berries contain antioxidants.
• Ginger - Ginger in all forms boosts the immune system.
• Honey is also an antiviral and boosts the immune system. Add to your tea instead of sugar.
Do an herbal detox regularly for health and wellness.

Supplements, Natural Herbs and Extracts to Help Boost the Immune System
Here are some supplements and herbal extracts you can take daily to keep your immune system in peak condition and avoid the Swine flu or other illness:

• Astragalus - herbal extract can be taken daily. Try it in an immune boosting smoothie.
• Ashwagandha - an herbal extract that helps the body handle stress and boosts the immune system.
• Vitamin C - I take a powder packet with 1,000 mg per day.
• Vitamin D - besides improving bone health, vitamin D also helps the immune system.
• Take a good multi-vitamin - preferably a whole food vitamin.
  

If you've been exposed to someone who is ill or you feel that first tickle of a sore throat, try these remedies immediately:

• Echinacea/goldenseal herbal extract - I prefer extracts as they hold potency better than pills which can sit on shelves for some time. Echinacea should only be taken about one week at a time or it lose its effectiveness.
• Elderberry extract - or elderberry juice is antiviral and helps to kill the virus before it takes hold. When taking elderberry extract, be sure to eat something with it as it can upset the stomach.
• Eat fresh, minced garlic.
• Add Cayenne pepper to some salsa and make it as hot as you can and eat some. According to Chinese Medicine this helps warm your body and kills germs.
• Add extra cranberry juice, green tea, acai berry or gogi berry juice to your daily routine.
• Drink some Holy Tea to flush toxins, viruses and bacteria from your system. Calli is very effective if you drink it every day as well.

If you get the Swine Flu or any kind of illness, try this recipe:

Warm lemonade

Boil one cup of water, squeeze in the juice of two lemons. Add honey to taste, plus 2 dashes of cayenne pepper. Drink this several times a day until your cold is gone or you have averted it.
Other Natural Immune Boosters to help you avoid Swine Flu:

• Get plenty of sleep to boost your immune system.
• Drink lots of water - This keeps the germs and toxins flushed from your body.
• Exercise - Keep your body in shape for peak immunity.

Boosting the immune system should be a way of life, not just during times of worry over illnesses like Swine Flu. Your immune system protects you from not only minor illnesses, but more serious illness and disease, like cancer and common ailments like allergies. A healthy immune system means you have more time to enjoy life and isn't that what we all want most?

Read more about adding superfoods to your daily diet to boost your immune system

Benefits of Taking a Yoga Class

I have to admit, it took me many years to get to a real yoga class. I'd done yoga intermittently with CD's or yoga TV shows, but just hadn't gone to a real live yoga class. About a month ago, I decided to jump into the class at the YMCA and now, one month later, I've already seen the benefits. Even though I haven't lost any weight in pounds, all my clothes are looser, my joints and muscles feel better and more toned and my balance has improved. All in just one month!

I'd been going to the Y for exercise classes of various sorts for nearly 2 years and although they have a yoga class, I guess I was afraid the students would be much more advanced than I was or that I couldn't keep up, now that I'm approaching "senior exercise" status. Once I walked into the class though, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was.

The yoga class I am going to is for all experience levels. The instructor starts out easy and then says, "if you feel comfortable here, you can add this....." I found there are several good things about taking a yoga class over watching a CD or a TV show.

1. Working with a yoga instructor is helpful for correcting mistakes you may be making without knowing it. With yoga alignment and balance are very important so it's best to learn it the proper way for the most benefit.

2. Being in a yoga class is inspiring. You see people around you doing these wonderfully impossible seeming stretches and think "That's what I want to be doing too!"

3. You try harder when you're in a class to improve. Although they say there's no comparisons made and you should only do what your body allows, you want to do well when you're in a group.

4. Committing to a yoga class keeps you motivated to continue. I don't like missing class, whereas it was easy to get busy during the day and realize I hadn't turned on my yoga CD. When you take a class, you can set aside that specific time and make an appointment with yourself to do something FOR yourself.

5. Taking a class forces you to be patient and get the most out of the poses and the meditation session at the end. When I do yoga on my own or with a CD, I tend not to hold the poses as long as we do in class. I get impatient to move on to the next thing when I'm on my own and often skipped the relaxation/meditation part at the end, just to save time. Class is one hour long and I rarely can do more than 20 minutes if I do yoga at home on my own.

6. Taking a class teaches you something new every week. If you use a yoga CD, it's just the same routine each time.

7. You take that relaxed feeling into the rest of your day.

8. You become more aware of your body throughout the day. Your posture straightens, you breathe deeper and more consciously relax your body, even outside of class.

Even after just one month, I definitely can feel the difference in my body. It just feels better. More balanced and centered. My clothes are looser on me, even though I haven't lost a pound. And I feel I'm eating better because my body feels better.

If you've never tried a yoga class, look for one near you at the local YMCA, yoga studio or community center. You'll be glad you did.

Find free yoga classes online.

Healthy Living Tips - Whole Foods Help You Age Well

If you think healthy aging depends on your genes, think again. A recent study in Britain showed that following 10 simple healthy living habits can increase your chance of aging well. On the list was to eat whole food nutrition, not supplements.

Your body needs certain nutrients to age well but since there are more than 200 different carotenoids and 200 different flavonoids in one tomato, it's more important to eat whole foods than to get your nutrition through supplements.

Read more about whole food nutrition and find out easy, economical ways to get your 5 to 9 servings of fruits and veggies daily.

Other tips on the list of healthy aging habits might not surprise you. Of course, exercise is one of the top health habits to help you age well. At least 30 minutes a day is what you need. Proper sleep, too, helps you age well. Check out the rest of these great healthy living tips.

10 Health Habits that will help you Live to be 100

Whole Food Nutrition - Get Superfoods in Your Diet Daily

The newest trend in nutritional supplements is whole food nutrition. You can get superfoods in your diet, like acai berry, noni fruit and chia seeds, plus flax seed, dozens of fruits and veggies and more in convenient and economical powder or supplements.

Instead of isolating different vitamins, like C or B, whole food supplements gives your body hundreds of micronutrients, antioxidants, phytonutrients and vitamins, all working together synergistically at the cellular level to give you optimal energy and health, slow the signs of aging and protect your body from diseases like cancer.

Finding economical whole food nutrition

Whole food supplements can be more expensive than other isolated vitamins, because they must be carefully processed to keep nutrients live and whole. However, when you measure the cost of whole food supplements against buying separate and artifically produced vitamins which you body may or may not absorb, whole food nutrition becomes very economical. And have you checked the cost of buying superfoods like acai berry and noni?

Does your Whole Food Nutritional supplement contain Superfoods?

I eat superfoods daily and I also use whole food supplements, which contain the acai berry, noni fruit and chia seeds, all in one product by Beach Body called Shakeology. Shakeology is like a salad in a glass and contains over 70 healthy nutrients derived from whole foods, including greens like wheat grass and wide range of natural-source enzymes, minerals and probiotic bacteria. Here is a small listing of the whole foods Shakeology contains:

Noni Fruit
Acai Berry
Goji Berry
Chia Seeds
Red and green grapes
Blueberries
Raspberries
wheat grass
spinach
broccoli
kale
kelp
beets
ginger

Shakeology also contains omega3 fatty acids and whole food nutrition of natural ingredients like flax seed, oat bran and chia seeds and probiotics.

Shakeology gives you all this whole food nutriton economically. Compare Shakeology to other brands for price. For instance, Garden of Life's Perfect Food retails for $78 for just 300 capsules. Juice Plus capsules are $40 a for 60, or a one month's supply.

Using the whole food nutrition and superfoods contained in Shakeology, you also save money because you don't have to buy other vitamin supplements.

Be a Shakeology customer or become a fitness coach and save 25% on the cost of Beach Body Products.


Learn More about becoming a Beach Body Fitness Coach.

However, if you'd just like to use the Shakeology meal plan, you can simply order and try it as a customer. See if you don't feel better.

Best Natural Energy Supplement I've Found

I wanted to increase my metabolism naturally and the best energy supplement I've tried is called Revive by Nuriche. I don't want any product with caffeine or other artificial metabolism boosters and Revive contains only natural energy boosting ingredients, plus whole foods - including different 30 berry and fruits and 30 vegetables in each serving of 3 capsules.

What makes Revive such the best energy supplement? The energy boosting ingredients are guarana seed extract, Cha de Bugre, Green Tea Extract, Caocao, Schizandera Berry Extract and Maca root, which are all natural and they really work.

One bottle of Revive contains 180 capsules, with a recommended daily dose of no more than 6 capsules. I just take 3 in the morning and feel great all day long.

My daughter is in a very strenuous architecture program in college, where she has to pull all nighters frequently (not that her mom is in favor of this!). She takes 3 Revive in the morning and 3 at lunchtime to get through her rigorous schedule so she agrees this is the best energy pill she's tried.

What I like about Revive is that I'm also getting whole nutrition and no artificial ingredients to boost my metabolism. Here are just a few natural ingredients in Revive. As you can see, many of these, like Acai berry and Goji Berry are new additions to the superfood list:

Noni Fruit
Acai Berry
Goji Berry
Chia Seeds
Grapes
Blueberries
wheat grass
spinach
kelp
beets
sweet potato
ginger

Plus omega3 containing natural ingredients like flax seed, oat bran and chia seeds and probiotics.

There are literally too many whole foods to mention. Imagine all the healthy nutrition you're getting with your natural energy supplement!

The newest trend in vitamins are whole food supplements. Instead of isolating certain vitamins and creating them artificially, you're getting all the nutrition of whole foods like brocoli, spirulina, brussel sprouts, quinoa sprouts and pumpkin seeds. We all need to eat from this list of foods, but are these really part of everyone's daily diet?

So although Revive does contain some natural energy boosters, they also contain metabolism boosting whole foods too. By getting healthy nutrition into our bodies, they can function at peak performance and we have energy all day long.

Nuriche also offers a whole food product called Live, which you can add to your daily smoothie to get the same whole food nutrition.

If you would like to try Revive, the best energy supplement I've found, visit this Nuriche website.

Making Healthy Food Choices - Are Gummy Fruit Snacks in Your Child's Diet?

You try to eat a healthy diet and you want to find healthy food for children too. Do you give your kids gummy fruit snacks, thinking a little fruit is better than none? How about baked potato chips instead of regular? Do you drink diet soda and eat light ice cream in a quest to eat healthier and lose weight? Your food choices may not be as healthy as you think.

Are Gummy Fruit Snacks Healthy Foods for Kids?

There are dozens of products these days, which contain added vitamins but what you need to look for is how much sugar is in them. Gummy snacks are loaded with sugar, such as high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oils, or trans fats. These are linked to obesity, heart disease, diabetes and more health problems.

Baked Potato Chips - Are they Better Than Regular chips?

Potato chips are empty calories. They are high in calories and contain no nutrition or fiber. Baked chips are a little lower in fat but they are still high in calories and contain no nutrition. Not a healthy food. Try popcorn as a side dish for your kids as a healthy option.

Is Diet Soda Good For You?

I gave up diet soda years ago in favor of green tea or regular tea. To me diet soda is nothing but a can full of chemicals. Recent studies confirm that drinking just one diet soda a day can give you what's called metabolic syndrome. Some of the symptoms of metabolic syndrome are belly fat and high risk of heart disease.

Both my sisters proved to be allergic to NutraSweet and had vision problems as a result of this. They thought they had macular degeneration. But when they quit drinking diet soda, the problems disappeared!

Drinking soda is just a habit. You can break it by finding something healthier to substitute. Try different kinds of iced tea or even water with a spritz of lemon or a sprig of mint.

Is Non Fat Salad Dressing a Healthy Choice?

I have to admit I've bought fat free salad dressings for my husband without even looking at the label. However, I discovered that the fat free versions contain more sugar, which he isn't supposed to have, being pre-disposed to high blood sugar.

Fat free salad dressings are still usually loaded with calories. Besides which, a heart-healthy oil, like olive oil or grapeseed oil, actually helps you absorb the vitamins in that salad.

Make your own salad dressing with olive oil, apple cider or red wine vinegar and a little seasoning. It's easy and saves you money too.

These are just a few healthy food choices you can make for your family. Check labels and look for hidden sugar, non-hydrogenated oils, chemicals and preservatives. The more fresh and whole your food is, (like eating almonds instead of chips), the healthier your diet will be.

Read this new book, Eat This, Not That to help you make healthier food choices for yourself and your family.

Eat This Not That! Supermarket Survival Guide: The No-Diet Weight Loss Solution

Help you kids eat healthy too!

Eat This Not That! for Kids!: Be the Leanest, Fittest Family on the Block!

Weight Loss Products - Check the Label for These UnSafe Ingredients

Are you taking a weightloss product or some type of diet pill? Summer is just around the corner and many of us would like to lose a few pounds for that swimsuit. If you're turning to some sort of diet pill, however, be aware the that Food and Drug Administration has warned agains more than 65 different weight loss pills that pose serious health risks to those who take them.

Be sure to check the label of your weight loss product for these harmful ingredients:

• sibutramine, which is a controlled substance
• rimonabant, which is not aproved by the FDA
• phenytoin, found in some antiseizure medications
• phenolphthalein, which is a laxative and a known cancer causing toxin.

Some products, such as Shen de Shou, StarCaps, Venom Hyperdrive 3.0, have already been recalled by the FDA.

Another hazard in weight loss products and diet pills: the combination of caffeine and bitter orange, which can cause dangerous spikes in blood pressure and heart rate. One of these products, Hydroxycut, has been linked to liver and kidney damage in otherwise healthy people who have taken it.

Check this FDA website for more information and the names of weight loss products containing harmful ingredients.

Unfortunately, diet pills and weight loss products usually only give a temporary fix for losing weight. The very best method of weightloss still involves a healthy lifestyle change of eating a nutrtional diet, cutting out empty calories and getting more exercise. A good healthy weight loss rate is about 2 lbs a week. If you begin now, by June, you will have lost about 16 lbs!

For tips on healthy weight loss, see these articles:

Path2HealthyLiving.com Healthy Weight loss tools

Try this easy healthy weight loss tip.

Where to Buy Ghee? Visit our Ghee Store on Amaxon

Would you like to know where to buy organic ghee butter? Maybe you're sold on the health benefits of ghee clarified butter but don't want to make your own. I can personally recommend a company called Pure Indian Foods which makes Grassfed Organic Ghee(available at our Ghee Store on Amazon) which sells a truly fresh and flavorful organic ghee which is available through Amazon.com. I just got my first jar a couple of days ago and I've used it to cook with and even eat straight from the jar!

Pure Indian Foods offers organic ghee, which is produced without artificial fertilizers or conventional pesticides. There are no food additives or ionizing radiation used in in producing this liquid gold organic ghee and the milk used to produce the ghee is from animals given no hormones or antibiotics. If you want to buy ghee for its health benefits, organic is very important.

Pure Indian Food's Ghee Comes From Grass Fed Cows

When it comes to quality organic milk, you want to find milk from grass fed beef, not grain fed. Grains often contain unwanted ingredients and grass fed beef also contains more nutrition such as Vitamin K, increased Vitamin C, more omega 3 fatty acids and CLA, a natural substance found in dairy products which, among other things, helps get rid of stubborn belly fat. CLA also gives the immune system a boost and helps lower cholesterol.

I'm sold on the exceptional quality and taste of the organic ghee from Pure Indian Foods. I love the sweet, buttery taste that feels like liquid amber in your mouth. I used it to cook stir fry and other dishes and it melts clear and added a delicate taste to my food. Ever since I got my ghee in the mail, I keep it sitting right on the counter to use on everything.

Pure Indian Foods ghee is also budget friendly. If you make your own ghee and you've checked the price of organic butter per pound, you'll find buying organic ghee from Pure Indian Foods saves you money.

Pure Indian Foods buys milk for their ghee from small dairies which promote harmony between land and animals. They work in a sustainable manner which is good for the environment so you can feel good about supporting their efforts and buying their products.

Find more ghee on Amazon.com

Nanak Pure Desi Ghee, Clarified Butter, 28-Ounce Jar

Odell's Chef's Butter, Clarified Butter, 10-Ounce Tubs (Pack of 3)

Make Your Own Ghee at Home with this easy recipe.

Healthy Living Tips - Healthy Food Shopping

It's easier to shop healthy these days as supermarkets cater more to those interested in healthy living. You can find healthy oils, like grapeseed and walnut oils for cooking, whole grains like couscous and whole grain breads and flours, and organic produce. Here are some other healthy food shopping tips.

Healthy food shopping in your dairy case:

• Healthy yogurts provide lots of immune boosting probiotics. Try brands like DanActive and Activia for an extra punch of probiotics.
  

• Greek yogurt is becoming more common in supermarkets and is rich in calcium but contains twice the protein of regular yogurt. It's smooth, creamy texture makes it a great idea for those who want to shop healthy.
• contains no added sugar or high-fructose corn syrup. Just add fresh fruit for nutrition and taste.
  

• Eggs received a bad rap for many years because of the cholesterol issue but recent studies find eggs a smart buy for healthy food shopping. One egg yolk contains 25% of your daily requirement of choline, a nutrient linked to lowered breast cancer rates. The antioxidants in eggs are also linked to lowering the risk of muscular degeneration and cataracts.
  

• Shop healthy with omega 3 fortified eggs. Omega 3 fatty acids are heart-healthy but it's hard to eat enough fish to get your daily requirement of 1,000 mg. Omega 3 fortified eggs are created by feeding chickens flax seed or some other omega 3 filled feed and each one contains up to 300 mg of this important nutrient.
  

• Organic milk is also easier to find now days for those who want to shop healthy. Organic milk contains more nutrients and CLA (which aids weight loss) than non-organic and you can find it in fat free and skimmed too.
  

• Trans fat free margarines should go on every healthy shopping list. New margarines also contain added plant stanols which naturally help reduce the LDL or "bad" cholesterol.
  

Shop Healthy at the Meat Counter

• If you eat beef, choose grain fed and organic, if possible. These options are becoming more available in supermarkets.
  

• Organic beef is from cattle raised with no antibiotics or hormones in their diets and whose diets were organic feed only.
  

• Grass fed beef - Grass is the natural diet of cattle, as opposed to being grain fed, and grass fed beef contains more nutrients, like Vitamin E and CLA, plus omega 3 fatty acids.

It's easier than every to shop healthy. Just check your labels to make sure you aren't getting any unwanted ingredients, like sugars and preservatives.

To help save money when you shop healthy, check out company websites for coupons. Here are some companies which have healthy products and offer online coupons:

Stonyfield Organic yogurts

Natural & Organic Food Coupons

Horizon Milk

Kashi - organic cereals

Healthy Restaurant - New Website Offers Instant Restaurant Healthy Menu Items

Eating a healthy diet and dining out aren't always incompatible. Did you ever wish you could check on the calories, fat and other nutritional information at a local restaurant so you could make healthier choices when dining out? A terrific new website called Good Food Near You automatically finds your location using GPS and then sends your IPhone or Blackberry the lowest calorie food item on the menu at 20 different restaurants closet to your location.

Don't have an IPhone or Blackberry? You can also access those healthy food items manually by putting in your zip code on any computer.

Just click on the "View Menu" link beneath each restaurant entry and you find the nutritional info on their menu items.

When I put in my zip code, I came up with 20 fast food places and restaurants within close proximity to me and the healthiest food choice on each of their menus. Boston Market has a Tortilla Soup with no toppings and Applebee's offers Grilled Shrimp Skewered Salad. Either of those sound delicious to me!

You can also check restaurant menu items by lowest fat, lowest calorie and lowest carb dishes.

If you want to know about healthy dining out choices, check out Good Food Near You before you head out the door or bring them up on your Iphone when you're looking for a healthy restaurant menu near you.