Top Ten Tips for Your Best Mind & Body this year!

Here are some of Top Ten Tips for Your Best Mind & Body this year! Dr Jill’s favorite health & weight loss tips to get you in the best shape for 2012~

1. Break the Sugar Habit
The average American is sugar-logged, consuming more than 140 pounds of added caloric sweeteners per year, according to the United States Department of Agriculture — that’s a 20 percent increase since 1970. .   No question…Sugar’s abundance is jeopardizing our health.  Bringing your body and mind back into a balanced relationship with sugar can help you maintain a healthy weight, reduce your risk of illness, boost your energy, and even out your mood.  By stemming the deluge of added sugars that usually overwhelm your taste buds, you’ll awaken your palate, allowing naturally sweet flavors to come alive.

2.  Eat the Right FoodsA healthy diet might be the most important tool you have for balancing your metabolism.
Here’s what you need.
Fiber
The indigestible parts of fruits, nuts, whole grains, and vegetables sweep toxins from your body and slow the speed at which your body absorbs sugars from food. Both functions have a huge impact on your metabolism. The federal government recommends 25 grams of fiber a day for women and 38 grams a day for men. Foods like vegetables, beans, whole grains, and some fruits, especially berries, deliver fiber.
Healthy Fats 
Omega-3 fatty acids improve the metabolic function of every cell in your body, primarily by reducing inflammation. Increase your intake of fish, walnuts, and ground flaxseed while limiting your intake of pro-inflammatory omega-6-rich foods, like heavily processed foods as well as corn, soy, safflower, sunflower, and vegetable oils. Monounsaturated oils such as olive oil also have anti-inflammatory properties; make it your main cooking oil.
Fruits, Vegetables, and Spices
Their phytonutrients — carotenoids in carrots, curcumin in turmeric, anthocyanins in berries — help “turn on” your body’s metabolism at the cellular level and regulate hormones that help control appetite. These foods also contain high levels of antioxidants, which reduce inflammation. Center every meal or snack on fruits or vegetables — totaling at least five to nine servings a day — and use spices such as turmeric, cinnamon, and garlic liberally.
Friendly Foods
Pay close attention to foods that lead to bloating or other unpleasant symptoms. You probably know if you’re truly allergic to a food, but it’s possible to be intolerant and not realize it. Undetected intolerances can contribute to inflammation and hypothyroidism — both of which spell trouble for metabolism.  Two of the most common food sensitivities are to gluten — a protein present in foods like wheat, rye, oats, barley, spelt, and kamut — and dairy.

3.  Light your Metabolic Fire – Exercise!When it comes to metabolism, the value of exercise goes beyond the amount of calories you burn. Resistance training builds muscle, and regular, sustained movement supports your thyroid, lowers inflammation, and improves the rate at which insulin can move blood sugar into your cells — so there’s more available as fuel and less sugar circulating in the blood to be turned into fat.

4.  Detox Your Body – Sweat!Pesticides, chemicals from manufacturing, and metals such as mercury and lead from air, water, and food circulate in the blood and wind up in body fat. In the blood, these toxins sabotage the body’s main metabolic regulator — the thyroid gland. (Another toxin accumulator might surprise you: rapid weight loss. When you burn fat, the toxins it stores enter the bloodstream.)

The solution is sweat! Your body excretes toxins and waste in perspiration. Not sweating is like not going to the bathroom.  Regular exercise should make you sweat, but so will saunas and hot baths. Losing weight gradually — not crash dieting — will also help prevent your bloodstream from becoming a toxic dump.

5.  Oxygenate Your Body – Breath!Living on a flat line of high tension does incredible damage to your health.   Cortisol, the hormone your body produces when you’re stressed, increases your appetite and promotes inflammation, reducing the body’s sensitivity to metabolic hormones.  To reduce cortisol levels and normalize your metabolism, you must relax.  Relaxing can also be as simple as slowing down long enough to be conscious of your breath for a few minutes each day.   Prayer & meditation are also highly effective.

6. Watch Your Serving Size & Use Smaller Dishes
Instead of serving food “family style”,  portion out servings directly from the stove onto your plate.   To regulate the amount you eat, use a bowl that fits inside your two cupped hands and sip water before deciding if you want an additional helping.  You may want to try eating with chopsticks or holding your fork in your non-dominant hand. Anything that slows down your eating and makes you think consciously about each bite can help you avoid overeating.

7. Change Your Plate Landscape
Since we tend to load up on calorie-rich starches, changing the landscape of your plate can help you rein in portions. Aim to fill half your dish with vegetables, a quarter with whole grains, and a quarter with healthy lean protein.

8. Boost Your Calorie Burn