9 Power Foods That Boost Immunity

You're washing your hands, using Purell like crazy, and sneezing into your shirtsleeves. Now add these superfoods to your family's meals for extra flu-fighting punch.

By Amanda MacMillan and Tamara Schryver, RD
Foods that Fight Illness
1. Yogurt
2. Oats and Barley
3. Garlic
4. Fish
5. Chicken Soup
6. Tea
7. Beef
8. Sweet Potatoes
9. Mushrooms

Great Fiber "Rich" lunch recipe

So, as you might already know...I'm very much INTO fiber these days. Here's a great fiber-full lunch:

• Cook up a Healthy Choice Mediterranean-Pasta
• 12g fiber
• Wrap everything up in a Don Pancho high fiber wrap
• 6-7g fiber

Wow! Tastes like a Thanksgiving feast (I think because of the cranberries) and you get about 19 grams of dietary fiber!!

Health Benefits of Sesame Seeds

This is cool...I did not know how awesome the sesame seed was:

Not only are sesame seeds a very good source of manganese and copper, but they are also a good source of calcium, magnesium, iron, phosphorus, vitamin B1, zinc and dietary fiber. In addition to these important nutrients, sesame seeds contain two unique substances: sesamin and sesamolin. Both of these substances belong to a group of special beneficial fibers calledlignans, and have been shown to have a cholesterol-lowering effect in humans, and to prevent high blood pressure and increase vitamin E supplies in animals. Sesamin has also been found to protect the liver from oxidative damage.

I learned this from "The World's Healthiest Foods"

BuckyBalls are cool!

Check out this link to view a video of them in action and buy some for yourself:

BuckyBalls @ RedRocket Hobbies

Obama's pardon of the turkey was awesome!

"...cause I was gonna eat that sucker..." :D

Cool gadgets, Fun video!

This is cool...

Know something or someone who's DUMB?

Buy a T-Shirt or Mug to express yourself:

www.CafePress.com/IzDum

Dr. Oz, Fiber Wraps, and Google

Hey, this is cool...

Dr. Oz talked about fiber and cholesterol the other day and interested folks started Google'ing "Dr. Oz "Fiber Wraps"" and my blog comes up as a top link :)

Here's another fiber tip: POPCORN

Popcorn is made from a seed, which is actually a whole grain. Therefore when popped, it's considered to contain as much fiber as other grainy treats.

I like to sprinkle Nutritional Yeast over my popcorn...I eat popcorn almost every night.

See, TEN Reasons Why You Should Eat Popcorn

Lessons learned from the Mandala

Work every day with these concepts in mind:

– Right belief, Right resolution, Right speech, Right action, Right living, Right effort, Right thinking

And…

– Be indestructible (the diamond)

– Be open to wisdom

– Be effective

Google Mandala to learn more...

H1N1 Vaccine?

We're either gonna:

• Feel stupid for getting the vaccination...
• Or, feel stupid for not getting it...

Saw The Killers last night, Woo Hoo

I'll admit that my MAWG kinda made me go...but, it was pretty cool. I highly recommend seeing The Killers in concert...take ear protection though :) they're very LOUD!

Here's some video of "Smile Like You Mean It"...My life song.

I couldn't afford a T-Shirt too, but if I could've bought one...it would have been the one that looked like this:

These guys were the band before The Killers took stage:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariachi_El_Bronx

These guys were awesome too. Preview some of their songs on Amazon

My cholesterol is going down...Naturally!!!

OK...here are the results of my last 3 months of eating right and getting regular exercise:

	Initial Test Results	Current Results
Cholesterol	276mg	222mg
HDL	45mg	43mg
Triglycerides	192mg	131mg
LDL	193mg	153mg
Chol HDL Ratio	6.1	5.2

!! Y E S !!

Now, I need to figure out how to raise that HDL -- Very tricky this good/bad cholesterol thing.

My 2nd cholesterol check is today...

It's been about 3 months since the 1st check and finding out it was high. My Dr. gave me the time to see if I could lower it on my own without drugs.

Hopefully I have :)

If this is your first time here, read below for some of my meal plans that have been helpful to me for obtaining my cholesterol and weight lowering goals.

Still losing weight!

It's been a few more weeks since my last post. Still eating the healthy and fiber rich food described earlier...and still doing my walking.

I was 178 lbs the other day...that's 22 lbs lost since the beginning of June, 2 lbs over my goal :)