5 Mistakes Made at the Grocery Store When Trying to Eat Healthier

1) Shopping Without a List: Preparing a list keeps you focused on buying healthier, makes you less likely to impulse buy, and saves time.

2) Forgetting to Shop the Perimeters: The outside of the supermarket contains the main food groups needed to eat healthier. Shopping along the outside helps guarantee that you stock up on grains, fruits, veggies, dairy products, and proteins.

3) Skimping on Fruits and Vegetables: Fruits and vegetables are loaded with vitamins, minerals, water and fiber. Water helps make you feel fuller longer which helps with weight control.
Tip: The deeper and more vibrantly colored produce is packed with the most nutrients.

4) Missing Out on Whole Grains: February’s issue of the Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter notes that “consuming a diet rich in whole grains has been linked to reduced risks of chronic diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, obesity and some cancers.”

5) Ignoring Nutrition Label: Using labels helps us choose more nutritious foods by tracking calories, identifying ingredients and maximizing nutrients.
Tip: Pay attention to the serving size and calories per serving listed. A packed muffin may contain 300 calories on its label, but list its serving as half a muffin. That means that it actually has 600 calories a muffin (and who eats a half of a muffin?)
Extra Tip: Staying away from processed, packaged food is better all together!

Written by: Healing Anthropology

 

Women’s Heath Concerns and How Acupuncture Can Help

The biggest threats to women’s health are often preventable. Oriental medicine has always addressed the special needs of women throughout their lives and many health issues women face respond extremely well to acupuncture treatments. Taking small steps to improve your health can make a difference.

The top health concerns affecting women and how acupuncture can help are:

 

How To Read Labels: Easy Tips on Identifying Dangerous Ingredients in Personal Care Products

Better products are truthful in their marketing claims and free of potentially worrisome ingredients. Some products might make claims like “gentle” or “natural,” but since the government does not require safety testing, personal care product manufacturers can use almost any chemical they want, regardless of risks.

How to read a label

 

When Hot Tubs Aren’t Such a Hot Idea

Hot tubs can be great…relaxing, soothing, and sometimes romantic. If all a man cares about is sex, then a hot tub can be a perfect aphrodisiac and no harm done. But if he’s interested in having sex and fathering children, he’d be wise to go another route and skip the hot tub. How come? Because it turns out that heat and sperm are a bad mix.

Let’s back up a second for some basic anatomy here. Sperm are made in the testicles, which hang from the body in the scrotum. The reason for putting the family jewels in such a relatively precarious position is that the sperm-making Sertoli cells of the testicles don’t work right unless they are cooler than body temperature by a few degrees Fahrenheit. Warm them up for more than a few degrees and for more than a few minutes and sperm production is temporarily shut down.

Normally, the testicles maintain a relatively constant temperature by raising or lowering closer to, or farther from, the body. The scrotum is lined with temperature-sensitive muscles. In warm conditions the muscles relax and let the testicles hang far from the body whereas cold temperatures (particularly cold water) make the scrotum contract, pulling the testicles tight against the body for added warmth.

But soaking in a hot tub makes it impossible for the testicles to remain cool. As relaxing as it may feel, it’s not a happy experience for the testicles. Sperm formation slows or halts, and sperm that have already been made may be harmed, all of which can lower the chances the man can conceive a child.  The same thing, by the way, happens if a guy has a high fever…sperm production will be temporarily interrupted.

This impact on fertility also happens if a man has a high fever, which is why guys going to get a sperm count are told to wait for up to 3 months if they’ve had any kind of cold, flu, or infection.

Bottom line? A hot tub every once in awhile isn’t a big deal, but if you’re having a hard time getting pregnant, avoid romantic interludes in hot water.

By Harry Fisch, MD

 

ilumina and social media

Keep in touch with the newest information on infertility, organic products, healthy eating, the clinic, our therapies and what the ilumina practitioners are up to with our social media sites.

If you have not done so already please follow us on twitter (iluminahealing) as well as friend and like us on Facebook. We also have an e-newsletter that you can sign up through our website.

 

Are You Wheels Spinning?

Each of us possesses an intellectual mind, a physical body and an unlimited spirit. But we’re more than that. We also have an emotional body and an energy system. Our energy systems are powerfully affected by our thoughts, feelings, actions and environment. When we tune into them, they can guide us toward a deeper connection with ourselves and the world around us.

According to Eastern medicine, good health is maintained by the flow of energy and ill health is the result of energy stagnation. Good health includes a strong body, a quiet mind, balanced emotions and a joyous spirit. One of the keys to understanding our energy systems is to learn about the chakras.

 

Natural Approaches to Low Libido

Loss of libido effects both men and women and at ilumina Healing Sanctuary we start with the natural approach. Specializing in infertility we often hear about couples struggling during the ovulation stage of the women’s menstrual cycle as sex can become more of a chore than a pleasure. That combined with hormonal changes and a general increase in stress the libido can really suffer.

 

The Beginning of the End of Petroleum-based Plastics! Thanks Pepsi, now just get rid of the corn syrup!

PepsiCo Inc. unveiled a new bottle Tuesday made entirely of plant material that it says bests the technology of competitor Coca-Cola and reduces bottles’ carbon footprint. The bottle is made from switch grass, pine bark, corn husks and other materials. Ultimately, Pepsi plans to also use orange peels, oat hulls, potato scraps and other leftovers from its food business.

The new bottle looks, feels and protects the drink inside exactly the same as its current bottles, said Rocco Papalia, senior vice president of advanced research at PepsiCo. “It’s a beautiful thing to behold,” he said. “It’s indistinguishable.”

 

Your skin reflects the stresses in our life…or not?

March Theme at ilumina: Skin Care

Each month we will have a different theme to do with your wellness. This way we can share some important education on that subject along with some inspiration and specials.

This month is all about our skin and the importance of taking good care of it. We all know that our skin often reflects the stress from our lives, but with the right treatments and products it doesn’t have to. We found two great articles that share great information about Facial Rejuvenation Acupuncture, which is a new service we now offer. This service has often been named “the holistic alternative to injections”. This article shares the benefits of the service, and this article from The New York Times explains how it has become heavily in demand.

 

Guys: Butt Out!

It’s not the first time we’ve advised men (and women) who want to become parents that they need to stop smoking immediately, and it won’t be the last. Now another new study adds to the already compelling body of damning evidence showing that smoking harms fertility.