Category: Healthy Tips

Benefits of Magnesium

Benefits of Magnesium

Benefits of Magnesium

If you’re experiencing stress and aches and pains – magnesium just might be the mineral you are looking for.  Not only does magnesium offer many health benefits, you can utilize it in many ways.  Magnesium is found in many delicious foods, you can soak in epsom salt baths, or you can take supplements.

Benefits of Magnesium

  •  Magnesium helps with calcium absorption and Vitamin D absorption
  • Reduces the risk of diabetes
  • Helps with the health of muscles and nervous system
  • Reduces PMS symptoms

Symptoms of Magnesium Deficiency

  •  Achy muscles
  • Anxiety
  • Fatigue
  • Sleep disorders
  • Irritability
  • Insomnia
  • Low blood pressure

Eat It

There are many foods to incorporate into your diet to increase your magnesium.

  • Dark chocolate
  • Dark leafy greens
  • Nuts
  • Seeds
  • Fish
  • Bananas
  • Beans
  • Yogurt

Soak In It

Soaking in epsom salts is a great option to draw toxins out of the body, soothe the nervous system, reduce muscle aches and pain from magnesium deficiency or exercise, and reduce stress.  Have fun with it!  Add essential oils for more benefits or for aroma.

Supplement With It

Of course, there’s always the option to take a daily magnesium supplement.  Speak with your doctor about the appropriate dosage for you.

 

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My Second Week Giving Up Sugar

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After two weeks of drastically reducing my sugar intake – I feel awesome!  I didn’t lose as much weight this week, but I’ve lost 2 inches around my waist!  My clothes feel better, I don’t feel swollen, my energy feels even and I feel free.   I wasn’t exercising the last two weeks as I wanted to just focus on what I was eating.  However, I decided to start adding exercise back in as I’m starting my third week.

It was very freeing when I started my workout today.  Usually, I begin my workout thinking I need to exercise as much as 90 minutes so I can burn off the junk I ate that day.  But today, I was able to get onto the treadmill and set a goal of rotating walking and running every five minutes for thirty-five minutes and feel a huge accomplishment.

I was aware there are sugars hiding in nearly everything I eat, but had focused my first two weeks on avoiding pop, juices, and sugary treats.  I’ve decided to start tracking all sugar I’m eating this third week.  I researched the amount of sugar grams I should consume per day.  I have found the American Heart Association has 25-30 grams as the maximum recommended sugar intake.  I’ve decided to stay below this daily amount.  I’ve also set a daily amount of calories I am allowed to eat.  I believe between this plan and exercising five times per week, I will see an average of a 2 lb. weight loss.  I will use MyFitnessPal to track my calories and sugar.  It is a free app.  I especially like clicking on complete entry and seeing my expected weight after five weeks of eating similar to that day.

Are you reducing your sugar in your diet?  Share your story with us.

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My First Week Without Sugar

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Struggling with fatigue, weight gain, and a horrible addiction to pop, I decided to give up sugar just to see.  I figured I had nothing to lose except maybe the nice large pop belly I’d been carrying around.  I had successfully stopped drinking Coca-Cola three years before, but ultimately just replaced it with coffee smothered in creamer and other sugary drinks and eventually I started to drink a different pop every day.  Completely frustrated, I decided I needed to go cold turkey and cut out sugar and sugary treats out of my diet all together.

Let me start by telling you I didn’t completely cut out all sugar.  And I was okay with that for now.  I was drinking 40 ounces of pop per day.  That is the equivalent of nearly 600 calories per day or 4,200 calories per week.  With a pound equivalent to 3,500 calories, I was consuming the equivalent of over 1 lb. per week in pop.  Eliminating pop would make a huge difference.  But as I already explained, I tended to replace it with other sugary drinks so I decided to give up all sugary drinks and sugary snacks.   I didn’t want to sneak in the sugar.

I started with replacing my morning coffee and creamer (I’d use about 4 tbsp. = 20 g sugar) with chai tea and milk – and sometimes I sprinkled it with cinnamon.  For me, this was a very close replacement and had this 1-2 x’s per day.  I replaced my pop with ice cold water with a splash of lemon juice.

I made sure I had snacks to help me through the day.  I had a granola bar (this had 7g of sugar),yogurt (this had 24 g of sugar! I will be cutting this out soon) apples with peanut butter, chips with artichoke dip, and cashews for snacks throughout the week.   Yes, some of the snacks had sugar, but I already had them and wanted to start out slow.

With a lot of determination, I made it through the first week.  I lost 3 lbs. and do feel a lot better.  I have to admit there were a few days of fatigue as my body adjusted to this new diet.  I also noticed if I started to crave a pop or sugary snack and I ate something healthy, it did take care of the craving.  I also noticed I wasn’t hungry as often.  Before, I was snacking nearly non-stop, but now that I wasn’t eating sugar I started to notice true hunger.

Today, I decided to try Vitamin Water Zero as my doctor indicated Stevia was the only sweetener she would recommend as it was natural.  Oddly, it tastes okay, but I’m not liking the sweetness after only a week of reducing my sugar.  I look forward to another week!

Days reducing sugar – 7

Pounds lost – 3

 

Have you cut sugar out of your diet?  Please share your story with us and email to contact@bodyworkatlernativesblog.com We’d love to share your story on our blog.

 

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Best Sleep Position

We are often asked by our clients the best position for sleep.  We found an article written by Jonathan FitzGordon, In this article, the author explains the best positions for sleep.

best sleep position to avoid back pain chronic pain onsite chair massage

 

  1. Sleeping on your stomach is the worst sleeping position.  It compresses the back.
  2. On the side with one leg hiked higher than the other.  This is also not an ideal sleeping position.  It twists and torques the pelvis.
  3. Sleeping on the back with both legs straight and without a pillow is a good sleeping position.
  4. Sleeping on your side with hips stacked is also a great sleeping position.

There you have it if you are looking for the best sleeping position – choose on your back or side sleeping with hips stacked.

 

 

Meal Organizing: Prepping Soups

Who is craving warm bowls of soup, but find the time it takes to make not ideal for an evening after work?  Not only that, but who else buys the vegetables for soup but finds them rotting in the refrigerator by time you get around to making it? Well, our soup prepping tips may save you time and veggies.  The next time you go shopping, plan a little time later that day or one of the next evenings to chop and prep soup.  In this post, we share prepping for two soups Red Pepper Soup and Chicken Noodle Soup.

Red Pepper Soup

One of our favorite soups is the Red Pepper Soup.  To make it easier to whip up this soup, we chop and freeze the vegetables ahead of time.  For this soup, we need red peppers, a yellow pepper, celery and onion. Meal_Planning_Meal_preparation_red_pepper_soup_recipe We’ve chopped the first batch of vegetables and are ready to bag.  It does take some time to chop up the vegetables, I chose to sit at the kitchen table with a large bowl next to me to capture all the stems, seeds, etc. to throw away after. Meal-planning-tips-meal-organization-red-pepper-soup-recipe-chopped   By chopping these vegetables ahead of time, we are able to pull the bags out of the freezer and place into the refrigerator the day before we make the soup.  There are two batches of soup below.  We plan on making both in one large batch of soup.

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Chicken Noodle Soup

Chicken noodle soup is a must to have on hand whether it’s for a cold day or someone’s sick – you never know when you will need to whip up a batch!  Chopping and freezing the vegetables ahead of time, makes whipping up a batch of soup a breeze! We chopped up carrots, celery and onions ahead of time. meal-preparation-meal-planning-tips-chicken-noodle-soup-recipe   Just add chicken, broth and seasonings for a quick homemade batch of chicken noodle soup.

 

Other posts you may like:

Get Control Of Meal Planning By Prepping Ahead

Spicy Tomato and Cilantro Soup

Make Ahead Salad Recipe

Spinach and Avocado Salad