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Category: Wellness / Nutrition

As we get older, this can lead to memory loss, trouble with problem-solving, and having trouble understanding. But don’t worry! There are many ways to keep your brain healthy as you age. Try these brain-boosting acts each day to keep your brain healthy and strong.

  1. Read. Try a book, magazine, newspaper or blog! Reading is one of the best things to do for your brain. You will learn new words and make your reading skills better. Try joining a book club to learn from others and meet new friends.
  2. Take a break from TV. Most American adults watch 35 hours of TV a week. That’s not good for your brain! Lower your TV time and do brain-boosting acts instead. Try a puzzle to make your problem-solving skills better
  3. Workout. It makes you better at learning and helps you focus. Working out also makes new brain cells which keeps your brain healthier for longer. The more you move the better! Workout 5 days a week for at least 30 minutes each day.
  4. Eat well. The food you eat has a strong impact on your brain and your mood. Eat fruits and veggies each day to support a healthy brain.
  5. Lower stress. Stress can make it hard to think clearly. Help your brain rest and recharge. Try simple breathing exercises and sleeping 7-8 hours each night.
  6. Branch out and learn something new each day. Spend time with people who have different interests and hobbies than you. Learn new ideas and talk about new topics. It can be a fun fact, a new recipe, or a new language. Learning can help you see things in new ways and keep your mind strong as you age!

 

To learn more about wellness, talk to the Wellness Department at Community Healthcare Network at (212) 432-8494 or [email protected].

By Ashley Koff RD, CEO, The Better Nutrition Program

www.ashleykoffapproved.com

Trick or treat?! This Halloween learn these tricks to enjoy your treats and still get the lasting benefits of better nutrition.

Halloween happens, but chemistry projects shouldn’t. Trans fats, artificial (fake) flavors, fake colors like Red 40, and artificial sweeteners like aspartame, offer only “tricks” to your body. Try to stay away from these “tricks” in your “treats”. Check out these tips to sort your candy and sweets:

  • Free-dumb. Food and drink products often tell us what they are free of like sugar free, fat free, trans fat-free, gluten-free. But these labels don’t say anything about what they are full of. When it comes to candy, check out the label to see what it is full of. Take time to read your candy’s food label.
  • Fat-free candy is usually a sugar bomb in a costume! For example, one serving of Fat-Free Jelly Beans is 35 pieces and contains 0% fat and 28 grams of sugar. One teaspoon of sugar is about 4 grams. That means that a single serving of Fat-Free Jelly Beans has over 6 teaspoons of added sugar. The American Heart Association recommends that you eat no more than 6 teaspoons of added sugar a day. So if you eat a treat full of sugar, focus on the amount you eat and how often you eat it to avoid getting too much at one time.
  • View portion size as a good thing, not a bad thing. Portion control is a chance to enjoy the treats you love. Paying attention to portion size means focusing on how much you actually eat, not what is listed as a serving size on a label. The serving size can help guide you but it’s only a recommendation. You may want to eat half or you may want to eat two times the amount. Use the food label to calculate the treats you eat. For example, if the treat you choose is a baked good or a piece of candy, make sure to balance it out with all the other treats you eat that day and the portion size is within reason, so you don’t over eat that day.
  • Colorful candy is usually a chemistry lab project in disguise. Chemical colors don’t belong anywhere and certainly not in any trick or treater’s body. When buying and eating treats, choose colors made from nature’s ingredients.
  • Dress up like a science experiment – don’t be one! Some foods have GMOs (genetically modified organisms). Genetically modified foods are not found in nature. What’s scarier than a Haunted House? Eating foods that have GMO corn or sugar – and that its effects may last longer than a quick jump or scream. Choose organic candy or at least look for Non-GMO project verified products.

 

Keep this guide in mind while you enjoy treats, not tricks. And remember, sweet foods aren’t the only item you can treat yourself to. You can treat yourself to a new yoga class, art materials, shoes, or a show with a friend. What are your favorite treats? How will you enjoy your treats this Halloween?

Best,

Ashley Koff, RD

Email Ashley to get her free Better Nutrition Guide at [email protected]

@ashleykoff     @ashleykoffapp    @ashleykoffapproved

If you need some quick and healthy cooking inspiration, try clicking on our Home Stylin’ Recipes video playlist on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnEoPvby-DSfahDox5bspca0lAcYnNa6p

We have cooking videos in both English and Spanish showing how to make Salt-Free Adobo Seasoning, how to steam, sauté, and roast vegetables, how to Bake Chickpeas for a healthy snack option, Quinoa Stuffed Peppers, and many more. Leave us a message in the comments for more cooking videos you would like to see in the future!

As you get older, it is important to change up your exercise routine. Making these changes will help you stay safe, healthy, and active. Support your body’s strength and stay healthy with these tips to change the way you exercise in each stage of your life.

  • Ages 20–29: Build your base. Now is the best time to make fitness part of your routine. Exercising helps you gain muscle mass and bone strength. Make time 4-5 days a week for exercise. Focus on strength training and weight bearing moves, like pushups and lunges.
  • Ages 30—39: Switch it up. In your 20s, you probably found your favorite workouts. Change things up and give your body a different kind of workout. Keep doing strength training but try new activities too. If you swim, try biking. If you run, try yoga.
  • Ages 40—49: Keep your strength. Stick with your routine and continue to strengthen your muscles. You may feel like your muscles aren’t as strong or that you are gaining weight—but exercise can really boost your metabolism! Keep up the good work, lift weights, and stay active. Make sure to stretch for at least 10 minutes after each workout.
  • Ages 50—59: Protect your heart and core. Hormones in your body start to change when you reach your 50s, which can slow down your metabolism. Make sure to exercise for 30 minutes or more, 5 times a week. This will help to protect your heart. Give yourself time between workouts. Try yoga or Pilates to support and build up your abs and back. This can help with your posture too.
  • Ages 60—69: Keep up your strength and flexibility. At this age, it is important to stay active and safe! You may see a change in your balance. Join a group fitness class or yoga to work on your health and your balance, while also meeting new people. Having social support during exercise can help you to do it more often!
  • Ages 70 and up: Focus on prevention. Work on strength, flexibility, and balance by doing activities like lifting light weights, doing yoga, and walking. If you get tired or have any pain, take it slow. Exercising during these years can help prevent disease and keep up an active mind and lifestyle.

 

To learn more about wellness or sign up for free exercise classes contact the Wellness Department at Community Healthcare Network at (212) 432-8494 or [email protected]

By CHN Nutritionist: Mavis Ren RD, CDN

The skin is the largest organ in your body. Food and healthy habits can play a big role in how your skin looks. Here are some tips for healthy and glowing skin.

  1. Remember to stay hydrated and drink at least 6-8 cups of water a day.
  2. Wear sunscreen and remember to reapply! Sunburns can cause stress on your skin. Pick a broad-spectrum sunscreen to protect you from UVA and UVB rays.
  3. Make sure you are getting enough of these vitamins to keep your skin healthy by helping with re-growth, wound healing and maintaining firmness:
  • Vitamin A—Carrots, bell peppers, broccoli, spinach, sweet potatoes, and fortified cereals
  • Vitamin C—oranges, strawberries, tomatoes, cantaloupe, mango, and red bell peppers
  • Vitamin E— sunflower seeds, almonds, hazelnuts, pine nuts, brazil nuts, turnip greens, avocado, kiwi and butternut squash
  • Zinc — fortified breakfast cereals, baked beans, chickpeas, yogurt, nonfat milk, instant oatmeal, peas, and oysters
  • Omega 3 Fatty Acid — salmon, flaxseed, chia seeds, sardines, and canola oil

 

Grilled Cilantro Lime Chicken:

(Makes 6 servings)                                           

You’ll need:

  • 4 medium chicken breasts, no skin or bones
  • 2 red bell peppers, diced
  • 2 tablespoons cilantro

For the Sauce:

  • 1/4 cup lime juice
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon honey
  • 1 teaspoon red chili flakes

To make:

  1. Mix the ingredients for the sauce in a small bowl. Cut chicken breast into cubes and add to the sauce. Cover the bowl and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.
  2. Put chicken cubes and bell peppers on a skewer.
  3. Grill chicken skewers for 5 minutes on each side.

Stephanie Rooker, Sound Healing Instructor www.voicejourney.net

The Medicine of Breath

Breath is our first and most basic medicine. How can breath be medicine, you ask? Because breathing, all by itself, can ease symptoms of many health issues. It can help with anxiety, depression, insomnia (trouble sleeping), post-traumatic stress (PTS), and attention deficit disorder (ADD), among others. Your breath can relieve health problems because so many of them are worsened or even caused by stress. Ancient traditions of yoga and meditation as well as modern-day research agree that controlled breathing helps with stress. Your breath lets you change your stress level and improve your health!

How does it work?

Breathing can help to nourish and restore your whole body. The air you breathe in fuels your body. The air you breathe out let’s go of waste from your body. This is a huge help! Your breath also acts as the undercover conductor of how your body works.

Your lungs and heart work together to give your body oxygen and remove carbon dioxide. They must stay in sync. Our breath reacts to our hearts’ needs. For example, when you exercise or become excited or nervous, your heart rate goes up. You may notice that you start to breathe faster. But your breath doesn’t always have to follow your heart. When you control your breath, you can change the pace of your heart rate.

You can also change your entire nervous system with controlled breathing. It can help with your digestion, how you process food, your immune system, how you fight off germs, and your state of mind. When you slow down your breath and focus on taking long breaths out, you calm your nerves. It helps your body and mind to relax. When you take short, quick breaths and focus on breathing in, your body and mind get stirred up.

Try it out!

You can practice with a technique called “1:2 breathing.” You will breathe out for twice as long as you breathe in. If you breathe in for a count of 2, then you will breathe out for a count of 4. Repeat this 10 times. As you get used to counts of 2 for breathing in and 4 for breathing out, you may want to raise the counts to 3 and 6 or even 4 and 8. This all depends on how fast you are counting!

Luckily, you breathe all the time, so you can practice anytime and at any place. Even if you don’t measure your breaths in 1:2 counting, taking a few deep breaths in and a few slow, long breaths out can make a world of difference!

By: CHN Wellness Team

By CHN Nutritionist: Laura Malick RD, CDN

When it’s too hot to cook over a stove, try some of these tips and recipes to help you make meals without turning up the heat.

Tips:

  • Make a lot rice or pasta at the beginning of the week. Save in the fridge and use during the week.
  • Use the microwave to steam vegetables.
  • Try using some pre-made foods like rotisserie chicken or canned beans (drain and rinse first before you eat them). You could also try canned chicken or tuna (canned in water).
  • Make your own dressings to use over cold vegetables, beans, rice, or pasta.

 

How to Make Easy Dressing

Mix together:

1/2 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon honey
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 garlic clove, minced

White Bean and Roasted Chicken Salad:

(Makes 5 servings)                                           

You’ll need:

2 cups chopped rotisserie chicken
1 cup chopped tomato
1/2 cup sliced red onion
1/3 cup sliced fresh basil
2 (16-oz) cans white beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 garlic cloves finely chopped

 

To make:

  1. Mix first five salad ingredients in a large bowl.
  2. Mix remaining ingredients in a small bowl for the dressing.
  3. Drizzle dressing over salad and toss together.

To learn more about wellness contact the Wellness Department at Community Healthcare Network at (212)-432-8494 or email [email protected].

By: CHN Wellness Team

Ayurveda (pronounced ah-yer-vey-duh) is a natural healing practice from India. The word “Ayurveda” is made of 2 Sanskrit words: ayur and veda. Ayur means life and veda means science or knowledge. A main value of Ayurveda is that what you eat is just as important as how you eat it.

Making and eating meals that leave your mind and body feeling good allow your body to focus more on your digestion (the breakdown of food). Try these five Ayurvedic practices to help boost your digestion to feel more satisfied after meals.

  1. Sit and slow down. Sit down while you eat to help your organs relax and get ready for all the work they will do to help you digest! Take a few deep breaths after a few bites to see how your body is feeling. Focus on each chew and swallow.
  2. Eat only when hungry. Pause before you eat a snack and listen to your stomach. Are you hungry? Or are you stressed, bored, or thirsty? Wait 10 minutes before snacking. Many times, the desire to eat will go away. It is common for this desire to come in the evening. The body craves comfort foods at the end of the day when it wants to slow down and rest. Instead drink a glass of water and check in with yourself again.
  3. Have regular mealtimes. Our minds and bodies work best with routine. When we eat at similar times each day, our stomachs can prepare in advance for meal times. This allows our minds and bodies to relax and focus on our food.
  4. Eat light, or not at all, when angry or anxious. Worry and anger are two feelings that are not good for digestion. When your mind is busy, nothing will digest well! It is best to drink warm liquids and wait until your mind calms down before eating.
  5. Drink warm or room temperature water to keep your gut feeling cozy. While cold water can make it hard for the body to break down food, warm water will keep your gut working well. Warm water rehydrates the body and calms your body!

To learn more about wellness contact the Wellness Department at Community Healthcare Network at (212)-432-8494 or  email [email protected].

By: CHN Wellness Team

Cooking and making food can be fun, and even restorative. To enjoy cooking most, practice food safety.  Keep your kitchen clean to keep you and your loved ones from getting sick. Here are some tips to keep your kitchen and your food clean and safe.

  1. Defrost meat in the refrigerator overnight. For larger meats, you might need to defrost them for 1 to 2 days.Defrosting on the countertop lets bacteria grow that can make you sick. Even cooking can’t kill them!
  2. Wash reusable shopping bags often. Raw foods like meat, chicken, and eggs can leave harmful bacteria inside these bags. Those bacteria can then cling to fruits and veggies. Toss cloth bags into the washing machine or clean by hand. Wipe down plastic bags with warm water and a small amount of vinegar.
  3. Check if food is good by the way it looks or smells. If the food doesn’t look or smell right, don’t taste it. You could be eating bad bacteria that could make you sick. If you’re unsure, toss it!
  4. Clean your sponges. We sometimes wash dishes with the same sponge we use to clean countertops. These sponges can carry bacteria from one surface to the next! To kill germs that can live on your sponge, wet your sponge and microwave it for 2 minutes.Then allow it to cool. You can also run sponges in the dishwasher with your dishes.
  5. Label your cutting boards.You should have one for raw meat, and another for fruits and veggies.Cutting fruits or veggies right after cutting raw meat, chicken or fish can make you sick.

Next time you are making food, try these tips to keep you and your loved ones healthy.

 

To learn more about wellness contact the Wellness Department at Community Healthcare Network at (212)-432-8494 or email [email protected].

By: CHN Wellness Team

By CHN Nutritionist Michelle Brenseke, MS, RD, CDN, CLC

Garlic is not only tasty and good for you, but it is also easy to grow! Here are some tips to help you plant your own garlic this Spring:

  1. Buy bulbs from garden center (not the supermarket). Try “Allium sativum var. ophioscorodon” also called hardneck garlic.
  2. Put the bulb in the refrigerator 3 weeks before planting.
  3. Pick a pot that is at least 18 inches deep and 12 inches wide. Fill with “soilless potting mix”. Leave room at the top.
  4. Dig holes in dirt that are 3 inches deep. The holes should be 2 inches from the edge and 5 inches from each other.
  5. Break bulbs apart, but keep papery husks on the cloves.
  6. Plant one clove per hole, with the flat side down and the pointy end up.
  7. Fill the hole with soil, making sure that the tip of the clove is about 1 inch under the surface.
  8. Water well and place the container in a spot that gets light.

For outdoor gardens: plant in early November for more garlic in the spring!


Basil Pesto Recipe

Makes 2 cups

You’ll need:

2 cups fresh basil leaves (no stems)
2 tablespoons pine nuts or walnuts
2 large cloves garlic
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
½ cup freshly gratedparmesan cheese

To make:

  1. Mix basil leaves, nuts and garlic in a food   processor and blend   until very finely minced.
  2. With the machine running slowly, dribble in the oil and mix until the mixture is smooth.
  3. Add the cheese and mix very briefly, just long enough to combine. Store in refrigerator or freezer.

Lettuce Share!

  • So far, 600 patients have enrolled in the Healthy Savings Program!
  • CHN patients enrolled in the program have reached $3,553 in total savings in fresh fruits & veggies.
  • If you know a CHN patient who lives in the Bronx and wants to join, please call: Anna Rickards ( 718-731-2209) or Claudia Castaneda (718-320-4477)

To learn more about wellness contact the Wellness Department at Community Healthcare Network at (212)-432-8494 or email [email protected].