Increase in Thyroid cancer in women

Check this out!

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/increase-thyroid-cancer

Motivation

The choices you make will make who you choose to be. ~ Ralph Marston

10 Reasons to Lose Just 10 from Dr. Oz

Reposted from Dr. Oz
At times, the difference between what you weigh and what you want to weigh can seem insurmountable. You’re not alone in your frustration. The average American woman has a BMI of 28, which is overweight – nearly obese. Her waists measures 37 inches, almost 5 inches too wide, and she weighs nearly 165 pounds. In 1960, the average American woman’s weight was 140 pounds. If we continue at this rate, in the next 50 years, your daughter or granddaughter will weigh 190 pounds.

America is in need of a lifestyle change. It can be intimidating; however, the benefits of weight loss aren’t reserved for those who drop 30, 50 or 100 pounds. By losing just 10 pounds, you can prevent deadly illness, alleviate daily pain, and improve your quality of life.

Are you ready to change your life? Read on to learn all you have to gain from losing just 10 pounds:

1. A Lower Cholesterol Level
Being overweight is linked to high levels of LDL, which is the “bad” type of cholesterol. As LDL cholesterol circulates through your blood, it can deposit plaque in your arteries, narrowing them – which can lead to heart attack or stroke.

Exercise and a healthy diet will help increase your HDL cholesterol, which is the “good” type of cholesterol that stops LDL from depositing on your artery walls. Ten pounds of weight loss can lower cholesterol by more than 10%.

2. Lower Blood Pressure
Blood pressure measures the pressure on your artery walls, so if you have plaque buildup in your arteries, your blood pressure will be high. Hypertension thickens the walls of the heart, leaving them stiff and prone to heart failure. As the heart works harder, blood vessels in the kidneys can be damaged, which can lead to kidney failure. Losing 10 pounds will decrease your blood pressure, protecting your heart and kidneys.

3. Reduced Risk for Heart Attacks
Excessive plaque buildup can result in dangerously narrowed arteries. In the case of a heart attack, your coronary artery becomes completely blocked, cutting off the oxygen that your heart muscle needs, with possibly fatal results.

As mentioned above, weight loss lowers your blood pressure and cholesterol. Incredibly, just 10 pounds of weight loss can result in a greater than 50% risk reduction for heart attacks.


4. Reduced Risk for Dementia
Nearly half of Americans have too much visceral fat, the abdominal fat that surrounds your internal organs, visible in their protruding bellies. The danger is this: visceral fat contains cells that release inflammation-causing chemicals in the body, which can cause memory loss and increase your chances of developing dementia.

Additionally, 2 symptoms of obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, can put you at risk for stroke. Some strokes, known as “silent strokes” can occur without symptoms – but each time, blood is cut off to the brain, resulting in damaged, dementia-prone brain tissue. High blood pressure and cholesterol can also increase the likelihood that you’ll develop Alzheimer’s disease.

5. Reduced Risk for Sleep Apnea
When you are overweight, extra tissue thickens your windpipe wall, narrowing your airway. Consequently, the size of your tongue and tonsils become a threat to the narrowed airway – especially when you are sleeping, and can cause a life-threatening condition known as sleep apnea. In this illness, an unsuccessful effort to take in air results in a dangerously low oxygen level while you're sleeping. Your brain shocks your body awake to keep you alive. If you have severe sleep apnea, you can be woken up hundreds of times a night.

Losing just 10 pounds can widen your windpipe, helping you sleep through the night and reduce your risk for developing sleep apnea. And when you sleep well, your levels of leptin (the hormone that signals when you’ve had enough to eat) rise. So, a good night’s sleep will help you lose even more weight.

6. Reduced Joint Pain
Being overweight puts huge pressure on your joints. For each extra pound of excess weight on your body, you add 3 times that amount of pressure on your knees. This means that 10 extra pounds equates to 30 pounds of pressure grinding down. And when walking up stairs, multiply your extra weight by 7. Thirty pounds of pressure just became 70 pounds. Over time, this force wears away your cartilage, leaving an area of arthritis.

As you lose weight and reduce the pressure on your joints, the cushioning between your bones will build back up. A 10 pound weight loss over 10 years may result in as much as a 50% decrease in your odds of developing osteoarthritis.

7. Reduced Risk for Cancer
Obesity increases cancer risk. The exact reasoning remains unclear– but fat cells are highly active, releasing large amounts of hormones like estrogen, insulin, and insulin-like growth factors that can fuel many cancers.

The risk for many types of cancers declines when you lose weight, but it's particularly true for breast and uterine cancer, where losing only 8 pounds can significantly reduce the levels of specific carcinogenic hormones.

8. Reduced Risk for Diabetes
The more excess weight on your body, the less sensitive your cells become to insulin, the hormone that manages the movement of sugar into your cells. Being overweight puts you at huge risk for developing type 2 diabetes, where your body’s cells become resistant to insulin and cannot function properly as a result. By getting active and controlling your weight, you can increase your response to insulin. A weight loss of 10 pounds can reduce your chance of getting diabetes by 60%.

9. Improved Sex Life
Your sex drive is affected by high blood pressure and diabetes, conditions you’re likely to have if you’re overweight. Additionally, erectile dysfunction can be a problem for as many as 80% of obese and overweight men.

10. Taking Less Medications
Even if you only reduce the dosage you currently need for high blood pressure or diabetes, you’ll still save money on your prescriptions. A recent study estimated that cutting just 100 calories a day could prevent or eliminate 71.2 million cases of obesity and save $58 billion annually in the United States.

BONUS: You’ll Feel better!
Your omentum is the pouch that contains your belly fat. The extra weight you are carrying on your omentum begins to squeeze your kidneys. Your blood pressure raises and your liver fattens; the accumulation of this fat characterizes nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. This added weight leaves your liver unable to process toxins. Over time, your liver hardens, and scar tissue begins to build up to replace liver cells. This scarring is called cirrhosis, which leaves you feeling tired and groggy.

Weight loss will allow your liver to recover. As it repairs itself, it decreases the toxins in your body. You’ll see changes in how you feel and behave.

Motivation

To step up to a higher level, you must step away from what's familiar & comfortable. ~ Ralph Marston

* Kind of like this week's behavior mod... picking your spot :)
~Barb

Motivation

Imagine the enormous progress you can make by simply doing what you've been telling yourself you should do. ~ Ralph Marston

Lemon-Raspberry Muffins

Lemon-Raspberry Muffins By EatingWell.com

These look and sound yummy- I am going to try making them! ~Barb 

 

The secret to the sparkling flavor of these delicately crumbed muffins is the strips of lemon zest finely ground into the sugar. Enjoy the muffins warm right from the oven.

Prep Time:	15 minutes
Ready in:	40 minutes
Yield:	1 dozen muffins
Ease of Prep:	Easy

Recipe Ingredients
	1 lemon
	1/2 cup sugar
	1 cup nonfat buttermilk (see Tip)
	1/3 cup canola oil
	1 large egg
	1 teaspoon vanilla extract
	1 cup white whole-wheat flour or whole-wheat pastry flour (see Shopping Tip)
	1 cup all-purpose flour
	2 teaspoons baking powder
	1 teaspoon baking soda
	1/4 teaspoon salt
	1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen (not thawed) raspberries

Recipe Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Coat 12 large (1/2-cup) muffin cups with cooking spray or line with paper liners.
2. Use a vegetable peeler to remove the zest from the lemon in long strips. Combine the zest and sugar in a food processor; pulse until the zest is very finely chopped into the sugar. Add buttermilk, oil, egg and vanilla and pulse until blended.
3. Combine whole-wheat flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Add the buttermilk mixture and fold until almost blended. Gently fold in raspberries. Divide the batter among the muffin cups.
4. Bake the muffins until the edges and tops are golden, 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack. Serve warm.

Wrap each in plastic and freeze in a freezer bag for up to 1 month. To reheat, remove plastic, wrap muffin in a paper towel and microwave on High for 30 to 60 seconds.
Tip: No buttermilk? Mix 1 tablespoon lemon juice into 1 cup milk.

Shopping Tip: White whole-wheat flour, made from a special variety of white wheat, is light in color and flavor but has the same nutritional properties as regular whole wheat. Whole-wheat pastry flour can be used as a substitute here. Both can be found in the natural-foods section of the supermarket or online from King Arthur Flour, bakerscatalogue.com.
Health Advantages: low calorie, low sat fat, low cholesterol, low sodium, heart healthy, healthy weight.

Nutrition Information
Servings Per Recipe: 12
	Amount Per muffin
	Calories:	185 cal					Carbohydrate Servings:	2
	Carbohydrates:	27 g		Dietary Fiber:	2 g		Cholesterol:	18 mg
	Fat:	7 g		Sodium:	245 mg		Saturated Fat:	1 g
	Protein:	4 g		Potassium:	42 mg		Monounsaturated Fat:	4 g
	Exchanges:	1 starch, 1 other carbohydrate, 1 1/2 fat

Positive thought for today

Commit yourself to making one more effort, one more attempt, as often as necessary,
and anything is within your reach. ~Ralph Marston

Rachael Ray’s Reconfigured Spinach and Artichoke Macaroni and Cheese

1 pound Barillawhole grain penne  (1400)

1c. chopped onion  (67)

3 cloves minced garlic  (13)

3T. flour  (52)

2c. 2% milk  (244)

10oz. frozen, chopped spinach  (52)

10oz. frozen, chopped artichoke hearts  (121)

7.5oz. shredded fontinella cheese  (825)

2oz. shredded parmesan  (235)

(Total Calories = 3009)

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 375F. Bring a large pot of water to a boil for pasta, salt the water, and cook pasta to al dente.

Place a medium pot over medium-low heat and spray with cooking spray. Add the onion and garlic to the pan and cook the vegetables until soft, about 10 minutes.

Place a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the milk and bring it almost to a boil. Add the flour slowly, stirring constantly with a whisk. Keep stirring until the milk has thickened to the point where it covers the back of a spoon, remove from heat and add the fontinella and spinach-artichoke mixture.

Toss the prepared sauce with the pasta and transfer to a 9X13", cooking sprayed casserole dish. Sprinkle the remaining parmesan over the top and bake until the cheese has melted and the top is golden brown, about 30 minutes.

Yield: 6 servings

Calories/serving: 502

The original recipe had a lot of olive oil, butter, and lots more cheese. The total calories were 4747 and 1187 calories per serving. Yikes!

Tara

Note to losers!

This is the best thing ever. Thanks so much for giving us a space to vent, create, share, and a voice to be heard other than just Wednesday night. ~Val

Skinny Chicken Marsala

Skinny Chicken Marsala

6 boneless chicken breasts
1 regular sized bottle of fat free Italian salad dressing.
1 TB flour
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp. McCormick Perfect Pinch Mediterranean  herb seasoning
1/4 tsp. pepper
2 TB olive oil
1/2 c. low sodium chicken broth
1/2 c. *Marsala wine       *do not substitute*
8 oz. sliced fresh portabella mushrooms
1/2 c. chopped fresh parsley

Using a plastic bag- marinate the chicken breasts with the fat free Italian dressing for at least 6 hours. Later...
Drain and discard the salad dressing. Combine the flour and dry seasonings and using a sifter cover both sides of the chicken breasts.  Using a large non stick skillet coated with cooking spray cook the chicken in one tablespoon of the olive oil along with the 1 TB of butter for approximately 2 minutes on each side until browned. When done transfer the chicken breasts to a large 9x 13 baking dish which has been coated with cooking spray.

Add the wine and chicken broth to the pan and bring to a boil, scraping the browned bits till loosened.  Cook and stir while boiling for about 2 minutes. Then transfer the sauce to a small bowl.  Using the same skillet put in the remaining 1 TB of olive oil plus some cooking spray and cook the mushrooms until browned.  Then stir sauce into the mushrooms and heat through. Pour the sauce with the mushrooms over top of the chicken breasts and top with the chopped parsley. Bake uncovered in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.  6 servings; each serving 375 calories.