Smoothie Recipe

It is mid-afternoon and my kiddos snack time. I am accustomed to eating snacks myself and since the weather has been warming up have been enjoying a variety of smoothies that I have just experimented with and come up with myself! Today I made up one of my favorites and here is the best part - it is completely HEALTHY! And not to mention anti-inflammatory! So I decided to share my recipe with you in case you want a cool refreshment too!

Juicy-Berry Smoothie

• 3/4 - 1 C. Frozen Mixed Berries (blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries is the mixture I use)
• 1/2 C. Plain Organic Yogurt
• 1-2 TBLS. PomWonderful Juice (100% pomegranate juice)
• 1/2-3/4C. orange juice
• 1/2 TBLS. ground flax seed

1. Throw all ingredients into a blender and grind it all up!
2. I just throw things together so measurements are estimates - play with the amount until you get the desired taste. Also the flax seed is added as a health benefit (great for your skin) and you won't taste it in your drink.
3. Makes 1 serving (about 10-12 oz.)

Anti-Inflammatory Diet Part #4

So I just spent the time yesterday trying to sum up the diet and then I checked Dr. Perricone's blog (yes he has a blog too - click here if interested in it!)...And come to find out there had just been a post of the overview of the Acne Diet on there, and of course more professional sounding and easier to understand than me, so I decided to simply copy the entire post here for your reading! Enjoy!


TAKEN FROM DR. PERRICONE'S DAILY BLOG:

Acne Diet - More Than Skin Deep
Tuesday, April 14, 2009, 4:40:12 PM Editor

Think beautiful skin starts in a bottle? Think again. Beautiful skin starts in your kitchen and has everything to do with what you put into your body.
Your skin is a direct reflection of what’s happening digestively; I like to tell our clients to think of their skin as their intestines turned inside out. So when my clients come to me wanting clear skin yet are washing down their Doritos with Diet Coke, well…there’s work to be done in the education process.


A large part of our nutritional practice at the Flagship involves treating people with acne. And guess what? 90-95% of our clients with acne have either been on the Pill, on antibiotics, or some combination of both. This causes an overgrowth of unhealthy bacteria, and depletes the good bacteria present. And acne is the residual after-effect of this imbalance. The work we do to correct the imbalance is with a yeast-free, sugar-free diet rich in essential fatty acids and protein. This in effect will rebuild the digestive system and restore luminous, clear skin.


PRIMO PROTEINS
Protein helps repair the skin and supports liver detoxification and hormonal balance (another culprit of acne). The best choices include: wild Alaskan salmon and other cold-water fatty fish, chicken, turkey, eggs, Greek yogurt, whey protein, and grass-fed meats. Choose 2-4 ounces per meal.

SUITABLE STARCHES
Since carbohydrates have the greatest impact on blood sugar and inflammation, choose them wisely. Fruits and vegetables should be the base of your diet; you can incorporate ½ cup cooked of the following per day: barley, beans and legumes, brown rice, rolled or steel-cut oats, winter squash, sweet potato, buckwheat, quinoa, amaranth, and millet.


FABULOUS FATS
The right fats can literally make or break your health, and we all need them to survive. Go for avocados, raw nuts and seeds, nut butters and tahini, olives and olive oil, ground flaxseeds, raw coconut and coconut oil, and grape seed oil. They’ll correct dry chicken skin and regulate sebum production. Incorporate at least 2 tsp of fat per meal.


STEER CLEAR
…When you’re working hard to eat healthfully, the following can quickly undo all your efforts: white flour and sugar (pasta, bread, muffins, cake, and cookies—and no, whole wheat is not any better), fruit juices and dried fruits, aged cheeses, milk, soy, vinegar, alcohol, and mushrooms.
Cleaning up your act in the kitchen will ultimately help clear up your skin. Give your body 3-6 months for all the changes to take place. You’ll be glad you did!



Esther Blum,MS,RD,CDN,CNS
Registered Dietitian
NV Perricone, MD
Flagship791
Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10065
212.734.2537

Anti-Inflammatory Diet Part #3

Okay so I'm in the car, half spaced out on what the radio is saying but can still hear it none-the-less and I'm listening to our local Christian Station, KSBJ. They are in Nashville for the Gospel Music Awards and are interviewing different Christian artists. Big Daddy Weave had just come on and they started asking him about how his diet has been going, apparently knowing he had made a commitment to lose weight this year. They ask him how it is going and what he is doing to meet his goal.

He says that he made a goal to lose 90 pounds in '09 and it all came about from one of his songs about "what if I had given everything, instead of just going through the motions." I'm sure you may have heard this song playing on the radio it is a HUGE hit right now. Anyways his weight had always been an issue and he has struggled back and forth with it so he decided he was going to finally just do it and no more going through the motions.

So to my point...they ask him if the diet has a name that he is on and he says "Well it all about removing inflammation for your body" I cocked me head, jaw dropped and my hand immediately turned up the volume to listen INTENTLY now! He went on to tell a few things e wasn't allowed to have while on the diet and it was very similar to mine. He had even gone a step further however and was excluding most dairy products and also was trying to eat everything raw - or the closest to how God created it, in his exact words.

It was so cool and apparently he has this on his website where you can sign up to be a part of making a goal for this year to be a healthier you! Participants will have healthy recipes, wellness information and even exercise tips made available to them! There is TONS of people that have posted comments on the challenge page and I only read a few and was like WOW! You gotta check it out! And if you struggle with weight - maybe consider joining the adventure, you will never regret taking better care of your body! PROMISE!! Just click here to see Big Daddy Weave's 90 in '09 Challenge! (or click on the title)

Now to add a short blib on this post ABOUT the diet since it's been awhile I've decided to give the roughest overview possible of what the don'ts are in this way of eating! (I admit the reason it's been awhile since my last post on it is because I lent the book to one of my youth and I haven't gotten it back yet - so I feel a little lost!)

THE ANTI-INFLAMMATION DIET In a Nutshell:
- No sugar
- No starches
- No fried foods
- No breads, pastas or rice
- No potatoes, mangoes, bananas or peas
- Drink at LEAST six 8 oz. glasses f water a day! Calm down that's like 3 water bottles worth!

You may eat meats but eat mostly fish, shellfish, chicken, turkey, tofu and yes you can have a little red meat (just don't overdue it!)

Wild Atlantic Salmon is one of the BEST things you can eat for your skin!

Rules for Mealtime:
1. Eat Protein FIRST!
2. Follow with deep colored veggies or fruit
3. Make sure you have a fatty acid somewhere in your meal (avocados, nuts, flax seed, salmon, etc...)

EASY WAY TO FIGURE IF IT'S SAFE: Look it up on the Glycemic Index!! If it is under 50 it is safe. Above 50 will cause inflammation. If it causes a sugar-insulin response (hope I said that right!) then it will cause inflammation. Click Here for a GREAT site to check if something is inflammatory or not!!

Tummy Comfort Tea

This post idea came from a conversation with my mom. I was telling her that I bought this tea for my kids that is "tummy-ache" tea. Well I haven't needed it much for my kids, thankfully because they are very healthy and hardly ever sick - so I had a lot of this tea and one night my stomach turned in knots! I was bloated and feeling horrible. So I thought well I'll try this tea first before I take any meds. So I brewed me a cup and I am NOT exaggerating, by the end of the cup I was totally fine and felt better than ever! No stomach pain, bloating, nothing! It was awesome!! So whether for your kids or YOU I wanted to pass on my recommendation for this wonderful tea called "Tummy Comfort Tea"!

p.s. I found a website that has the tea for sale for only $4, the title of this post is linked to it!

AND....just to add a bit for my Anti-Inflammation Series: Green Tea is highly recommended on this diet. Pretty easy to know why - tons of antioxidants!! Which are of course anti-inflammatory. It is GREAT tea for your health and for anti-inflammation. And just as a tidbit, I was reading a magazine this last week that had facts on tea and apparently it is the most consumed beverage behind water! WOW! I surely thought this Starbucks world would have coffee as the second largest choice, but nope - tea has stood the test of time! So drink up everyone!!

Anti-Inflammatory Diet Part #1

I'm sorry it took me awhile to do another post on here about Dr. Perricone's Anti-Inflammatory Diet however my Internet went on the blink for a good part of last week and so I just had to wait! Today I wanted to share the idea of anti-inflammatory and just how easy it is to follow. I will do quite a few posts about the diet and then eventually move on to the supplements and topical treatments as well. And maybe throw in a yoga post - which I have recently started doing. Yoga is a funny thing to me - I have not taken a class just read how to do the positions, and so thus far this is my summary of Yoga: You feel like you are posing weird ways and stretching with others but afterwards you feel like you just had a major workout! My muscles are sore and I FEEL what its doing for me, very crazy. And I also found I probably SHOULD take a class or get a video or something because breathing is a big part of yoga and apparently I'm not good at breathing! lol, silly as it sounds it's true!

Okay anyways, this is NOT the yoga post so....

First I will start with the argument most have that diet doesn't effect acne. Where did this come from? Well a group of dermatologists got together 2 groups of teenagers. One group was given candy bars with high amounts of chocolate. The other group was given candy bars with high amounts of vegetable oils. Okay even for a non-scientist do you see the flaws in this study?

1. We have no clue what their diets consisted of before OR during the study besides these candy bars.
2. They were already suffering from acne - so it still isn't an accurate reading on how acne is CAUSED.

How in the world with JUST those two flaws can this be considered a controlled study?

Okay so apparently that saying isn't from the most reliable source. With that being said, "inflammation is at the basis of many diverse disease processes in the body, ranging from cancer to heart disease, acne to Alzheimer's, diabetes to the aging process in general." When Dr. Perricone is referring to inflammation he means it in the entire spectrum of it - such as not just the kind we can see with our eyes but cellular and molecular also. Although it can't be seen inflammation is working in our cells every day damaging our vital organs which results in things such as disease and aging. Perricone found this in school while looking through a microscope viewing cells with various forms of disease or age - yet young disease free skin had no inflammation present. He knew there had to be something there!

Perricone later became fascinated with nutrition and studying some nontraditional nutritionists and following their recommendations found he had incredible increase in energy, his general health improved as well as his athletic performance. The best part of nutritional therapies is it treats the entire body and not just the symptoms - which always results in a much healthier patient in ALL areas. So through all this he learned the best way to control cellular inflammation is through diet.

"Most old adages have stood the test of time because they hold more than a glimmer of truth - from "fish is brain food" (one of the truest aphorisms ever spoken) to "an apple a day keeps the doctor away." "

Keep reading for more on the anti-inflammatory diet: Post #2 = "The Sugar-Inflammation Connection"

Quotes taken from Dr. Perricone in "The Acne Prescription"

Acne & Aging

If you currently struggle, or have ever struggled with, acne or signs of aging then you will WANT to read this!

When I was a Senior in High School I had already gone through a number of acne treatments and was running out of options! I had tried over-the-counter products, tried several topical treatments prescribed by my dermatologist and even gone through the UV-ray treatments driving an hour one way two times a week for them! I was exhausted and about to give up hope. My mom remembers praying to find a solution and when she was in a bookstore saw this book called the Anti-Acne Diet by Dr. Perricone.

Long story short she asked if I was willing to try a three-tiered program that included diet, supplements, and topical treatments. Now before you go whoa that's a lot of stuff - you can do it with the diet alone!! JUST by changing what you eat can drastically change the effects of acne AND aging. If you want overall better health and want to make sure it stays away the supplements (simply vitamins and minerals) and his specially formulated topical treatments which ensure it follows the guidelines of his study.

So what are the guidelines? NOTHING that is pro-inflammatory! Through his research he found that acne is actually a Systemic Inflammatory Disease. Now I will keep it in layman's terms that it simply means there are certain foods, creams, cosmetics, etc. that will cause inflammation at the cellular level. This is what actually starts the chain reaction that leads to that zit on your face. It's NOT oily skin although yes that will contribute to acne...it's NOT chocolate, lol...although yes the sugar IN chocolate is! Now yes stress, hormones, oily skin and all these things contribute to acne and aging but are not the root cause which means even when those other things still exist if you are on an Anti-Inflammatory Diet and using cosmetics that don't have pro-inflammatory components than you can keep your acne flare-ups away! Good news huh?

I wrote all that to say I went on the entire three-tiered system my senior year and by Senior Picture time was acne free and had more energy than I had ever had in my life! I felt the best I've ever felt and ever since going off of that diet have wished I could somehow get back on it! Well I was blessed that during pregnancy my hormones blessed me with acne free skin. Now with my daughter turning two a couple months ago suddenly here comes my acne again after almost four years of not dealing with it! As soon as I got a few really bad cases I asked my mom to mail me the book.

I have officially been on the Anti-Acne diet since Thursday, March 19th and my face is already almost completely clear - and may I add I am ONLY doing the diet and taking TWO of the seven supplements! I'm regaining energy that I had been depleted of lately and am starting to think more clearly and be more efficient in my work! I'm not kidding! I HAD to tell my readers about this because it is for aging too - and all the bad things that come with it (cancer, Alzheimer's, arthritis, WRINKLES, etc...)

I will be doing a series on this Anti-Inflammatory Diet and have also linked the title to Dr. Perricone's website if you would like more information right away!