Healthy Snack Ideas

I read Dr. Andrew Weil’s classic, 8 Weeks to Optimum Health: A Proven Program for Taking Full Advantage of Your Body’s Natural Healing Power
8 Weeks to Optimum Health book over the weekend, and I found it to be a clear, practical approach to making simple, incremental healthy lifestyle changes that will allow the body’s natural healing abilities to do their work.

I have been a vegetarian for the past 13 years, and I’ve always eaten a healthy diet because my mom raised my siblings and me on an almost vegetarian, whole foods diet. When we were growing up we always had a garden where we grew organic vegetables. We also raised animals and learned to can and preserve our own foods.

Since I’ve become a city girl in the last fifteen years, my diet has not been as pure and close-to-the-earth as it once was. I used to cook almost everything from scratch, and lately some convenience foods have found their way into my cupboards and freezer.

But I have noticed that when I turned forty I could feel a definite change in my body’s rhythms. I can’t get away with indulging without my body quickly betraying me by displaying the evidence on my backside. I’ve gotten a bit more sedentary now that I am working from my home office and no longer have to schlep from the house to the Metro, and then walk three blocks to my old job.

So, it’s clearly time to tighten up my game a bit. I began this blog because I love to eat healthy. I have children and I try to make sure that the foods I prepare–including the snacks I give them–are healthy and delicious. For myself, I want to go deeper and focus in on making sure that I am following a healthy eating program that will support my health for years to come.

All of the lifestyle diseases run rampant in my family: cancer, type 2 diabetes, and hypertension. My father passed away at the early age of 62 from congestive heart failure and hypertension. I want to do all that I can to take care of my body so that it is healthy enough to take care of me well into old age.

For week one of Dr. Weil’s program I am instructed to do the following:

Get rid of unhealthy foods containing oils other than olive oil, products containing partially hydrogenated oils, trans fats artificial sweeteners and colors.

The areas covered in the 8-week program include:

• Diet
• Exercise
• Mental/Spiritual

My assignment for the week is to:

1. Add Broccoli and Salmon to my diet
2. Add multivitamin supplement
3. Exercise 10 minutes per day for five days (walking)
4. Make a list of the illnesses or injuries that I have overcome in the recent past, and take note of what I did to facilitate the healing process.
5. Practice a 5 minute silent meditation observing the breath.
6. Buy fresh flowers for my house. (I especially like this one)

I will report back each week with notes about my experiences and progress.