Let’s begin by saying what gardening is not. Generally speaking, it is not a rainy day activity. Sure you can have a home or office full of indoor plants, but you’d have to have a lot of them to get much exercise and activity. And very few of us are lucky enough to have a green house large enough to provide 30 minutes or more of strenuous exercise each day. It would take a green house of that magnitude to supply us with all the groceries we need, especially year around. So we can pretty much say that gardening is not going to make us independent of the grocery store unless you have a large garden and want to can things way your grandmother or great-grandmother once did.

That’s the down side. For ninety-nine percent of us, we won’t be able to garden every day, nor will we be able to provide all our own groceries. But we can, “make hay while the sun shines,” and, “enjoy the fruits of our labor,” as the old sayings go and help describe the benefits that gardening provids. I much prefer the Vitamin D my body makes from being outdoors on a sunny day and to me, nothing tastes better than the fruits and vegetables that are consumed just minutes after being harvested from my garden.

However you might ask, is gardening strenuous enough to be considered exercise, or is it more of a keep busy sort of activity – merely an outdoor exercise on the level of playing solitaire on the computer? In my opinion it certainly can be.

In fact, if you’re new to gardening, or haven’t done it in awhile, I should caution you to take the same precautions with gardening that you would before beginning any other strenuous exercise. Just about everyone with an ounce of brains knows you don’t go to the gym for the first time and begin with heavy weights. You start with the light ones and make it increasingly more difficult as the muscles rebuild stronger. That’s not always possible with gardening. Quite often you have to begin by digging out or moving heavy rocks or other obstacles; to say nothing of toting those big cumbersome bags of composted manure and other soil amendments.

Then too is the digging and turning of the dirt and all the other preparations that it takes to make a bed ready, and using containers won’t get you out of that entirely. Actually, I find turning a bed, even a large bed with a spading fork to be easier than filling and moving around a bunch of five gallon containers of moist potting soil. Even a completely dry container is too much for someone not used to manipulating something like that. In the gym you can get a knowledgeable trainer to show you the correct lifting techniques to prevent injury. Unfortunately there isn’t that kind of help available for the home gardener. As a result, each year there are thousands that require medical attention due to doing the right thing the wrong way while working in their garden. Think before you do! Lift with care, caution, and balance.

Now a word or two or three about the mental or emotional aspect of gardening – another of the benefits of gardening. Stress really is a killer. If you’ve been listening to the “Wellness Wednesday” series of the “Older & Active” show on Blog Talk Radio, you’ve enjoyed Dr. Pickering’s programs on “Attitude” and more recently on “Nutrition.” Coming up soon is the series on Stress and he’ll be telling us what causes it and how to avoid it. Physical activity is one of the best preventive measures that I know of, and I’ll also rank gardening right up there too. There is something incredibly peaceful about gardening that I can’t explain, I only accept and enjoy.

Finally, a few words about another significant perspective to work in the garden – good nutrition.

In this day and age of Monsanto’s GMO produce and pesticide polluted groceries, there are only two choices left to the wise consumer: buy produce that you know is grown organically, preferably at a local farmer’s market from a vendor that you’ve learned to trust, or grow your own. I do both because as I stated in the beginning, I’m not lucky enough to have a large garden and a big greenhouse. And what doesn’t grow locally I get from a grocery store that specializes in having organic produce. I wish I had the facilities to grow as much Kale, Spinach, and Swiss Chard as I consume year around, but I don’t and have to rely on others.

Now maybe it’s just my imagination, but I happen to think what I grow tastes much better. So give gardening a try – your body, as well as your mind, will be glad you did.

The annual balloon launch for Older Americans Month was held at the xxxxxx County Senior Center on Tuesday, May 1.

   Many extra activities will be going on at the Senior Center in celebration of Older Americans Month. xxxxx will host a free blood pressure check. There will be a punch and cookies social, as well as a Mother’s Day Program on the 10th, when all ladies will be presented with a live flower to take home and plant. There will be several drawings for door prizes. They will also host a cookie day, dessert day, and the line dancers will perform at the Senior Center on May 17. A trip is planned to eat out at xxxxxx in xxxxxx as well.

   A trip to the xxxxxx for the Annual xxxxxx Conference will be held on May 24 and will include lunch from xxxxxx. The event is held annually by the xxxxxx Cares Program, xxxxxx, the Elder Rights Project Director and member of xxxxxx Legal Services; and xxxxxx, Director of Area Agency on Aging. The purpose of the event is to educate all senior citizens on how to prevent fraud. All State Legislators are invited to attend.

   A party will also be held at the Center, with cookies, punch, and lots of games like Let’s Make a Deal, and fellowship with all. There will also be a birthday celebration featuring ice cream and cake, as well as bingo, exercise, and nutrition education

Well, what is your impression? Have the people that plan these events been skipping the educational classes? Or have the class instructors skipped over some significant issues because they’re not popular?

Whatever the case, I hope the senior center in your area, or any organization that’s passing out what’s supposed to be healthy nutritional information, is diseminating GOOD information and following it too.

It’s amazing, considering I’ve listened to every word of Dr. Wayne Pickering’s advice on my “Older & Active” show, that I fell into that trap he often mentions. I let age be my cage.

Back when I was in school, I had a teacher tell the class that us guys could expect to live to be seventy and the girls would reach seventy-two. Now I know he meant that as an average, and that it was based on the insurance industry estimates at the time. But just like a lot of the things that get stuck in our sub-conscious at that age, those numbers took hold.

For the last few years, living in a state of semi-retirement, several times I’ve come across a business venture that piqued my interest and each time I’d get briefly excited and then let it go and never really stopped to think why. Then, early last spring, two things happened that changed all that.

First I had an epiphany – it’s almost mandatory these days to have one of those. You can’t just have a standard old realization that you’ve been thinking wrong, or even the more modern ah-ha moment. You have to have an epiphany. My epiphany was that the reason I wasn’t doing more with my life was that I’d been canceling every bright idea and opportunity with the sub-conscious thought that I’m almost seventy and there’s no sense in starting anything new at this point in my life.

For one reason or another, I get a pretty good physical at least once a year and I’m in better health, according to the doctors, than most men half my age. All the standard markers for health are fantastic. My eyes are weaker and there’s not near as much hair on my head (don’t know why it comes out my ears and nose now), but I have no problem participating in sports, putting 100 miles a week on my bike, or any other physical activity. Yet here I am thinking I shouldn’t start anything new because I’ll be seventy next year.

So the first thing I did after I had this epiphany was to change my thoughts and attitude. I’ve decided to live past one-hundred. Does that mean I’ll automatically make it? Of course not. But the fact that I’ve now put that in my head increases the chances exponentially! And it certainly changed my attitude.

One of the first thoughts I had with this new attitude was that I now have over thirty years to put into a new career! I’ve already proven to myself that I don’t like retirement. So why not build a business for the next twenty years and look at it again. Maybe by then I’ll be ready to retire – or maybe I’ll just decide to live to 125.

Then the second event happened that put me on my current path. I had an ECG that came back perfect. “If I didn’t have your age on here, I’d swear you were in your twenties,” the doctor told me.

That really hit me. About fifteen years ago I took up running again and began to have slight chest pains and decided to have it checked out. After an exhaustive series of tests they told me that there was ischemia on the septum of my heart, and that was the cause of the delay that showed up in my ECG. They told me that there was no cure, but not to worry as it wasn’t all that serious and that I could lead a normal life, that it was probably from the years when I’d been into drinking and smoking and that since I’d given all that up years earlier, it shouldn’t get any worse, or any better either.

So when I got that ECG back that showed no delay, and a second confirmed it, I was ecstatic and knew what had caused it.

Last fall I’d begun taking a Shaklee product, “Vivix.” It was the only thing that I’d changed in my health regimen in five years. I’d heard several wonderful testimonials from people that had been taking “Vivix” but until I had one of my own, and the ECG to back it up, I wasn’t that bubbling-over with the urge to tell others.

It’s one thing to decide to live past 100 and another entirely when you realize there’s a VERY good chance you’ll do it! I suppose you can guess by now what I decided to do for that new career. I’m going to share the Shaklee story and opportunity with as many people as I can possibly meet in the next 30+ years!

Is it time for you to think about a new career? No matter your age, it can happen.

And since we’ve mentioned our heads, let’s start at the top – in this case, the top of your head. A bicycle helmet is usually the first thing everyone thinks of when we speak of biking safety and that applies to any age. I won’t argue at all about that helmet being the most critical piece of safety equipment for any cyclist. Like many things in life, I learned my lesson there the hard way – by going all the way through the rear window of an automobile, head first, and living to tell about it.

Unfortunately, when you ask the average bicyclist about safety, they quickly mention that all important bike helmet, and then sort of give you this blank look. They know there should be more to it than one thing, but they can’t think of anything else.

That’s why, with beautiful spring weather upon us, I’ve put together Bicycle Safety 101. A safe bicyclist begins before he or she ever gets on the bike, by using their heads and thinking ahead, planning their ride to their ability.

Ride within your limit. A few trips to the store are not sufficient training rides to do the “MS150″ or some “Bike to the Beach & Back” event. You don’t want to be that person that gets so tired they’re pedaling awkwardly, swaying on the seat, and weaving out into the traffic lane.

Ever been lost? In a bad neighborhood that you didn’t know existed until a gang of home-boys started eyeing the spiffy new ride you just plunked down more than a grand for? I live in the inner city of San Antonio and use a bike for everyday transportation. My hock-shop beater doesn’t draw any attention and I can take it anywhere in town (in the daytime) and not have to worry much. However if you’ve got a fancy set of wheels, you better have a very good idea of where you’re going before you ever leave the house, or plan to ride in the country and even then, it’s always a good idea, for several reasons, to have at least one person riding with you.

Not only is there safety in numbers, there’s the comfort of knowing that if something were to happen to you or your bike, you’re not stuck out in the middle of nowhere. Don’t count on that cell phone, although I consider that an important piece of safety gear too. Road rash is embarrassing and uncomfortable, but in most cases you can make it back okay. However a bent or broken bicycle, or worse, a bent or broken body, means you need to call in help. If you’re by yourself when it happens, you can be sure a corollary of Murphy’s Law will apply. Your accident will occur within the only dead spot for your cell phone. Ride with a friend.

Aside from that helmet, there are other items of clothing to consider. Competitive cyclists, and the wannabes, get themselves tricked out in all the gear, from head to toe. They wouldn’t be seen in a helmet that cost less than a hundred dollars. They have to have a team jersey of some sort, plus the ‘in’ brand of shorts, and bicycling shoes – you know – the kind that clicks on to the pedal receptacles. But for us boomers and above that are more interested in having fun and getting some exercise than we are in our image to other cyclists, about the only thing we have to worry about is getting a pants leg in the bike chain. When the weather is too cold to wear shorts, I keep reflective garters in my backpack so that my pants cuffs don’t snag on a bottle holder or shifter or get hung on the ring gears.

Get a helmet that’s rated by the CPSC. Check out the website of the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute at www.bhsi.org. They’ve done research that shows that the cheap helmets and the expensive helmets have near identical impact results and in most cases, the cheaper helmets, without the fancy flares and protrusions, are less likely to cause rotational stress. I happen to think that a good pair of bicycle gloves, with the gel palms, is also important. The first time you hit the asphalt without them, you’ll agree too. As to the rest of your attire, suit yourself.

That does however bring up visibility. If you’ve ever had the desire to dress like a peacock, riding a bike is your best excuse. Loud, bright, colorful – it’s all good here. If idiots behind the wheel of a car, usually with a cell phone in their hand, can’t see big red stop signs, or even bigger, shiny automobiles, anything you can do to make yourself more visible is fine by me. I’ve ridden a couple of recumbent bikes and loved them. But there’s no way I’m going out in traffic riding something that’s already below fender height – I don’t care how many flags you hang on one.

As to riding at night, my advice is: Don’t! I have yet to see (and that’s not a pun) a bicycle lighting system that I’d feel comfortable with. At times I have to ride my bike before dawn and after dark and I’m super cautious at when I do. Reflectors and reflective tape and clothing help more than those blinking lights that are supposed to be so good. What they look like to a motorist (that isn’t paying attention) is a warning light of some sort way off in the distance. However reflectors on your pedals, and reflective strips on the pedal arms, show up as an unusual pumping motion that gets a drivers attention – sometimes.

Another dangerous time is when the sun is low on the horizon. If the sun is ahead of you and there are drivers coming up behind you, there’s a very good chance they can’t see you. The same applies if the sun is behind you and someone is waiting to pull out in traffic or make a turn in front of you and they’re looking into the sun at the same time.

The rule of thumb that will save your life is to assume you can’t be seen. I don’t care how nice the day is, or how perfect the visibility, I ride with the assumption that every driver on the road cheated on their drivers license eye exam and should be declared legally blind, and has had enough to drink to melt down a breathalyzer. That’s why I ride a mountain bike in the city. If they have the attitude that it’s their road, I’m not going to argue; I’ll get off. They’re driving a two-ton automobile and me and my bike together might weigh 175 pounds. Do the math. I don’t know any of this ‘New Math’ but I do know that on the roadway, 175 can definately be divided by 4000.

Now a few words about the bike. Make sure it’s in good working order before you take off. Even if it’s brand new, you want to carry a spare tube and a hand pump. Between a saddle pack and a fanny pack, you can carry first-aid essentials (new skin, sun block, lip balm, etc), and enough small tools and stuff to fix a flat so that you won’t have to walk home. If you haven’t been on your bike in a while, or if it’s been some time since it was last in the shop, I heartily recommend you take it in for a spring tune-up. A bike mechanic can find things like loose spokes, cracked tires, worn brake pads, or shifters out of adjustment that you might not notice – until another of those Murphy’s Law corollaries bites you in the butt a million miles from nowhere.

Another thing a bike pro can help you with is making sure your bike is fitted and adjusted for your body and that you have a saddle that won’t leave you walking bowlegged following your first moderate ride. A badly chaffed crotch has dissuaded more would be bikers than anything else I know of.

The last thing I want to mention about bicycle safety is something I rank up there 2^nd only to that bike helmet and that is hydration. In the heat of summer, you’re thinking about water before you begin. However in the spring, when the urge to get out and about on a beautiful day makes you assume it’s not that hot yet, think again. Just because you’re not sweating like a horse, it doesn’t mean you’re not loosing body fluid. If you wait until you’re thirsty to replace those fluids, you’ve waited too long. In the spring, a person is more apt to get a muscle cramp before they have any other symptom.

So get some good, stainless water bottles (please – no disposable plastic water bottles) for your bike, use them and refill them often, and enjoy your ride!

Additonal safety tips can be found at www.bicyclesafe.com

www.mapmyride.com  “Map my Ride” is one of a series of “Map my (xxxx)” that have appeared recently for all manner of activity. I try to put 100 miles a week on my bike and since over half of those miles are over the same routes for the same purposes (gym, grocery store, baseball field, etc), it’s a great time saver to map out those routes and save them. Then I can add them to my total for the week with a click of the computer mouse. I ride an old beater around town which I purposely leave looking shabby. It doesn’t get stolen but it’s hard to keep acceessories on my bike, like speedometer/odometer, etc. Map my Ride is the next best thing.

If you runners and walkers would like to check the accuracy of your Pedometers, www.mapmyrun.com is one way to do it. Like “Map my Ride,” this sister site, “Map my Run,” is based on Google maps and allows you to trace out your route and save it. All of the “Map my Fitness” programs are compatible with an iPhone or Android applications.

And since I’ve mentioned running and walking, this would be a good place to segue into www.meetup.com and all the activities you can find there. In this area (I’m in San Antonio) there are several meet up groups for running and walking, plus many others for biking, body building, dancing, dining, exercise – even dog walking, both large and small. If there’s not a meet up for your particular interest in your area, there’s a provision to post your interest and be notified when someone else with a similar interest has signed up. One of the things I’ve stressed many times on my radio show is having an exercise partner to keep each other motivated. www.meetup.com is an excellent way to locate one or more.

Once again, for those of you 65 and over, I want to mention the “Siver Sneakers” fitness program: www.silversneakers.com. Many of the Medicare providers are affiliated with “Silver Sneakers” and provide FREE membership at local fitness centers. I’m sure you can figure out why. When an insurance company is willing to fork over $$$ for preventive medicine, instead of begrudgingly paying it out later, there has to be something to it. What they’ve come to know and understand is that people that exercise regularly don’t get sick as often, recover quicker, and when hospitalized, are in and out faster. All that adds up to dollars saved by encouraging you to exercise and the Silver Sneaker program is designed for that purpose with certain standards that must be met for a fitness center to participate. Pull up the Silver Sneaker site, see what’s available in your area, and if your insurance provider doesn’t participate, get one that does!

Rather than try to list all the exercise logs and online training programs available, I’ll just say that there are a slew of them and I’ll list a few in the Links area. The one I use, www. is provided free by the “Y” where I work out. www.activtrax.com not only suggests a workout program for me, based on my preferences (free weights vs. machine, etc.),  each peice of equipment at the gym is numbered so there’s no terminology issues. I don’t have to know ‘abductor’ from ‘adductor’. All I have to do is go to station #xx and do what the printout tells me. I love it when something on the internet makes life simpler and not more complicated!

With the Obama administration bringing us closer and closer each day to his Marxist ideals and starting smear campaigns against anyone that protests, I can’t help but wonder at times if our government hasn’t opened an office similar to the KGB’s, “Office of Disinformation.” We’re constantly being told things that anyone with common sense can tell can’t be right. Sure, it sounds good, and sure, we’d like to believe it’s true. But if your brain hasn’t been addled by government approved (and encouraged) poor nutrition, water fluoridation, and other chemical onslaughts, you know barn yard droppings when you see them.

But don’t you dare question or raise your voice in protest. They’ll have a label for you too.

In this morning’s email news, I read about the latest effort to discredit anyone that questions Big Brother’s words of wisdom regarding nutrition. Just like anyone that complains about our elected officials failing to uphold the Constitution (that they’ve sworn to uphold) is designated a ‘radical’ or worse; we now have an official term to describe those of us that wish to make intelligent decisions about the food we eat. We can now put on our resume that we suffer from, “Orthorexia Nervosa,” a new and growing psychological disorder.

That means that those of us that eat healthy, protest fluoridation, raise our voices about FDA standards, question the effectiveness of the EPA, or in some other way, possibly even something as horrific as buying organic foods at a farmers market instead of our government approved grocery store, will be labeled as suffering from ‘orthorexia nervosa’ and summarily ignored and dismissed.

Translated from Latin, what “Orthorexia nervosa” means is, “nervous about the food you eat.” I can’t help but wonder, if like me you habitually read the food labels, would that qualify us to be upgraded to “Orthorexia paranoia” status? What about the many medical professionals, like Drs. Allan Spreen, Joseph Mercola, and Andrew Weil, that have been urging us for years to stay away from unhealthy, processed foods? As ringleaders of a sort, shouldn’t they be institutionalized immediately? I can just picture all of us confined to a mental institution, picking at our food plates, trying to find some morsel of good nutrition.

According to, “The Guardian,” which bills itself as the leading voice of liberalism, “The obsession about which foods are “good” and which are “bad” means orthorexics can end up malnourished.” Does that mean they think those of us in good health because of exercise and good nutrition are malnurished and the growing ranks of people that are obese, have plague filled arteries, and a medicine cabinet full of pills are doing it right? But in one way, they’re right. There’s so little ‘good’ nurishment out there that if you don’t know where to find it or how to get it, you could wind up with very little to eat.

Here’s another quote: “Orthorexics commonly have rigid rules around eating. Refusing to touch sugar, salt, caffeine, alcohol, wheat, gluten, yeast, soya, corn and dairy foods is just the start of their diet restrictions.” 

You got that right baby! Most of those are off my list for sure. But the one I really love is this one: “Any foods that have come into contact with pesticides, herbicides or contain artificial additives are also out.”

Just like Al Gore, this columnist doesn’t know that herbicides ARE pesticides and the use of both is redundant. But that aside, why in the name of God’s Green Earth would anyone intentionally want to consume poison? By their kind of thinking, slow, intentional suicide (as long as it keeps the medical industry busy) is perfectly sane, but being selective about the food you eat is a mental disorder. I don’t guess I’ll ever understand liberal logic.

Personally, I think I’ll have a t-shirt made up that says, “I have Orthorexia Nervosa and You Should Too!”

Can you really eat your way to happiness? The mood food connection

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) Yes, you really can eat your way to happiness, but perhaps not in the way you might first imagine. By “happiness,” I mean lasting happiness, not the fleeting kind of sensory happiness that might be experienced from sucking the cream filling out of a twinkie. And that’s the distinction that really matters here: When I talk about happiness, I’m talking about sustainable happiness, not a brief moment of spurious excitement that soon reverses itself and leads to depression.

You see, a lot of people try to eat their way to happiness by eating the “instant joy” foods like ice cream, donuts, cookies and yes, even twinkies. Sugar can, indeed, make us momentarily uplifted because this refined molecule temporarily boosts blood sugar and actively alters brain chemistry. But like any drug, the depression after it wears off is far worse than the brief happiness it appeared to give us. And in the worst cases, we sometimes fall into a pattern of treating that mental rut with yet another hit of sugar to try to keep the happiness going.

This downward cycle of sugar dependence leads us to long-term obesity, diabetes and depression.

As author Timothy Brantley says in The Cure: Heal Your Body, Save Your Life:
“How did these foods affect their moods? Food Group A (Standard American Diet). The subjects all had radical energy fluctuations, staying in a cycle of having to manipulate to produce quick energy after a radical drop. The subjects all remarked that they never realized how addicted they were to sugar and other stimulants, like caffeine, simply to function. The roller-coaster effect on their energy swung them into high and low moods, and many of them got sick consistently.”
(http://www.naturalpedia.com/book_Th…)

The Standard American Diet is obviously not the solution we’re looking for. But what works better?

Foods for long-term happiness

Fortunately, there are a huge number of other foods that promote long-term happiness. That’s what this article is about: Sharing with you the good news on foods that can support healthy moods and promote a positive outlook on life for the rest of your life.

And I have to say that list starts with omega-3 oils. High-quality omega-3s provide one of the most powerful and sustainable boosts to healthy moods of any commonly-available food.

Read up on omega-3s at NaturalPedia: http://naturalpedia.com/omega-3s.html

You can get omega-3 oils from fish, quality marine oil supplements like Moxxor, chia seeds, flax seeds and other quality nutritional supplements.

Beware of grocery store foods that claim to be “made with omega-3s” because the actual quantity of omega-3 oils in those foods is usually so tiny that it hardly matters to your daily nutritional intake.

Enjoy healthy nuts

Pecans are extremely beneficial to supporting not just healthy moods but healthy brain function as well. It’s the oils in the nuts that do the trick. Read more at http://naturalpedia.com/pecans.html

Other nuts can also be strongly supportive of healthy moods in the long term: Almonds, pistachios, macadamia nuts and walnuts all have powerful health-supporting properties that affect brain function and therefore mood experiences, too. Eat more raw nuts and you’ll create better brain balance for the long term!

Adaptogens and green tea

Green tea seems to provide a subtle mood lift without all the problems of typical stimulants. Just make sure you’re getting decaffeinated green tea, and check your source to make sure it doesn’t suffer from fluoride contamination (some green tea products grown in certain countries have been known to carry a lot of fluoride).

Adaptogenic herbs are also very, very good at helping your neurology better handle stress. This can often translate into an easier day, reduced stress and improved moods. Adaptogens include ginseng, ashwagandha, rhodiola, cordyceps mushroom and many others.

Learn more about adaptogens at NaturalPedia: http://www.naturalpedia.com/adaptog…

Herbal tonics for mood support

While we’re in the realm of herbs, there are several herbal tonic products that are well known to help support healthy moods. St. John’s Wort has been clinically shown to work as well as antidepressant drugs to ease symptoms of depression. I usually take it with dandelion or yellow dock to provide additional liver support.

Learn more about St. John’s Wort at NaturaPedia: http://www.naturalpedia.com/St_John…

Several Traditional Chinese Medicine herbal formulas are also known to help support healthy moods. Chinese herbs are always used in combination, never in isolation, but one herb that’s found in many mood-supporting formulas is Bupleurum.

The history and use of this herb is quite fascinating. Check it out here: http://www.naturalpedia.com/Bupleur…

Eat lots of fresh fruits and veggies

In addition to the omega-3 oils, nuts and herbs mentioned here, focus on consuming large quantities of fresh fruits and vegetables. You simply cannot over-eat fresh fruits and vegetables, so eat all you want. They’re loaded with mood-lifting nutrients that can also help prevent cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

Be sure to buy organic produce wherever possible!

What to avoid

This section can be summed up in just two words: Sugar, Caffeine.

Seriously. If you want to maintain healthy moods, it’s crucial to avoid refined sugar and caffeine from all sources. That means no caffeinated coffee, no donuts, no cookies, no Pepsi, etc.

These two chemicals do more to destroy healthy moods in the long term than probably any other chemicals in the food supply. And yet, ironically, they are precisely the two chemicals that people reach for to try to get short-term mood lifts.

They do provide short-term boosts, much like a drug. Heroin might make you feel good in the short term, too, but it’s highly addictive and causes huge health problems over the long haul. Sugar and caffeine are similarly addictive and problematic; except they’re legal and you don’t inject them with a syringe. (Well, at least I hope not.)

If you suffer from mood swings or depression right now, the first and most important change you need to make in your diet is to eliminate refined sugars and caffeine. The second change to make is to start bringing in mood-enhancing health foods such as omega-3s, raw nuts and lots of fresh produce.

But the really important step is to find new ways to enjoy your feed by expanding your experience of all the amazing tastes to be found in the universe of foods provided by Mother Nature. If you’ve never tried raw food cuisine, definitely check it out at a local raw food restaurant (or find a raw food chef in your area). You’ll be amazed at the new spectrum of tastes and sensory experiences provided by raw foods — and you’ll experience huge long-term health benefits from the raw foods, too!

Stay happy with healthy foods

Yes, food can make you happy, but only if you focus on consuming health-enhancing foods that are natural, non-refined and packed with nutrients. Don’t compromise your mental experience of life by turning to sugar, caffeine and other short-term stimulants. Or if you’re on those right now, find ways to slowly transition off them while embracing some of the healthier choices I’ve covered here.

In the long term, you’ll discover that healthy foods = healthy moods.

But give it time: It may take 30 days of eating right before you really feel the full effects with improved mood. Foods are not isolated chemicals that kick in right away. Transitioning to a healthier body and brain with healthy food takes some time. But it’s time well spent. After all, you get to eat your way to a more positive outlook on life. And that sounds kinda fun anyway, doesn’t it?{SubscribeHealthRangerBlock}

ScienceDaily (2010-07-14) — The more an older woman weighs, the worse her memory, according to new research. The effect is more pronounced in women who carry excess weight around their hips, known as pear shapes, than women who carry it around their waists, called apple shapes. The study of post-menopausal women is the first in the US to link obesity to poorer memory in women and to identify the body shape connection. … > read full article