The Importance of Daily Supplements for Proper Nutrients

Thanksgiving has to be my favorite holiday of the year because my house is filled with family, friends and the aromas of delicious feasts.  Thanksgiving is a week long event at my house with family arriving from far and wide as early as the weekend before the main event.  By the day before Thanksgiving every spare bedroom is filled with family that have come to enjoy the festivities.  I love to play holiday music while we cook, visit, play games and eat.  My holiday favorites are Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Perry Como and Andy Williams.  

As hostess of 20+, I can easily get tired if I don't take my supplements which brings to mind a study I just read about getting enough nutrients.  I know if you don't, you are at risk of disease as well as experiencing fatigue.  I may be 50 years old but I don't want to feel it or look it so I take my vitamins every day.

In the study I read, "Older adults who use vitamin/mineral supplements differ from nonusers in nutrient intake adequacy and dietary attitudes," done by a few different national organizations (please read the entirety of the study here) came to the conclusion that "A large proportion of older adults do not consume sufficient amounts of many nutrients from foods alone."

In this study "older" was defined as 51 and older. Which means your generation should heed the warning and make sure you remember to take a good quality multi-vitamin supplement daily.

The importance about taking vitamins is that the nutrients be absorbed. Quality of ingredients are worth the price for your health. NS has their Lifepak Family of multivitamin supplements - comprehensive supplements that promote longevity, wellness, and vitality. Lifepak can be a life-long supplements with a grouping for all ages - check all of them out here.

Lifepak Nano - my recommendation for everyone over the age of 18. Nano technology is used so that you are most able to absorb all the nutrients - this technology is not used to manufacture the vitamins sold in stores.   (click above for the LifePak Guarantee)  


Nanotechnology Helps Make Nutrients  More  Available to the Body

"Pharmanex has revolutionized a way to apply nanotechnology principles
to anti-aging nutrients. When applied to nutrition, this nano
process involves physically altering a hard-to-absorb nutrient so that
it becomes more available to the body without altering its function."

Lifepak Prime Anti-Aging Formula - LifePak Prime provides an array of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants often missing in the average adult diet. 

Be sure to check your vitamins for a USP label, indicating they contain all the ingredients within a percentage so you get what you bought.  After trying many 'doctor' recommended brands I found that Lifepak Nano overall works better for me. If you are interested in trying these supplements, please email me (ajulie@me.com) for a 25% discount.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! 

Why Do We Gain Weight As We Age?

Helping people get back to a healthy body weight and maintain it gives me a lot of satisfaction since as we age it seems harder and harder to do.  Maintaining a healthy body weight is critical to fighting age and disease.  Staying trim has the bonus of making us feel good about ourselves because our organs are working well so we feel good and the bottom line…our skinny jeans fit.  So, why do we gain weight as we age even when we exercise and eat right?

Female Hormones:

Our bodies change as we age and a visible difference seen in women is the way fat is stored and used.  “Growth hormones moderate where excess energy is stored.  In our youth, when there is excess sugar, these hormones dictate that the energy be stored in the muscle as glycogen (to be used later as energy). However, in the aging body, excess energy is usually stored in the fat cells due to changes in hormones and hormone production.

Changes in estrogen receptors in the hypothalamus, a sign of menopause, means it can be harder to lose weight. In turn there is a greater burden on women to eat a healthy diet and exercise more to help their metabolism make up for the loss of estrogen, which helped regulate weight gain and appetite. Interestingly, fat cells produce estrogen, along with other hormones and proteins. But estrogen produced in fat cells will not help regulate obesity and metabolism. Instead, estrogen that accompanies weight gain, especially in abdominal fat, puts women at a higher risk for breast cancer, because estrogen stimulates cell growth. That growth can include cancer cells, making the spread of the disease even more dangerous. See targeted solutions for your estrogen levels here.

Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/281155-estrogen-weight-loss/#ixzz1sEmqafee

Slowed-Down Metabolism:

The rate at which our body uses up energy from food starts to decelerate as we get older causing more fat to be stored than when we were young. The body also starts to produce cortisol, a stress-related hormone that has a direct effect on fat storage.  When we are stressed, cortisol affects fat storage and weight because it becomes more concentrated.  PLUS, the enzyme that is responsible for turning inactive cortisol into an active hormone lives in the fat tissue causing more fat to be accumulated and the cells to actually grow in size!  This is why it is so important to maintain your muscle mass as you age because the more you have the more efficient your metabolism is.  Incorporate strength training, Pilates, yoga and aerobic exercises to best build muscle and a better metabolism.  Drink green tea to speed up your metabolism! Don't like green tea but want the benefits? Check out a supplement that is the same as SEVEN cups of tea with no caffeine!  My weight management program includes a supplement that is a unique dietary supplement to help you stay calm and relaxed through a proprietary blend of ingredients shown to promote healthy cortisol levels.  Of course, a person can take this supplement alone for its benefits of calmness and healthy cortisol levels.

Question:  When you need to lose some weight to feel better or fit into your clothes, what works for you?

Health Tip:  5 Sneaky Energy Suckers by Women's Health (Elianna Osborn)

1. Dehydration 

Next time you start feeling mentally sluggish or feeling foggy light headed, instead of thinking you are hungry try downing a glass or two of water.

2. Cell Phones

Checking your cell phone before going to bed amps up brain activity making it harder to doze off

plus the artificial blue light  coming from your electronics can suppress the sleep hormone melatonin  20% of people are awakened by a cell,text at least a few times a week.  Power down well before bed. 

3. Medication 

Many medications have energy-sapping side effects. Chief among them are antidepressants and certain beta-blockers used to prevent migraines or treat high blood pressure if you feel more lethargic than usual see your Doctor they have other drugs that can be taken before going to bed.

4. Over-training

While working out zaps the stress hormone Cortisol, prolonged sweat sessions -like running 30 minutes at a steady rate can actually rev up cortisol production.   Combine your exercise with strength training and free weights with help keep cortisol in check.

5. Low Iron

The mineral shuttles oxygen around your body and removes waste from your cells. If you're not getting around 18 milligrams a day, your body struggles to function properly and you can feel worn out if you feel sluggish, ask your doctor for a simple blood test  to see if you need to be taking a supplement.

Spring Into Clean! Organize, Declutter, and Detox Any Space.

Spring Into Clean!  Organize, Declutter, and Detox  Any Space. – By Julie and Joy

To help a friend raise funds for the Albie Aware Foundation, an organization helping women with little or no health insurance get the insurance necessary for mammograms and, if necessary, treatment for breast cancer- I cleaned out my closet.  She was having a “gently-used clothing drive” where California Clothing Recyclers, www.californiaclothing.net, pays the organization per pound for donated items.  My friend is battling breast cancer for the second time and the Albie Aware Foundation provides such excellent help to women in my community that I HAD to donate.  At first it seemed like such a daunting task.  My assistant, Joy, gave me her tips so I’d like to share them with you because it made the task so much easier!

5 Steps to Organizing any Space!

1.  Take everything out of the area (closet, drawer, garage, desk, cabinet, etc)

2. Create 3 piles: Keep, Donate, Throw (hopefully they should be about equal amounts in each pile.

3.  Vacuum, dust, wash, the area before putting anything back. Why put your stuff back into a dusty/dirty area?

4.  As you start to put your “keepers back” into the area, put items you will use more frequently in easily reachable/accessible part of the room.

5.  Want to make it easy to stay organized?  Use cloth or plastic bins* to keep like items together in a neat and tidy spot.  Use a label maker to clearly label each bin will provide an instant way to keep you organized in the future!  *Bins can be found at Target or any home goods store.

Happy organizing! 

Health (Sanity) Tip: Keep Great Ideas Organized on Pinterest!

I know I was a little late to get on the bandwagon of Pinterest, but now I am LOVING how I can show off my favorite products, find great ideas for future crafts, organizing ideas, items I may want to buy, and SO much more! In keeping with the organizing theme, GONE are the days of clipping out magazine pages to lose once you want to find the idea! Check out my new Pinterest page and let’s share great ideas! http://pinterest.com/anuyoubyjulie/

The Vitality Test: Good Day Sacramento Airs Live Stair Climb of Wells Fargo Center In Downtown Sacramento, Green Tea & Olive Oil for Health

As the volunteer Executive Committee Chair for the American Lung Association’s Fight For Air Climb, I got up yesterday morning at 2 am to get down to the Wells Fargo Center. I had no idea of who all would be there. I had no idea of exactly what we would be doing. All I knew is that Good Day Sacramento was doing a live story on the Fight For Air Climb that is coming up next month, March 24th. Along with a firefighter, a gym owner, and Julie Lautsch, Regional Director for the American Lung Association we met Julissa Ortiz of Good Day Sacramento to climb the 34 flights of stairs for the morning news program. I arrived at 4:30 am and once we all gathered we stretched and warmed up then off we went. Our firefighter raced to the top in 4 minutes and 55 seconds. The rest followed at 6 to 6 and a half minutes and I finished in under 7 minutes. We had been delayed several times so it wasn’t until after 7 am that we began our climb. By then I was getting cold and hungry. I am amazed I did as well as I did! I have to credit my nutritional supplements and my regular exercise routine for my success. Next month, on March 24th, I expect my time to be even faster since I will have had a full night’s sleep and some food to fuel my body.

Here are some clips so prove I really did this yesterday!
http://gooddaysacramento.cbslocal.com/video/6785674-wells-fargo-stair-climb/ and http://gooddaysacramento.cbslocal.com/video/6785889-climb-for-air/ (I had already headed down the elevator for the last clip but I made it to the top!!


Joy and my daily habit: Green tea please!
Joy and I each drink about 4 cups of green tea every day we work together in Sacramento. We love that it tastes good, keeps us warm, and gets us through a tired morning or afternoon. Green tea has long been used for many remedies  More than a decade’s worth of research about green tea’s health benefits — particularly its potential to fight cancer and heart disease — has been more than intriguing, as have limited studies about green tea’s role in lowering cholesterol, burning fat, preventing diabetes and stroke, and staving off dementia. Another benefit of green tea is that the more you drink or take the more calories you burn without increasing your activity.One of my favorite supplements has green tea in a capsule so you can maximize your calorie burn and healthy living without drinking gallons of tea. The supplement provides a highly concentrated, proprietary extract of green tea catechins to help protect your body at the cellular level. Each capsule contains the catechin equivalent of SEVEN cups of green tea without the caffeine. Containing 97% polyphenol antioxidants, two-thirds of which are catechins, It is one of the most potent antioxidant products on the market-providing you with maximum protection for critical cell structures such as DNA.


Health Tip: The Greek Secret to Healthy Life…Olive Oil
Well, first off, looking at the per capita consumption of all fats and oils, Americans average 1.3 lbs of fat and oil a week – that’s on the order of 120% of the USDA recommended amounts – no wonder we have an obesity epidemic. Very little of the oil consumed is olive oil. We consume so little olive oil that it’s measured per year, at only ½ liter annually. The Greeks on the other hand, use ½ liter of olive oil per week, and on the Greek island of Crete, even more! The phytonutrients in olive oil help maintain a healthy cholesterol to keep heart disease at bay. Also, some olive oils are very high in antioxidants. Check out this page for the listings of several organic olive oils and their individual antioxidant scores: http://apollooliveoil.com/order.php