Be Wise Newsletter – 5 Steps to Fitness During the Holiday Season

[youtube]https://youtu.be/xXU4–zUY7Y[/youtube]Maintaining fitness and healthy habits during the holiday season keeps us tuned up to really enjoy the festivities. You can easily slip these 5 fitness steps into the added busyness of the season. Besides keeping you healthy they will prevent the added stress of the holiday preparations and festivities from becoming distress and dis-ease.

1. Continue to have fun with your exercise fitness program.

Exercise refreshes your body, invigorates your muscles and lifts your mood. In the past my husband Pat and I have spent 8 to 10 or more hours per week on our cardio and strength training programs. Maintaining that investment of time during the holidays became a challenge until about 3 years ago when we got smart. We discovered an exercise that only takes 15 minutes per WEEK and keeps us more fit with a lot less wear and tear on our bodies than when we spent all of those hours exercising. This time-efficient exercise frees up a lot of hours for us and provides a wealth of other health-building benefits, in fact so many that we wrote a whole chapter explaining the benefits in our co-authored book, Fit in 15 Minutes per WEEK, the doctor recommended, scientifically proven way to efficiently optimize your health and fitness. Engaging in the Fit in 15 routine takes only 15 minutes per WEEK of your holiday time. Now that’s a great bonus to keep you healthy.

Add on top of that you can actually become a calorie burning machine 24/7, dramatically increasing you metabolism.

For the holiday season we’re offering the special price of only $12.00 for Fit in 15 (normally $15.15)

Or an even better offer:

Fit in 15 plus Dr. Jo’s Natural Healing Cookbook for only $20.00 (normally $32.10)
Or any combination of 2 books for $20.00 (2 Fit in 15 or 2 Natural Healing Cookbooks
Plus tax when applicable and shipping. (This offer only available within the USA)

Click Here to Access Your Special Holiday Sale

2. Eat healthy

Those sweet temptations pop up everywhere during the holiday season. How do we enjoy them without undermining our health? If you really have to indulge in sweets, do it very mindfully. Savor the taste in your mouth. Really focus on it. Eat it very slowly thinking of how much you enjoy the flavor and the texture so your mind feels satisfied. And only eat one like the French, who I have heard think it’s rude to take more than one chocolate. And indulge in this taste sensation infrequently. Remember that we are wired and conditioned and addicted to think that sweets taste good, but they are not good for our bodies. Among other adverse affects on our bodies, sweets partially paralyze the immune system by decreasing the number of bacteria our white blood cells can gobble up and destroy. Review this research which revealed that each white blood cell can ingest and destroy an average of 16 bacteria before eating sweets and only 9 bacteria after eating sweets.

https://www.drjomd.com/highways/nutrition/sugar/sugar-suppresses-the-immune-system/

Instead of grabbing the immune weakening food that’s ever-present when hunger strikes, be prepared with healthy meals. Take a few minutes to pack your health-promoting, immune-strengthening food to take with you in a cool pack so it’s readily available for those hungry times. Actually, avoid allowing those strong hunger pangs to crop up in the first place. Eat 3 to 5 meals with protein, complex carbohydrates and healthy fats throughout the day and you may find the temptations to eat sweets and other junk food fade away.

Some ideas for meals on the go:

Salads – quick to make with all of the pre-washed greens and veggie packets available in the market

Left-overs from your healthy meal the day before

Raw (or soaked and dried) nuts and seeds. Eat one or two tablespoons as a snack

Boiled eggs with veggie sticks

Use your unlimited imagination

If you need some more sparks for your creativity, consult Dr. Jo’s Natural Healing Cookbook

3. Sleep for at least 8 hours per night.

Getting enough sleep can be the biggest challenge in the holiday season but it’s so important for keeping your immune system strong and boosting your energy and your mood so you can really enjoy the season. Consider making a list of all the things you “think” you have to do and then prioritizing them to what’s really the most important. Then flush the rest. To fall asleep fast and sleep soundly stop eating 3 hours before bedtime, stop “screen time” a few hours before bedtime, sleep in a dark room and keep the temperature in the upper 60’s.

4. Take basic nutritional supplements.

Cover your nutritional basics with a multivitamin and mineral (preferably food-based).

Be sure your blood vitamin D levels fall in an optimal range especially in the winter in North America where most of us do not have enough sun exposure to create vitamin D from sun exposed skin. Dr. John Cannell, a vitamin D expert now recommends that adults take 5,000 IU of vitamin D per day. However, each individual should consult with his/her health care practitioner to determine the optimal dose of vitamin D.

Vitamin D Council

Dr. Fuhrmans Discussion of Vitamin D

5. Consume probiotic food and drink

Feed your body the good organisms (probiotics) that you need to foster a friendly balance of organisms in your gut and mucous membranes that help suppress unfriendly organisms (germs), support your immune system and manufacture vitamins and other substances that nourish your tissues. Choose from cultured food like real, raw sauerkraut, kimchi and others or cultured (fermented drinks) like kombucha, Kevita and others. Health-minded companies are now producing a great variety of cultured products for your consumption. Enjoy!

A concise article on the benefits of probiotics in preventing infectious diseases

Probiotics for Colds and Flu

Have a wonderful, joyful, peace-filled holiday season utilizing these time-efficient 5 steps to fitness, great for the busy season and any time of year.

Dr. Jo