What's Eating You?

Repost from Emblem Health

tcardello — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:59:23 +0000

Is Healthier Food Cheaper and Better for You Than Fast Food? You Compare.

With the busy lifestyles we balance, picking up fast food may seem easier than making a meal at home. But when you compare the calories, costs and nutrients that go into a healthy, home-cooked meal to what you would wait in line to eat at a fast food chain, you may choose to eat at home more often.

A look at two diets

An April 2010 article from Family Medicine compares two diets for an adult over the course of one year:¹

The healthy home-cooked diet
	Items from the five food subgroups: milk and dairy, lean meats, fruits, vegetables and grains. (These are the five food subgroups recommended by the American Heart Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.)

The unhealthy fast food diet
	Breakfast: Sandwich, hash browns and coffee or juiceLunch and dinner: Sandwich, medium french fries and a 21-ounce carbonated drink

The calories, the costs

It probably comes as no surprise that the healthier option was higher in nutrients and lower in calories. But what may surprise you is that the healthier option was also the less expensive option. The total yearly cost of the unhealthy diet was over $10,000.* That’s almost twice the cost of the healthier diet!

Good reasons to go with home cooking

Calories and costs are just two reasons to pick healthy, home-cooked meals. It is also important to think about the risks of unhealthy eating. The next time you are tempted to replace a trip to the grocery store with a trip to the drive-thru, remind yourself that unhealthy fast food meals:

Are higher in calories, fat and salt.
May contribute to heart disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and obesity or being overweight.
Contain low-fiber ingredients. (This means the fast food may not fill you up. This could lead you to eat more of it.)
Contain fats, preservatives, sugar, fillers and coloring to make the food taste better.

When you think about the possible cost and calorie savings together with the nutritional value of the healthier diet, the all-around better meal plan becomes clear.

By making more of your meals at home, you can also teach your children to cook and enjoy foods that can help them stay healthy for a lifetime.

Recommended Guidelines for Everyday Healthy Eating
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Agriculture suggest that you work the following foods into your daily diet:

Five servings of fruits and vegetables.
Three ounces of whole grains. (Try whole grain bread or brown rice.)
Oils from fish, nuts and vegetables.
Low-fat or fat-free dairy. (For example, cheese, milk or yogurt.)
Servings of lean or low-fat meats, poultry and fish, as well as beans.

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Related Article
Alcohol May Reduce Men’s Heart Risk

*The price of the healthier diet is based on average retail prices at three large supermarket chains. It is also based on the price of the least expensive option for each food type, such as the generic brand or the frozen option. The price of the unhealthy diet is based on retail prices from a large, multinational fast food chain.
¹McDermott, Andrew J., ENS, MC, USN, and Mark B. Stephens, MD, CAPT, MC, USN. 2010. Cost of Eating: Whole Foods Versus Convenience Foods in a Low-Income Model. Family Medicine 2010; 42(4): 280-4.

“You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving….”Amy Carmichael.

tcardello — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 15:01:32 +0000

Someone once told me that relationships are 50-50… over time.

At times, it can feel like you’re investing everything you have and seeing little in return. You ask yourself why you should continue to give and suffer the emotional burnout of an unsatisfying relationship.

It seems odd to pull relationship wisdom from Wall Street, but if you buy when the market is low your investment is worth even more once the market corrects itself.

Sticking it out in a relationship and providing consistent loving attention can not only turn a relationship around but it can pay off in spades once your partner catches up.

Another brick in the wall?

tcardello — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:53:24 +0000

Often , when a relationship is nearing the end or shortly after it has ended, the idea of a new relationship is seductive. The thought of being along is painful and frightening and the anxiety it stirs can be maddening. A new relationship offers the promise of desire and lust and, like the first cocktail on a night out with the girls, it seems like a good way to ease the pain and relax. Many times though, what began with a simple urge to feel better, makes us feel worse and makes reality even harder to deal with.

Over time the cumulative effect of lost love and betrayal wears us down and forces us to build walls around ourselves as protection. In the short term, a small wall can give us the time we need to regroup and recover. However if that wall stays in place and is fortified by all the painful memories of childhood and the history of relationships gone bad, we can become trapped by our own defense mechanism.

I sometimes hear people talk about the dense high walls they have built over many years to protect them and spare what little trust they have left. Then I watch in amazement as time after time they climb to the top of the wall and throw themselves onto the spears below. Bloody and dazed, they climb back onto the wall, build another layer and eventually repeat the whole painful process.

As long as we risk attachment (and there are many good reasons to take the risk) , we risk pain. The problem is not the spears below, it is the compulsion to throw yourself onto them that hurts you. There will always be emotional predators and damaged people who will hurt us and take advantage if they are given the chance. They are impossible to avoid altogether, but we can minimize our exposure to them if we are strong and healthy enough. If self esteem is allowed to recover and you can rebuild your emotional stock pile, your radar will be better at finding would-be users and you will not need to retreat behind such high walls.

Recession hits waistlines, too – The Boston Globe

tcardello — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:43:53 +0000

Recession hits waistlines, too – The Boston Globe

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Hello world!

tcardello — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:37:16 +0000

Thanks for checking out my blog I hope I can keep things interesting. This blog will be a forum for my thoughts, therapeutic anecdotes, tips and ideas about how to have a more fulfilling life. I don’t claim to know all the answers, nor would I be so bold as to tell anyone what to do. I can only share the insights that occur to me and the wisdom of the people I have the benefit of coming in contact with everyday. I think most people have an equal desire to be told what to do, and to be fiercly independent. Alot of us choose to take the road less traveled only to find out that our GPS will direct us into a lake if we’re not careful. We need to be more in touch with the inside than we are with the outside world.