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January-February 2011
Welcome to the Doc Grubb newsletter for January-February 2011. JANUARY. The month when you start to experience buyer’s remorse because bills are due for the gifts and things you bought over the Christmas Season. Many budgets are blown apart by purchases which you made and you have to pay for. Now is the time to plan how to avoid this problem next year. For example, start a “gift giving fund” by depositing $10.00 a week into your bank; make a list of all the special occasions for the year such as birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, and write down EXACTLY how much you are going to spend on gifts. February 12-15 is “Random Acts of Kindness Week.” A saying that I’ve always loved is “be kind, everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” A kind act is "random" when it is unexpected-done simply out of the will to extend goodness, person to person, without expecting anything in return. Random Acts of Kindness Week is a springboard for action and is based on hope and goodness and is time to be open, to act upon thoughts of generosity that arise spontaneously from your heart. Just notice what happens as you are kind to someone and they are kind to someone and so on! Who gets more out of a random act of kindness – the giver, or the receiver of the kindness? It’s hard to say. Because Presidents’ Day is a famous shopping day, this year, instead of shopping for the traditional discounted items (I’m not sure George or Abraham want you to use their birthday to buy a new washer), let’s celebrate Washington and Lincoln by getting out of the house to walk, hike, take a drive to see our great, sprawling country.
The History of President’s Day In 1796, during the last year of Washington's presidency the United States decided to honor their first president by celebrating his birthday February 22, 1732. By the early 1800s Washington's Birthday had become an unofficial national holiday. Americans would honor Washington by throwing lavish Balls and receptions attended by prominent public figures, or by gathering in public houses and taverns. In a similar way, the nation began to honor Abraham Lincoln, whose birthday falls on the 12th of February, on his birthday in 1865, one year after his assassination. Washington's Birthday became an official holiday in 1880 and was celebrated on February 22. This was the first federal holiday to honor an American citizen. In 1968, legislation simplified yearly calendars by giving federal employees several fixed 3-day weekends and in 1971 the observation of Washington's Birthday and Lincoln’s birthday was shifted to the third Monday in February and became known as “Presidents' Day.” If you would like to write the president to tell him how you are doing or to ask him a question here’s the address: The White House
Healthy Weight for Women When you see pictures in magazines of models and celebrities who are incredibly thin, do you feel overweight? First of all, MOST women cannot be that thin and for many of the celebrities, they have serious health problems because of their struggles to stay thin. A healthy weight for women is one that suits your particular build; a weight at which you actually feel good and have abundant energy. It’s hard to say what the ideal weight for a woman is, because all are individual and created different. A healthy weight is different for each person, but there are general weight ranges to use as a goal for what is healthy for YOU! But a quick way to estimate a healthy weight for a woman is:
Some women have a metabolism that is more active than another woman’s may be; hormones fluctuate, and every person is affected by these changes in a different way. For women after 40, weight loss often seems harder and much of this is due to the changes taking place in your body. The easiest way to achieve a healthy weight is to eat natural foods and to exercise. You will find that not only do you feel better than you have in years, you will love the taste of fresh, healthy whole, not processed, foods and it will show not only in your body, but your skin and hair as well. How to Lose Weight Eating SpicesWe just talked about healthy weight for women. As you probably know, Americans have the highest obesity rate in the world, with about 64% of adults being overweight and 26% obese. Yes…we’re number 1! Many of us have busy life styles that limit time to exercise so here’s how you can possibly shed a couple pounds by eating certain spices that will speed up your body's metabolism! GINSENG-Studies were performed on mice who were given ginseng for about two weeks. It showed that the mice had decreased body weight along with lower blood pressure levels. However, talk with your physician before consuming ginseng, since it contains similar elements to caffeine. TUMERIC is yellowish to orange in texture and contain a pigment called curcumin, which can help fight off weight. A study was also done on mice, and it showed that the mice lost body fat and weight. CAYENNE PEPPER is probably the best natural herb to combat weight loss and fat. You can purchase capsules filled with the herb at your local grocery store. It is known to speed up your body's metabolism and reduce abdominal fat. I wonder if mice ever get tired of being studied in labs?
The Super Bowl and Chili The Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League (NFL). The first Super Bowl, Super Bowl I, was played on January 15, 1967. The game was created as part of a merger agreement between the NFL and its then-rival league, the American Football League (AFL). It was agreed that the two leagues' champion teams would play in an AFL–NFL World Championship Game until the merger was to officially begin in 1970. After the merger, each league was redesignated as a "conference", and the game was then played between the conference champions. "Super Bowl Sunday" is the second-largest day for U.S. food consumption, after Thanksgiving Day. In most years, the Super Bowl is the most-watched American television broadcast and is among the most watched sporting events in the world. Super Bowl Chili Ideas Watching the Super Bowl and enjoying a large pot of chili just seems to be a natural combination especially if the weather is cold. Chili is an especially helpful dish because if you're going to be rushing around on game day getting everything ready for your guests, you can make a large pot of chili the day before and reheat it before the Super Bowl game. My wife’s father was famous for his chili, and I’m going to share with you his TOP SECRET chili recipe:
The chili should be served with crusty, garlic bread. You can top the chili with sour cream, green onions or shredded sharp cheddar cheese. We like to serve the chili with a nice green salad. Everyone loves Italian dressing on the salad to go with the garlic bread. Tips For A Super Chili
We hope you like this chili. Don’t overeat and be grateful for having your friends and family with you to watch the football game.
Resolutions - Help yourself and the Environment in 2011Almost everyone makes some type of New Year’s Resolution for the next year. My favorites include vowing to make changes in exercise and diet habits. But 2011 is the perfect year to make resolutions to put new green habits into your lifestyle which can have a big impact on the environment over the course of a year. Give up grocery bags. Twelve million barrels of oil were used to make the 88.5 billion plastic bags consumed in the United States last year. And it takes four times more energy to make paper bags. The plastic grocery bags you get usually end up in the trash or in the waters. I’ve seen many photos of animals who have suffocated from plastic trash bags. Most major grocery stores now sell reusable bags, made of cotton, nylon or durable, mesh-like plastic and if you keep them in your car then you’ll never be without them when you head out to the store. Put a few reusable shopping bags in your car so you have them handy on your next shopping trip. If you happen to forget your reusable bag choose either plastic or paper depending on what type of recycling you have in your neighborhood. Buy locally. You may have heard of the expression “food miles,” which is a measurement of how much money it costs to bring food to your grocery store. It’s almost always better to buy locally grown foods, in season. This supports local farmers and also ensures you have fresher foods with less impact on the environment. Replace your light bulbs. Putting in high efficiency light bulbs can have a huge impact on both the environment and your electricity bills. It’s estimated that if every home in America replaced a single bulb with an energy-efficient alternative, it would save about $600 million in annual energy costs. As you know, they’ve stopped making the older type of light bulbs which is a great example of the government finally working together to save energy. Stop Buying Bottled Water. Fact: it takes 26 bottles of water to produce the plastic container for a one-liter bottle of water, and making that plastic bottle pollutes 25 liters of groundwater. Use reusable water bottles instead of plastic bottles. The reusable bottles are made from materials like stainless steel or aluminum that are not likely to degrade over time. If you must buy a plastic water bottle, check the number on the bottom first: Plastics numbered 3, 6 and 7 could pose a health threat to you, so look for plastics numbered 1, 2, 4 or 5. Stop Receiving Unwanted Catalogs Each year, 19 billion catalogs are mailed to American consumers. All those catalogs require more than 53 million trees and 56 billion gallons of wastewater to produce. Visit CatalogChoice.org to put a stop to unwanted catalogs. Within 10 weeks, your mailbox will be empty of unwanted catalogs. Lower Your Home’s Thermostat 2 Degrees Electric power plants are the country's largest source of the pollutants that cause global warming. If you lower your temperature in the winter and raise the temperature of the air conditioning in the summer, you can save pounds of pollution and money off your utility bills. Set your thermostat in winter to 68 degrees F (20° C) or less during the daytime and 55 degrees F (13° C) before going to sleep or when you are away for the day. During the summer, set thermostats to 78 degrees F (26° C) or more. We do this in our home and to be honest, you can’t tell the difference in the temperature. Save Gas It’s amazing how dependent we’ve become on the automobile. As the price of gasoline approaches the $4.00 a gallon mark, it’s even more important to conserve gas, both to protect the environment but also to save money. There are many simple things you can do to save gas: be sure your tires are inflated to the right pressure. Yes, it does make a difference. PLAN YOUR TRIPS! Try to minimize the number of trips you take in the car. Try to combine as many errands as you can into each trip. For example, dropping your child off at school, going to the grocery and going to the library, can all be made on the same trip. Reuse wherever possible. Today we have a tendency to throw things away when they break, but in years past it wasn’t unusual for families to try and fix their broken items before hurling them into the trash. But equally important to reusing items, is to NOT BUY them if you don’t need them! We routinely will give away the clothes and shoes my son outgrows to our neighbors. Some of his clothes are passed down through THREE children. Now that’s reuse! Recycle, recycle, recycle! For every trash can of waste you put outside for the trash collector, about 70 trash cans of waste are used in order to create that trash. To reduce the amount of waste you produce, buy products in returnable and recyclable containers and recycle as much as you can. Better yet, buy FRESH items that aren’t packaged. Unfortunately, many communities have cut back or stopped their recycling programs, but recycle as many items as you can. As you change your energy habits maybe you can help your friends change their energy habits. If we all change just a little, then the total impact on the environment will be HUGE! |
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