Aah, it’s that time again. When the air is brisk, the sky is gray, the land is frozen….and SO ARE WE!!

Help!!

Rest easy, I’ve got your cure for the winter blues. Sometimes known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), the blues usually begin when the days get shorter and the sky clouds over into perpetual gray. If we were bears, we could follow our natural instincts and go into hibernation until the temperature warms up again. But, alas, we humans have to keep functioning, even in winter. So without further ado, here are my Top Ten Tips to help make your winter - yes, it’s possible - wonderful.

1. Go outside and walk briskly with your face pointing toward the sun-even if it’s gray outside-for 20 minutes every day. Both the light and the exercise will kick up your feel-good serotonin. If the wind chill outside will deep-freeze your face, find a health club with windows, locate a treadmill or a stationary bike in the brightest light, and hop on.

2. Exercise More besides your 20 minute daily walk make sure to get in at least 3 or 4 days of more intense activity.  Always a good idea to lift your moods, increase your energy and boost your health, no matter what time of year.

3. Hit the hay! Be like the bears and give in to the dark nights. Don’t push yourself to stay up late.

4. Eat warming foods like whole grains, free-range organic meats, root veggies and soups.

5. Add warming spices like cayenne, garlic and ginger to your foods.

6. Take a quality fish oil supplement to raise your spirits.

7. Avoid foods that stress your body in the cold like ice-cream, too many raw foods, cold smoothies and too much sugar.

8. Drink warm herbal teas to meet your water quota.  Try immune-stimulating Echinacea Special Formula from Yogi Tea.

9. Try a hot water bottle. Sounds a little 1800s, but it works like a charm. You can get a hot water bottle at any drugstore. Toss it into your bed to warm up your sheets, or use it on an achy, crampy belly.

10. Health-up your comfort foods. We all crave comfort foods in the winter - our serotonin levels are lower due to lack of sun. So the body compensates by craving carbohydrates and sugary foods to naturally boost serotonin levels. Remake your favorite comfort foods with the highest-quality ingredients, and savor them slowly after playing in the snow.

The holidays are coming. Do you feel joyful? Stressed? How about both? For many people, the holidays are the toughest time of the year, with extra activities, mile-long to-do lists, and constant entertaining high on the roster of stressors. So how do we stay sane and healthy during this crazy, zany time of year?

The first thing we need to do is check out how many chemicals we’re taking in. When I say “chemicals”, I mean any substance (like refined white sugar, caffeine or alcohol) that gives you a short burst of energy, and then a subsequent energy crash. And it’s important to note that we don’t just experience a physical roller coaster ride on these chemicals. Large fluctuations in our blood sugar levels drastically affect our moods as well. Have you ever felt yourself getting irritable as your coffee high wears off? Do you feel significantly juiced up after eating a bag of peanut M&Ms? If so, you’re riding the chemical roller coaster.

Now, add incredible amounts of holiday stress together with incredible amounts of chemicals, and you’ve got the proverbial perfect storm. No wonder we all end up with the flu in January!

This holiday season, focus on adding naturally sweet foods to your diet regularly, like pumpkin, our featured food below. If you are making baked goods, use the highest-quality, organic ingredients available and substitute natural sweeteners for refined white sugar. For your favorite holiday baked goods, try substituting with agave nectar, maple syrup, molasses brown rice syrup, barley malt, date sugar or raw honey.

We’ve all heard how wonderful omega-3 fats are for our health. They have many benefits including:

• Preventing fatal erratic heart rhythms
• Reducing inflammation
• Making up cell membranes throughout the body, especially the eye, brain and sperm cells
• Preventing cardiovascular disease and stroke
• Easing depression

According to Dr. Mark Hyman, author of “Ultrametabolism”, research suggests that the omega-3s in certain fish may cure or treat most chronic illnesses, including depression, heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, dementia, autism, ADHD, inflammation, and autoimmune diseases. In fact, about 60 percent of your brain is - or should be - made of fish oil.

But with all the concern about mercury levels in fish and unsustainable fishing practices, what kind of fish can we safely eat? Dr. Andrew Weil, recommends eating Wild Alaskan salmon, sardines, herring, mackerel, black cod, and bluefish. He suggests avoiding tuna, swordfish, shark, tilefish and sea bass.

To help you make quality seafood choices when you’re shopping or out to eat, download the Seafood Pocket Guide. It lists fish that are both high in omega-3 fats and low in environmental contaminants.

Are you one of the 7 out of 10 people in America who eat at their desks? Sometimes “desking and dining” just can’t be avoided. So when deadlines conflict with a nice lunch out, let’s do the best we can to make desk dining as healthy and delicious as possible! There are two key things to keep your health in mind when you desk and dine.

How We Eat

Surprisingly, how we eat is actually more important than what we eat. When we are stressed, annoyed, angry or frustrated, your fight-or-flight response takes over and your sympathetic nervous system shuts down digestion. Have you ever had a meal sit like a brick in your stomach? That’s pretty much what happens, because you’re literally not able to digest unless your parasympathetic nervous system is activated. In other words, you have to relax. Easier said than done at work, right? Not entirely. All you need to do is take a minute or two before you eat and take five deep breaths. Deep, like into your belly. The body will have no choice but to switch off the stress system, and switch on the relaxation system. Voila!

What We Eat

Okay, now that you’re relaxed, what do you eat? Bringing food from home is often a healthier choice, as you get to control the quality and type of food. Dinner leftovers are a great choice, as is a sprouted wrap from our recipe below. You can also keep a stash of high quality foods in your desk or your office fridge…like almond butter, flax crackers, raw nuts, trail mix, fresh fruits, high-quality food bars, hard boiled eggs, organic free-range turkey slices, and pre-cut raw veggies. If you have to order in choose a restaurant that uses high quality ingredients. My new book Clean Plates NYC (due out this winter) will be a great resource as it will review the top healthy and delicious restaurants in Manhattan ranging from places serving raw, vegan cuisine to grass-fed steaks and burgers. (If you want to learn more about it shoot me an email!!!)

Let’s face it – we’re busy people! A flight for work, a busy day of errands, a road trip to a friend’s house, back-to-back meetings, a weekend away with someone special…. We’ve got places to go and things to do. So how do we eat well when we’re on the run?

It easy! Just remember your “QTQs”. Nope, that’s not a stock symbol for a high-tech company. “QTQ” stands for Quality, Timing and Quantity, three easy concepts to keep in mind when eating on-the-go.

Quality: Aim to have the least processed foods available. The closer a food is to its natural state, the higher the quality.

Timing: Timing is crucial when eating on-the-go. Make sure you eat every four hours. If you’re ravenous, you’re far more likely to fall prey to the siren call of the drive-thru.

Quantity: It’s easy to mindlessly chomp on chow when you’re driving or bored at the airport. Take time to breathe and chew while you eat, so you can really feel when your body has had enough. Aim to eat to the point of feeling like you’ve refilled your energy stores, and then stop. You want your food to fill you up when you’re on the run, not slow you down.

So the next time you have a whirlwind day, all you have to remember is “QTQ”. To help you pick the highest Quality travel foods, check out our Food Focus.

We naturally crave foods according to the season – comforting soups in the winter, sprouts and salads as spring starts to bloom, and – who are we kidding – ice cream in the summer! Our bodies are always seeking balance, so it makes sense that we’d crave foods to counteract the effect of the weather.

Ayurvedic practitioners, masters of seasonal eating, have these recommendations for eating cooling, summer food:

1. Favor foods that are cool and liquid. Minimize foods that are hot.
2. Favor foods that are sweet, bitter or astringent. Minimize foods that create heat (spicy, salty or sour).
3. Light proteins are best – fish and white meats in small amounts.
4. Coriander, mint, cardamom, and fennel are nice summer spices.
5. Stick with unrefined sweeteners, but minimize honey and molasses.

Since we naturally crave more raw foods in the summer, let’s take a closer look at the uber-cooling Raw Food Diet

You’ve probably heard the words “detox” and “cleanse” a lot recently. They’re pretty big buzzwords in the nutrition field. But what do they actually mean? The words themselves are pretty interchangeable. Let’s start with dictionary definitions from Merriam-Webster.

Cleanse: to rid of impurities by or as if by washing

Detox: to free from an intoxicating or an addictive substance, or dependence on such a substance

Pretty much the same thing, right? So “cleansing” and “detox” mean taking out toxins and addictive stuff, like sugar, nicotine, alcohol, caffeine and chemicals (coined “SNACCs” by detox doctor Elson Haas). But removing toxins is only one side of the cleansing equation. The other side, which is just as crucial, is adding in nutrient dense whole foods. So the formula is simple – reduce SNACCs, increase whole foods.

Now, keeping our formula in mind, there are different degrees of cleansing. You can go out in the desert and live on water for 40 days to cleanse, or you can simply eliminate one food that you rely on every day. It could be your morning bagel, your 3pm mocha latte or the fast-food drive through lane you find yourself in on the way home from work. (keep in mind “extreme” cleansing or fasting can be dangerous and is best done under the guidance of an expert)

Remember, eliminating toxins is only one side of the equation. So you’ve decided which SNACC you are getting rid of. Great! Now what do you add to your daily diet? I suggest green vegetables, and lots of them! Some examples of green vegetables are kale, collard greens, dandelion greens, spinach, and arugula. They are the foods most missing in modern diets, and are loaded with beneficial phytochemicals and cleansing fiber. You may be thinking “But I don’t have time to cook green vegetables.” Not to worry! This month’s Food Focus – wheatgrass – shows you a great shortcut to getting more green veggie power into your diet everyday. If you are opposed to wheatgrass or even in addition to it you should consider adding chlorella to your supplement regimen. Want some more info on greens? Send me a quick email and I will send you some free info!