A bit of a generic title but i grew up in BC and I can tell you that years ago there were many people in school who along with me ate a ton of junk food and pop for lunch and snacks. Well it seems that British Columbia has banned junk food in schools which is a really great start to showing young people that they need to find an alternative. The touble is that whenever there is a heavy handed method of banning something everyone wil;l want to find a way around it.

Chocolate bars, salt and vinegar chips and ice cold root beers have been expelled from B.C. schools as the government starts the new school year on a health kick.

Education Minister Shirley Bond says a healthy body really does promote a healthy mind, and B.C. schools will be the healthiest in the country.

Junk food has been banned from all public schools and students from kindergarten through to Grade 12 will be required to complete 30 minutes of physical activity a day, or the equivalent of 150 minutes of exercise a week, she said. Read the rest of this entry »

Looking to make a change and lose some weight? I have reviewed the top diet on the internet and you can go and read over 200 comments people have made about why this diet has worked well for them, as well as some of the problems.

Tags: B.C. Teachers' Federation, banned junk food, British Columbia, Canada, chocolate bars, Education Minister, food, food guidelines, health program, hockey, Irene Lanzinger, junk food, junk food ban, minister, Norm Macdonald, president, province-wide school junk food ban, Shirley Bond, sports teams, the Canada Food Guide, USD, Vancouver, vinegar chips

Fitness, Health and Earth day seem like maybe they are not very well linked at all but I think that there is a case to be made that being greener is a lot healthier way to live.

Being the father of two your kids we have been bombarded this week with Earth day events and stories from school. I remember when I was growing up the whole recycling concept was just picking up steam and a few years later in Vancouver we had curb side recycling, something that my adopted city of Calgary does not yet have

Anyway being green, I believe, is a lot more global then it used to be. Sure we in North America are the greatest consumers of all kinds of products but  around the world our influences are being felt here are a few ways that I can think.

Nice bright fruits and veggies – I can get a banana or an apple any day of the year from the supermarket. One of the many ways that farmers in other countries make my food more appetizing is to use pesticides and fertilizers to make the fruit look better in the supermarket. Not good for the environment or even me personally. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: calgary, Earth Day, food, north America, Vancouver

Setting short term weight loss goals is very important. A couple of nights ago I was watching a fitness show filmed out of Vancouver called the Last 10 Pounds Bootcamp, and it really got me thinking about goals that most people have for their fitness.

Last 10 Pounds Bootcamp is a 30 minute show with a trainer and a nutritionist. The idea of the Last 10 Pounds Bootcamp is that the person will change their life, for a reason, by losing 10 pounds in one month. The girl on the show this week was going with some friends to Los Angeles and wanted to fit into a new dress for the trip. In the end the girl did lose the weight and looked great after losing 10 pounds.

The show really illustrates the power of short term weight loss goals. The reason that the show got me thinking is because most of the time we hear about people with really long term goals. Lose 50 pounds, lose 100 pounds, run a marathon, completely clean up your diet. What if instead we got shorter term goals that we could achieve quickly, easily, and repeatably?

Of course all of us that have tried to complete a goal have been able to make these long term plans but I am suggesting that you make no plan for change that takes more than a month. Can you instead set a short term weight loss goal? Can you lose 10 pounds in a month? Why not make a few goals not for the next month and then after you have achieved, or almost achieved your short term goal you can go and make another similar goal.

If you have a very large dramatic life changing goal it is going to be hard to keep up the work it takes to attain your goal if it is going to take three years or something so instead I suggest you break down that life changing goal in to a smaller goal, maybe a short term weight loss goal, that you can still get excited about and you can then work towards this bite sized chunk and then slingshot yourself to the next goal on this success.

My wife has always said that she wants to lose 100 pounds. If you saw a pic of my wife I am sure that you would agree with me that there is no way that she can lose 100 pounds but she could probably lose 30 if she wanted to. I have seen up close how my wife, although well meaning has struggled with temptations, occasional lack of motivation and sadness because she has set her self up to a goal that is to big to easily see the end of. If I could have her just see the end of the month or maybe by now the end of December and no later then she would have a lot more success.

If you are having some struggles try this idea of looking at where you are today and where you want to be in a month and see if you can do this instead. These short term weight loss goals are the real secret to continuing on your diet.

Tags: Los Angeles, lose 10 pounds, losing 10 pounds, motivation, nutritionist, short term goal, Vancouver, Weight Loss

I just ran into this for the first time this morning. The 100 Mile Diet: Local Eating for Global Change is a diet that is more of an environmental movement. The idea behind the 100 mile diet is this, you only eat food that was produced within 100 miles of your home.

This is a neat idea to think about and is probably very good for the environment as one of the real costs of food both at the supermarket and in our environment is transportation. Each ingredient in our meals apparently travels an average of 1500 miles from farm to our plate. Although I know that it would be tough, especially depending on where you live this could be a great idea or kind of unworkable.

The people that started the 100 mile diet live in Vancouver, Vancouver is my hometown and is very close to farms, fishing and therefore most things that you would want to eat. I now live in Calgary and here in Calgary we are 600 miles from an ocean although I can get rainbow trout from the local Bow River, there are farms very close and of course lots fo fresh water close by, but no fruit! What happens though to someone win the middle of Los Angeles or in the middle of a desert, he problem for some people in these places is that there would be no quality food that is grown or produced so closely.

In the end I believe that the ideals behind the 100 mile diet are something that everyone should seriously look at. Just because some produce from South America is cheaper than what is grown locally does not make it cheaper in the end, I talk about this on this blog very little but our environment is getting worse (I don’t really want to drag this into some pro or con environmental debate) and this seems to be one good first step to make things a bit better.

Tags: Bow River, calgary, food, quality food, South America, Vancouver

My article on gaining weight when quitting smoking that I wrote has really struck a nerve with a lot of people and for that I am glad.

I myself smoked cigarettes for over 10 years and have now been a non smoker for 7 years. I thought that if you are currently trying to quit cigarettes then maybe telling my story would help some people over the hump and help them quit.

I started smoking when I was 18 or 19 years old. I was drinking on the weekends and sometimes would have a cigarette while drinking. This eventually led to having cigarettes the day after I had been out for the night and this eventually led to an almost a pack a day habit. I smoked for a lot of years knowing how unhealthy a habit it was and at the same time I was playing tennis and weightlifting a lot. You can imagine the conflict I would feel going to the gym and being winded afterwards and then lighting up a cigarette. Also I often had trouble falling asleep at night worried about one day getting lung cancer and dying from it, I even thought that maybe the next day was the day I would get cancer. I always tried to keep myself at some level of fitness but in my late 20’s my level of fitness dropped off.

I tried to quit smoking many times. I tried cutting down on my smoking, I tried going cold turkey and I even tried using nicotine patches but the trouble with trying to quit smoking is the habit coupled with the nicotine addiction. I would have a cigarette before a fell asleep and then my first cigarette of the day would be first thing in the morning when I woke up so suiting was very difficult and I always feel for anyone trying to quit as I know what kind of a lifestyle change that it takes to quit smoking.
Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: calgary, cancer, fatigue, heart attack, lung cancer, overall energy level increases, pain, physician, shortness of breath, Tennis, Vancouver, weightlifting

With cold and flu season right around the corner I just read an article or two about a product called Cold-fx which is supposed to be a great cold remedy. There is a study taking place seeing if there are any good health benefits with Cold-fx. I myself never have taken cold-fx but know many people that do and the kicker is that they never seem to get sick!

With savvy marketing and the help of some high-profile sports figures, an Alberta company has propelled a natural health product to known-quantity status as something that may boost the immune system’s ability to stave off colds and influenza.

But to date only small studies support CV Technologies’ assertions that Cold-fX can help one stay healthy through Canada’s long cold-and-flu season.
Now the company is putting the claims to the test. It announced yesterday it will conduct a study of 720 healthy senior citizens in Edmonton, Vancouver and Toronto to see if those who take the product over six months – at either standard or high dose – are less likely to contract respiratory infections than those not receiving the supplement.

“At the end of the day the outcome will be: Did Cold-fX prevent infections in this population or not?” one of the researchers, Dr. Andrew Simor of Toronto’s Sunnybrook and Women’s Health Sciences Centre, said.

“The company has some preliminary data, in elderly nursing home residents and also in some younger adults to suggest that it might actually work in preventing respiratory tract infections. It’s very exciting preliminary data, but that’s all it is. These data need to be confirmed in good, rigorous scientific studies.” said Simor, an infectious disease expert.

One alternative to Cold FX is Immunitril.

Immunitril is made to give the same kinds of benefits as Cold FX and includes many minerals as well as Arabinogalactan, Echinacea Purpuria Leaf, Elderberry and more. Its prime qualities are:

Promotes Healthy Immune System Function
Supports the Function of White Blood Cells
Increases Healthy Digestive Microflora
Anti-oxidant Protection Against Cellular Damage
NEVER GET SICK AGAIN!!!

And it is to be used IMMEDIATELY when first signs of sickness occur to prevent onset of common cold or flu.

Drugs aren’t allowed on the market without that rigorous efficacy testing. But Cold-fX is a natural health product, an extract of North American ginseng. Natural health products can be brought to market without the type of efficacy testing the company is now in the process of doing.

For the study, only seniors living in the community – in other words, not those in nursing homes – will be enrolled. All must have had a flu shot, because influenza vaccinations are recommended for people in this age group, the researchers said. Participants will be monitored closely for respiratory infections.

Tags: Alberta, Andrew Simor, Canada, common cold, CV Technologies, edmonton, high-profile sports figures, infectious disease, influenza, kicker, natural health product, Natural health products, respiratory infections, respiratory tract infections, Toronto, Toronto's Sunnybrook and Women's Health Sciences Centre, vaccinations, Vancouver