Cyndi Collen Cyndi Collen

The 411 on Artificial Sweeteners

Some studies have shown that consumption of nonnutritive sweeteners, mostly in diet sodas, has been associated with increased risk for type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and obesity. Nonnutritive sweeteners possibly promote metabolic dysregulation by affecting our gut bacteria (or microbiota), impacting our sweet-taste receptors, and interfering with our body's response to control blood sugar.

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Jaclyn Hubersberger Jaclyn Hubersberger

Start 2018 With a Kitchen Pantry Cleanout

A pantry clean-out is the first step towards creating delicious healthy meals in the kitchen. Begin by removing all sources of food with added sugar (one of the most addictive substances on the planet), refined carbohydrates (bagels, chips, baked goods, cookies, cakes, crackers, pastries, etc.), refined cooking oils (soybean, canola, corn, cottonseed, peanut, safflower, sunflower), and sources of gluten such as whole-wheat bread, noodles, pasta, and cereals.

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Cyndi Collen Cyndi Collen

Got Mindfulness?

In layman's terms, mindfulness is the practice of being present without the noise of our internal voices and beliefs that can be critical, judgey, and biased.   And let me be clear ... turning down the volume on this noise is not easy as the internal voices, the critical self talk, can be so loud that it seems the only way to turn it off is to distract ourselves away from the present moment.  Thus, at first, developing mindfulness can feel challenging as we will need to tolerate the loud bothersome internal voices of judgment and bias before we can cultivate the ability to detach from those critical thoughts. 

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