Good nutrition begins in the womb: Did you know that mothers who eat a junk food diet have children that have weaker muscle strength and are less capable of exercising as they age, thus increasing the risk of the child becoming obese? This suggestion from a study by The European Journal of Nutrition in 2008. As Jonny says, it may seem like a no brainer to avoid junk food, but honestly how many bags of chips, pretzels and cookies live in your pantry. The think about junk food is, that old Lays Potato Chip commercial was right: “Bet you can’t eat just one.” Junk food is addictive and can have some health consequences for mom and baby.

Say No to Lunch Meat: There are good reasons to avoid deli meats during pregnancy. They have a higher risk than other foods of being contaminated with harmful bacteria, like Listeria. Plus they are loaded with fat and sodium that have been added, meaning you are going to get too much. Added fat can definitely contribute to feeling queasy during pregnancy, so avoiding lunch meats/deli meats are a good idea. Roasting a turkey breast and slicing that for sandwiches is a much healthier idea. If you are not sure how to roast a turkey breast, ask the guy at the meat counter. They usually have cooking times down. And in this age of internet, you can always Google how to cook a turkey breast. It’s not difficult.

Artificial Sweeteners: The name artificial sweetener already suggests that you should be avoiding these types of products at all cost! And don’t forget to look for products that contain artificial sweetners. You need to be aware of products like soft drinks (not a good pregnancy food anyway), yogurt, desserts, fruit spreads, chewing gums, salad dressings and candy. You need to become a label reader. Aspartame, Cyclamates, Sucralose and Saccharin. While I suggest avoiding all of these, Jonny does point out that the government considers aspartame safe for pregnant women but recommends that Saccharin and Cyclamates be avoided. This is probably more than just one time that I don’t agree with our government. I don’t think you need chemical cocktails in any food during pregnancy or otherwise. If you can’t spell it, can’t pronounce it, never heard of it, leave it alone! Fortunately there are yogurts and salad dressings, fruit spreads and chewing gums on the market that do not contain these artificial sweeteners.

“The 100 Healthiest Foods to Eat During Pregnancy” has foods lists foods and their nutritional values as well as foods to be avoided (really good idea). Jonny’s Tasty Tips will help you to find easy, delicious snacks and meals no matter what trimester. The Fast Facts in this book address everything from fatigue, anemia and Omega 3’s with simple ideas and solutions for your pregnancy eating. This book is so much more than just 100 foods, it is the ideal pregnancy companion when it comes to eating for two! And it’s a great start for the New Year, the New Decade and a New Pregnancy!

Visit Jonny Bowden’s web site at www.jonnybowden.com and purchase his book there or from Amazon. Happy and Healthy Eating for a Happy and Healthy New Year!

Stephanie Raffelock

There is a lot of talk in Washington these days about health care reform. But the label of “health care reform” is a misnomer. What Washington is talking about is insurance reform and it has absolutely nothing to do with health or care. What is amazing to me is that the pundits can talk about cutting health care costs, but they are not talking about disease prevention or “Lifestyle Medicine.” A healthy lifestyle (not just the post holiday crash diet or exercise program that doesn’t last more than a month past our New Year’s Resolutions) can certainly cut our individual health care costs and even more importantly, enhance our enjoyment of life.

Lifestyle Medicine is not rocket science and it could save us billions in health care cost, but we do not train our doctors in that way. Wall Street is a huge part of our health system. Pharmaceutical Companies are traded on the stock exchange and it behooves them to come up with new drugs for new conditions and convince the American public about the need for yet another drug. Americans are already over medicated. We have become a culture of entitled quick fixes, and as the years roll on, many seem to get further and further away from the personal responsibility that is needed to have good health. Don’t get me wrong. I am not anti-drug and I do feel we rely upon drugs far too often to ameliorate the symptom, when we could create the desired healthful result with lifestyle medicine.

There are certain basic things that we know about healthful living and the fact we are not training medical doctors to practice in this way seems a terrible travesty if we are going to talk about health care reform. Here’s what we know:

1. Smoking causes a myriad of disease processes. The cessation of smoking is the number one change that someone can make to create better health and avoid disease.
2. A balanced diet of fresh foods can strengthen the immune system, prevent most types of heart disease and keep you healthy. The diet I propose is one of fresh veggies, fruit, lean protein, and whole-food carbs like yams, whole grains, beans, seeds and nuts (that means “junk foods” like donuts, candies, sodas, cookies, deep fried foods, and chips and crackers in moderation, if at all). Here is that American entitlement thing again: As the pace of our lives have increased we seem to want food to be easy, quick and instant and by doing that we often sacrifice food quality and the kind of relaxation around meals that enhances our digestion. By getting us out of the kitchen into the fast food lane we have created a kind of Spiritual aridity around cooking. Cooking with and for your family can be and should be a time of bonding, fun, creativity and gratitude. And it requires a lifestyle change for most of us. Too, the food industry has a lot to be accountable for. These days corn and corn sugar is in everything. Packaged food has a list of ingredients that boggle the mind. It’s interesting that the folks who yell so loudly that vitamins need more research aren’t up in arms about the list of chemicals in packaged foods! Doesn’t make any sense at all, but once again the food industry is Wall Street, where margins are far more important than your health.
3. Obesity kills. Every year more and more Americans are either overweight or obese. This fact really raises health care costs because along with the extra pounds comes diabetes, heart disease, structural joint inflammation and pain. Good diet and exercise are the greatest cure for health ailments. Avoiding any and all junk food is the other cure. None of us needs potato chips and soft drinks to thrive in the world. Not only do those things make us fat, but they contribute to feelings of lethargy as opposed to vibrancy.
4. Exercise is the fountain of youth! We all know we should exercise for health, yet we spend more and more time in front of the computer and T.V. and less time walking in nature. In recent years we have seen public schools stripped of physical education. Dr. Raffelock is convinced that the more little boys are able to burn off their energy in physical play, the less problems most of them will have sitting still. Your health is the direct result of mitochondrial function. The more muscle mass you have, the more mitochondria in the muscle…daily exercise of brisk walking for 1 hour will make you feel vital; it will prevent weight gain; it will help muscle and joint pain; it helps to prevent heart disease and the blood flow to your brain could help prevent the degenerative diseases of the brain like Alzheimer’s. Plus you just look better when you exercise. Moderate weight lifting 3 times per week is considered the single most important health factor for living a longer life. You look healthy and vibrant!
5. Nutritional Supplementation: we live in stressful times and times of great chemical exposure. Every American should be taking a good, strong multiple vitamin and fish oils. This simple health regime can stave off a lot of health care problems. And the Journal of the American Medical Association half way agrees with me on this one…about the multiple vitamins. They haven’t caught up with the times yet to realize that fish oils are just as important.
6. The forgiveness and gratitude principal. My husband likes to make a point to his patients with high blood pressure. He takes the blood pressure and gets the numbers. Then he asks the patient to breathe deeply, inwardly count some their blessings and say “thank you” silently to themselves. Then he takes the blood pressure again. Blood pressure can drop by as much as 30 points! You can do the same thing whispering forgiveness with your deep breathing to someone with whom you have grit and the blood pressure also drops.
7. The Spiritual Factor: having a daily practice of prayer, inspirational reading, meditation, yoga or deep breathing with a “thank you” attached to it keeps life in perspective. Stress is the precursor to the disease process, so if you have a daily practice and something you can turn to in times of stress, you do keep your immune system healthy.
8. Wall Street health care reform is upon us, but we are not victims. Everyone should have access to medical care and everyone should also take responsibility for our own health care by educating ourselves and implementing lifestyle changes that we know will help us and our families lead healthy, productive lives. Drugs should not be the first course of action, but the last. And as I said, they have a time and a place, but let’s not make them the be-all end-all of health care.

Let me suggest that all of us begin to embrace lifestyle medicine instead of Wall Street medicine and take greater responsibility for our health. And if you doctor isn’t following these recommendations, then it is your job to educate him or her and fully embrace the choices and changes that will keep you and your family healthy. Now that would be REAL health care reform!

The Paleo diet refers back to Paleo times when human beings were hunter/gatherers and lived on diets of protein , vegetables and moderate amounts of seasonal fruit.  Notice the absence of carbs?  The body does need carbohydrates and although a lot of those are present in vegetables, the advent of bread became the main staple for carbohydrates post Paleo times.  If we as humans, had just left it at that, bread, we probably would not have weight issues.  But bread became crackers, chips, and all sorts of desserts.

So a pregnancy diet based on the Paleo diet is a good direction to go:  lean meats like, fish (especially the fatty fishes, salmon mackerel, sardines), chicken and turkey; lots of fresh vegetables, some raw like in a salad and some steamed or baked; and a minimum amount of  carbohydrate.  I suggest  staying away from processed carbs like chips and crackers and going for whole grain breads, nuts, whole grains like wild rice and  of course yummy baked yams and sweet potatoes.

This kind of diet means actually cooking.  The fast food/restaurant movement has really pulled us away from the kitchen.  But the kitchen can be a great meeting place for family and friends and cooking is a way to make sure that you and your family stay healthy.  Cooking can also be a time and place for prayer and gratitude.  Offering small prayers of “thank-you” while you are washing, peeling and chopping food is nurturing to the Spirit.

I was very lucky in that I was taught to cook when I was a child in both my grandmother’s and my mother’s kitchen.  So I feel very confident in that arena.  Cooking is certainly more economical than eating out or getting take out.  But it’s never too late to begin getting comfortable in the kitchen, and cooking your own food will certainly allow you and your family to eat in a healthier way.  Time in the kitchen can be and should be shared with husbands and children who can help in the process of preparing and then sharing food.  And there is nothing like a family sharing a meal they have prepared together to help create a strong sense of belonging.

So back to the diet.  Here are some ideas for a healthy pregnancy paleo-type of diet and also some resources:

1. Lean meats like fish  (check to make sure it’s farm raised and/or avoid mercury containing fish, like tuna), chicken, turkey without skins.  Bake, steam or broil.
2. Veggies of all kinds!  Some raw veggies everyday in a salad or as a snack.  Keeping cut up, washed veggies in the fridge while you are pregnant is a good idea:  celery, jicima, carrots, snap peas.  Steam or sauté  veggies and don’t over-cook them.  Veggies can be sautéed in a little olive oil to being out flavor.  Remember that sauté means to cook slowly over a very low heat…you don’t want to fry any food!
3. Seasonal fruit.  Apples in the fall and winter and berries in the summer is a good way to go.  I love apples and often eat them with a little bit of almond butter and a hand full of raw almonds.
4. Nuts and seeds.  These are a good source of protein and calcium and make for a good snack.  Pine nuts, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds can be added to tossed salads.  Try to get raw, not roasted!
5. Good oils.  Olive oil is best for cooking, but a tablespoon of Barlenes Flax seed oil can provide your body with good Omega 6 oils.  Never cook with flax oil, (it should not be heated)  but use it for salad dressing.
6. Minimal Carbs:  whole grain breads, whole grains, like rice are best.  Avoid processed carbs like chips and crackers.
7. Dairy:  I am not big on dairy as many people are reactive to milk and milk products.  That being said, if dairy feels good in your body, by all means go for the milk and cheese.  You may even want to try goat cheese.  Goat milk tastes a little gamey to me, but some people like it and it is a good source of protein.  Yogurt is a good as long as you get the yogurt that is either non-sweetened or natural fruit sweetened.  Avoid corn syrup!!!!
8. Desserts: a LITTLE chocolate is good for the soul, but you may also want to try baked apples or baked pears with coconut milk and maple syrup.  Or make your own oatmeal cookies, using honey as a substitute for sugar.  Omit two tablespoons of liquid in the recipe if you are using honey and you will get the right consistency.

Okay, here are some of my favorite resources for cooking.  Some of these are vegetarian cookbooks, not because I am a vegetarian, but because these cookbooks get really creative with vegetables and vegetables are loaded with good vitamins and minerals:

My favorite cookbook for veggies and also the best cookbook if you want to have a vegetarian pregnancy is :

• The Vegetarian Mother’s Cookbook by Cathe Olson
• Any of the Moosewood Cookbooksby Katzen
• Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon – what a great, educational and delicious cookbook!
• These are a good beginning.  Please share your diet and healthy eating tips with us!

So along with your healthy snacks of carrots and celery, why not grab a Spiritual snack to ease the pains of worry during pregnancy. There are some wonderful guided imagery CD’s that talk you through relaxing and can help with anxiety, panic attacks and general stress. The ones that I find the most helpful are by Belleruth Napersteck and can be purchased at HealthJourneys.com or Soundformulas.com

Additionally, any type of meditation technique that allows you to take a fifteen minutes and just sit and breath until you feel calm is great for you mental state and your physical health. I have loved the Meta practices by Sharon Salzberg . She has a book called Loving Kindness Meditation which can teach you this technique.

Or maybe you are a person who feels calm and peace when you read the Bible. Then, take fifteen minutes to be alone and breath deeply as you read passages which inspire calm and peace in your being.

It’s really important to have something that you do that decreases stress and worry and brings you a sense of peace and well-being. Being at peace is one of the best ways to enjoy being pregnant or being a new mom!