Today's Headlines

Whether you need a beverage during your workout, require hydration because you participate in sports or you just like the refreshing taste of an electrolyte beverage on a hot summer day do you really know what you are drinking? The popular sports drinks on the market today contain high fructose corn syrup, sugar, and sodium. A lot of people enjoy drinking sports drinks just because they give them a little extra energy to help get through their day. Did you know that a majority of these beverages use simple sugars as the primary energy source? Some of these drinks also use artificial flavors and sweeteners.

My children love sports drinks mostly for their sweet taste. With childhood obesity on the rise in the United States I want to be extra careful about what I let my kids drink.

Recently I tried Ultima Replenisher, the Balanced Electrolyte Drink. Ultima is the only 100% natural, non-GMO, gluten free, dye free, sugar free electrolyte drink on the market.

The leading sports drinks have little to no nutritional value and are high in sodium and sugar. This is why most athletes drink plain water. But we need electrolytes before, during and after we exercise. Ultima Replenisher is a natural sports drink without sugar. Ultima is naturally sweet without any artificial ingredients.

If your child has a stomach virus or diarrhea giving him an electrolyte beverage will help speed his recovery. Ultima Kids Replenisher gives your child the electrolytes and nutrients he needs to feel better. My kids tried it and agreed that it tastes good and without nasty artificial flavorings, sugar and high fructose corn syrup I can feel confident that they are drinking something that is better for them than the leading beverages for kids on the market.

Ultima comes in several natural flavors. You can purchase them in a box with single servings or a canister. Visit the Ultima Store to check out all their products and use their store locater to find a retailer near you.

Healthy Moms and Ultima is giving away a box of Ultima to five lucky readers. All you need to do is leave us a comment.

For extra entries:

Subscribe to our Healthy Living Newsletter

Follow Me on Twitter

Subscribe to Healthy Moms

Follow This blog with Google Friend Connect

Digg This Contest

Tweet This Contest

Stumble the Contest

E mail the link to our site or this contest to a friend (make sure you BCC talbertcascia @ yahoo dot com so I have proof of the e mail)

Become a Fan of Healthy Moms on Facebook

Join our Blog Frog Community

Join the Healthy Moms Network

Add Healthy Moms to your blogroll.

Blog about this contest. Make sure you include a link back.

For every entry including extra entries please leave a separate comment. Winners will be chosen randomly from the comments and e mails that I receive. The contest ends on May 9 at midnight PST.

*Disclosure I received a box of Ultima and a canister of Ultima Kids in exchange for this review. All opinions are 100% mine.

Discuss this in our forum

In life we acquire many possessions along the way. Some things we keep to inspire us, some out of sentiment. Many things are kept simply because we forget about them or never got around to sorting them out. A Spring Clean is a useful way of ridding ourselves of clutter and unwanted items. And so it is with negative habits, people, attitudes. Sometimes it is useful to look at what has attached itself to us over the years and decide whether or not we want to keep it.

Negative habits often start in childhood. They may originate as part of a ritual or security routine, the intention being to keep us safe. As we become older we may stop doing one habit and acquire another one in its place, thumb sucking can evolve into the more acceptable nail biting, for example. Habits often start as a distraction when we are feeling embarrassed or lacking in confidence. They are a means of busying ourselves if we feel vulnerable or exposed. Many people started smoking as a young person to boost their confidence. They fitted into a group, felt more grown up or had something to occupy their hands or concentrate on at awkward times. Letting go of entrenched negative habits from childhood may require a little support, but these habits are often of no value to the adult person. Counselling and hypnotherapy are an effective means of boosting ones confidence and enabling a person to move on from childhood patterns.

People can stay in our lives because we do not pause to evaluate the relationships. Either sending a Christmas Card year in year out, or including someone in our inner circle, there comes a time when it may well be a relevant exercise to look at the people we keep in contact with and occasionally spring clean some of them out of our lives. Check out the people who are negative influences or who are holding us back from achieving our goals. Is it time to let some of them go ? It may sound harsh but sometimes we need to address what baggage we are carrying around with us.

Attitudes can stick with us for a surprising length of time. Some of these viewpoints can be passed through families for decades and are called inter-generational learning, because they are intrinsically held. Sometimes we get over these limiting beliefs ourselves. Something may happen that pulls us up short and we realise that we are thinking or looking at something in a counter-productive way. Other times, counselling and hypnotherapy can help us to address the patterns that need to be changed and help us live our lives more constructively.

The way we look can benefit from a spring clean and being updated from time to time. When is the last time you reinvented yourself or freshened up your look ? Maybe it is time to look at your hairstyle, clothes, makeup. There are many people around who are able to advise on the colours, look, style that would convey the image you want. Similarly a personal trainer can help get the body fit and in good shape.

Interests sometimes need to be given a new lease of life, especially if we have been doing the same things for a while. Change to a newspaper with a different outlook or watch a documentary once a week. Read that book you always wanted to read. Make an effort to open yourself to new influences.

Meeting new people can be a real boost to ones self esteem and a good way of achieving that result is to start a new interest that requires regular involvement. A language course, painting, walking, theatre or other interest group can bring new enthusiasm into our social life and also requires that we make the effort to attend on a regular basis. Many people find that once they have made the initial effort of going along and joining in they are glad that they did. They become a person again in their own right, not just Mum, wife, daughter.

Shedding the old routines, negative habits and thought patterns makes way for new, interesting things in your life, and that will certainly put a spring in your step.

Susan Leigh, Counsellor and Hypnotherapist
www.lifestyletherapy.net

About this author

Susan Leigh is a long established Counsellor and Hypnotherapist, with over twenty years experience. She is a member of several professional organisations and is committed to a programme of Continuous Professional Development.

She started the practice in 1988 with her husband Frederick, and after being widowed at the age of 39, took over the practice full time.
Prior to working as a Counsellor, Susan worked for many years with a blue chip company and has experienced the stresses of balancing a corporate and personal life. Now she balances writing regularly for many organisations, is a regular contributor to BBC radio and has a thriving Counselling and Hypnotherapy practice. She works with individuals, helping them cope better with the pressures of daily life, works with couples to provide relationship counselling and improve communications, and in business to provide support to staff members and teams. She has had a lot of success working with clients with unexplained infertility in women and also with managing pain in childbirth. Many of her clients have successfully gone on to become pregnant and have a positive experience of giving birth. For more information see www.lifestyletherapy.net

Discuss this in our forum

Discuss this in our forum

If you have been following this blog for a while you may already know that I have a very challenging four year old daughter. Ciara is smart and sweet but she can also be defiant, destructive and a little bully. I've tried different parenting and disciplinary methods with her but most of them do not work.

Currently I am getting help from a behavioral specialist from UC Davis. Once a week a lady from their CAARE Center comes out to our home and teaches me parenting strategies to help deal with these problem behaviors. Recently I started a new program with my daughter called, PCIT (Parent-Child Interaction Therapy).

During these therapy sessions I have to play with my child while practicing what they call PRIDE skills (Praise, Reflect, Imitate, Describe, and Enthusiasm). Every day I have to play with her using what we call, "Special Playtime Toys" while using these skills.

Praising your child will cause good behavior to increase, let your child know what you like, increases your child's self-esteem, adds to warmth of the relationship, and makes both the parent and child feel good. Examples of praise include, "That's terrific counting!" "I like the way you're playing so quietly, and You have wonderful ideas for this picture." Some parents are good at praising their children but they don't know how to use a labeled praise. You can praise your child by simply saying, "Good job!" But if your child doesn't know what the good job was for he may not continue the good behavior. A better approach would be saying, "Good job picking up all the toys!"


Reflecting your child's behavior allows the child to direct the conversation, shows him that you're really listening, demonstrates acceptance and understanding of your child, and improves her speech while increasing verbal communication. A good example of reflecting statements are:

Child: I made a star
Parent: Yes, you made a star

Child: The camel got bumps on top.
Parent: It has two humps on it's back.

I am having a difficult time developing this skill. When I play with Ciara I sometimes forget to reflect on what she is saying.

Imitating your child lets your child lead, approves your child's choice of play, shows her that you are involved, teaches her how to play with others, and tends to increase your child's imitation of what you do. Below are a couple of examples of imitation.

Child: I'm putting baby to bed.
Parent: I'll put sister to bed, too.

Child: I'm making a sun in the sky.
Parent: I'm going to put a sun in my picture, too.

This is another skill that I need a little more practice on.

Describing your child's appropriate behavior allows him to lead, shows him that you're interested, teaches concepts, models speech, holds his attention, and organizes his thoughts about play. For example you can use descriptive sentences like these while playing with your child, "That's a red block. You're making a tower. You drew a smiling face. The cowboy looks happy." I was also told to pretend you are a reporter and you are reporting the news of what your child is doing. This skill came pretty natural to me once I thought of it in that manner.

Using enthusiasm while playing with your child demonstrates interest in the child, models appropriate positive emotions, supports positive statements and strengthens a positive relationship. This is another skill that I found I need more practice on.
68 Piece Foam Wood Grain Building Blocks

I also learned that some toys may not be appropriate for PCIT play time with my child. You should use toys that encourage your child to use his hands and imagination. Building toys, Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, Dollhouses with miniature people, train sets and play food are great toys to use in PCIT. I went out and visited our local Good Will store to find some of these toys. Then I washed them with a little bit of bleach and warm water and put them in shoebox sized plastic totes. These are her "special toys" which are only used for "special playtime." I set them aside out of Ciara's sight and reach.
Caring Corners Mrs. Goodbee Interactive Dollhouse

I have been practicing PCIT with Ciara for less than a week and I am already noticing an improvement in her behavior. Do you play with your children? What have you done to encourage your children to behave positively?

Discuss this in our forum

What child doesn’t love to eat a bag of popcorn, licking the excess salt off of each finger? Many of the foods we love contain large amounts of sodium. Foods with lower levels of sodium often taste bland. But are we once again sabotaging our health for taste? (Yes!) And should the government help save the public’s health by mandating decreased levels of salt in the foods American’s consume? (Yes!)

According to a new statement from the Food and Drug Administration, Americans are eating way too much salt. The FDA has called for the government to impose stricter regulations on how much salt food products can contain. Unfortunately, the government has no plans to institute these suggestions. Instead, the FDA must rely on voluntary salt reductions from food manufacturers. To date, this approach has not worked very well.

How much salt are we eating? The average American eats 1.5 teaspoons of salt a day, more than double the recommended amount. In fact, this amount of salt increases the risk for high blood pressure, strokes, and other medical problems. Don’t think that you are safe by simply forgoing the salt shaker! Putting salt on foods only adds insult to injury. Large amounts of salt are hidden in most processed foods and restaurant meals.

Current government guidelines call for a maximum daily sodium intake of 2,300 milligrams. Health problems appear when intake is above this number. These new statements suggest a recommended maximum daily sodium intake of 1,500 mg a day (and less for adults over age 50). It seems we pay no attention to these guidelines as the average consumption of sodium is more than 3,400 mg a day. Apparently, simply knowing that one’s diet is not healthy is not enough to convince the average American to change his habits.

Rather than calling for a drastic reduction in added sodium, researchers are suggesting a gradual change so the country’s taste buds can adapt and the food industry has time to look for tasty, but healthier, alternatives. Their proposed regulations would ease both food producers and consumers into a healthier way of eating by setting maximum sodium levels for different foods in a stepwise rollback set over a period of years. The final goal is to decrease salt consumption by 0.5 teaspoons per day.

Government officials claim that writing new laws to set limits on sodium levels would take much longer than working with food executives on voluntary reductions. Food executives, however, argue that there are no tasty ways to decrease sodium levels. But brand-to-brand differences in the same foods suggest that’s not so.

The Institute of Medicine, in a statement given this Tuesday, reported that the food industry has made very little progress in voluntarily reducing sodium. What a surprise! You mean companies haven’t been willing to spend large amounts of money to produce a product that, while healthier, will not taste quite as good? Shocking. How can a plan based solely on the good nature of food industry executives not succeed?

Salt leads to real health problems. One in three U.S. adults suffers from high blood pressure, a leading cause of heart attacks, strokes, and kidney failure. The American Medical Association predicts that 150,000 lives could be saved each year, simply by cutting the sodium levels in processed and restaurant foods in half.

About This Author
Joanna Dolgoff, M.D. is a Pediatrician, Child Obesity Expert, and Author of Red Light, Green Light, Eat Right (Rodale, 2009). Dr. Dolgoff’s child and adolescent weight loss program (http://www.DrDolgoff.com) has been featured on WABC News, WNBC News, Fox 5 Morning Show, My9 News, and WPIX News. She has also filmed pieces with The Today Show and Extra, is an official blogger for the Huffington Post, and is the official doctor for Camp Shane, the nation’s largest weight loss camp. Children from 45 different states are losing weight with Dr. Dolgoff’s online weight loss program (http://www.DrDolgoff.com).
Dr. Dolgoff attended Princeton University and the NYU School of Medicine and completed her Pediatric Residency at the Columbia Presbyterian Children’s Hospital of New York. She is a Board-Certified Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a former certified fitness instructor. Dr. Dolgoff resides in Roslyn, NY with her husband and two children, ages 4 and 7.

Discuss this in our forum

We all know smoking is a bad habit that not only affects the smoker, but also impacts innocent bystanders. But new studies are showing just how much the most innocent of all, our children, are impacted by smoking.

New research from the American Heart Association shows that secondhand smoke is particularly harmful to toddlers and obese children. And its negative effects are broader than previously believed.

There are certain markers of vascular injury (possibly a precursor to heart disease) that indicate an increased risk of heart attack. Obese children with exposure to secondhand smoke have significantly increased levels of these markers, indicating a likely increased risk for cardiovascular disease. This new study also showed that obese children had twice the levels of these markers than normal-weight children.

This increased risk is particularly disturbing because overweight and obese children are already at increased risk of heart disease. Exposure to secondhand smoke is just making a bad situation worse. And with one out of every three children in our country overweight and obese, exposure to secondhand smoke could lead to a significant number of heart attacks.

As a pediatrician, I have heard every excuse from smoking parents. “I never smoke around the kids.” “I wash my hands before touching my children after smoking.” “I go outside to smoke.”

But the unfortunate truth is that children are exposed to secondhand smoke in every one of the above situations. Smoke remnants remain on clothes and in hair and continue to be harmful. There is no way to fully eliminate all the toxins from smoking. Besides not smoking, of course.

I know that giving up smoking is not easy to do. Nicotine is addictive and smokers go into withdrawal when they quit. But there are so many options out there to help smokers. If you want to quit smoking, you can consider nicotine gum or a nicotine patch. You can also speak to your physician about certain medications that can help.

The bottom line is that your children’s health is at risk, particularly if they are overweight or obese. Don’t continue to make excuses or downplay the effect your smoking has on your kids. Exposure to secondhand smoke is more dangerous than we previously thought. The best way to ensure your child has a healthy future is to stop smoking today!

American Heart Association (2009, November 18). Secondhand smoke exposure worse for toddlers, obese children. ScienceDaily.

About This Author
Joanna Dolgoff, M.D. is a Pediatrician, Child Obesity Expert, and Author of Red Light, Green Light, Eat Right (Rodale, 2009). Dr. Dolgoff’s child and adolescent weight loss program (http://www.DrDolgoff.com) has been featured on WABC News, WNBC News, Fox 5 Morning Show, My9 News, and WPIX News. She has also filmed pieces with The Today Show and Extra, is an official blogger for the Huffington Post, and is the official doctor for Camp Shane, the nation’s largest weight loss camp. Children from 45 different states are losing weight with Dr. Dolgoff’s online weight loss program (http://www.DrDolgoff.com).
Dr. Dolgoff attended Princeton University and the NYU School of Medicine and completed her Pediatric Residency at the Columbia Presbyterian Children’s Hospital of New York. She is a Board-Certified Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a former certified fitness instructor. Dr. Dolgoff resides in Roslyn, NY with her husband and two children, ages 4 and 7.

Discuss this in our forum

It's time again to celebrate giveaways! List yours here or if you want to enter one they are just a click away.

HOT Giveaways across the web

The Year Of Wellness Video Contest
One (1) grand prize winner will receive a "year of wellness" worth $10,000, including a $5,000 cash prize and nutrition consulting, life coaching, personal training & supplements throughout the year

Moms Wear Your Tees
Crazy Dog T-Shirt of Winner's Choice (ends 5/6)
Crazy Dog T-Shirts will provide the winner with one shirt of winner's choice from the Crazy Dog Collection of funny and vintage tees.

One Savvy Housewife
Zephyr Woods Necklace (ends 5/10)

Joy of Desserts
3 Winners! "101 Things I Learned in Culinary School" (ends 5/19)
"Louis Eguaras, a renowned chef at the Le Cordon Bleu Program at the California School of Culinary Arts, provides readers with a terrific overview of what is truly involved in the preparation, cooking, and presentation of meals. He also provides invaluable insights into just what is involved in making this one's chosen profession.

The Review Stew
Custom Greeting Cards (ends 4/27)
This giveaway is for great custom greeting cards. Personalize them however you want - add a picture or a personal message to make it unique everytime!

Crocheted LittleThings
Cupcake Pincushion (ends 5/5)
Cupcake pincushion with flower, $10

thatsITmommy
This Little Piggy's House (ends 5/2)
This Little Piggy's House - playhouse in white








Other Places to List Your Giveaway

MONDAY:



TUESDAY:


Mom Advice

WEDNESDAY:


Frugal Freebies and Deals
Busy Mommy



Whimsy *couture* Boutique





THURSDAY:





FRIDAY:



The Mud Bug

SATURDAY:


SUNDAY:





Moomette's Magnificents
The Freebie Blogger


ONGOING:



Other Great Giveaway Sites

Mom Bloggers Club
Cafe Mom
Mom Fuse
Sweeps4Bloggers
Contest for Moms
SweepsAdvantage.com
Online-sweepstakes.com

Would you like your giveaway to be featured under our HOT giveaways across the web? Please fill out this form and we will feature your giveaway next Monday. Giveaway deadline must be after 5/3 in order to be listed next week.

Website Name
Your Email Address
Prize
Deadline to enter
Live Link to Your Contest
Description
Image Verification Please enter the text from the image: [ Refresh Image ] [ What's This? ]

Discuss this in our forum