Patty James's blog

When my phone rings it's often a client wanting to change their life and do what it takes to get healthier.

They insist they are ready to empty their kitchen cupboards, replace with all new healthier choices, completely change their way of eating, join the gym moving from a sedentary life to spin classes all in one fell swoop.

A week later they are so sore they can't walk, hungry from eating nothing but broccoli and if they have a family, said family is ready to jump ship.

When it comes to adapting a healthier lifestyle, it's best to think small and sustainable. You are more likely to stick with it and feel good about that fact.

Big changes that you cannot maintain leave you feeling disappointed with yourself and that paves the way to the Ben and Jerry's.

Promise yourself to make one small change a week. In a year's time, those small changes will be well-used habits and you will feel healthier and quite pleased with yourself (as you should!) that this was the year you got healthier once and for all!

52 Simple Get-Healthy Tips

1. Drink 8 glasses of pure water a day.

2. Get rid of any junk food in your house. If it's not there, don't go get it.

3. Limit your caffeine intake: 1-2 cups of coffee a day.

4. Plan your weekly meals on your day off.

5. Spend 30 minutes twice a week cutting up fresh veggies to have them ready at all times.

6. Keep seasonal fruit at home and eat it when you're hungry or when a sweet tooth strikes.

7. Substitute raw nuts and seeds for processed granola bars.

8. Don't drink alcohol on an empty stomach; it's hard on your stomach and burns up B vitamins.

9. Eat raw vegetables every day. Raw veggies contain important enzymes that can be lost when they're cooked.

10. Purchase as much of your food organic as you can. Your body will appreciate it as will our planet.

11. Next time you make cookies or cake, substitute half of the butter with applesauce, pumpkin or prune puree. You'll enjoy less fat, more nutrients.

12. Get at least 8 hours of sleep a night.

13. Vary your food; if you eat it today, don't eat it for 4 days.

14. Different colored food has different nutrients, so eat from the rainbow. Red peppers, orange carrots, green kale, etc.

15. Thicken soups with pureed beans. Delicious and added nutrition.

16. Don't drink water from plastic bottles. Polycarbonate water bottles (labeled #7) contain bisphenol A (BPA), which leaches from the plastic and has been linked to chromosome damage and hormone disruption.

17. Start your day with a glass of fresh lemon water. Squeeze the juice of a half a lemon or a whole lemon into eight ounces of water. Your liver loves it.

18. De-stress. Find out what works for you. Warm baths? Exercise? Reading? Yoga? Walks in the woods? Find out what calms and soothes you and practice daily.

19. Move daily. Find the movement that moves your body and eases your mind and make it a part of who you are. If you enjoy it, you will do it.

20. Eat at a table with a cloth napkin on your lap and chew well. And be thankful.

21. Next time you want scrambled eggs (or tofu), sauté some veggies first, then add eggs. Try eating your veggies all day!

22. Dry brush your skin before you shower in the morning. It's good for your lymphatic system and your skin will be so much softer and healthier.

23. Have at least one day a week without meat. Meatless Monday perhaps.

24. Eat more beans! They're high in protein, dietary fiber, and taste so good.

25. Use whole-grain flour in your baking instead of white flour. Whole-wheat pastry flour is a fine grind and much healthier than the white stuff.

26. Remove white sugar from your diet or at least limit it. Use maple syrup, honey, agave or stevia instead.

27. Don't eat fake food! No artificial anything!

28. Don't eat out as much. Cook more.

29. Exercise your mind! Learn a new dance, read a good book. Learn a new language. Keep your mind moving as well as your body.

30. Learn to communicate better. Speak your mind kindly, and be done with it. Don't hold grudges. Forgive yourself and others.

31. Make your own vinaigrette for your salads. Olive and/or flax oil, lemon juice or vinegar, a little Dijon mustard, a minced garlic clove and a little salt and pepper.

32. Use sea salt instead of the highly processed salt you find in many grocery stores.

33. Reduce salt intake. Use fresh herbs and lemon juice to boost flavor.

34. Try to stay off computers and away from anything electronic two hours before bed for a better night's sleep.

35. Use plain yogurt instead of sour cream.

36. Switch to whole wheat, corn or quinoa pasta (there are many selections) instead of pasta that uses refined flour.

37. Don't eat or drink any food with trans-fat. Watch those non-dairy creamers!

38. Add more leafy greens to your life-kale, chard, spinach, radicchio, etc. They are wonder foods! Steam the greens for a couple minutes, drain and set aside. In a pan sauté some onions, garlic and shitake mushrooms in olive oil for a few minutes. Add the kale back in, stir and serve. Yum.

39. Use less cheese in casseroles that call for cheese. Instead sprinkle grated cheese on top.

40. Begin each day with a good stretch and some deep breaths.

41. Try new ingredients. Buy a kohlrabi or something you've never tried before and go from there. Keep yourself inspired.

42. Don't reward yourself or your family with food.

43. Try to eat whatever food is in season; it's more nutritious and tastes better.

44. Don't go hungry. Eat healthy snacks so you don't overeat later.

45. Watch what you put on your skin. Many products are loaded with chemicals that you shouldn't rub into your skin.

46. Bake instead of frying your meats and fish.

47. Increase omega 3 fatty acids in your diet. Sources include walnuts, flax seeds and oil and cold water fish such as salmon. Healthy fats are important to good health.

48. Increase your intake of legumes: lentil, beans and peas. They are good sources of protein, dietary fiber and blood sugar regulators. Try split pea or lentil soup for breakfast! Think outside the box.

49. Take supplements. Begin with a good multivitamin and speak with your health practitioner about others that may be needed for your optimum health.

50. Watch your portion sizes as well as your plate and utensil sizes. Some forks and spoons look like garden utensils. Try chopsticks and eat slowly.

51. Shop in the outside aisles of the grocery store. Most of the more processed foods are located in the middle aisles.

52. Play! Everyone needs to have fun!

Patty James, M.S. is the Vital Health Educator and Nutrition Coach who founded the first certified organic cooking school and nutrition center in America. She is currently traveling the nation in an RV and interviewing children for the Shine the Light on America's Kids project.

Anytime we can eat more salads it’s helpful for us in our quest for a healthy weight and for the purposes of adding more vegetables, especially leafy greens, into our diet.

I have not known anyone (kids included) who don’t like this delicious and nutritious salad. Enjoy!

Click here to watch the simple, fun salad creation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey0dx47gLS4&feature=channel_page

More recipes are available at http://www.pattyjames.com

Patty James. M.S. is a Vital Health Educator and Nutrition Coach who founded the first certified organic cooking school and nutrition center in America.

A New Year has begun with all that "new" suggests. Perhaps you envision new work endeavors, stronger family ties, and convictions to be more involved with community. Many resolve to become a healthier person.

Whatever your goals, I suggest you take small bites. Small bites are sustainable.

The mistake many make is to set unrealistic goals like "never again will I eat ice cream!" This rarely works, as most people cannot sustain being in a depravation mode for long.

Let’s concentrate on making small positive changes for our personal health, our family’s health, our community’s health and our planet’s health.

We need to begin with ourselves.

If we are healthy beings we feel better and have more energy to share. As adults it is our responsibility to set a good example for children, your own or others.

Create health and vitality by consuming a healthy diet and regularly exercising. Set the tone. When you concentrate on additions and not subtractions bad habits often fall away as we feel healthier and stronger.

We simply don’t crave unhealthy food anymore. I’m sure you already know the bad food choices you sometimes make, so here is a list of additions to make to your diet.

Let’s focus on these:

Begin each day with breakfast. Ideas include oatmeal with nuts and seeds, cold cereal with fresh fruit, omelets with vegetables, yogurt with granola, leftover soup (try it sometime!) and whole grain muffins with blueberries.

A mid-morning snack might include 10-15 raw almonds and 1/4 cup of raw sunflower seeds, a piece of fruit or a fruit cup, carrot and celery sticks or whatever vegetables are in season.

A sandwich is always an easy lunch, but please be sure to vary the ingredients; add lots of veggies and use whole-grain breads. Salads are a wonderful choice for lunch with some kind of protein such as garbanzo beans, sliced chicken or tuna.

A mid-afternoon snack would be along the same lines as your mid-morning snack, but please vary your selections. If you had nuts and seeds for your morning snack do not have them for an afternoon snack, choose vegetables instead.

A hearty bowl of soup makes a wonderful winter dinner with a lovely salad. Use a crock-pot and when you get home after work, dinner is made! Baked chicken with roasted veggies is easy as is a bowl of chili stuffed into half an acorn squash. Keep it simple and keep it varied.

Make a goal to get some kind of exercise every day. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Just do something. Keep moving and you will feel so much better.

If you try to start a big diet goal and a huge new exercise regime, you might be setting yourself up for failure. Small bites to health; small steps.

If you yearn for simpler times with family, make a vow to have at least one meal a day with your family. Again, start with small goals and work up to every night being family night. The goal of course is more family time and less television time.

Community is a very important aspect of good health and well-being. There is always a local cause that needs either your funds or time and more likely than not, both. Choose some way to give back. It can be something as simple as attending your local firefighters’ breakfast or serving a meal at the homeless shelter.

Our Earth needs all the help it can get. Be sure to recycle, reduce and reuse. Just these three R’s alone will make a big difference.

If you try to make too many changes at once it can be overwhelming. Do your best to take small bites for health!

Patty James. M.S. is a Vital Health Educator and Nutrition Coach who founded the first certified organic cooking school and nutrition center in America.

In order for you to lighten-up the fat or sugar in a recipe you need to understand how fats and sugar affects baked goods.

Wheat flour contains proteins that when mixed with liquid form tough strands called gluten. Fat tenderizes baked goods by coating the pieces of flour so that the liquid ingredients cannot get to them, so to speak. This interferes with the gluten formation, and shortens the strings of gluten to allow a more tender structure.

This is why removing the fat from baked goods often makes them tough and/or rubbery.

Many recipes call for mixing fat and sugar together which mixes in air bubbles and then during the baking process, these air bubbles are part of what makes the baked goods rise.

Fruit purees are often used as fat substitutes... unsweetened applesauce being the most common. Applesauce doesn’t impart a lot of flavor and contains more pectin than other fruit purees, which helps to retain the moistness of baked goods. You may also use pumpkin, banana, or prune purees.

Pumpkin and prune purees are wonderful in brownies as they bring out the flavor of the chocolate. You may purchase canned pumpkin if you like or simply place a sugar pumpkin in the oven on a baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for about an hour. Let cool, scrap out the seeds (and roast them later to snack on!) remove the skin, then puree in a blender or food processor. For the prune puree, place some pitted prunes in a small saucepan with a little water, cover, cook until softened and puree.

At first, eliminate only half the fat in a recipe, and the next time you make the recipe, try replacing even more fat, if desired. For example if you are making cookies that call for 1 cup of butter, use 1/2 cup butter and 1/2 cup of applesauce.

Sugar also interferes with gluten formation; so many fat-free and low-fat recipes contain additional sugar! Lower gluten flours like whole-wheat pastry flour, oat flour, oat bran, rolled oats, and cornmeal better choices for low fat baking as well as being less processed and contain more nutrients than white flour. You can generally reduce the amount of sugar a recipe calls for by 1/3 to 1/2 without compromising flavor or texture.

Other useful tips

-- Stirring batter excessively develops gluten and toughens the texture of baked goods, so minimize mixing in many recipes.

-- Reduced-fat baked goods often bake more quickly than their high-fat counterparts so to prevent over-baking, reduce oven temperatures by 25 degrees, and check the product for doneness a few minutes before the end of the usual baking time.

Patty James. M.S. is a Vital Health Educator and Nutrition Coach who founded the first certified organic cooking school and nutrition center in America.