13 Tips on Eating Healthy at Home During Busy Times

Now that most schools are in session, families are getting acclimated to new routines that may include sports and extra-curricular activities, religious studies, and tons of homework. Often these busy schedules do not leave much time to prepare healthy, nutritious meals so many folks opt for fast food alternatives. Unfortunately, the drive-through lifestyle can lead to weight gain and other health-related issues, while instilling unhealthy eating habits in family members.

Joanna Dolgoff, M.D. (www.DrWeigh.com), whose child and adolescent weight management practice boasts a 96 percent weight loss success rate, has provided the following tips on how to make eating healthy at home part of your back-to-school routine:

1. Plan the week in advance; make a menu with your kids so you know what you are going to make them each day.

2. Review your menu and make a list of foods you will need. Plan one shopping trip each week and make sure you pick up all the necessary ingredients for your menu.

3. Always go food shopping with a list to avoid forgetting items and to limit unnecessary purchases. To be even more efficient and to save money, make a second list of items you will need soon. If you see such an item on sale, pick it up. If not, try again next week! Before you head to the supermarket, look around your kitchen and notice which items you have plenty of so you don’t buy items that you don’t need.

4. When possible, shop in bulk. Make a large shopping trip to BJ’s or Costco for essential items to freeze or for storage. Items would include: chicken breasts, extra lean chop meat, fish, frozen vegetables, frozen fruit, canned beans, canned sauce, brown rice, whole wheat pasta, potatoes, whole wheat bread or rolls.

5. Divide meats into small portions before freezing so you can easily defrost one dinner’s worth a few hours before a meal.

6. Prepare meals in advance; if you have time on a Sunday afternoon, prepare two meals for the week and keep refrigerated until needed.

7. Try making large batches of food items you know you will repeat in the week to avoid cooking twice. For example, if Monday and Wednesday dinners include rice, make enough for the two days.

8. Try using a slow cooker; this is great for fall and winter meals such as stews, soups, and meals that take a while to cook.

9. Broiled or grilled fish is a great low-calorie option for a quick meal. Top with fresh lemon, pepper or even fruit salsa as a topping.

10. Try breakfast for dinner; an omelet with vegetables and fat free cheese and a slice of whole wheat bread is a great option.

11. Hot sandwiches for dinner are also a healthy choice. If you have a Panini or sandwich maker, build your own sandwich from scratch!

12. Buy prepared produce when in a rush; this will save you time and encourages you to eat your recommended servings each day. Look for pre-washed, pre-cut salads, carrots, peppers or other veggies of choice.

13. Skinless pre-cut meats and poultry are great quick meals. Try kebobs, stews, stir fry dishes with your healthy pre-cut veggies

If time is truly not on your side and making dinner is not an option, try choosing restaurants that have healthy non-fried choices. Always ask for meals to be prepared without butter, mayonnaise, cheese and oil.

Planning is the key to ensuring your family eats healthy dinners each night. Once you get the hang of the routine, it becomes easy. And best of all, you avoid the last minute frantic scrambling of trying to figure out the answer to the age-old question, “What’s for dinner?”
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Joanna Dolgoff, M.D. is a pediatrician and child obesity expert. She is the creator of Dr. Dolgoff's Weigh: Child and Adolescent Weight Management Program (http:/www.DrWeigh.com). Dr. Dolgoff has been featured as a child obesity expert on WNBC News, WABC News, Fox 5 Morning Show with Mike and Juliet, My9 News and WPIX News. The Today Show has taped a segment about Dr. Dolgoff which should air in the next month.

Tips for Getting Along With Your Mother-in-Law

Let’s face it – not everyone gets along with their mother-in-law as well as I do mine. I’m very fortunate that I can count her among my circle of close friends. However, I know from talking with other friends that this is not necessarily the norm.

I have a friend whose MIL is still upset because they wouldn’t allow her to name their firstborn child. That was 20 years ago. And there is another friend whose MIL refuses to buy her a Christmas gift. When my friend’s husband complained to his mother, she “compromised” by wrapping up hotel toiletry samples she collected when traveling.

Whether we like it or not, how well we get along (or not) with our in-laws can have a far-reaching impact on our marital relationships. And while you may not be able to change your mother-in-law, you can change how you respond to her. Author, Gretchen Rubin, offers Ten Tips for Getting Along With Your Mother-in-Law that encourages being around her more, avoiding pointless bickering, respecting priorities and certain privileges, and focusing on the positive.

Click here to see her latest Huffington Post blog post and find out what strategies you can use to improve your relationship with your mother-in-law.

Five Things You Should NOT Do Online

As you’ve undoubtedly heard numerous times, “the Internet is instant, everywhere, and eternal.” Once you put it out there, you can’t take it back. This is a reality many adults and students find out the hard way when they get busted for illegally downloading digital media, plagiarizing other folks' material, “borrowing” images, dissing other people, and posting inappropriate content. To keep from jumping out of the frying pan into the fire, just follow these five simple rules for “Doing the Right Thing - 5 Tech Pitfalls” recently posted at Switched.com.

Tips for Good Netiquette

Internet etiquette or “netiquette” has been around since the mid-1980s – even before the World Wide Web exploded onto the scene when people were just using it for interoffice communications. Basically, it’s a set of social rules that have evolved over the years to help facilitate interaction between Internet users who communicate via emails, chat rooms, discussion forums, blogs, etc. As more and more people spend a big part of their lives online, using good netiquette skills is more important than ever.

Check out these Tips for Good Netiquette to improve your online communications.

Tips on Getting a Good Night’s Sleep

According to a 2007 study by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies for Science, approximately 70 million Americans suffer from insomnia. For many of these people the problem is not falling asleep, but remaining in a deep state of slumber.

Best-selling author, hypnotist, and therapist, Paul McKenna, recently appeared on Good Morning America and said that many sleep problems are related to anxiety. His new book, I Can Make You Sleep, includes 14 Golden Rules of Sleep which McKenna says can help everyone prepare for a good night’s sleep. Here are the first four rules:

1. Get up regularly half an hour earlier than your usual desired getting-up time. This may sound counterintuitive but, McKenna said, "the overwhelming evidence [shows] it's one simple thing that made a huge difference to a lot of people."

2. Go to bed only when you're sleepy.

3. Don't take any naps during the day. Naps are fine for people without sleep problems, but "if you are having disruptive sleep, [naps aren't] going to let you sleep so well at night."

4. At least three times a week, exercise for at least 20 minutes. "Things like the exercise clean out the stress toxins," he said. It makes people tired and "resets the body clock."

Click here to read the remaining 10 Golden Rules of Sleep at ABC News.

National Child Passenger Safety Week

National Child Passenger Safety Week

September 12 - 18, 2009

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) would like to take this opportunity to remind pediatricians and parents of the AAP recommendations for safe transportation of children.

Infants should ride in rear-facing car safety seats to the highest weight or height allowed by their car safety seat's manufacturer. At a minimum, children should ride rear-facing until they have reached at least 1 year of age and weigh at least 20 pounds. When children reach the highest weight of length allowed by the manufacturer of their infant seat, they should continue to ride rear-facing in a convertable sear. Never place a rear-facing car safety seat in front of an air bag.

Children who have outgrown their rear-facing seats should ride in forward-facing car safety seats for as long as they fit well (ears below the top of the back of the seat and shoulders below the top harness slots or until they reach the top weight or height allowed for their seats).

Children who have outgrown their car safety seats but are too small to wear seat belts properly should ride in booster seats. For more information about safe transportation of children who have outgrown their car safety seats, please see the AAP/Partners for Child Passenger Safety Issue Report on Booster Seats .

Seat belts fit properly when they can be worn with the lap portion of the belt low and snug across the thighs, and the shoulder portion across the chest and shoulder without cutting across the face and neck while sitting against the vehicle seat back with feet comfortably hanging down.

Remember that all children age 12 years and younger are safest in the back seat.

Healthy Lunchbox Tips

Once again, its that time of year when children are starting back to school. Growing up, I always loved the start of school because it meant new clothes to buy and new boys to drool over. But other kids – like my son – dread the end of blissful summer days and the start of homework assignments. And I dread the prospect of planning daily lunches that he may or may not eat. So I’ve been on the hunt for new lunchbox ideas and the following are some tips I wanted to pass onto you:

· Small children have small appetites, so pack small portions – think appetizers. Instead of packing a whole chicken salad wrap, turn it into a “roll” by cutting it into several pieces and only packing a couple of the rolls one day and the remaining rolls the next.

· Get creative with traditional sandwiches by using cookie cutters to cut them into fun shapes. Or use different types of breads and crackers such as cinnamon or raisin bread, bagels, pita bread, tortillas, rice cakes, and croissants.

· Prepackaged lunches found in the grocery store are a bit pricey and not always very nutritious. Put together your own using healthier food choices such as sliced cheese and meats, cut-up veggies and dips, dried fruits, nuts, pretzels, baked chips, and whole-grain crackers.

· Crunchy granola sweetened with raisins and/or yogurt chips are a great alternative to high-fat snacks.

· Make kabobs with ham or turkey, cheese, mushrooms, olives, pickles, tomatoes, and other assorted veggies.

· Jell-O and yogurt are almost always a hit. Don’t forget to include a plastic spoon in the lunchbox.

· Include cheese quesadillas cut into slices. These are easy to make in the microwave by heating shredded cheese between two tortilla wraps. Add pizza or marinara sauce for dipping.

· Slice up leftover chicken breast like chicken fingers and include barbecue or honey mustard sauce for dipping. Leftover meatballs are a good alternative too.

· Homemade muffins like banana nut or blueberry are wonderful treats!

· Keep foods cold in insulated lunch boxes with a frozen gel pack. You can also freeze water bottles and fruit juice boxes to help keep food cold. They will thaw out just in time for lunch.

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Copyright 2009 Charlene Davis. All rights reserved.

Tips to Safeguard Your Facebook Privacy

Facebook has more than 250 million active users and a vast majority of them do not know how to safeguard their privacy, or the potential ramifications involved if they don’t. MakeUseOf.com offers a detailed guide to using Facebook and how to create friend lists, customize and set privacy levels, protection from invasive applications, and more.

Click here for more info.

Free booklet: 101 Tips for Women Travelers Over 50

Overseas Adventure Travel, based in Cambridge, Mass., is offering a FREE 126-page booklet featuring 101 tips for women travelers. The tour company targets travelers over the age of 50 and offers entertaining profiles of adventurous female travelers, from the Queen of Sheba to Mt. Everest climber, Junko Tabei.

Click here for more info

Approximately 20,000 copies were printed, so booklet is available only while supplies last.

7 Tips to Prevent Child Abduction

Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? Over the years, people have developed many different interpretations of what or who they identify this creepy creature with. Especially young children who have been taught the age-old stranger-danger lessons with parents sternly warning, “Don’t talk to strangers.” Typically these little tykes envision a stranger as a hairy, scary monster or snaggle-toothed, grizzly hulk of a man. But what parents often fail to teach their children is that most of the time, the big bad wolf is cleverly disguised in sheep’s clothing with an arsenal of tricks and tools called “lures.” Consider some of these seemingly innocuous scenarios frequently put into practice by predators:

· The Pet Lure: This is one of the most effective and deadly lures where a friendly-looking stranger approaches a child and asks for assistance in finding a nonexistent lost puppy or kitten. Young children are instantly drawn into the concerned pet owner’s story and eagerly start helping by calling out the pet’s name while looking under benches and behind bushes. In the blink of an eye when they have reached the edge of the play area, they are whisked away into the woods or a nearby vehicle.

· The Candy Lure: This old-fashioned trick is still being used with great success by perpetrators who offer a child a piece of candy or a shiny coin. When the child reaches out to take the prize their arm is quickly grabbed, pulling them close enough to be picked up and carried off. This can happen in less than ninety seconds.

· The Assistance Lure: In this scenario, the predator may drive down a street and ask a child if they have seen their lost dog, for directions to the nearest gas station, or for other information. This lure works very much like the candy lure whereupon the child approaches the open window of the car and when they are close enough, their arm or hand is snatched and they are quickly pulled into the vehicle.

· The Emergency Lure: In this type of situation a perpetrator may approach a child in a store or business while insisting there is a fire, burglary, or some other type of emergency in the building and coax the child to step outside. Once outside they can grab the child and run.

· The Authority Lure: A predator may tell a child that Daddy has been in a car accident or Mommy is very sick and wants the child to come home with the nice man. Often the stranger will have an official looking badge they can flash and intimidate the child with, so let your child know that if they are ever in doubt that it’s okay to say “no,” to an authority figure. Instead they should run to a neighbor’s house or find a teacher (if they are at school) and report the incident.

· The Celebrity Lure: Sometimes a perpetrator will try to coax children to come with them by using the lure of a celebrity or icon, such as Barney or Spongebob. Impress upon children that it’s not okay to go anywhere with anyone else no matter how exciting it may sound.

· The Name Lure: Beware of putting your child’s name on clothing, lunch pails, or backpacks that is visible to anyone. Instead write their name on the inside of the garment or school supplies where it cannot be easily seen. This is another age-old lure where the perpetrator uses a child’s name to put them at ease and gain closer access. Ted Bundy used this trick a number of times to approach his victims with great success. Let your children know that just because someone may know their name, it doesn’t mean they can be trusted.

What’s a parent to do when faced with so many dangers? You don’t want your children to fear society as a whole, but you do want to arm them with knowledge. Knowing what types of lures are being used by these wolves in sheep’s clothing will enable you to teach your children life skills they can safely grow up with.

When discussing serious or scary topics, set the appropriate tone by talking calmly to your children. Advise them to run away when a stranger approaches them and get to safety. They should immediately report the incident to a parent or trusted adult in the vicinity who can better assess the situation and take action if necessary. Tell children to ignore requests or questions from people they don’t know, no matter how friendly or official they look or how sad their story may sound. Impress upon them that when grownups really need information or help, they go to other grownups – not children.


Copyright 2006 Charlene Davis
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Charlene Davis (www.thewriteessentials.com) is an internationally published business writer specializing in start-up ventures, e-commerce, parenting, and food.