Wellness / Nutrition Archives - Page 7 of 9 - Community Healthcare Network

If you need some quick and healthy cooking inspiration, try clicking on our Home Stylin’ Recipes video playlist on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnEoPvby-DSfahDox5bspca0lAcYnNa6p

We have cooking videos in both English and Spanish showing how to make Salt-Free Adobo Seasoning, how to steam, sauté, and roast vegetables, how to Bake Chickpeas for a healthy snack option, Quinoa Stuffed Peppers, and many more. Leave us a message in the comments for more cooking videos you would like to see in the future!

As you get older, it is important to change up your exercise routine. Making these changes will help you stay safe, healthy, and active. Support your body’s strength and stay healthy with these tips to change the way you exercise in each stage of your life.

Ages 20–29: Build your base. Now is the best time to make fitness part of your routine. Exercising helps you gain muscle mass and bone strength. Make time 4-5 days a week for exercise. Focus on strength training and weight bearing moves, like pushups and lunges.
Ages 30—39: Switch it up. In your 20s, you probably found your favorite workouts. Change things up and give your body a different kind of workout. Keep doing strength training but try new activities too. If you swim, try biking. If you run, try yoga.
Ages 40—49: Keep your strength. Stick with your routine and continue to strengthen your muscles. You may feel like your muscles aren’t as strong or that you are gaining weight—but exercise can really boost your metabolism! Keep up the good work, lift weights, and stay active. Make sure to stretch for at least 10 minutes after each workout.
Ages 50—59: Protect your heart and core. Hormones in your body start to change when you reach your 50s, which can slow down your metabolism. Make sure to exercise for 30 minutes or more, 5 times a week. This will help to protect your heart. Give yourself time between workouts. Try yoga or Pilates to support and build up your abs and back. This can help with your posture too.
Ages 60—69: Keep up your strength and flexibility. At this age, it is important to stay active and safe! You may see a change in your balance. Join a group fitness class or yoga to work on your health and your balance, while also meeting new people. Having social support during exercise can help you to do it more often!
Ages 70 and up: Focus on prevention. Work on strength, flexibility, and balance by doing activities like lifting light weights, doing yoga, and walking. If you get tired or have any pain, take it slow. Exercising during these years can help prevent disease and keep up an active mind and lifestyle.

To learn more about wellness or sign up for free exercise classes contact the Wellness Department at Community Healthcare Network at (212) 432-8494 or [email protected]

By CHN Nutritionist: Mavis Ren RD, CDN

The skin is the largest organ in your body. Food and healthy habits can play a big role in how your skin looks. Here are some tips for healthy and glowing skin.

Remember to stay hydrated and drink at least 6-8 cups of water a day.
Wear sunscreen and remember to reapply! Sunburns can cause stress on your skin. Pick a broad-spectrum sunscreen to protect you from UVA and UVB rays.
Make sure you are getting enough of these vitamins to keep your skin healthy by helping with re-growth, wound healing and maintaining firmness:

Vitamin A—Carrots, bell peppers, broccoli, spinach, sweet potatoes, and fortified cereals
Vitamin C—oranges, strawberries, tomatoes, cantaloupe, mango, and red bell peppers
Vitamin E— sunflower seeds, almonds, hazelnuts, pine nuts, brazil nuts, turnip greens, avocado, kiwi and butternut squash
Zinc — fortified breakfast cereals, baked beans, chickpeas, yogurt, nonfat milk, instant oatmeal, peas, and oysters
Omega 3 Fatty Acid — salmon, flaxseed, chia seeds, sardines, and canola oil

Grilled Cilantro Lime Chicken:

(Makes 6 servings)

You’ll need:

4 medium chicken breasts, no skin or bones
2 red bell peppers, diced
2 tablespoons cilantro

For the Sauce:

1/4 cup lime juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon red chili flakes

To make:

Mix the ingredients for the sauce in a small bowl. Cut chicken breast into cubes and add to the sauce. Cover the bowl and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Put chicken cubes and bell peppers on a skewer.
Grill chicken skewers for 5 minutes on each side.

Stephanie Rooker, Sound Healing Instructor www.voicejourney.net

The Medicine of Breath

Breath is our first and most basic medicine. How can breath be medicine, you ask? Because breathing, all by itself, can ease symptoms of many health issues. It can help with anxiety, depression, insomnia (trouble sleeping), post-traumatic stress (PTS), and attention deficit disorder (ADD), among others. Your breath can relieve health problems because so many of them are worsened or even caused by stress. Ancient traditions of yoga and meditation as well as modern-day research agree that controlled breathing helps with stress. Your breath lets you change your stress level and improve your health!

How does it work?

Breathing can help to nourish and restore your whole body. The air you breathe in fuels your body. The air you breathe out let’s go of waste from your body. This is a huge help! Your breath also acts as the undercover conductor of how your body works.

Your lungs and heart work together to give your body oxygen and remove carbon dioxide. They must stay in sync. Our breath reacts to our hearts’ needs. For example, when you exercise or become excited or nervous, your heart rate goes up. You may notice that you start to breathe faster. But your breath doesn’t always have to follow your heart. When you control your breath, you can change the pace of your heart rate.

You can also change your entire nervous system with controlled breathing. It can help with your digestion, how you process food, your immune system, how you fight off germs, and your state of mind. When you slow down your breath and focus on taking long breaths out, you calm your nerves. It helps your body and mind to relax. When you take short, quick breaths and focus on breathing in, your body and mind get stirred up.

Try it out!

You can practice with a technique called “1:2 breathing.” You will breathe out for twice as long as you breathe in. If you breathe in for a count of 2, then you will breathe out for a count of 4. Repeat this 10 times. As you get used to counts of 2 for breathing in and 4 for breathing out, you may want to raise the counts to 3 and 6 or even 4 and 8. This all depends on how fast you are counting!

Luckily, you breathe all the time, so you can practice anytime and at any place. Even if you don’t measure your breaths in 1:2 counting, taking a few deep breaths in and a few slow, long breaths out can make a world of difference!

By: CHN Wellness Team

By CHN Nutritionist: Laura Malick RD, CDN

When it’s too hot to cook over a stove, try some of these tips and recipes to help you make meals without turning up the heat.

Tips:

Make a lot rice or pasta at the beginning of the week. Save in the fridge and use during the week.
Use the microwave to steam vegetables.
Try using some pre-made foods like rotisserie chicken or canned beans (drain and rinse first before you eat them). You could also try canned chicken or tuna (canned in water).
Make your own dressings to use over cold vegetables, beans, rice, or pasta.

How to Make Easy Dressing

Mix together:

1/2 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon honey
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 garlic clove, minced

White Bean and Roasted Chicken Salad:

(Makes 5 servings)

You’ll need:

2 cups chopped rotisserie chicken
1 cup chopped tomato
1/2 cup sliced red onion
1/3 cup sliced fresh basil
2 (16-oz) cans white beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 garlic cloves finely chopped

To make:

Mix first five salad ingredients in a large bowl.
Mix remaining ingredients in a small bowl for the dressing.
Drizzle dressing over salad and toss together.

To learn more about wellness contact the Wellness Department at Community Healthcare Network at (212)-432-8494 or email [email protected].

By: CHN Wellness Team

Ayurveda (pronounced ah-yer-vey-duh) is a natural healing practice from India. The word “Ayurveda” is made of 2 Sanskrit words: ayur and veda. Ayur means life and veda means science or knowledge. A main value of Ayurveda is that what you eat is just as important as how you eat it.

Making and eating meals that leave your mind and body feeling good allow your body to focus more on your digestion (the breakdown of food). Try these five Ayurvedic practices to help boost your digestion to feel more satisfied after meals.

Sit and slow down. Sit down while you eat to help your organs relax and get ready for all the work they will do to help you digest! Take a few deep breaths after a few bites to see how your body is feeling. Focus on each chew and swallow.
Eat only when hungry. Pause before you eat a snack and listen to your stomach. Are you hungry? Or are you stressed, bored, or thirsty? Wait 10 minutes before snacking. Many times, the desire to eat will go away. It is common for this desire to come in the evening. The body craves comfort foods at the end of the day when it wants to slow down and rest. Instead drink a glass of water and check in with yourself again.
Have regular mealtimes. Our minds and bodies work best with routine. When we eat at similar times each day, our stomachs can prepare in advance for meal times. This allows our minds and bodies to relax and focus on our food.
Eat light, or not at all, when angry or anxious. Worry and anger are two feelings that are not good for digestion. When your mind is busy, nothing will digest well! It is best to drink warm liquids and wait until your mind calms down before eating.
Drink warm or room temperature water to keep your gut feeling cozy. While cold water can make it hard for the body to break down food, warm water will keep your gut working well. Warm water rehydrates the body and calms your body!

To learn more about wellness contact the Wellness Department at Community Healthcare Network at (212)-432-8494 or email [email protected].

By: CHN Wellness Team

Cooking and making food can be fun, and even restorative. To enjoy cooking most, practice food safety. Keep your kitchen clean to keep you and your loved ones from getting sick. Here are some tips to keep your kitchen and your food clean and safe.

Defrost meat in the refrigerator overnight. For larger meats, you might need to defrost them for 1 to 2 days.Defrosting on the countertop lets bacteria grow that can make you sick. Even cooking can’t kill them!
Wash reusable shopping bags often. Raw foods like meat, chicken, and eggs can leave harmful bacteria inside these bags. Those bacteria can then cling to fruits and veggies. Toss cloth bags into the washing machine or clean by hand. Wipe down plastic bags with warm water and a small amount of vinegar.
Check if food is good by the way it looks or smells. If the food doesn’t look or smell right, don’t taste it. You could be eating bad bacteria that could make you sick. If you’re unsure, toss it!
Clean your sponges. We sometimes wash dishes with the same sponge we use to clean countertops. These sponges can carry bacteria from one surface to the next! To kill germs that can live on your sponge, wet your sponge and microwave it for 2 minutes.Then allow it to cool. You can also run sponges in the dishwasher with your dishes.
Label your cutting boards.You should have one for raw meat, and another for fruits and veggies.Cutting fruits or veggies right after cutting raw meat, chicken or fish can make you sick.

Next time you are making food, try these tips to keep you and your loved ones healthy.

To learn more about wellness contact the Wellness Department at Community Healthcare Network at (212)-432-8494 or email [email protected].

By: CHN Wellness Team

By CHN Nutritionist Michelle Brenseke, MS, RD, CDN, CLC

Garlic is not only tasty and good for you, but it is also easy to grow! Here are some tips to help you plant your own garlic this Spring:

Buy bulbs from garden center (not the supermarket). Try “Allium sativum var. ophioscorodon” also called hardneck garlic.
Put the bulb in the refrigerator 3 weeks before planting.
Pick a pot that is at least 18 inches deep and 12 inches wide. Fill with “soilless potting mix”. Leave room at the top.
Dig holes in dirt that are 3 inches deep. The holes should be 2 inches from the edge and 5 inches from each other.
Break bulbs apart, but keep papery husks on the cloves.
Plant one clove per hole, with the flat side down and the pointy end up.
Fill the hole with soil, making sure that the tip of the clove is about 1 inch under the surface.
Water well and place the container in a spot that gets light.

For outdoor gardens: plant in early November for more garlic in the spring!

Basil Pesto Recipe

Makes 2 cups

You’ll need:

2 cups fresh basil leaves (no stems)
2 tablespoons pine nuts or walnuts
2 large cloves garlic
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
½ cup freshly gratedparmesan cheese

To make:

Mix basil leaves, nuts and garlic in a food processor and blend until very finely minced.
With the machine running slowly, dribble in the oil and mix until the mixture is smooth.
Add the cheese and mix very briefly, just long enough to combine. Store in refrigerator or freezer.

Lettuce Share!

So far, 600 patients have enrolled in the Healthy Savings Program!
CHN patients enrolled in the program have reached $3,553 in total savings in fresh fruits & veggies.
If you know a CHN patient who lives in the Bronx and wants to join, please call: Anna Rickards ( 718-731-2209) or Claudia Castaneda (718-320-4477)

To learn more about wellness contact the Wellness Department at Community Healthcare Network at (212)-432-8494 or email [email protected].

By: CHN Wellness Team

Do you find yourself rushing through each meal? Do you forget what you had for dinner last night? Instead of rushing through your next meal, try practicing mindful eating. Mindful eating is when you pay attention to your food as you eat. Mindful eating can help you listen to your body about hunger and feeling full. Eating this way can help you enjoy your food and stay at a healthy weight.

Eat mindfully using the 3 S’s:

1. Savor your food. Notice what you are eating. Notice the cold crunch of a raw carrot. Notice the color of a tomato or the taste and smell of a juicy peach. Notice how your mouth reacts. Notice how your food feels on your tongue as you chew.

2. Slow down. Pace yourself by putting your fork or spoon down in between each bite. Take small bites and chew each mouthful slowly. Take a deep breath between each bite. This will help you be more aware of your food, not eat too much, and feel more satisfied during your meal.

3. Stop when you are satisfied with your food. Pay attention to your body’s signs of being full. While you eat, focus on how your stomach feels throughout your meal. As soon as you become full, stop eating to avoid feeling stuffed. Relax in front of your plate for a few minutes to see if you are still hungry. Put away your food after you’re done eating. This will stop you from picking at your food. Take a short walk around the block to help you break down food.

To learn more about wellness contact the Wellness Department at Community Healthcare Network at (212)-432-8494 or email [email protected].

By: CHN Wellness Team

Why do we have bad habits even when we know they are not good for us? Why is it so hard to start a healthy new habit? It can be hard to get habits under control. Don’t worry, we’re here to tell you how you can kick those bad habits and replace them with good ones.

Try these tips to help you break bad habits:

Know about your habit.Do not brush it off, but don’t judge yourself for doing it. Facing your bad habit may bring up a lot of feelings, but this will help you notice it more when you do it in the future.
The next time you take part in your bad habit, think about how you felt before. Were you angry, worried, stressed, or bored? Were you craving something? Where were you? How did you feel after? We often feel even worse after engaging in our bad habit than we did before.
Start small. Make small changes.Set small goals to help you reach your one big goal. Picturing your life without the bad habit will also help.
Use “If-than”. Such as, if you are trying to eat healthier, make a grocery list and tell yourself:
- “if I go to the grocery store, than I will only buy the foods on my list.
- “if I walk home, thanI will not walk by the bodega where I buy snacks.”
Plan to fail a few times. You might slip up. That is okay. Just keep trying!

Follow these tips to help you form andstick to new, good habits:

Think about whyyou want to form a new habit. Sometimes we form a good habit to replace a bad habit. Sometimes we form a good habit to make us feel healthier. What will you gain by forming a new habit?

Figure out how your new habit will impact you day-to-day. Will you have to change your routine?
Set small goals. Do something small each day that will lead you to your goal.

Commit to a plan and tell others. Once you have made your plan, stick to it. Tell your loved ones that you are starting a new habit. You will be more likely to stick with your good habit if you have the support of people that care about you.
Ask for help. You do not have to be alone while forming your new habit. Get a gym buddy, ask your family to cook and eat healthy with you. Each goal is simpler with the support of others.

To learn more about wellness contact the Wellness Department at Community Healthcare Network at (212)-432-8494 or email [email protected].