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I love the holidays and it’s that time of year to start planning for them. I have a lot of clients at The Worx in Alexandria, VA, that want ideas for healthy meals and sugar free snacks kids love. Of course, they also want ones they’ll enjoy eating, too. Let’s face it, even if you made a spaceship out of Brussels sprouts, that wouldn’t encourage kids to eat them. Children have a more vivid sense of smell and taste than adults do, so many of the foods we love, they hate. Here are some ideas that will be healthy options for both kids and adults.

How about turning a veggie tray into a scary scene?

While some kids automatically love veggies, not all kids do. You have to entice them. Get creative with the food and even let them help. For Halloween, you can make spider deviled eggs. Make the deviled egg, placing half a black olive on top for the body and cutting eight slices from the other half for the legs. You can also make eyeballs by cutting cheese and topping with half an olive cut lengthwise to eat plain or put on top of a healthy dish.

Make the turkey the center of attention with creative snacks that are healthy.

A half a pear can be the turkey’s body with edible candy eyeballs and two thin slices of cheese for feet. Create the tail out of other sliced fruits for a colorful display. If you want a veggie turkey, make a healthy dip and top it with the bottom of a three lobed orange pepper. Put two lobes on the bottom for the cheeks and one lobe on top for edible candy eyes. Slice holes for two small yellow pepper slices for a beak and one for a red pepper waddle. Fan out cut veggies for the tail. Healthy pumpkin oat cookies and cinnamon apple chips are easy to do. Coat apples with cinnamon or a cinnamon/sugar mixture and dry in the oven at 200 degrees for 2-3 hours.

Green grapes topped with a banana slice and half a strawberry make great Grinches.

You just need toothpicks, a banana, strawberries, green grapes and a mini marshmallow for the ball on the end of Grinch’s Santa hat to make a treat perfect for watching the holiday special. Frozen Greek yogurt bark is also a special holiday treat when topped with kiwi slices shaped like a Christmas tree with dried cranberry and strawberry decorations. Spread out the Greek yogurt in a pan, decorate and freeze.

Pecan pie snack bites just takes five ingredients and no baking. Use a cup of medjool dates that are pitted, ¾ cup pecans, ¼ cup rolled oats, ½ tsp cinnamon and 1 TBSP maple syrup. Then use a food processor to mix it, processing the dates first, and form into balls. Chill and store for up to a week.

• Homemade microwave popcorn just requires a small brown paper lunch bag, some coconut oil and popcorn. You can even add toppings like Parmesan or American cheese.
• Create your own trail mix and let the kids help. Have nuts, dried fruit and even some dark chocolate bits ready to mix together. Let the kids help with mixing and dividing into individual bags for snacks.
• Pull open the end of string cheese to create a string cheese octopus. Lay the legs over a slice of apple for a tasty, healthy treat that will boost enjoyment and creativity.
• Banana ice cream takes nothing more than bananas sliced into small coin shapes and frozen. When you’re ready to make the ice cream, throw it in the blender until smooth. It’s ready to eat.

For more information, contact us today at Team Worx Fitness

Every part of your health that can be controlled with diet and exercise is important at The Worx in Alexandria, VA. In the past, we’ve focused on weight loss, feeling good, building strength and improving your overall health. It’s time to focus on the body’s largest organ, the skin, and how the food you eat can make a difference. Just like all fitness and dietary programs are different because each person is unique, there’s no one perfect diet for everyone. Instead, you have to find a diet for your skin type.

The first step is to identify the type of skin you have.

You may use lotions and other beauty products on the skin, but beautiful skin starts from within. In fact, all the magic creams may actually prevent you from identifying your skin type. Wash your face thoroughly and don’t use any products. Instead, wait an hour or two and examine your skin. If it feels tight and has some red, flaky patches, it’s probably dry. If there’s oil that is just in some areas, like around the nose, but dry other areas, it’s a combination. If you can put a tissue on your face any place and it shows signs of oil or shiny everywhere, it’s oily. The more visible the pores, the oilier the skin.

Dry skin needs more oil and maybe more hydration.

Are you drinking enough water? If not, you may be adding to the problem of flaky, dry skin. Besides including more water in your diet, increase juicy fruits, like oranges, grapes and watermelon. You need some healthy oil in your diet, too. Add some avocado or salmon for starters. Increase your food with vitamin A and vitamin C, which can add to skin’s dryness, like red bell pepper, broccoli and spinach. It’s not all about what you eat, but also about what you shouldn’t. Avoid alcohol and drinks with caffeine, both can be dehydrating.

If your skin is oily, don’t immediately eliminate oils.

It’s not always oil that makes your skin oily. In fact, healthy oil can actually help it with anti-inflammatory properties. Again, avocado, salmon and flaxseed are good choices. Avoid refined carbohydrates, especially those with added sugar. Keep fried foods to a minimum or ditch them altogether. Focus on eating whole grains, rather than refined carbs and reduce the amount of red meat in your diet.

For combination skin, taking the healthiest food from both the diet recommendations for oily skin and those for dry skin is beneficial. Processed carbohydrates cause inflammation and contribute to problems with combination skin.

If you have acne prone skin, you have oily skin with inflammation and bacteria. Vitamin C is important, so oranges are great. Zinc can also help prevent acne. Consider adding shellfish, chicken and pumpkin seeds to your diet.

While reducing the amount of sugar, unhealthy fat and dairy in a diet, or eliminating it entirely can help with acne prone skin, Greek yogurt may actually help the skin. Everyone is different, so experiment a bit.

If you want more vibrant skin, increase antioxidants, like lycopene in your diet. Lycopene is found in tomatoes. Eating food rich in collagen, such as bone broth, will slow the development of wrinkles.

Intermittent fasting—IF—is a way to modify the timing of when you eat. It has various pros and cons, like any type of diet or eating regimen. In order to find out if it works for you, you need learn what IF really is and what the negatives and positives are. IF can mean eating an extremely low calorie diet for some days and a regular diet others or eating between specific hours, such as fasting from 6 pm to 10 am and then eating during the eight hour non-fasting time. That sixteen hour break gives your digestion a rest, and normally limits the amount of food you eat.

What are IF benefits?

There have been animal studies since the 1940s using IF. In studies on rats at the University of Chicago, control rats were fed normally and the IF group was fed on alternate days. The rats fed on an IF schedule aged slower and had fewer health conditions. Some believed the pattern of eating more closely mirrored how animals ate in the wild that it benefited them. The rats also had improved blood sugar levels, better metabolism, less inflammation, weight loss, a reduced risk of cancer and improved brain function.

If you want to lose weight, IF may be a huge benefit that works.

We’re just beginning to study the effects of IF on humans, but the studies that are done show it’s beneficial for weight loss. One study found that when overweight individuals used a pattern of IF with no other restrictions, they ate 20% less food than the control group. They also lost 8% of their weight, while reducing insulin resistance and improving asthma.

IF does have some drawbacks.

People with diabetes that requires medication should never undertake IF unsupervised. Your health care provider can guide you on what you should do. If you take blood pressure medication, heart medication, are pregnant or breast-feeding, always consult your health care professional before undertaking intermittent fasting. Anyone with an eating disorder should not attempt it either.

• Recent studies showed an improvement in brain functioning and cardiovascular health. Japanese studies on humans confirmed the findings of early animal studies, metabolism increased and aging slowed.
• While studies had no guidelines for what the people ate, if you chose IF for your health or weight loss, you should. Whether you’re eating in an eight-hour window or fasting every other day, the food you need should be healthy.
• Newer studies show that simply fasting for as little as 16 hours can make changes at a cellular level. It starts the process of cell repair, sends out hormones to burn fat and increases HGH—human growth hormone.
• Intermittent fasting studies showed the group that fasted reduced their waist circumference measurement by as high as 7%—-they lost belly fat—and had less muscle loss than the group on a calorie restricted diet.

For more information, contact us today at Team Worx Fitness

If you’re working out at The Worx in Alexandria, VA, hoping to improve your health, remember, what you eat also plays a role in your resistance to disease. There are foods for a healthy immune system that also act as building blocks for cells and maintain hormones and other functions throughout the body. The right food in your diet won’t guarantee you won’t get sick, but it will help reduce the potential of it happening. Some foods help fight off colds, others beat bacterial infections and some can help prevent cancer.

Eat foods high in vitamin C.

Vitamin C has long been known to be beneficial for fighting colds. Most people realize citrus fruits, like grapefruit, oranges and lemons are high in vitamin C, but they may not realize sweet red peppers, cantaloupe and broccoli. Consider adding mini sweet peppers and broccoli to your veggie tray to boost your immune system.

Don’t forget the zinc and vitamin D.

Zinc and vitamin D became very popular supplements during Covid-19. Everyone was taking them to boost their immune system. You can get zinc by eating crab, lobster, red meat, pork, oysters, dairy, nuts, beans and whole grains. Vitamin D is a little harder to get from food, but easy to get by safe sunning and sunning a little each day without sun block. Salmon, herring and sardines contain it, so do fortified products. Studies showed that 80% of covid patients were vitamin D deficient.

Herbs and spices can add nutrients to boost your immune system without adding calories.

A bit of garlic in your food or a dash of sage or oregano may improve your health. All three are known antibacterial herbs. Others that are also immune boosters include ginger, peppermint rosemary and thyme. Not only does garlic help boost your immune system, it helps lower blood pressure. Rosemary helps fight infections with its anti-fungal and antibacterial properties. Add more spices to every dish and you could be improving your health at the same time.

• Get your greens for a healthy boost. Green leafy veggies like kale and spinach have many different nutrients that boost the immune system. Both are high in antioxidants, which includes vitamin C, beta carotene and flavonoids.
• Berries are delicious, plus they boost your immune system. Elderberries, one of the less known berries, have antibacterial, antimicrobial and anti-fungal properties. Researchers note they actually help fight off the flu.
• Get healthy fat, fiber and vitamin E when you grab a handful of nuts, such as walnuts or almonds. Fiber has a beneficial effect on your immune system, since it feeds beneficial bacteria.
• Foods that are fermented are considered probiotics, because they contain beneficial bacteria. Foods that contain soluble fiber are prebiotics, because it feeds the body’s microbes. Beneficial bacteria boosts your immune system, so consume probiotic foods, then follow up with foods that have soluble fiber.

For more information, contact us today at Team Worx Fitness