Health – Page 9 – Instant Coffee Wisdom

What’s for Dinner?

The importance of cooking at home and meal planning.

You may have taken notice that obesity and diabetes have been on the rise in the USA over the past few decades. One of the principal reasons for this is due to overly processed foods laden with high-fructose-corn-syrup, salt, fillers, transfats, and preservatives. Traditional home cooking started moving to the ‘back burner’ in 1954 when Swanson Foods began promoting it’s ‘T.V. Dinners’ to tired housewives as an easy alternative. Just pop it in the oven and 30-45 minutes later dinner is served right on a disposable aluminum dinner tray. No fuss, no mess. Decades later with the introduction of the home microwave, these ready prepped pre-packaged dinners were re-designed with plastic containers for microwave use.

Add to this, changing gender roles during the 1960’s (a side effect of its so-called Sexual Revolution), kids cereals with secret toy surprises, fast-food restaurants, and cheap junk food and we’ve created a generation that knows zero about home cooking. I remember an incident within the past five years when a friend was making a omelet for her boyfriend and ‘googled’ instructions which were totally off base. Fortunately I was around to save the day. It just blew my mind that a thirty-something had never made an omelet. She was equally surprised that I, a GUY, knew how to cook. She does make an awesome baked mac-and-cheese however, so I’ll let her slide.

My mother was a ‘talented’ cook. I say that because she was the only person I knew who could burn water. Imagine my surprise the first time I discovered that scrambled eggs were NOT supposed to be black and crunchy. Once when I was driving cross-country with a friend, he asked if we could stop at the next restaurant. I agreed. When I drove right past the next diner without stopping, he said “Why didn’t we stop?” I asked him if he noticed the sign that read “FOOD JUST LIKE MOM USED TO MAKE” and told him I was doing him a favor.

Knowledge is power!

There is NOTHING un-manly about cooking. The finest restaurant chefs around the world are predominantly men. My favorite celebrity chef is Gordon Ramsey. I don’t tend to watch many cooking shows because I don’t eat animals, and many of the cooking shows demonstrate recipes that are not vegetarian friendly.

So yes, there was a great need for me to learn how to cook at an early age. My first cook book was the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book. I was in college, and furnishing my first apartment, so I made sure to have everything I needed for the kitchen, including a how-to book. Real men READ the instructions before they attempt the project, and cooking is no different. It’s just knowledge, technique, and mastering the skills. The internet was still in its infancy, so googling anything was not an option. Add to the fact that that I became a vegetarian in college, and suddenly I had to learn stuff about cooking that was NOT in Better Homes. I remember the first time I make my own soy milk. What a mess.

You get what you pay for!

As you probably know, eating out is expensive. Cooking at home is cheaper, and can be healthier for you IF you learn to cook healthy meals. You can also save money by planning menus for the week, and eliminating waste from spoilage. You may be tempted to save money by buying cheap groceries. Avoid this mistake, or you are risking your health. So what if you can purchase packages of Raman noodles for only 13 cents each , and you figure you could eat three square meals a day of Raman noodles for an entire year for just $142.65. Do you want to eat the same thing every meal for a year? I sure as hell don’t. Such monotony is not only unhealthy, it’s a little bit insane. And have you ever read the ingredients on a bag of Raman noodles? They contain a food additive called Tertiary-butyl hydroquinone (TBHQ), a preservative that is a petroleum industry byproduct. They’re also incredibly high in sodium, calories and saturated fat. If this is the only thing you can afford to eat, I feel sorry for you. You may have saved money, but you’re ruining your health in the process.

Try to plan meals using fresh healthy ingredients. Have a supply of non-perishable kitchen supplies like olive oil, flour, spices, baking soda, etc. Just as long as it’s stuff you need and use. Honey lasts forever! And only use 100% pure maple syrup, throw away that Log Cabin pancake syrup it’s bad for you. Buy whole spices and grind them as you need them, they will keep longer. You can even set up a window box of herb plants to harvest your own basil, thyme, parsley, cilantro, or rosemary to add fresh herbs to your cooking. Canned foods can be healthy IF they are organic, and contain a few preservatives as possible. Alternately you can learn home canning and can your own healthier foods. I have canned my own jars of the hottest hot peppers known to man because the store brought hot peppers were not hot enough for me. Plus because they only use vinegar and kosher salt as the preservatives, they are much better than what you buy in the store. I have also made my own ketchup, with NO corn syrup or chemicals, just a couple of healthy ingredients.

Although some ‘doomsday preppers’ may recommend having a year’s supply of food in your larder, I think this is excessive. I recommend no more than three months supply of most non-perishables, unless it’s something hard to come by, like the hot peppers I pick in the field myself once a year for my home-canned jars of super-hot peppers, or the awesome handmade Pepper Jam I buy from Jacky’s Jams and Jellies at the Annual Bowers Chilie Pepper Festival

Next, based on your family size, look up healthy meal recipes that suit your tastes on the internet. Plan out the recipes for the week based on how long the fresh ingredients will keep. Remember, organic fruits and vegetables have shorter shelf-lives because they are free from pesticides and chemicals. After you’ve arranged the meals for the week, create a shopping list of all the ingredients necessary. Double check the recipes to ensure that you have everything you need on the list. You don’t want to find yourself in the middle of cooking a meal and suddenly realizing you’re all out of Pride Of Szeged Hungarian Sweet Paprika Seasoning Spice! By having a rotation of meals, you will never be bored eating the ‘same-old, same-old’. Remember to include special meals for birthdays and holidays in your planning. For example, for Christmas each year I make a vegetarian version of the traditional Christmas Lasagna that my late aunt Arleen always made each Christmas when I was a young boy. There was also another special baked pasta dish that she made me on my birthday, a baked spaghetti pie which I loved growing up, which I have likewise adapted to my vegetarian lifestyle.

lasagna

Take your shopping list with you to the grocery store, and avoid impulse buying. Stores routinely place items they are promoting in the entryway, on isle end-caps, and near checkout lanes to encourage you to buy sale items you really don’t need. These will destroy your budget. Stick to your list. If-and-only-if you see an incredible buy on something that you regularly use and need, and you can justify the purchase, or even double-down with a money-saving coupon, then grab that extra item. Beyond that ‘shopping emergency’, STICK TO YOUR LIST! If you don’t need it, don’t buy it. You do not want to be the person who went into a store for one quick item, yet departed an hour later with a filled cart.

No good at planning meals, try a meal kit service!

Two months ago, I decided to try Hello Fresh. It’s a meal kit delivery service. They have no contract, you can cancel the service any time prior to the weekly ship cut-off time. I had a coupon and figured I would try it for a month. They had a vegetarian plan, (not vegan) that offered three weekly meals designed for two persons. I live alone, but this just meant that I could cook three times a week, and save half for leftovers so I was able to stretch my dinners to almost the entire week. The greatest thing about the meals are that everything is provided (except salt, pepper, cooking oil, or butter, things which should be in stock in every kitchen all the time, so no worries there). All the meals come with color photo recipe cards and step-by-step instructions. They are pretty easy for anyone with basic cooking skills and a modest kitchen. Each meal takes about a half-hour or so to make, typically runs from 500-700 calories per serving, and most (but not all) of the ingredients are organic, non-GMO. Let me tell you, I have been cooking things like asparagus, artichoke hearts, farro, couscous, avocado, arugula, zucchini, etc. These are items I would never have freely purchased at a store. And yet, because I know I can eat them, they have been shipped to me and I am committed to trying new foods. Let me tell you, my meals have never been as varied and flavorful. There has been nothing I have received which I have tried and did not love. Although Hello Fresh is not marketed as a weight loss plan, because the servings are always less than 800 calories at the most, and all healthy ingredients, I have been losing weight. Some of my friends have claimed that $59.95 a week is expensive, but as I’ve said I did have a $30 off coupon that first week. I’ve also managed to win an online Hello Fresh photo contest which got me a discount on two weeks of meals.

Iwon

I have a promo code which gives each new user $40 off their first week, while at the same time gets me a discount as well for referring them. Plus, by not needing to shop for all the ingredients, I’m saving time so it’s so worth it. I’ve loved cooking these meals so much that I’ve been buying professional cookware, knives, and chef tools for my kitchen. Plus I feel great, and feeling good about yourself is a cornerstone of happiness. If you would like to try Hello Fresh and live in the USA, you can get $40 off your first purchase by using my exclusive promo code EXPRESSOM . If you live in Canada or the UK, I’m not sure if it works for Hello Fresh CA or UK, but if it does work, please let me know so that I may pass that information on. If you’re committed to cooking and eating new foods, as well as feeling great, I urge you to give Hello Fresh a try. As always, I wish you happiness and success!

Opportunity only knocks once?

Unleashing your inner potential.

skysignknock

The word genius means exceptional intellectual or creative power or other natural ability. It used to be a word that described the ability to do something remarkable, but sometime during the 1800’s the definition changed and began to refer to the person, not the potential. As a result, a line was drawn in the sand, and people were classified. You either were born a genius, or you weren’t. This is a lie.

We are all born the same way, and we all die eventually. Aside from accidents, tragedies or illnesses which may cut our lives short, we have decades in which to learn, and potentially improve our lives. The sad reasons that the majority of the populace fails to do so is largely because they either don’t know to improve their lives, don’t believe they can improve their lives, or flat out don’t want to . There’s really nothing that can be done for that last group, you can’t help people who don’t want to be helped.

“If you don’t believe that you have potential, you will never try to reach it.”

–John C. Maxwell

There are millions of millionaires, thousands of billionaires, and countless entrepreneurs in the world today. The most envious ‘unsuccessful’ people demonize these ‘successful’ people as being greedy, arrogant, undeserving and a plethora of other negative adjectives. Despite this I have never heard of a person with zero income, zero savings, and zero resources starting a business, creating jobs, and hiring employees. Those who consider these highly successful individuals to be role models often refer to them as being ‘financial geniuses’. They are said to have been presented with opportunities and met with influential people who in turn, helped them reach their potential. Maybe, maybe not.

I’m not going to deny that sometimes there is an element of ‘luck’. I am going to say that those who had that ‘luck’ worked hard to make that ‘luck’. In other words, what some people would refer to as ‘luck’ is not some random chance. It is the end result of years of study, countless attempts, and lots of hard work. You may have heard that old saying ‘opportunity knocks once.’ It does. It knocks once to let you know that it exists, and that it’s just on the other side of the door waiting for you to seize it. It doesn’t go away, it’s always there waiting for you to reach out and grab it, but you have to believe you can achieve it first!

“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”

– Jackie Robinson

The role of a father in a family is to provide for his children, and his children’s children. This refers to not only the essentials of food, clothing, and shelter, but also guidance, knowledge, hope, and opportunities. If you raise a child to believe that there is no hope, no opportunity for improvement, and that things will continue to get worse, you crush their spirit. My father died when I was a young boy, but not before instilling in me that belief that anything I wanted in life was attainable though knowledge, hard work, and persistence. If you want your children to be successful, you must first strive to be successful. The more resources and knowledge you have to pass on to your children, to greater the chances they have for success.

“Deliberately seek the company of people who influence you to think and act on building the life you desire.” –Napoleon Hill

If you really want to be successful, you need to surround yourself with people who are more successful, and cut ties with all the negative ‘sad-sacks’ who keep trying to discourage you. Many of these ’emotional vampires’ thrive on seeing you fail, because it makes them feel better about themselves because you can’t achieve your dreams either. Misery loves company and these dream-crushers will find every dark cloud they can to wrap around your silver lining.

Every choice you make in life has consequences. Good choices usually lead to good outcomes while bad ones have negative outcomes. A single bad choice made early in life can set you back years, if you ever recover at all. And the more poor choices you make, the more cumulative the fallout becomes. Surrounding yourself with losers who apply peer pressure to encourage you to travel their path will only end badly. This is the real reason behind the other success cliché, “it’s lonely at the top.” Think back to your high school days. How many classmates did you have? Of those, how many went on to be successful? I mean REALLY successful, not just getting by. Odds are that one-in-a hundred became super-successful, and one other became very-well-off. Yet back in high school, you were all more-or-less on equal footing. Of all the people I went to high school with, today I speak to only two of them, and only once or twice a year. Earlier this week, I bumped into someone from high school who remembered me, but I didn’t know their name, face, or anything about them.

On the other hand, if you surround yourself with winners, these individuals will be there to advise and encourage you. You’ll be able to get valuable insights which will help you avoid the mistakes of others. Some may even offer to help you in your endeavors. Successful people love to help others became successful. The key here is to be genuine, and not have hidden agendas. I have had some former friends who asked for assistance and had zero intention of fulfilling their end of the agreement. They intentionally took advantage of my kindness. Thus ended our friendship.

As you go further on in life, you will find along the way friends will come and go. Some will not be able to accompany you on your road to success, and you need to let them go. It may be hard, but it will be worse for both of you if you try to make them stay. Thrust me, I’ve cut a lot of fair-weather friends in my life, it’s never easy, but looking back it was always the right thing to do. Most people can only accommodate five close friends in their life at most. Any more than that and you will be neglecting family or your own personal time. Friends are great to have, but that the only real constant in your life will always be your family. This is because you can choose your friends, but family is forever.

“Life reflects your own thoughts back to you.”– Napoleon Hill

When people are happy inside, it often shows on the outside. Successful people tend to be happy people. And when they project this positive energy outward, it tends to attract like-minded people. No one wants to be around depressing, unhappy people. Your attitude in life will open or close doors for you more often than the situations you find yourself in. People tend to respond positively towards happy congenial people. Just as what you know, who you know, and where you are in life are all important, the final piece of the puzzle is how you behave. Charles Swindoll once said “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” So the best way to be happy and successful is to start by being happy. Focus on all the good, healthy positive things in your life. If you start counting your blessings you will find that you have more things in your life to be happy about than you realize. And smile, it’s contagious. Before you know it, you’ll attract positive people to your life to fill the spaces left by the negative ones you cut from your social circle. And each new person will bring new knowledge, new opportunities, and new adventures to share. As always, I wish you happiness and success!

Time is money!

The importance of proper time management.

Every second is precious.

With the two exceptions of the day you are born and the day you die, you and every person who has ever lived has the same amount of time allotted to them daily, twenty four hours. No more, no less. Yet despite having the same amount of time, some people are wealthy while others are poor. In some situations circumstances beyond your control may rob you of your economic opportunities, but how you spend your time is largely up to you. All successful people share two traits with regards to proper time management. They have learned to maximize their daily schedule to the height of efficiency, and they have a sense of urgency, never delaying for tomorrow what they can do today.

“Time is your most precious gift because you only have a set amount of it. You can make more money, but you can’t make more time. When you give someone your time, you are giving them a portion of your life that you’ll never get back. Your time is your life. That is why the greatest gift you can give someone is your time.” – Rick Warren

timeclock

The 40-40-40 Trap

Your greatest source of wealth comes from the income generated from your job. When you retire, you usually have to depend on a combination of your savings (if any), a pension fund (rare or non-existent), your investments or contributions to a 401K plan (if any), and government social security (which may become insolvent by 2034 due to the National Debt crisis). For the average American, this is known as the 40-40-40 Trap. Because of procrastination or indifference during their youth, they never made the proper choices to ensure a worry-free retirement. As a result, they spend their entire working life employed at a job, working FORTY hours a week, for about FORTY years, then retire and discover they only have about FORTY percent of the cash they had while employed, to pay their monthly bills. You can always go back to work part-time to generate more income, but you can never replace the lost time. If a person fails to plan for their future, they have no future!

No time like the present!

If you have no 401k available at your job, it’s time to seek employment elsewhere. The longer you delay investing for the future, the less likely you actually will. Excuses do not pay the bills. Do not allow yourself to become trapped in a dead-end job. I have known many individuals who stay at a low-paying job for a couple of years, only to move on to another low-paying job. Every time I changed jobs with one, or two rare exceptions, I went on to a higher-paying job, with better benefits. At my previous full-time job, I was about to become an assistant manager, when the opportunity opened up at my present career. My prior company really wanted me to stay, but they could not offer me a matching salary or benefits program. Leaving for greener pastures was in my best interest. Today, I earn far more than they pay their current managers.

If you take a position that offers a set salary:

Do not work more than the hours required for that salaried position. Generally, there is little or no additional pay for the extra hours. You are wasting your time. Doing it once or twice in an emergency situation is one thing, but doing it all the time just makes you a fool.

If you take a job where you swipe or punch a time-clock:

Always work on the clock. If you aren’t logged in, you’re not getting paid. If you are scheduled to start and end at a pre-determined time, start and end at those times. Playing ‘The Time Clock Game’ where you clock in a wee bit early, and clock out a tad late each day to earn a few extra minutes of pay is not only a bad idea, it’s like stealing from the company and could cost you your job.
Always show up when you are scheduled to work.
If overtime is available at your job, it will generally be paid at your normal rate, plus half. Working overtime is an excellent way to generate extra income, while at the same time impressing your supervisor by your diligence. Diligent behavior is indicative of a work ethic and can open doors for advancement to a higher paying position.
Do not become dependent on the overtime income. Overtime is never a guarantee, and should always be considered extra money. Your base salary should be enough to cover your monthly spending needs and still allow you to save for your future.
Do not become obsessed by the overtime. The love of money is the root of all evil. I know many individuals who work sixty hours a week or more chasing every overtime-penny they can get. I’m amazed at their end-of-the-year totals. When the work level reaches that point, it causes home and social problems. It’s one thing if you live alone, but if you have a family, family comes first! The time you spend with your loved ones can never be measured or replaced. It’s priceless. Don’t waste it. Nobody ever had an epigraph on their tombstone expressing their desire to have spent more time at their job.

Take time to play!

A balanced schedule should always allow ‘breather room’, ‘personal time’ and still allow for work and play. If you over-schedule, you run the risk of causing a cascade of lateness and cancellations. It also causes stress as you race from one meeting or destination to your next scheduled appointment or location. Keeping a tight schedule can be done as long as everything goes according to plan, but if things start to unexpectedly go south, you may not have the wiggle-room needed to stick to the items on your list.

Always be productive

I try to get as much done on my day off as humanly possible. With my work schedule, I don’t have a lot of extra time during the work week. I find as many time saving tricks as I can to avoid wasting any down-time I may find myself with. I’ve been working overtime this quarter, and I need all the sleep I can get to recover from the physical and mental stress of the added work load. I always eat a PB&J sandwich for lunch. It’s filling without making me feel bloated or sluggish after lunch, and it satisfies my hunger. The beauty of the PB&J is that all of the ingredients freeze well. Now my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are healthier because I use the best peanut butter, the best jelly, and use sprouted grain Ezekiel bread. So I Sundays I’ll make a half-dozen PB&J’s, bag each one in a ziploc bag and put them in the freezer. In the morning packing my lunch takes seconds.

Another change I’ve made is having my dinners shipped to my home from a meal-kit service. I use Hello Fresh. The meals are quick to cook, and it saves me time stopping for groceries or takeout food. Also, as the three meals they send are meant for two people, I only have to cook three nights a week, and just heat up the leftover portions the other three nights.

When I run errands, I try to make a large circle of destinations to save travel time from point -to-point.

Keep life balanced!

When was the last time you spent time with your friends? When was the last time you spoke to distant relations or acquaintances on the phone? No man is an island. We are all social beings interconnected by a network of friends and family. When a spider builds a web, it is building a net to catch food to keep itself alive. If one strand of the web brakes, it immediately repairs it. Neglecting to repair the broken strand can weaken the entire structure and cause it to collapse. As we get older and older, we need to strengthen our social network. No I’m not talking about Facebook or Twitter, I’m talking about real life. Go where the people are, out in the real world and spend time with the people you care about. As Always, I wish you happiness and success!

Healthy Wealthy and Wise

Your most valuable possession is your health

“The race is long, but in the end it’s only with yourself.” – Line from the song Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen) by Baz Luhrmann

Twenty years ago, Baz Luhrmann released his pop song Everybody’s Free, which was a 7-minute spoken word poem set to instrumental music, offering advice on health and happiness, which stressed above all else, wear sunscreen. The ultimate point of the song is that you’ll be much happier if you take care of your physical and mental well-being. Good heath is a wonderful thing to have, but it’s not a given. You still need to do the right things to care for your body if you wish to live a long life.

There are no certainties in life except death and taxes. I can’t explain why some people live to a hundred while others die at fifty. My father was a few weeks short of his 58th birthday when he passed away. He was overweight, smoked, drank, and didn’t exercise or eat the healthiest of foods. Clean living and exercise won’t guaranty that you live a long life, but they will drastically improve your odds. Because of advancements in health, medicine, and nutrition, people are living longer. Now I wasn’t even born fifty years ago, BUT by living a healthy, active lifestyle, there is a chance that I may yet still be alive fifty years from now.

This is 2018, fifty years ago it was 1968.

In 1968 these were some of the prices:

Average annual income–$7,844
New house–$14,975
New car–$2,822
Gallon of gas–$0.33
Gallon of milk–$1.21
Loaf of bread–$0.22

Now compare those with today’s prices. Imagine how expansive everything will be fifty years from now. I often hear people complaining about how expensive their prescription medication is. Imagine the cost of these medications fifty years from now. And now imagine if you required them because you failed to take preventative steps today to improve all aspects of your total lifestyle. This is why you have to not only take care of your finances, but your health as well.

As you know, in two prior blog posts, I covered the both the possibilities that your money might not last as long as you do, and the opposite where sudden death robs you of a well-deserved retirement. The THIRD item which you should be concerned about is your health. The most valuable possession you have is your health, and in many cases once it’s gone all the money in the world can’t replace it. This is why along with improving your financial situation, and increasing your knowledge base, you should be taking every step you can to achieve your healthiest physical potential. Just as living to a ripe old age with no money is a miserable existence, so is being so unhealthy that you can’t partake or enjoy activities that require you to be physically fit. Being the best you should encompass EVERY aspect of your life.

But health food and exercise equipment are expensive.

If you think health food and exercise equipment cost too much to fit into your budget, consider how expensive it is to be unhealthy and sickly. According to a study in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) There are more obese US adults than those who are just overweight. Almost half the population of the US is overweight, BUT nearly one third of adults are obese. If a person’s body weight is at least 20% higher than it should be, he or she is considered obese. If your Body Mass Index (BMI) is between 25 and 29.9 you are considered overweight. If your BMI is 30 or over you are considered obese.

Being overweight is expensive. Clothes cost more for one. When traveling on a plane, you may be required to pay for a second seat. You may require a certain model of car because you can’t fit into a compact model. Limited mobility from extreme obesity may require a person to need a motorized power chair for even short trips. You may need a handicap accessible house with special facilities and ramps. Have you noticed how many grocery stores and department stores like Wal-Mart have increased the number of handicapped parking spaces and have started providing motorized shopping carts? Next consider the secondary illnesses triggered from living an unhealthy lifestyle. Everything from high blood pressure and heart disease to adult onset diabetes. All of these require treatment with medications, which can be each have side-effects requiring additional medications to correct. Taking all of this into account, what’s REALLY more expensive? How much more expensive will it be fifty years from now?

First off, I don’t smoke or drink alcohol. These are expensive and bad habits that only deprive you of your health and wealth. If you are doing these unhealthy things, for God’s sake please quit doing them today. Then apply the money you same towards your new healthier lifestyle. You can always find ways to fit healthier alternatives into your budget. Secondly I’ve been a vegetarian since college. Ovo-lacto, NOT VEGAN. And no, I have no intention of going vegan either. I like my milk products, eggs and honey far too much. Going vegetarian will cut your grocery bill while improving your health. Meat is expensive and not really good for you either.

“Ninety per cent of the diseases known to man are caused by cheap foodstuffs. You are what you eat.”– nutritionist Victor Lindlahr

The shorter the ingredients list is, the better off you are.

Many of today’s groceries are filled with preservatives, chemicals, fillers, and dyes. Also they are overly processed and sweetened with high fructose corn syrup or sugar. Some still even have trans-fats. No wonder diabetes and obesity are rampant in our country. We’ve become a nation of junk-food junkies.

I’m not going to tell you that healthier food doesn’t cost more than junk food, but good health is PRICELESS! The extra money you are spending for organic, non-GMO, ‘health’ foods, and supplements may seem pricey at first, but imagine how much better off you’re going to be in your golden years when you aren’t wasting all your money on dozens of medications to combat all the future health issues you prevented by living a healthy style today. Not all of the food-swaps you will be more expensive. Bottled spring water is cheaper than soda. V8 vegetable juice is good for you and has less calories per serving than soda or fruit juice. An orange or a banana are cheaper than most candy bars. Better for you too. Ditch white bread altogether! It’s one of the worst foods out there. Switch to wraps such as Flatout flatbreads, or sprouted grain breads like Food for Life’s Ezekiel 4:9 Bread, or Dave’s Killer Bread, the #1 best-selling organic, whole grain, Non-GMO Project Verified bread available. They even have bagels!

I usually like eating a PB&J sandwich for lunch, and when I do I ONLY use the BEST peanut butter Crazy Richard’s (which has ONE ingredient: PEANUTS), and my favorite pepper jam from Jacky’s Jams and Jellies. Jacky’s Jams are handmade, all natural, fat free and no gluten added. Also no preservatives or food coloring added. Just a few simple ingredients.

Here’s some other suggestions you can do to improve your health:

Keep track of where you are in your journey to better health

Most successful fitness enthusiasts keep a fitness journal. This can list everything from the days you exercise to your weight or what you eat. I’ve been recording my weight weekly for years. Having something to chart my progress really helps to keep track of where I am, where I was, and where I want to be.

Add supplements to your diet

A multi-vitamin can help supplement some of the vitamins and minerals necessary for good health. You decide what’s right for you. Just be mindful of the dosages. Some discount vitamins may not pack as much punch, or lack potency due to inferior contents. Do your research and always remember that you get what you pay for.

Look into Chiropractic care

I’ve been seeing a chiropractor regularly for years. I feel they are essential to good health, a credit them for my lack of back and neck pain. Again you decide if this route is good for you.

Therapeutic Massage

Treat yourself to a massage to release toxins and improve circulation. I go monthly for a 90-minute full body massage. It’s worth the expense and I feel wonderful.

“You can do it.”– Fitness guru Tony Little

Join a gym.

The average monthly cost of a gym membership in the US is about $40 a month. Look around, there are some discount gyms out there. Planet Fitness offers memberships for as little as $10 a month. I have the Black Level membership which has a few extra perks and just cost $21.99 a month. I like the fact that they are open ’24/5′ M-F, 7am to 7pm Sat & Sun. It fits my busy schedule. The advantage of joining a gym is that you’re not buying expensive exercise equipment that you’re only going to use a few times and then hid in the basement.

Of course you can always do sit-ups, push-ups and jog for free.

No matter what you do, the only way to effectively lose weight is to eat right, eat less, and exercise.

Look what’s for dinner!

Skip eating out, fast foods, or frozen microwave dinners. Cook fresh healthy meals at home. Subscribe to a meal-kit delivery service. They deliver the meals to your door in kit form. You just follow the recipe and do the cooking yourself, all the ingredients are provided (excluding butter, cooking oil, salt and pepper). There are four major meal-kit delivery services that I know of in the USA. FULL DISCLOSURE: The ONLY one I have used is Hello Fresh. Some of my friends and co-workers have tried the others. I am one-thousand per cent satisfied with the vegetarian menu from Hello Fresh. I had a discount code to try it, (most do) and I decided to give Hello Fresh a try for one month to see if I liked it. I didn’t need a month. ONE BOX was all it took. I have cooked some of the most amazing, healthy, flavorful meals I have ever eaten. I URGE you to try a meal-kit delivery service, and I will let you chose which is right for you. They all appear to have similar offerings, websites, and prices. Most run about $60 a week for three two-person meals. As I am single, I usually cook the meal, eat one serving and have the second serving the next day as leftovers. Because you’re dealing with fresh foods, you MUST cook the entire three meals within five days max. If you decide to try Hello Fresh, use my promo code EXPRESSOM to get $40 off your first box.

Four Popular Meal Kit Services Listed In Alphabetical Order.

Blue Apron
Hello Fresh (use my promo code EXPRESSOM to get $40 off your first box)
Home Chef
Purple Carrot (for vegans)

I have been using Hello Fresh now for three weeks. I have cooked some amazing meals.

This is in the Hello Fresh box. Three recipe cards, some promotional offers, and a big insulated cold bag with an ice pack containing, three 2-person meals, each meal separated in a smaller paper bag.

This is the contents of one bag, the Yellow Squash Flatbreads meal.

Here’s the finished meal. Delicious!

Who needs to go to a restaurant when you can cook fine meals like this at home? Fresh herbs, fresh ingredients, few if any preservatives. If you have basic cooking skills and a basic assortment of kitchen utensils, pots and pans, you can cook these meals easily in about 30-50 minuets, prep time included. Discover what great food tastes like.

Another benefit of the meal kit is that it helps teach you portion control. The caloric information per serving is listed on the recipe cards. As each meal makes exactly two servings, you become accustomed to what is a healthy amount of food. Binge eating is disastrous to your health. Like I said, I cook the two person meal and eat the second serving the next day for dinner as left overs. So my three meal Hello Fresh box is providing me almost a full week of healthy dinners.

Again, all of these suggestions are just that, suggestions. Only you can decide what’s right for you. Fitting all of the above into your budget may be tricky and take time depending on your financial situation, but neglecting your health all together will prove to be far more expensive in medical costs decades from now. An ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure. As always, I wish you happiness and success!