Prepare for swimsuit season

Make Your Life Complete

For most people, winter is usually a more sedentary time of the year; we tend to eat more rich and sugary foods. Following the holidays many people think about knocking off a few pounds, but it takes the onset of swimsuit season before some get serious about it. Juice Plus+® is not a weight loss product, but it does give your body the nourishment it craves and naturally cleanses. When taking Juice Plus+®, weight control can be a byproduct as well as getting a healthier you.

Juice Plus+® capsules micro nutrition smart and easy

Juice Plus+® Orchard and Garden Blends capsules (basic combo only $1.48/day) and chewables provide 17 fruits, vegetables and grains. Add the Vineyard Blend and the total jumps to 26 (the trio only $2.38/day). Juice Plus+®  capsules and chewables also:

• have well over 13,000 phytonutrients, plant compounds naturally found in fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes that scientific studies are showing give health-protecting qualities,

• provide soluble fiber helping food get into your cells and

• have active enzymes and probiotics to help you digest your food so it can be absorbed. 

Add Juice Plus+® to your daily diet and watch your skin glow and your energy increase. As healthy cells replace old ones, be prepared to crave healthier foods. It's micro nutrition that builds, repairs and protects.

Add macro-nutrition with Juice Plus+® Complete Shake Mix

Juice Plus+® Complete Shake (only $2.05/shake) provides:

• 13 grams of protein from: water washed whole soy, peas, chickpeas, tofu, rice, and algae,
• complex carbohydrates from ancient grains: organic quinoa, amaranth and millet and from broccoli, alfalfa and radish sprouts, pumpkin, pomegranate, spirulina and yucca and
• 8 grams of fiber, 2 grams insoluble.

Juice Plus+® Complete Shake is:

• sweetened with stevia and organic cane sugar, and has only 10 grams of low glycemic sugars,
• gluten free
• low fat, and
• has NO: cholesterol, artificial flavorings, coloring, preservatives, wheat, dairy, eggs, caffeine or herbs.
• It is Kosher certified
• Plus it is non-GMO.

This is truly "Affordable Healthy Fast Food!”

Contact me today at gucker.jp@gmail.com or visit my website to order Juice Plus+® and Juice Plus+® Complete Shake mix and get started on healthier and slimmer you. I will send you two eating plans: "Juice Plus+ Transformation: an Amazing Journey to Your Best Health” and “Transform 30." In addition, I’ll send you many Complete Shake mix recipes.

Note: Instead of protein loading for an intense physical work-out, I agree with Ivy at Clean Cuisine, “Instead of worrying so much about protein, if you exercise a lot it is especially important to make sure you get more antioxidants and phytonutrients to combat the exercise-induced oxidative stress that is inevitable with an intense fitness training program. And the more hardcore your workout is, the more cell-protecting antioxidants and phytonutrients you need to ingest. Keep in mind, unrefined whole foods are the best sources of antioxidants, and plant foods are the only sources for phytonutrients. If you want to supplement your diet with anything after a workout you should supplement with a phytonutrient booster, such as…Juice Plus. Juice Plus+ is the only one of these phytonutrient boosters that has clinical research with multiple studies backing up the fact that it does in fact reduce post-exercise oxidative stress…."

Increasingly, more studies are showing that whey protein based drinks may be harmful. One, they are animal protein based and two, they provide too much protein. Ivy also states in her article, "…believe it or not there is such a thing as getting too much protein. There is also such a thing as getting fat from eating too much protein."

Juice Plus+® Complete Shake Mix just makes sense.

Juice Plus+ Parsley and the Importance of Quality Ingredients — watch this video

This is from the April 2015 Juice Plus+® newsletter, "The Plus+ Side":

Parsley is more than just a pretty face: it’s pretty good for you, too. A cup of fresh, chopped parsley contains substantial portions of your daily value of vitamin C (133%), vitamin A (101%), iron (21%), potassium (9%), calcium (8%) and dietary fiber (8%).¹ And it does all that without breaking a sweat. That nutritional punch is part of why we include parsley in our Garden Blend capsules and chewables.

One Simple Change — make it Juice Plus+®

Paradox & Juice Plus+® Conference

Zendala tile by Ed Gucker
Paradox

Paradox, once mastered might become your Mac ’N Cheese

In Zentangle® lingo Mac ’N Cheese means your go-to tangle. Paradox is drawn with straight lines that end up creating “beautiful spirals.” For Instruction, Tips and Inspiration, check these out:

How to Draw a Paradox  

Paradox challenge

Paradox - Q&A

Paradox Re-Defined

Paradox and then some

Have Fun!

Very Zen-like Paradox Video

Want to be mesmerized? Watch this Paradox video. It’s very meditative because unlike other Zentangle videos it’s not supported by verbal instruction or music, just simply the sound of the pen on the paper. It’s very soothing to just watch the artist’s hand moving in a continuous line as the ink flows from her pen. For many people, Paradox is their go-to tangle because of the unlimited ways one can make gorgeous drawings. 

Juice Juice+® Spring Leadership Conference

Saturday’s Two Main Stage Speakers

Nicolas Come is the 10-year old inventor of the Nicolas’ Garden mobile app and website. I wrote about him in my April 5 blog post.
Visit:

Nicolas’ Garden app

Nicolas' Garden on Facebook

Nicolas' wonderful website

Kids can make a difference!

Stephen Ritz, a South Bronx educator/administrator and founder of the Green Bronx Machine, has motivated and taught generations of students, leading them to academic success. With Stephen’s guidance, his students and the community have grown more than 30,000 pounds of vegetables, routinely producing enough to feed healthy meals to 450 students.

His Bronx classroom featured the first indoor edible wall in New York City Department of Education.  His students, have improved their school attendance from 40 percent to 93 percent daily and he has helped creat 2,200 youth jobs. He was recently named a Top Ten Finalist for the Global Teacher Prize. Stephen's accolades include a 2014 Greenius Award, 2014 Green Difference Award, 2013 Latin Trends Award, ABC Above and Beyond Award, Chevrolet / General Motors National Green Educator Award, USS Intrepid Hometown Hero Award, NYC Chancellor's Award and various others.

He has been identified as one of the top fifty teachers in America, been recognized by the National Association of Secondary School Principals, was invited  to Vatican City and met with Pope Francis and his fourth and fifth grade students received a personal invitation to the White House. He has been featured in dozens of magazines and TV programs.

Tower Gardens® at the Green Bronx Machine

The Green Bronx Machine is an "Apron Project" sponsored by Progressive Insurance. In this video clip, Tower Gardens® are used by students to grow fresh, healthy food, while Stephen Ritz explains the organization's mission.

For more about Stephen Ritz and the Green Bronx Machine visit:

Stephen Ritz Harvesting Hope

Stephen Ritz: Grow Something Greater
Green Bronx Machine

Kids in the Kitchen

Kids in the Kitchen

Starting children on Juice Plus+® is the first step to provide them with a healthy future. Step two is to introduced them to new plant-based foods and getting them involved in the kitchen. These books will help you to interest your children in healthy balanced meals.

COOKBOOKS

The 52 New Foods Challenge: A Family Cooking Adventure for Each Week of the Year, with 150 Recipes by Jennifer Tyler Lee - this book is a week-by-week guide, with each week offering a new  food to try, easy enough for the kids to help with or to prepare by themselves. Even in my empty nest home, my baby being in her 40s, I have over a dozen recipes marked for our table. Because most kids intrinsically are drawn to games, Jennifer uses a point system; it’s ingenious.

The Family Cooks: 100+ Recipes to Get Your Family Craving Food That’s  Simple, Tasty and Incredibly Good For You by Laurie David. Laurie was the producer of the 2014 documentary Fed Up. This book was written to encourage home cooked family meals. Although her approach is different when dealing with picky eaters, it’s intended to get the kids into the kitchen and trying new foods. I have tried several of the recipes; they’re delicious and easy. On March 9, in my article "Go Green Recipes," I posted a link, an excerpt from this book: One-Pot Pasta. Try it for a quick and simple meal.

VIDEO

Chew on This—Getting Kids in the Kitchen

Chew on This is hosted by one of my favorite healthy eating advocates, Stefanie Sacks (more about her in a future post). Her guest for this show is Julie Negrin. In this video Stefanie and Julie, along with several children, prepare Toasted Sesame Soba Noodles from Julie’s cookbook Easy Meals to Cook with Kids. 

This book gets accolades from  many of today’s healthy eating gurus such as Molly Katzen, Mark Hyman, Deborah Madison and Juice Plus+® Children's Health Study advisor Dr. David Katz (more about him in a future post). This book, “with family-friendly recipes that adults can cook with children ages two years old and up,” has been purchased for  my grandkids, ages 2 and 5.

Besides cooking, in this episode of Chew on This, Stefanie and Julie also take the kids to a farm stand to teach them where food comes from and to the super market to shop and learn how to read a food label. Watch this with your kids as an introduction to shopping for and preparing healthy foods.

There are many benefits to teaching children how to cook. 

*Excerpt: page 3 from Easy Meals to Cook with Kids © 2010 by Julie Negrin. 

Exposure to scratch cooking helps kids develop a mature palate and a taste for fresh, wholesome ingredients. The earlier kids become accustomed to nutritious foods, the less likely they will acquire a taste for processed foods. 

Kids are much more likely to eat what they make. Is there anything more fun than eating your art project? Cooking creates a sense of ownership. When kids help in the kitchen, there are fewer mealtime battles and more willingness to try new foods. 

Meals prepared from scratch usually contain more nutrients, fewer calories, and less chemicals and sweeteners than packaged foods and restaurant meals. 

Cooking together provides a natural way to discuss nutrition and the impact that food choices have on the environment. The more educated children are about food, the more likely they will appreciate your suggestions to eat something healthy. 

The earlier kids learn how to cook, the sooner they will learn an essential life skill. It’s hard to imagine that teaching a 3-year-old how to break an egg could result in a culinary prodigy, but kids often become quite talented in the kitchen. This makes the messy floors worth it down the road when they start to cook for you. 

Spending time in the kitchen gives kids confidence. Kids thrive on feeling accomplished. Cooking is an ideal way to boost self-worth and to teach responsibility. There is nothing cuter than watching children proudly serving their food to others. 

Preparing meals together means quality time as a family. Cooking with children when they are young offers an opportunity to communicate with them on a regular basis. The time you spend together chatting and cooking in the kitchen becomes even more important as they reach their teenage years. 

What else do they learn? Science, language, counting, fractions, budgeting, weighing, sequencing, measuring, problem-solving, sharing, fine motor skills, reading and learning about other cultures — to name just a few important things! 

Cooking app "for kids by kids"

APP - Nicolas' Garden

If you have kids consider getting this “for kids by kids” mobile app. Inspired by Nicolas Come, this app is geared to make healthy cooking, eating, and shopping fun. It allows kids to create shopping lists, search for a recipe they like, save their favorites and share with friends and family.

Nicolas Come is the 10-year-old inventor of the Nicolas’Garden mobile app and website.  Nicolas wants everyone to know that healthy food is not only good, but it can be fun as well.  In addition, Nicolas also plans to design interactive games to teach kids about agriculture, health and nutrition inspired by Sacramento's Farm To Fork movement. Nicolas will be one of the Main Stage speakers at the upcoming Juice Plus+® Leadership Conference in Sacramento. Watch for photos of this event.

Also visit Nicholas’ Garden on FaceBook.

Learn more about Nicholas at his wonderful website: Nicolas Garden.