Be good to your sweet heart.

Once again, in honor of heart month, on Tuesday, Boo and I attended the "Be Good to your Sweet Heart" seminar by Zonya Foco. For those of you who don't know who she is, she's "a registered dietitian, certified health and fitness instructor, best selling author, TV host, and speaker, whose mission is to win the war on obesity, diabetes, and heart disease." AND, she's been on Oprah! haha! Her mantra is "The Power of one good habit." Basically, mastering one good core nutritional habit at a time til it becomes a lifestyle change. So after work, we zoomed down to the auditorium, where they had a healthy dinner waiting for us to eat before Zonya came out to drop some knowledge on us. (I had a really good chicken salad pita, made out of 1/2 yogurt and 1/2 fat free mayo. Who would of known to do that with yogurt? Boo had a Mediterranean wrap, filled with hummus, tabbouleh, and full of fresh veggies. I was so jealous of his wrap, it was really good. For a side, she had a broccoli salad, and for dessert, a piece of chocolate chunk cake, made without sugar, and honestly, it wasn't that bad.) She was a great motivational speaker and offered lots of tips and habits we could start working on. All you have to do is perform it once a day and start eating more of a Mediterranean diet. I'll list things I learned below (yeah, I took notes). Also you can visit her website http://www.zonya.com/ for more info and some recipes.

• Eat fish 5X a week, it lowers heart disease by 40% depression by 60% and lowers the risk of Alzheimer's, cancer, and eye disease.
• Vitamin C helps with Cataracts.
• Get in 9-11 servings of fruits and veggies a day.
• Eat Oatmeal. It is great for soaking up cholesterol in your body.
• Beans are cholesterol sponges, eat them 4X a week.(Chili, bean dip, on salads, hummus, burritos...)
• A clove of garlic a day helps lower blood pressure and cholesterol.
• If you strength train for 30 min, 2X a week, you reverse 2 decades of muscle loss in just 2 months!
• To cure a sweet craving, east a piece of fruit and a glass of water every 4 hours.
• Eat stir fry once a week, and double your veggies.
• Use meat as a condiment, instead of the main feature.
• Eat often, like 6X a day and eat a fruit or veggie with each snack
• Exercise 4 or more hours a week to cut the risk of breast cancer by 65%
• Snack b/f dinner on raw veggies and a light dip like hummus and you could shed 31lbs in 1yr.
• Did you know it takes 11X for your taste buds to change. So try whole wheat pasta instead of regular or fat free instead of full fat 11 times. I told Boo I'd work on finally liking fish, I just need to try it 11 times.... wish me luck...
• Use olive oil or canola oil instead of butter or margarine for cooking. Even on grill cheese.
• Bake a piece of fish with milk, olive oil and herbs. The milk takes out the fishy smell and taste.

Over all it was a good seminar. Zonya is really motivating and having Boo there to hear it all will help us both in the end. Cause now he'll know why we need to make some changes, instead of feeling like I'm depriving him. One thing that I did learn that will be hard to give up are my cheeseburgers and fries. Zonya visually showed us how a cheeseburger and large fry are like eating 67 tbs of lard. Thats alot of lard! and it's really nasty stuff. So looks like I'll be having less lard.... I mean burgers in 2010. Here's to our hearts, and making them stay healthy and strong!