Health
As we all know, eating whole grains is important to our diets. In our house we have been working hard to introduce the kids to more whole grains, you know, whole grains that taste good to them and they have absolutely NO CLUE that what they are eating is filled with whole grains!
General Mills has pumped Cheerios®, Lucky Charms®, Cinnamon Toast Crunch®, Honey Nut Cheerios® and Total® with whole grains and my kids don’t even realize that what they are eating is good for them!
General Mills has also made it so whole grain is listed as the first ingredient when you look at the side of the box indicating that whole grain is the first and most prevalent ingredient.
To help with choosing products with whole grain, General Mills developed “Fast Lane for Whole Grain,” an online educational game. Consumers can navigate virtual grocery store aisles and identify products that have whole grain as the first ingredient, with the option to enter a sweepstakes to win one of each of the 50 cereals with the white check. Make a commitment to add more whole grain to your diet by simply pouring a bowl of cereal with the white check including Cheerios®, Lucky Charms®, Cinnamon Toast Crunch®, Honey Nut Cheerios® and Total®. For more information on the importance of whole grain and a chance to enter the “Fast Lane for Whole Grain” sweepstakes, visit www.WholeGrainNation.com.
According to Dr. Travis Stork, emergency room physician and host of “The Doctors,” identifying whole grain products can be challenging. Shoppers can look for nutritional cues on the front of the box, but they need to read the ingredient list to know if they are getting enough whole grain. Ingredient lists detail ingredients in order of prevalence, and if the words “whole grain” are followed by a grain like wheat or oats, it means the food contains more whole grain than any other single ingredient. Here´s how to determine if your cereals have whole grain as a first ingredient:
With all the health messages facing grocery store shoppers, it can be confusing to translate what appears on food labels into nutritional needs, and hard to determine which foods have a meaningful amount of whole grain. Dr. Stork has some additional recommendations to help you include whole grain easily into your diet. They include:
Start Early! The Dietary Guidelines recommend people get at least 48 grams of whole grain in their daily diets. Get a jump-start on the day´s nutrition by incorporating whole grain into your morning routine. For instance, when choosing cereal make sure whole grain is listed as the first ingredient. One easy choice is cereal with the white check, which have more whole grain than any other single ingredient.
Make Simple Swaps. Choose whole grain versions of the foods you love. Great options include whole wheat pasta and whole wheat bread or even whole grain crackers. Also, try different types of whole grain. Use brown rice instead of white rice as a side dish at dinner or popcorn, which is a whole grain, for a snack.
Don´t Judge a Food by Its Cover. The front of food packages provide good nutritional cues, but don´t forget to read the ingredients and check the nutrition label and side labels for additional health information. Cereals with the white check even include the amount of whole grain per serving on packaging.
The great thing is, The Megalomaniac Mommy along with General Mills wants to make sure that your family is getting enough whole grains so we have teamed up and are giving away a prize pack that will contain 5 boxes of General Mills cereal with the white check!
If you would like to enter to win use the Rafflecopter form below.
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Before I became pregnant with Bean, I was headed in the right direction with my weight loss. I kicked off 2011 with the plan of taking back control of my life and losing weight and getting healthy. I was doing great, I had lost almost 30 pounds and then boom……we found out I was pregnant with Bean. Needless to say that was the end of my weight loss for the next 36 weeks.
Goodbye weight loss journey.
Hello healthy pregnancy weight gain.
Yes, this pregnancy I managed to keep my weight gain to a minimum and only gained 17 pounds.
Yay me!
This time around I was more cautious about what I was eating and how much of it I was consuming. I didn’t want to end another pregnancy down and depressed and struggling to lose weight once again.
This time, I did it right.
I gained 17 pounds in the 36 weeks I was pregnant.
In the past month since Bean was born, I have lost 42.
I don’t know how I have done it, but I did.
Well, I know that 6 pounds 2 ounces was Bean, approximately 2 pounds was the placenta, another 2 pounds each for the amniotic fluid, uterus and maternal breast tissue. There is also the approximate 4 pounds of maternal blood and another 4 pounds of fluids in the maternal tissue plus another 7 pounds of maternal fat and nutrient stores. All of that adds up to 29.2 pounds and then there is the added benefit that I am exclusively breastfeeding Bean.
So yeah, I’ve lost 42 pounds in 1 month.
I couldn’t be happier.
Now I just need to lose at least 130 more and then I will be happy!
I can do it.
I am on the right track.
Now I just need to wait until my check up in a week and a half so I get the okay to start exercising on a regular basis again!
Here’s hoping I can stay on the right path this year!
(P.S. Did I mention that on December 24th, 2011 I celebrated 1 year of being smoke free???!!!)
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In our house a new year means a trip to the eye doctor. So far the Hardworking Hubby has been in for his annual exam and Zman went in for his exam last night.
Last night was truly an eye opening experience for us.
At his exam last night, Zman, who will be 13 next month, learned that because of his high use of electronic devices such as his Nook, iPod Touch and netbook, his eye muscles have started to get lazy since these are all objects that are usually help closer to the face. With this new discovery we learned that when Zman looks at things further away the muscles in his eyes are not responding therefore meaning that my almost 13 year old son now has to wear bi-focals for the next few months in hopes that this problem will be corrected.
Never in a million years did I think my child would need bi-focals before I did!!
Since meeting with the eye doctor I have done my best to educate myself on the different lenses and vision correction needs thanks to Zeiss educational tools. This site gives you all of the tools you need so you know the facts about vision and lenses, how to select the right eye doctor for your family, questions to ask at your next eye appointment and facts you should know about age-related vision changes.
We are hopeful that by taking the things we learned along with an early diagnosis from Zman’s eye doctor that we will be able to correct this problem with his lazy eye muscles within a few months.
I can tell you that we learned a valuable lesson and have put a lot of limits on the kids using their electronic devices now in addition to our own!
Disclaimer: I was compensated for this post on behalf of MomSelect and Zeiss in exchange for my complete and honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
I know that going to the dentist can be a very, very expensive trip.
I have unfortunately been in the position before when I did not have dental insurance and had to pay completely out of my own pocket for dental work. It was far from cheap.
After that trip to the dentist I picked up private dental insurance to help curb the costs of any future work I would need done.
Thanks to this alternative coverage I was able to save over 50%!
Places like DentalPlans.com offer you over 30+ discount dental plans to choose from at an affordable cost and allow you to save on all of your dental work.
I kept my private dental plan for over a year until I married the Hardworking Hubby and was able to be added to his dental insurance through his employer but was grateful that I had picked up the alternative dental coverage to help me while I needed it.
I know there are a lot of people out there who are in the same boat that I was and do not realize there are other options out there and they are affordable. DentalPlans.com is a great source to search for the coverage you need and even allows you to find both a plan and a dentist in your area and helps you find the best plan to suit your needs!
