Top 10 ways to increase calcium absorption

I received this information in the form of an ad for a calcium supplement.  Although I had seen many of the points before I thought some of them were worth making note of.

1.   Make sure your calcium supplement contains vitamin C as it is essential for proper calcium absorption.
2.   Take your calcium in liquid form for the fastest absorption. It is more effective than tablets, and also shouldn’t contain antacids like tablets do, which interfere with calcium absorption.
3.  Be sure to take the doctor recommended 2:1 ratio of calcium to magnesium in your supplement — two parts calcium to one part magnesium.
4.   Eat foods that are high in the amino acid lysine, which is needed for calcium absorption. These include eggs, fish, lima beans and soy products.
5.  Get outside in the sun without sunscreen for 15 minutes, three times a week. Sunshine is the easiest and best way to get vitamin D, which is essential for proper absorption of calcium.
6. Spread out your doses of calcium over the day, as it appears to work more effectively if taken in smaller doses, rather than a large dose all at once.
7.  Avoid taking calcium with iron or zinc as it reduces the efficacy of both minerals and can interfere with calcium absorption.
8. Decrease or eliminate soft drinks from your diet. They are high in phosphorus, which can lead to calcium excretion in your urine.
9. Cut down on junk foods, alcohol, caffeine and white flour. All of these may lead to an excessive loss of calcium from your body and a decreased rate of absorption.
10. Eat foods containing oxalic acid in moderation. Oxalic acid interferes with calcium absorption. Foods containing oxalic acid include almonds, beet greens, cashews, chard, kale, rhubarb and spinach.

1400 Calories a Day to Lose a Pound a Week

Weight loss season has officially begun. Have you tried to get parking at your local GYM lately?  Everyone has the same New Year’s Resolution it seems.  This year I decided I was going to jump on that bandwagon too. I might as well get rid of those extra pounds rather than get used to them!  I decided if I was going to have a resolution to lose weight I had to have a goal, a plan and a way to measure my progress.  Typically when watching my weight I stick to a formula that I learned ages ago.  Eat 300 calories for breakfast, 400 for lunch and 500 for dinner.  You can also have 3 snacks at 100 calories each.  This is a grand total of 1500 calories per day.  Well, I never realized that this is too many calories for a woman who weighs in at less than 140 pounds.  A 140 pound woman wanting to lose a pound a week should only consume 1400 calories per day!  So to measure and track my dieting progress, I decided to try my iPhone apps tools.  Yes! I found a great program called Lose It.  I’m able to set my weight loss goal and then track the calories of the food that I eat with the handy calorie counter.  This shows me at all times where I am on my daily calorie budget. Want to eat more than 1400 calories a day?  Exercise!  You can track calories burned with the exercise tracker, which includes everything from Snow Shoveling to Broomball, and add this into your budget too.  If you do a spin class for an hour and burn an additional 500 calories, you just bumped your calorie budget up to 1900 for the day.  I carry my phone on me at all times so there is no excuse for not entering those mints I ate at the doctor’s office or the handful of m&m’s I snagged from my kids.  If you don’t have an iPod touch or iPhone you can track yourself on your computer with a similar program called the Daily Plate on the livestrong.com website.  Don’t fall for all the latest fad diets.  What really matters is calories in and calories burned.  You need to count them and stick to your plan.  Good luck.  I know you can do it!

3 Things They Don’t Tell You About Breast Cancer Detection

The most important thing to get out of this article is this…Do monthly self breast exams right after your period. PERIOD.  You know your body and you will know if something doesn’t “feel right”.

Now for 3 Important facts that have never stood out in my reading of breast cancer detection…

1.  This was shocking when I heard a doctor talk about this at a Fundraiser for Breast Cancer and the 3Day Walk.  So I looked this up and found it verified by yet another doctor.  Usually there is NO FAMILY HISTORY in breast cancer cases.

“Typically, in most cancers there is not a family history. In fact, the incidence of positive family history depending on whose series you review once in the neighborhood of 7 percent sometimes may be up to 9 percent or 10 percent. So, it is actually more common not to have a family history, particularly, breast cancer.”

So it seems you are at just as high of risk if there is no family history of breast cancer.

2.  Film mammography is NOT the golden standard for breast cancer detection.  Digital mammography is much better for two reasons.  Digital images allow you to manipulate them and analyze them better.  They also make it easer to share images for consulting with other doctors and specialists.  Digital mammography detected up to 28% more cancers  than regular film mammography.

Have your annual mammogram at a center that does Digital Mammography

3.  During her ordeal with breast cancer my girlfriend told me that she had learned that MRI’s were the best screen for detecting breast cancer.  They aren’t done because of the cost.  BUT what is really concerning is that in the case of DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ, affecting the milk ducts in the breast),  MRI scans were far superior than mammography. In a UK study of more than 7,300 women, 92 percent of those with DCIS were diagnosed by MRI compared with 56 percent by mammography. According to the UK specialists, MRI’s had too many false positives which meant more biopsies had to be performed than were needed.

Lobby for MRI’s in the future for breast cancer detection. I’d prefer a false positive over detection at stage III any day.

Best Breast Cancer Sites as published in Good Housekeeping Magazine

You’ve Just Found a Lump

The ABCs of Breast Cancer Guide at the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation site (komen.org) will walk you through all the decisions you’ll need to make, from type of biopsy to kind of treatment. The site is also noted for its inclusion of alternative treatments.

You’re Especially Interested in New Findings

In addition to basic information, breastcancer.org features clear analyses of the latest studies, with an emphasis on how the results may apply to you.

You Want to Connect with Other Patients

The Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization (y-me.org) offers a hotline, guides to local support groups, and more.

Problem solving: After Clarice Richter of Southington, Connecticut, was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago, connecting with the support group at the Komen Foundation’s Website was like “having a best friend all the time. I’d wake up at two in the morning, go online, and someone would be there to talk.”

Think pink. Wear pink.  And give to find a cure!   Strappys does offer two pink bra strap options.  A percentage of the proceeds will be given to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

29 Day Giving Challenge – Give Each Day to Make an Impact

I was excited and moved upon checking out this site, www.29Gifts.org.  The idea is to give away something every day for 29 days. Why? Because to see your world change, you have to DO something to change your world.  Now I would say that I am a happy person.  Probably the happiest I’ve ever been BUT I worry that I am becoming too focused around myself and my family.  A little outreach couldn’t hurt.  So I signed up to start my own personal challenge.  I hope everyone who reads this does.

Have you  read any books about the Laws of Attraction? I can’t say that I have. Nor have I done much spiritual reading in the past few years, but you would have to live under a rock not to have heard some of these quotes:

“It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Acts 20:35

“For it is in giving that we receive.” St Francis of Assisi

“Giving liberates the soul of the giver.” Maya Angelou

“He who obtains has little. He who scatters has much.”  Lao Tsu

“Giving brings happiness at every stage of its expression. We experience joy in forming the intention to be generous. We experience joy in the actual act of giving something, 
experience joy in remembering the fact that we have given.” Buddha.

Your 29 Gifts can be anything — material objects, money, your time, smiles or kind thoughts.

I compiled a list of ideas to get you started but there are over 3,000 giving stories posted on the site.  Here are a few gift ideas to get started with.

Time * Attention * Sweat * Work * Physical Energy * Mental Energy * Blessings * Endorsement * Encouragement * Concern * Love * Gifts * Laughter * Suggestion * Helping hand * Listening ear * Communication * Appreciation * Physical affection * Good advice * Laughter * Reprimand * Empathy * Tears * Encouragement * Prayer * Inspiration * Motivation * Recommendation * Ideas * Connections * Validation * A Smile

I am starting my 29 day giving challenge today.  The first gift I am giving away is passing this site along to you.  Go to www.29Gifts.org

I plan to write about this some more and share my giving stories.  I hope you’ll do the same.

The Secret of Self Talk

What have you told yourself today?  Do you know?  This is hard to tap into at times.  It’s important though. You are who you tell yourself you are!

Athletes are trained to visualize themselves winning, to see themselves doing everything right, to think in the positive.  But what happens when an underlying message comes through.  Does that cause them to lose?  Actually, studies have shown that it does.

When we tell our kids, or our employees, they are good at something  do they like doing it more?

These thoughts surfaced as I was talking about reading groups at the kids’ school.  Remembering back oh so many years ago… If you were in the top reading group you were a smart kid.  If you were in the lowest reading group, you weren’t.   If you believed you were a good reader you read for pleasure.  If you weren’t a ‘good reader’ you avoided reading and would even say “I don’t like to read”.   So we’re still passing this message on to our kids. I don’t know of any way around it.  I do know what happened at our house.  My youngest son was put in the lowest reading level in kindergarten.  Not because he couldn’t read the books that the kids in the top level were reading BUT because he couldn’t keep up with them in the other center activities, OR just turning the pages.  Over the summer we continued our reading and Hooked on Phonics.  I kept telling him he was a great reader in front of his Dad and his Grandparents and his Aunt and Cousins.  We would say he was a Rock Star in reading.  We would marvel at how well he read and pronounced menus.

So off he goes to a brand new school for first grade and he promptly tells his teacher, ” I’m a good reader. I can read at the 3rd grade level.”  I would say his confidence was up!  And whether he can read at that level or not, he believes he can and he enjoys his reading every night.

So maybe we need to break down old ideas that we have about ourselves.  Look at what we are good at. Tell ourselves what we are capable of.  See ourselves doing well and doing IT!  Whatever IT may be. Now go tell yourself how great you are…