 FnVs-Packed Breakfast & Desserts By now, we hope you are finding it easier to eat more FnVs and that maybe you’ve explored a new recipe or two. We're concluding our FnVs mini resolution today by tackling breakfast and dessert! This is kind of ironic since a typical American breakfast has as much sugar as a dessert. The recipes below are lightly sweetened with natural sugars, which are a marginally better option than white table sugar, meaning they retain some of their original micronutrients—they were not stripped away in the processing/bleaching handling. From the era of the Snackwell cookie (ultimate UPF!), most of us are familiar with the trick of adding applesauce or pumpkin to our baking to increase the texture/moisture in low fat desserts. We have all made our fair share of fruit crisps and pies or banana and zucchini breads, but here we wholesale swap out the grains for FnVs. Plantains, pumpkin, sweet potato and beets parlay well with their natural sweetness and firmness. Waffles A minimal ingredient list and no added sweeteners make these two waffle recipes superstars! Save the sweetener for your toppings where you can see how much you use/add. Sweet Potato Paleo Waffles Plantain Waffles Pancakes Another breakfast staple tackled without added sugar Perfect Paleo Pancakes Pumpkin Paleo Pancakes Muffins We love blender muffins for their simplicity-dump it, blend it, pour it, bake and eat it! Paleo Almond Butter Blender Muffins (purewow.com) Spinach Muffins Ice cream Everyone screams for ice cream, even when it’s not actually a “cream” but a fruit dessert made from the Yonanas or this lovely lemon/blueberry concoction Yonanas Classic Lemon Blueberry Ice Cream Pops Kids won’t know their Green Monster Ice Pops have spinach in them, they will just know they are delicious! Kids can easily pitch in and help make their own chocolate banana pops. The recipe calls for sprinkles, but you can be creative with chopped nuts or shredded coconut too. Let the kids choose their topping! Green Monster Ice Pops Chocolate Banana Pops Brownies If you aren’t super comfy in the kitchen, or unsure about trying new recipes, then a brownie is the way to go. Brownies are the most forgiving baked good, it doesn’t matter if the top sinks cracks or domes, it doesn’t need to rise and there is always an audience for an over cooked edge. The first recipe uses beets as the base. Chocolate is a great way to hide your beets! The sweet potato brownies get a dusting of buckwheat flour, which despite the name doesn’t contain wheat or gluten. Paleo Double Chocolate Beet Brownies Sweet Potato Brownies Cookies Even the fussiest Cookie Monster will devour these veggie-based cookies! Zucchini Almond Butter Cookies Carrot Cake Power Cookies Cake These cakes cook up more like a torte, because of the absence of flour. PLEASE let us know if you try the banana-avocado frosting! Purple Velvet Torte Chocolate Cake with Banana-Avocado Frosting TRACK YOUR PROGRESS YOUR MINI RESOLUTION: EAT MORE FRUITS-n-VEGGIES (FnVs)! Strive for seven servings of fruits and vegetables each day. Use the calendar to log your servings, as well as your exercise, sleep, sugar and water goals! Click to view and download the log.
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 Get in Your FnVs with These Grain Alternatives! Good morning! We hope you tried a salad a day last week and saw how easy it was to hit the goal of 7 servings of fruits and veggies (FnVs) each day—6 if you use XVOO in your dressing! In these next few weeks, we’re moving beyond the obvious salad onto different ways to substitute and replace grains with FnVs in some of your favorite dishes. You probably remember the old government-issued food pyramid from the low-fat craze of the 90’s… The same food guide pyramid that told us to eat seven servings of grains per day (keep in mind this was the SAME food pyramid which also incorrectly told us eggs were a dairy product—which isn’t even anatomically correct!). Importantly, eating all those grains crowds your plate of more nutrient-dense foods like FnVs and protein. So, for the next two weeks we will be showing you how to replace those grains with FnVs, which are more nutritious and carb/diet friendly. This week, we start with pasta, noodle and rice substitutes and recipes. Need a little guidance in the kitchen? Ask us! We have a retired chef on board. Spaghetti Squash Spaghetti Squash is probably the OG pasta substitute. It’s a squash that, when cooked, produces strings of squash which resemble noodles/pasta. It can be prepared in the oven or nuked, and then treated like pasta or noodles with toppings. PREPARING SPAGHETTI SQUASH How to Prepare Spaghetti Squash:
RECIPES The recipes for spaghetti squash are endless! But here are a few to get started. Noodled FnVs In 1991 as part of the raw food movement, it started with “zoodles” (noodles made out of zucchini) and quickly progressed to boodles (noodles made out of beets), coodles (noodles made out of carrots) and now most all FnVs can be noodled—even red cabbage! PREPARING FNV-BASED NOODLES In the early days, folks had to invest in a large countertop spiralizer. Now, most grocery stores sell them pre-noodled for you fresh and frozen. RECIPES here are the recipes ready to go with your purchased veggie noodles. Keep in mind-they can replace pasta/noodles in a hot dish-but are also great as an alternative to lettuce in a salad! Firm fruit can also be spiralized! Guests at the next BBQ will be dazzled by your spiralized fruit salad and kids will gobble up your fruit crumble recipe. Other "Noodley" Options Palmini—hearts of palm pasta—is a fairly new player to the market. There is an entire line of palmini pasta alternatives, including lasagna noodles. These cook up a little firmer, more al dente than typical veggie noodles. RECIPES Once prepared, they hold up well to almost any pasta dish you can dream up. But here are a few recipes to get you started… Shirataki noodles have been around awhile, they are made from the fiber of the Konjac plant. They are decidedly NOT for everyone except for those adventurous eaters out there (WE like them! J) RECIPES If you decide you are curious, here are a few recipes to consider. Rice Alternatives As with the noodles, riced vegetables are more nutritious and carb/dieter friendly. And just like the noodles, they also can be made at home or purchased fresh or frozen by the Green Giant and Trader Joe’s and Palmini has a hearts of palm rice version of their products too. PREPARING RICED FnVs If you choose make your own at home, here is how. RECIPES Once you have your riced veggies, here are a few recipes to consider:
Well, we've left a lot on your plate for this week. Make sure to continue logging your FnVs intake, and we'll see you next week for breakfast and dessert! Feel free to email your Motivated Mondays Coach Michele at [email protected] with your individual questions. TRACK YOUR PROGRESS YOUR MINI RESOLUTION: EAT MORE FRUITS-n-VEGGIES (FnVs)! Strive for seven servings of fruits and vegetables each day. Use the calendar to log your servings, as well as your exercise, sleep, sugar and water goals! Click to view and download the log. We hope you enjoyed the weekend and are ready to learn some strategies for incorporating more fruits & veggies (FnVs) into your diet. Probably the fastest way to get to your seven FnVs servings every day is to incorporate salads and soup into each day. Since it is summer, we will suggest a salad a day. To be clear, this does not mean pasta or potato salad. The salad-a-day strategy requires some advance planning, shopping and prepping but it’s so worth it! Salad Options Start by deciding if you want small side salads with meals or salad as a meal itself, then decide on your greens. There is always the tried and true iceberg or romaine, but maybe you want to experiment with one of these greens. Constructing a salad is as simple as greens, protein, some crunch, herbs and dressing. But if you want more detailed instruction, here is a good article to help you “freestyle” your salad or recreate a composed salad. Freestyle not your thing? No problem! Here are a few recipe roadmaps, but feel free to take a detour if you are so inclined:
Now for the dressing… Bottled dressings are rarely health-promoting and are often full of mystery ingredients (think UPFs!). We suggest you make your own! Here are a few recipes to consider. 
The best health-promoting fat you can use in a dressing is EXTRA virgin olive oil. Its benefits are so powerful it is the primary fat in the MIND diet (Mediterranean-Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay). Extra virgin olive oil (XVOO) consumption has been found to reduce neuro-inflammation in mice. In a recent observational study, those who consumed more extra-virgin olive oil had a 28% reduced risk of developing dementia; this held true even when the researchers controlled for other healthy behaviors in their analysis. In addition, XVOO is known to enhance absorption of certain nutrients, like lycopene, which is found in tomatoes. Remember the X in XVOO when in the grocery store aisle--extra virgin matters! In fact, we believe in the value of an XVOO-based homemade dressing so much that if you use one, you can count it as a serving of FnVs to your chart for the day! Woo-hoo! (We are not implying that XVOO is a fruit or veggie). FAQs for Salad Skeptics: If you don’t have the time to make salads, try one of these bagged salad kits with a little XVOO, fresh lemon and salt/pepper. And if you tend to make so much salad that you have leftovers, consider waiting to add the dressing until you’re ready to eat your helping of salad—or try one of these ideas. Pre-dressed salads are prone to sogginess and thus, food waste. Not sure how to store leftover produce? Here are tips for FnVs and here are tips for lettuce and salad greens. Feel free to email your Motivated Mondays Coach Michele at [email protected] with your individual questions. TRACK YOUR PROGRESS YOUR MINI RESOLUTION: EAT MORE FRUITS-n-VEGGIES (FnVs)! Strive for seven servings of fruits and vegetables each day. Use the calendar to log your servings, as well as your exercise, sleep, sugar and water goals! Click to view and download the log.  Introducing Your NEW Mini Resolution: FnVs! Happy Monday! Welcome to a NEW mini resolution! If you’ve missed any past Motivated Mondays 2024 emails, you can view all of them here on our website. One aspect of a healthy brain diet is prioritizing fruits and vegetables. To be clear, fruits & veggies shouldn’t comprise the entirety of one’s plate, but a substantial portion is recommended. This month, our mini resolution will be to strive for 7 servings of fruit and vegetables (FnVs) a day. You might be saying, “Hey, why so many? The government says I only need 5 servings a day!” Keep in mind, government recommendations for nutrition are minimal standards to support life and prevent overt disease (think scurvy or rickets). We are looking to optimize our nutrition to build brains which are resilient to degeneration. A recent meta-analysis found that in a stepwise fashion, every 100 grams of FnVs each day (1/2 cup) was related to a 13% reduction in the risk of cognitive impairment and dementia. So, we are reaching beyond the government recommendations. In addition, another study found that replacing 10% of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) in the diet with minimally processed foods participants lowered risk of dementia by 19%. In other words, by focusing on increasing consumption of minimally processed foods (in our case FnVs), UPFs are crowded out reducing the negative impact. UPFs have gained a great deal of attention lately for their role in the development of chronic diseases, we will have a future micro-resolution around UPFs. 
Crowding out UPFs aside, what’s so brain-special about FnVs? FnVs are chock full of micronutrients, water and fiber which either outright prevent neurodegeneration or slow disease progression once it has initiated:
Each Monday in July, we will provide you with a different strategy to achieve your daily goal, including recipes. We will also continue to log added sugar consumption, exercise, hydration and sleep. Record it all on the calendar below. Wondering what counts as a serving of fruits & veggies? Here is a handy graphic you may refer to when logging your intake!  Feel free to email your Motivated Mondays Coach Michele at [email protected] with your individual questions. We’ll see you next week for your first strategy. In the interim, here are two past editions that parlay nicely into this month’s mini resolution: Buying Organic Produce—Is It Worth It? Why is Nutrition Research So Confusing? TRACK YOUR PROGRESS YOUR MINI RESOLUTION: EAT MORE FRUITS-n-VEGGIES (FnVs)! Strive for seven servings of fruits and vegetables each day. Use the calendar to log your servings, as well as your exercise, sleep, sugar and water goals! Click to view and download the log. The content provided is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Please also note this content is based on current research. However, new research could yield new or conflicting information.
 MOTIVATED MONDAYS MID-YEAR RECAP Hello and Happy Monday! As we’ve introduced each new mini resolution, we've asked you to continue to work toward each previous mini resolution. So before we move onto the second half of Motivated Mondays for 2024, we thought we’d take this opportunity to recap our past mini resolutions to remind you of the benefits of each—all of which contribute to "brawnier" brains! You can find the content for all of our 2024 Mini Resolutions by clicking the archive link below! In February, we resolved to remove added sugar from our diets. A diet high in added sugar promotes neuro-inflammation, damages blood vessels in the rain, reduces the integrity of the blood brain barrier and promotes the development of amyloid all which lead to injury and even death of brain cells. We provided tips for recognizing added sugar on the label and recipes/meal ideas for dining without added sugar. In March, we addressed sleep. We provided sleep hygiene tips and the rationale behind them to help members improve their sleep score. We discouraged the routine use of crutches such as naps and sleeping pills. Sleep is a “magical” time, during sleep our glymphatic system is activated which flushes metabolites from our CNS and our memories are consolidated (filed and stored). Sleep loss ravages one’s health. No body system is left untouched by chronic sleep loss, but the brain is particularly vulnerable. Sleep and sugar have a bi-directional relationship. A diet high in added sugar can impair sleep latency (the time to fall asleep) and lead to frequent nocturnal awakenings due to frequent urination or restlessness, resulting in low sleep quality due to incomplete sleep cycles. Failure to gain quality sleep or adequate sleep duration can affect hunger hormones, leading to increased consumption of sugary snacks during the day (an estimated 500-600 calories more per day!). In April and May, those without an exercise habit resolved to start exercising and those with an exercise habit resolved to optimize the intensity to include activities with a cumulative weekly MET of 1200. We provided tips, tools and suggested gadgets to help members make that happen. You may recall that exercise boosts the production of BDNF—brain-derived neurotrophic factor, also known as “miracle grow” for the brain! Exercise also benefits the brain much in the same way it benefits the heart—with blood flow that delivers O2 and nutrients. In addition, exercise “uses up” excess blood sugar which is linked to Alzheimer’s (so much so that Alzheimer’s has been referred to as Diabetes Type 3). People who exercise have bigger brains, in a good way! Sleep and exercise are also bi-directional! This means those who exercise sleep better and those who sleep better have the energy to exercise. In addition, both sleep and exercise have a positive impact on how the mind responds to stressful situations and also the body’s resilience to stress. Chronic stress is a risk factor for cognitive decline. (We’ll have a future resolution around stress!) In June, we resolved to improve hydration by drinking 8 cups of water and also to became familiar with the odor and color of our urine to make informed decisions about our water consumption: drink more or drink less. The brain is 80% water! An episodic reduction in total body water (TBW) hydration by just 1-2% results in impaired cognitive performance. There is evidence that chronic dehydration leads to the build-up of misfolded proteins in the brain (amyloid) which impairs communication between brain cells. Dehydration is also thought to accelerate Alzheimer’s disease. Remember, these resolutions build habits that, if maintained throughout the year, contribute to optimize lifestyle actions that are beneficial for building brawny brains. So, we urge you to stick with these resolutions - we help you do just that with our comprehensive logging calendar each month!
We’ll see you next week for our NEW resolution but, in the meantime, we encourage you to email us with any feedback you have so far: what resolutions have you found the easiest to maintain? The most difficult? What new or interesting techniques helped you in achieving your goals? Please email your Motivated Mondays Coach Michele at [email protected] with your responses. Thank you, and have a safe and Happy 4th of July! |
MICHELE MCCAMBRIDGE, MPH, MSMichele is the Senior VP of Membership Development at Concierge Choice Physicians. She is also a professional in the areas of nutrition, fitness and wellness. Archives
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