Grace’s Blog

Keeping your heart healthy and strong can lower your risk for heart disease.  It is not that difficult if you follow some guidelines.

Losing weight is one.  Two thirds of Americans are overweight or obese.  Could losing weight really help the heart?  The answer is YES!

According to a recent study published in the American Journal of Physiology you can improve the way your heart functions by just losing 12% of your weight, either by diet and exercise or both.

You can have a more youthful heart by dropping some of those excess pounds if you are overweight.

As we age the arteries and heart muscles stiffen and the heart doesn’t relax like it did when we were younger.

The study showed that by losing weight, the participants gained the ability of the heart to relax more quickly, recovering some of the elasticity characteristics of a younger heart.

The heart actually became younger!

Besides exercising and losing weight, here are some other things you can do to have a healthier heart.

Eat more fiber.  A study done by Harvard University, showed that men who ate at least 25 grams of fiber a day had one-third less heart attacks then men eating 12 grams or less a day.

Eat beans.  They contain a lot of good fiber that helps prevent heart disease by lowering cholesterol.  Eating a cup of beans a day can lower cholesterol by 10- 20 percent.

Eating garlic can lower cholesterol and help decrease the risk of heart disease.

A Harvard report found that women eating 1 ounce of almonds daily had a 40 percent lower risk of fatal heart disease. 

Almonds contain vitamin E and research at England’s Cambridge University found that by taking 400 IU of vitamin E for 18 months slashed nonfatal heart attacks in cardiovascular patients by 77 percent.

Vitamin C keeps blood vessels dilated. Without vitamin C, blood vessels constrict, shutting down blood flow. 

Two thousand mg’s a day dramatically restored dilation of blood vessels in heart attack patients, a Boston University study found.

Low levels of B vitamins, especially folic acid, are a heart disease precursor. 

Make sure to get plenty in your diet.  B’s are fragile and are easily destroyed by heat. 

When supplementing, use a high quality B-Vitamin supplement containing at least 100% DV of all 8 B’s.

Eat fish, lots of fish. If eating fish is not your thing, supplement with a high quality Omega-3 supplement. 

Omega-3’s thin the blood, decrease clot formation, raise HDL cholesterol and control irregular heart beats.

Every cell in the body needs Coenzyme Q10 for energy.  A healthy heart needs lots of it.  If a person is on a cholesterol lowering drug, it could deplete this important enzyme. 

Of adults age 40 and older, as many as 42% could be classified as being at an increased risk for heart disease. 

One in every four men die of heart disease and stroke, and one of every 2.5 women die of heart disease and stroke.

Maintaining a healthy heart is critically important.

 Shaklee Independent Distributor

Grace Health

Have you seen the YouTube video about the two people on an escalator when it suddenly stops?  Instead of walking up or down the steps, they start crying out for help. 

“Somebody, anybody please help.  We’re stuck.  Hello, anybody there?”

There are two major trends of 2010:

**Health Crisis—disease care is economically non-viable

 **Economic Crisis

Shaklee is expertly positioned to take advantage of these two trends.  This means you are too, IF you choose to position yourself.

Roger Barnett, owner and CEO of Shaklee says: “We now have ‘the right stuff” to move ahead.  In Roger’s first 5 years since purchasing Shaklee, $50 million has been invested in the business!

Another reason Shaklee is right today—The American Dream.  We all have the talents and capabilities to move the dream forward for others through the vehicle of Shaklee.

There are 7 ways to earn in Shaklee.  Watch this short video presentation to learn 5 ways.

Number 6 is: the “Power of 10 Bonuses;” earn $100 for each 10 points earned in the first 90 days in Shaklee.

Number 7: The Fast Track Career Path to earning up to $100,000 in the first 15 months of being in the business. 

The question isn’t “who is going to let you?”  The question is “Who is going to stop you?”  (From BYU TV)

 “Somebody, anybody please help, I’m stuck.  Hello, anybody there?”

YOU are the one YOU have been waiting for.

Take Action!

Shaklee Independent Distributor 

Grace General, Home Based Business

Corn syrup was recently vilified by a well know TV Doctor.  He said corn syrup will make you fat.

He is right and he is wrong.  It isn’t the corn syrup that is making us fat, and it isn’t the other sugars either.

The problem lies in how much we are consuming.

It is said that the average person in the U.S. consumes 158 pounds of sugar each year!

I did some calculations.  I buy white sugar in 10 pound bags. I like to make cookies, cakes and pies. If I divide 158 by 12 months, I come up with about 13 pounds per month.

According to the label on my 10 pounds of sugar, 1 teaspoon is a serving and contains 15 calories.  There are 1,134 servings in a bag.  If I do the calculations right, that is 17,010 calories in 10 pounds of sugar.

Remember, the average amount of sugar consumed per person in this country is about 13 pounds a month, not 10!

WOW!  No wonder we are suffering and weight is going up!

Where is all the sugar coming from?

Mostly from soft drinks, snack foods and processed foods sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. Thus the statement “corn syrup makes you fat.”

I checked my low-fat salad dressing, and the second ingredient after water was sugar.

When food manufacturers take the fat out, they add sugar so we like the taste.

The brain needs sugar to function.  But 13 pounds a month? 

What about Stevia?  It appears to be safe in the amounts currently being consumed. 

What if we consumed 158 pounds a year, would it create a problem?

The best way to get sugar, of course, is from a natural source like fruit.

Maybe 2010 is the year to re-discover the joys of fresh fruits, fresh vegetables and whole grains.

Shaklee Distributor

Grace General, Health

I work from home.  This week as storm after storm has passed through our area, I again appreciated the benefits of having a home-based business.

When it is cold and snowy, I can sit in the comfort of my home office.  I can email, hold conference calls, or have on-line meetings.  I can visit on the phone with my associates, place orders or do research.

I don’t have to get up before the sun, get into a cold car and drive on icy roads to work.

My heart goes out to parents who have to get up early, bundle up their precious little people and drop them off at a day care center.

Would they want it differently?  Maybe.  Choosing and operating a home-based business could be intimidating.

My home-based business has many other benefits. I don’t have to produce, test, distribute or deliver products.  That is done for me.  I get paid for advertising.

I have a customized, search engine optimized web site complete with a shopping cart.  It even has Google Analytics.

Could what I do be for you?  Most certainly if you decided to.

You  may ask who’s going to let you? You should ask who’s going to stop you?  Either way, that person may be you.

Explore the Infinite Possibilities of my home-based business opportunity.

Shaklee Independent Distsributor

Grace General, Home Based Business

Are you waiting to get sick before you try to get healthy?

Why not get healthy before you get sick?

If you are ready to take control of your health, you may have questions of where to start. 

Prevention is always better than disease.

Health care, or lack of it, has been a major issue in Washington and around the country.

Staggering numbers of people are completely unaware they may have a chronic disease that afflicts millions.

For example, it is estimated that forty percent of diabetics are walking around undiagnosed.

Sometimes the first sign of heart disease is sudden death.

Your body gives you clues as to when things may not be right.  Are you listening?

Through the science of Nutritional Symptomatology, you can answer a few questions and receive a Personal Wellness Review. 

You will be alerted to areas that may need attention.

The Wellness Review can help you make choices to stay healthy or get healthier. 

The Wellness Review is a gift.

To get started, Click on this LINK.

Shaklee Distributor

Grace Health

Happy 2010 New Year!  It’s time for the annual making of resolutions.  What will yours be?

One resolution many make in the New Year is to lose weight.  Is that you?  If it is, you have lots of company and lots of choices.

Those choices may not always be the best.

There are books about magic formulas, low fat, high fat, low carbohydrate, high protein. 

There are magic foods…grapefruit, cabbage soup, berries and chocolate.

I’ve tried a variety in my lifetime.

Cabbage soup….not my favorite.

The worst diet I tried was over 30 years ago.  I see it is still around.  My friend and I decided to do it together.  It was guaranteed to help us lose 10 pounds in 10 days.  This is the diet: Lemon juice, pure maple syrup mixed together and a cayenne pepper capsule.

Whenever I got hungry, this is all I would consume.

I lasted the entire 10 days without cheating.  On the 10^th day, I up-chucked, and it burnt all the way up.  I felt cheated because I only lost 5 pounds and for the next 2 months, my friend and I both caught every “bug” that flew by.  Not a pleasant experience.  It’s still a “Yuck” in my book.

Diets come with hype and lots of scientific sounding mumbo jumbo to show they work.  Despite what you read or hear, losing weight is solely based on the difference between calories in and calories out.

There is no “magic formula”, no “magic diet” and no “magic diet food.”  There are helps though.  Remember calories rule!

Calories in, calories out. 

The diet doesn’t have to be weird to work.

The diet should be healthy in the long run, not just for the diet’s duration.

Remember to exercise.  It increases lean muscle mass which in turn burns more calories.

Don’t start if you’re not going to finish.  It has to become a way of life, otherwise, you go back to your same old habits that got you where you are in the first place.

How did you do over the holidays?  The average weight gain is about 5 pounds.

This year I decided to do something different.  I drank a CINCH SHAKE twice a day as much as possible.  CINCH is a great meal replacement and the best breakfast on the planet.  I also took 3 in 1 BOOST to keep my metabolism going.

To my surprise and delight, I did not gain anything and even lost a bit. 

When making this year’s resolutions, change your life not just your weight.

 Shaklee Distributor

Grace General, Health

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, the song rings in our ears.  We do wish for you a Merry Christmas and hope this next year is a prosperous one for all.

I finally broke down and bought a fake tree this year.  I love the smell of fresh cut trees.  Several of our trees were living trees and they now live in our yard.  They have gotten really big.

Having a tree in the house with a wood stove doesn’t make for a long lasting tree.  The needles are soon dropping to the floor and we could only enjoy the lights for a short time.  We didn’t want it to catch fire.

 So the decision to get a fake one was made this year.  It really is nice keeping the lights on.

We have many Christmas symbols and the tree is one of them. The pure green color of the Christmas tree remains all year.  This shows the everlasting hope of mankind.  The needles point heavenward to remind us that our thoughts should turn toward heaven.

The candy cane represents the shepherds crook. The crook helps bring wandering sheep back to the flock.  It reminds us to show love because we are our brother’s keeper.

Lost sheep are found by the sound of a bell.  The bell rings for mankind to return to the fold.

We put bows on our presents to remind us of the spirit of the brotherhood of man.  As the bow is tied, it is with love and good feelings toward each other.

The symbol of the present reminds us that as we give gifts of love we remember the gifts the wisemen gave to the infant Jesus.

God promised a Savior for the world and gave us a bright new star that shone down from the heavens as fulfillment of that promise.

The wreath is round and represents the eternal nature of love.  It never ceases, stops, or ends.  It is one continuous round of affection.

We can enjoy the fun things of Christmas without forgetting what Christmas represents.  It represents the birth of Christ and His great love for us.  It gives us the opportunity to show our love for each other.

May your Christmas be filled with joy and love.

Grace Family, General

When our family was very young, we wanted to start our own family Christmas Traditions.  Two have stuck with us for over 40 years.  Cinnamon Rolls and decorated Christmas Cookies.

We have cinnamon rolls Christmas morning with hot chocolate.  The other part of the tradition is we share those cinnamon rolls with our close neighbors and friends.  There have been times when I’ve made up to 16 dozen rolls to share.

As Christmas nears, I make a list of who gets rolls.  My grown sons make sure they are on the list.  One neighbor has moved to a warmer climate for the winter but makes sure she comes back around Christmas to get her rolls.

When I first wanted to make these rolls, I asked my mother for the recipe.  She gave me the ingredients, in no particular order and with no instructions.  I had seen my mother make cinnamon rolls for as long as I could remember. Putting them together came very naturally.

I want to share with you my recipe and have included pictures.  I hope yours turn out as well as mine do.  As a matter of interest, this is a very old recipe and the cup of water was used to dissolve the yeast before adding to the mixture.  I still include the water.  I also use a large capacity Kitchen Aid Mixer with a dough hook.  If you don’t have a large mixer, half the recipe in two. 

This recipe can also be used for doughnuts.

Cinnamon Rolls and Doughnut Dough

Mix together: 1 quart milk plus 1 cup water, warm in microwave…not hot.

                        5-6 tablespoons yeast  (I use 6)

                        1 cup sugar

Add:               1 cup butter

                        6 eggs, beaten

                        1 tablespoon vanilla extract

                        1 tablespoon lemon extract

                        1 teaspoon salt

                       12-13 cups flour

Add the yeast to the warm milk and water, then sugar.  Add the remaining ingredients. (I start with a mixing paddle and then switch to the kneading hook when the dough gets thick)  Mix well after each cup of flour until you get to about 10 cups.  Then add the flour ½ to ¼ cup at a time kneading well after each addition of flour.  You want the dough to be soft and just barely sticky.  Too much flour will make your rolls dry.  If you are making it in a mixer, knead for about 15 minutes after all flour is in.

Let the dough rise to double in size in a large bowl sprayed with cooking spray.  (Pam)  For Cinnamon Rolls, work with ½ the dough at a time. (Unless you’ve halved the recipe)  Roll dough out in a rectangular shape on counter sprayed with cooking spray.  Spread the dough with the following in this order:  Soft butter (use real butter in recipe for best results), sprinkle with cinnamon, light layer of brown sugar, sprinkle with raisins and nuts if desired.  (I use pecans)  Starting on the long side, roll dough into a long roll.  Cut into about 1 inch rolls.  Place on baking sheet lined with foil and sprayed with Pam.  Let raise about 15 – 20 minutes. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes. Do not over cook.  You want them slightly brown, not dark.  Cinnamon rolls will continue to raise in the oven as they cook.  Frost while hot with icing made from powdered sugar, milk, and lemon extract. Make the icing thick and it melts into the rolls.  Makes about 4 dozen.

For doughnuts:  Roll dough out, cut with doughnut cutter, let raise, fry in hot oil, glaze with powder sugar, milk, and lemon extract icing.  Make it thin.

The trick to good cinnamon rolls and doughnuts is to not use too much flour or they get dry and hard.  You want the dough sticky but still able to handle without sticking to your fingers.

Mother said you can use this same recipe for bread rolls.  Reduce the sugar to about ½ cup and leave out the vanilla and lemon extracts.

Swithing to the kneading hook.

Dough is ready.

Transferring dough to larger bowl sprayed with Pam to raise.

You can see it is slightly sticky.

I punch it down.

Cover to let raise and double in size.

Dough is ready to roll out.

Spray counter with cooking spray.

Taking the dough out of the bowl.

Roll out the dough.

This is what it looks like.  Don’t roll too thin.

Spread with soft butter

Sprinkle on the cinnamon.

Then add the brown sugar.  A thin layer.

Add raisins and nuts as desired.  As you can see, I’m only doing half the rolled out dough.  I’m putting the following on the other side:  Mixed together 1 cup sugar, 2 tsp. maple flavoring and 2 tsp. cinnamon.  For a different flavor.  Icing is the same except I will use vanilla extract instead of lemon.

Starting to roll from the long side.

Rolling the dough.

All rolled up and ready to cut.

Cutting….

In the pan. Lining the pan with heavy duty foil makes for easier clean up and I can remove all rolls at the same time to give away.

Baked…and ready for icing.

Putting on the icing.  The thick icing will melt into the rolls.  Apply while hot.

All done and ready to eat.  Enjoy!

Grace Family, Recipes

Thanksgiving dinner and other holiday meals don’t have to be unhealthy. Here are some healthy tips.

There are many ingredients in a Thanksgiving dinner that are healthy.  If prepared carefully, turkey can be a healthy, low-fat meat. Sweet potatoes, yams and pumpkin are loaded with vitamin A and other great nutrients.  Cranberries are a nutrition powerhouse.

Here are some tips to make your Thanksgiving meal one
that contributes to your health:

Don’t baste the turkey.  Cook it in a bag to seal in the moisture. Remove the skin before serving.

Refrigerate or add ice cubes to the turkey juices and skim off the hardened fat before  making the gravy.  Use a gravy cup that pours from the bottom to minimize the fat.
  

Bake the stuffing in the oven instead of in the turkey.  Use whole wheat bread, vegetables and fruits.  Add nuts and your favorite spices.

Bake your sweet potatoes or yams instead of candied and let your guests add butter to taste.

Skip the butter for your mashed potatoes. Use skim milk or buttermilk instead of whole milk.

By cooking your green vegetables with garlic, nuts and herbs instead of creamy or fat-laden sauces, you give the meal a gourmet appeal.

Serve your meal on smaller plates to help control portion sizes.  Even a second helping isn’t quite so damaging.

Use a meal replacement product for one or more meals before and after Thanksgiving.  The overall total caloric intake over the three day period will not be so excessive. 

We use a wonderful meal replacement product.  Learn more about Cinch.

Are you getting the idea?  There are many little things you can do to make your holiday dinners healthier.

Here is a little verse. I don’t know who wrote it, enjoy!

May your stuffing be tasty,

May your turkey be plump…

May your potatoes ‘N’ gravy have nary a lump.

May your Yams be delicious,

May your pies take the prize,

May your Thanksgiving dinner stay off of your thighs!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Shaklee Independent Distributor

Grace General

Roger Barnett, owner and CEO of Shaklee, has a vision to “Make a Difference” in the lives of millions of families by providing a healthier life for everyone and a better life for anyone.

Shaklee teamed up with the recipient of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for the Environment, Wangari Maathai.

Wangari became the Global Ambassador for “A Million Trees, a Million Dreams” a Shaklee environmental campaign that raises awareness of global climate change and initiates efforts to plant trees in North America and Africa.  Shaklee reached the “million trees planted in North America” goal this year and continues planting trees.

By taking care of the health of our families, we also make a difference in the health of the planet.

Through the sale of Gold Ambassador Mission PAKs, money is still being raised and trees are still being planted.

This year, Shaklee teamed up with Muhammad Yunus, the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner.  Mr. Yunus established the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in 1983. He is “Banker to the Poor” giving micro loans to men and women to start businesses.

In 2007, Shaklee was recognized for its leadership in offsetting carbon emissions by creating renewable energy in Africa.

In 2008, Shaklee was awarded the Stevie for Best Corporate Environmental Responsibility Program by the American Business Awards.

This year, Shaklee was named to the Top 20 Retail Partner list by the EPA Green Power Partnership and is honored with the Business Environmental Award for Sustainability from Acterra: Action for a Healthy Planet.

By using and sharing Shaklee Products with friends and neighbors, we participate in these awards and we help create healthier lives for everyone and a healthier planet.  JOIN US.

See other Shaklee accomplishments from 1915 to 2009, by clicking THIS 2010 PRODUCT GUIDE LINK.

Shaklee Independent Distributor 

Grace General