My new favorites

I have two favorite new gadgets.

1- The Z-Pen digital pen I got for Christmas. It's a pen that digitally remembers what I wrote and then plugs into my PC and downloads the notes I took and saves either as an image or as a PDF. I LOVE IT! I use it all the time at work. There is also OCR capabilities, but I haven't installed the software to do that. Its working just as I need it to, so why bother :)

2- The Magic Bullet (get your mind out of the gutter...it's a blender).

I make no less than 2 fruit smoothies a day (usually one for me and one for Hubs). They're soooo quick and easy using TMB. You literally put the ingredients into the cup, screw on the blade, blend for about 10 seconds, and then take off the blade, put on the colored ring and drink! I cut up the fruit before I put it in the cup (helps it fit better), but you don't even have to do that. You could just throw in strawberries and 2 banana halves, add crushed ice and some OJ...blend and BAM!

I've also made hummus and guacamole using TMB.

My favorite thing is that the blender becomes the mug. You don't blend the ingredients and then pour the smoothie into a cup.

My Sister-in-love asked for one for Christmas, so before we purchased it for her, I got online to research it b/c I didn't know what TMB was or how it worked. Then when we tripped down to KY for New Years, I picked one up (on a whim) at Costco. The mother-in-love got one, too. I couldn't be happier with this snap decision purchase!

Without a doubt, it is one of the best purchases I've made in a long time.

They cost about $50...but if you catch a sale, you can get 'em for less than $40.

It's definitely worth the price. I use mine twice a day, MINIMUM. I've already used it 3 times today :)

The most difficult part of eating healthy is keeping enough fruit around to make the smoothies. I've already RUN OUT of strawberries and bananas...TWICE! Seriously, how many of you ever imagined I would complain about not having enough FRUIT around?

You can make much more than just smoothies. Besides the aforementioned hummus and guacamole, you can also make salsa, chop onions, veggies, etc for salads, recipes, salad dressing and a lot more.

I'm in love!

Great Women's health article

My Aunt, Shennie (well, it's really Sher, but she stole Jennie's left kidney from her, so I call her Shennie now) emailed me a fantastic article about Vitamin D that a friend emailed her.

Two things regarding this article:

1) I LOVE that Shennie received it from a friend- I'm telling ya'll, its contagious! I'm not kidding when I say I have my Vitamin D groupies that email me articles they find, or tell me about a news broadcast they heard in which the D hormone was discussed. There are people from college I only heard from once or twice a year, but now I routinely will receive an email from them with the usual, "here is yet another article I found in my med school journal discussing D....thought about you" email. It's great! Often times, what they're sending me is stuff that someone sent them. It's like the 6 degrees of Vitamin D. If you're not in the know, well, I just feel sorry for you (and your body and your family and your friends).

2) This article, which was written specifically to address womens health, is the one of the best articles I've read about D. The Ob/GYN Nurse Practitioner who authored the article did a wonderful job. You know an article that begins, "I just returned from a conference where everyone was discussing Vitamin D" is going to be a winner.

It is very well written, goes into great detail about how the D hormone works and why it's so important to your cells. And, unlike the dangerously uninformed/ill-informed medical professionals who are still only suggesting 1,000 IU/daily, this article cites the numerous studies that suggest our bodies need 5,000 IU/daily to MAINTAIN a good level. And, considering most of us are deficient in the vital hormone, we need more than 5,000 IU to get our storage levels to optimal levels. This often requires 10,000 IU/daily. The article also correctly promotes the use of D3 (cholecalciferol) over D2 (ergocalciferol, which is only 1/3 as effective as D3 and is the plant form of the hormone).

It also correctly points out that Vitamin D discriminates. Older people, dark skinned people and those with certain medical conditions are often severely, severely D deficient. It's the ideal way to level the playing field in medicine.

Its very encouraging to see an article of this caliber being published by a medical professional.

As my dad says, "the best, most compassionate way to reduce the cost of health care is to make Americans healthier." And thats exactly what we're doing here in our little town just outside of St. Louis. We're making Americans healthier and changing lives. It never gets old. And I love it.