Tina Turbin

     First of all, there is the matter of reducing the amount of TV your family watches to just a few shows a week. In order to do this, I recommend a family meeting to discuss your goals as a family and as individuals. Then take an honest look at what everyone is getting out of television. Everyone will agree that they should watch less TV and spend more time pursuing their own goals. With a meeting like this, your kids and spouse will be much more likely to go along with their new lifestyle of less TV because they’ll understand the reason behind it.

     I highly recommend implementing a service such as TiVo ® to help keep TV watching to a minimum. After deciding on the reasons for watching less TV, each family member can decide on a handful of shows to watch together as a family, plus a personal favorite or two, to watch only during designated watching times—Friday nights or Sunday afternoons, for example.

     Finally, come up with stimulating alternatives. Take the kids to the library or play board games. Have larger, longer family dinners at the table. Keeping everyone busy will get their minds off this missing element in their lives. I highly recommend using this time to get the kids to strengthen their reading skills and develop a strong interest in reading. Soon you might find that your family—gasp!—may prefer reading over watching TV.

Tina Turbin

Tina Turbin

So how much should you take? The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends eating fish twice a week, especially fatty fish like mackerel, lake trout, herring, sardines, albacore tuna, and salmon. These are high in EPA and DHA. The AHA also recommends eating tofu and other soybean products and canola, walnut, and flaxseed, and their oils, which contain (LNA), which can become omega-3 fatty acid in the body, but more research is needed in order to establish that there’s cause-and-effect relationship between alpha-linolenic acid and preventing heart disease. On the AHA website, you can find exact recommendations on how much omega-3 oils to eat each day.

As with a many good-for-you supplements, you may not notice changes right away, but within a few weeks, I suspect you’ll start to reap the benefits of an improved complexion, higher endurance, and increased ability to concentrate. In the end, you’re investing not only in your current physical and mental well-being, but also in your future as you age.

Tina Turbin

The renowned and distinguished School Library Journal LOVES my Danny the Dragon children’s book series just as much as the kids do.

A terrific review of the Danny the Dragon Meets Jimmy DVD was published in the June 2010 issue.  I’m very pleased to share it with you below.

Tina Turbin

Danny the Dragon Meets Jimmy. DVD. 21 min. Imagination Publishing Group.2009, 2010 release.

PreS-Gr 3–When Jimmy and Sally visit the beach, they find a beautiful shell and take it home with them. They soon discover that it houses a dragon named Danny, wearing red tennis shoes and carrying a yellow backpack, and his navigator friend, Skipper. Danny and Skipper have dinner with Jimmy’s family and stay the night. The picture book by Tina Turbin (Imagination Pub. Group, 2008) closes with a promise that the friendly dragon will guide the children through a series of upcoming adventures. The DVD opens with a message from the author. Interpreter Carol Downing signs the entire story, standing on the right side of the screen as the pages turn. The fun cartoon illustrations by Aija Jasuna are scanned. Sound effects add to the narration, underscoring word meaning and helping children with some hearing identify sounds. Recommended especially for schools and libraries seeking to offer a greater variety of material to hearing-impaired children.

–Mary Landrum, Lexington Public Library, KY

     It all begins with a little planning. Some restaurants offer menus online. This way, you can choose a meal ahead of time; this makes you more likely to choose something healthy, just in case you are pressured to decide quickly what you want while you’re at the restaurant or in case you arrive super hungry with your eyes bigger than your stomach, so to speak. Avoid arriving hungry by staying well-fed throughout the day between meals with small, high-protein snacks, so you don’t over-indulge when you eat out.

     So what should you choose? Avoid fried and battered foods, which are high in calories and fat. A lot of American restaurants will accommodate your individual needs, so you can ask to have your food prepared another way such as grilled, broiled, roasted or steamed. As a healthy side, you can ask for steamed vegetables or a salad instead of greasy French fries.

     So you’re at the restaurant and you’ve ordered yourself a delicious healthy meal of grilled chicken and steamed vegetables, for example. Your next challenge? The generous portions are two to three big as what you’re accustomed to. Go ahead and split it with someone or ask to have half of it already packed to-go so you can enjoy it later.

     You will be plenty satisfied with your lean protein-packed, low-fat, low-carbohydrate meal, but if everyone else is ordering dessert, you can ask for some fruit and a coffee drink to keep yourself occupied with an item of yours instead of staring at the others’ plates.

     For a regular, well-balanced diet, I recommend home cooking, but there will be times when you’ll have to or want to eat out. If you follow these tips above, you’ll be able to stick to your healthy diet and feel great during and after your dining-out experience.

Tina Turbin

I am really thrilled to share this good news. My children’s book on DVD with sign interpretation, Danny the Dragon has made a PR headliner on the ever popular and important, Deafness Research Foundation site:

http://www.drf.org/news/133/Widely-Acclaimed,+Award-Winning+Children’s+Author+Produces+DVD+for+the+Deaf+

Tina Turbin www.glutenfreehelp.info

Sixty percent of Americans are deficient in Vitamin D. Your doctor will be able to test you for a deficiency with a simple blood test. An optimum level is above 35 ng/mL. The daily recommended value is about 2,200 IU a day with some sun exposure of about fifteen to twenty minutes a day. Some researchers suggest as much as 5,000 IU every day during the winter when sunshine is at its lowest levels. If you choose to take it as a supplement, make sure you take D3, which is the same type of Vitamin D your body produces. Foods that are rich in Vitamin D are milk, cold-water fish, and egg yolk.

Tina Turbin

With these tips, you should be enjoying higher energy levels in no time as well as quite a few other benefits. Getting others to do some chores and getting yourself some more sleep might at first seem make you feel a little guilty, but in the end, you’ll find that, with your extra get-up-and-go, you’ll be able to do your mom job even better.

Tina Turbin

     Julianne Holt-Lunstad, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology at Brigham Young University, has found that dealing with people who arouse conflicted feelings in us can raise blood pressure more than dealing with people we don’t like. Participants were hooked up to portable blood pressure monitors, and Holt-Lunstad and her colleagues found that blood pressure was highest when people were interacting with someone they had mixed feelings for. What especially surprised Holt-Lunstad was that these interactions caused higher blood pressure than those with people the research subjects felt completely negative about. She explains, “We suspect that people we feel positive toward can hurt us that much more when they make a snide comment or don’t come through for us because they are important to us. Friends may help us cope with stress, but they also may create stress.”

     Having lots of friends can boost your immune system, help you survive longer after a heart attack, fight serious illnesses such as cancer, and increase your life span. With such positive advantages, you should make sure to increase your number of friends, but also keep in mind the importance of avoiding stressful, low-quality friendship and seeking out positive companionship.

Tina Turbin