Breve lattes, chicken enchiladas, banana cream cheesecake.  What do you do when your list of favorite foods looks like mine?  How is dieting even possible?  I know for me those two questions had taken me many years to answer.  One word that rings synonymous to my dieting journey is "gradual".  I had to take gradual steps to get where I am today.

I remember when my favorite vise was vanilla lattes.  Every afternoon Monday through Thursday I had that liquid dessert  on my mind.  When I found out how many calories were in just one pump of vanilla (20 calories of pure sugar!!!) I knew it was time to scale back.  One thing I know about myself is that I am very calculated in the changes I make to my diet.  I was shocked when I found out my medium latte had 4 pumps of syrup in it!  That's an extra 80 calories.

Healthy pH is 6.0-7.5.  Do you know where you are on the scale?  If you don’t know what it is, you need to.

Test Your Body's Acidity or Alkalinity with pH Strips
It is recommended that you test your pH levels to determine if your body's pH needs immediate attention. By using pH test strips (Litmus Paper), you can determine your pH factor quickly and easily in the privacy of your own home. The best time to test your pH is about one hour before a meal and two hours after a meal.

Foods: are they Acid or Alkaline-forming?
Note that a food's acid or alkaline-forming tendency in the body has nothing to do with the actual pH of the food itself. For example, lemons are very acidic, however the end-products they produce after digestion and assimilation are very alkaline so lemons are alkaline-forming in the body.

Last week I stepped out of my door for my morning run and I heard a familiar small voice say, "today you are going to run up the hill".  I immediately discarded the words I just heard, thinking it is impossible.  I realized as I threw that thought away that I totally believed that there was no way I could ever run up this hill. 

This hill to me looked so big from the bottom up.  It was like trying to run up a huge mountain in my mind.  I know to the next person that would look at this hill and say, "That hill?  Oh, I can fly up that no problem". 

So I started off on my run as I rounded the corner I was flying down the hill.  It was amazing and exhilarating.  The wind blowing across my face as I bolted down the hill.  I got to the spot where I turn around to go back and I heard again, "you will run up the hill today.

Is this scenario a familiar one? Monday through Thursday, you eat well, track your calories and exercise regularly. But come Friday night, these healthy habits tend to get brushed aside and before you know it, anything goes until Monday morning.Many struggle with the weekends, so you're not alone. It is, however, possible to enjoy your time off and stay on track with your goals. Let's take a look at some common issues and possible resolutions to make Saturday and Sunday work for you:

1. Lack of structure

• Plan meals for the weekends if you are going to be at home.

2. Increased social gatherings

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Including something new in a food isn’t always a good idea, especially when it comes to your health. Here are 12 additives to subtract from your diet:

(Please understand these are not my assessments, but those by MSN Health and Fitness.   My comments and recommendations are in my comment below.)

1. Sodium Nitrate (also called Sodium Nitrite)

This is a preservative, coloring, and flavoring commonly added to bacon, ham, hot dogs, luncheon meats, smoked fish, and corned beef. Studies have linked eating it to various types of cancer.

2. BHA and BHT

Butylated hydroxyanisole and butylated hydrozyttoluene are used to preserve common household foods.

Here’s how to find out if you are: Avoid all grains (except rice) for a period of four days.  On Day 5, consume whole wheat bread, whole wheat cereal or whole wheat pancakes for two meals, and note any reactions.  If you are sensitive to gluten, you might notice stomach pain, cramping, or bloating the following day as an outward symptom of gluten intolerance.  If you are sensitive to wheat you may also experience a headache, runny nose, or congestion.  If you test for wheat and gluten and no reactions occur, then it should be safe to assume you can consume whole grains occasionally as part of your carbohydrate intake. Wheat and other gluten-containing grains are often consumed regularly, and this can lead to food allergies and weight gain.  Millions of Americans may be allergic to wheat and/or gluten in the wheat.  Pasta is one of the favorite foods of the high-carb dieter.  In my opinion, it is also one of the most allergenic and fattening foods on this planet. 

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The other day our youngest daughter Brianne was having trouble breathing.  Every time she took a deep breath she said it hurt.  I asked her if she wanted to come to my husband's chiropractic clinic to get adjusted.  She said, “Yes”, that is usually a key indicator that something is really wrong with her.  We got her adjusted.  Her breathing changed right away. So we took her to school.  I told her to listen to her body and if she noticed her breathing change that I would pick her up.  Around 11:00 am she called me and said her breathing was hurting again.  We got her adjusted again immediately after her adjustment the painful breathing had totally disappeared. On the way home we were talking about how amazing an adjustment is;  you can be sick and hurting one minute and the next minute totally fine.

For several million years, humans existed on a diet of animals and vegetation. It was only with the advent of agriculture a mere 10,000 years ago - a fraction of a second in evolutionary time - that humans began ingesting large amounts of sugar and starch in the form of grains (and potatoes) into their diets.

In short, we are consuming far too much bread, cereal, pasta, corn (a grain, not a vegetable), rice, potatoes and Little Debbie snack cakes, with very grave consequences to our health. Making matters worse, most of these carbohydrates we consume come in the form of processed food.

That 65% of Americans are overweight, and 27% clinically obese, in a nation addicted to sesame seed buns for that hamburger, with a side of French fries and a Coke, is no coincidence. It is not the fat in the foods we eat but, far more, the excess carbohydrates from our starch- and sugar-loaded diet that is making people fat and unhealthy, and leading to epidemic levels of a host of diseases such as diabetes.

If you are experiencing any of the following symptoms, chances are very good that the excess carbohydrates in your body are, in part or whole, to blame:

• Excess weight
• Fatigue and frequent sleepiness
• Depression
• Brain fogginess
• Bloating
• Low blood sugar
• High blood pressure
• High triglycerides

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There is a major misconception, even among people who try to eat healthy, that diet soda is a wise choice over regular soda. In reality, there’s no reason to be drinking either one of these atrocities.

What’s wrong with diet soda you ask?

At the top of the list is the fact that the sugar is replaced with artificial sweeteners such as aspartame and sucralose (another term for Splenda). For an in-depth look at just how dangerous these fake sweeteners really are, I suggest you read Sweet Deception, but in the meantime you may be interested to know that they can:

• Stimulate your appetite
• Increase carbohydrate cravings
• Stimulate fat storage and weight gain 

Perhaps even worse, aspartame acts as a neurotransmitter in your brain by facilitating the transmission of information from neuron to neuron. But too much aspartame in your brain kills certain neurons by allowing the influx of too much calcium into your cells. This influx triggers excessive amounts of free radicals, which kill your cells.

I love running!  I love the way the wind runs across my face as I am treading along.  Everything seems to fade away as I step out the door to begin my run.  Turn on my iPod and I am in a whole other world.  Little did I know the run I was about to embark on two days ago was going to be different. 

Every morning before a run I go through the same ritual.  Put my favorite running pants on, a good shirt one that is so big that the wind blows right through it, tie up my shoes and grab my music and I am good to go.  Sunday morning I started my little ritual and all of a sudden I heard a quite little voice, "you won't be needing your iPod today".  I remember thinking, "interesting?"  But to be honest I really wasn't paying attention I was so caught up in the emotion of knowing I was going for a run.