Galantys Game Plan

Prescription drug abuse is on the rise and the users are not the typical street junkies that come to mind.  Teenagers, soccer moms, and white collar businessmen are the people falling prey to this relatively new phenomenon.  The drugs are easy to get, cheap and people falsely believe they are safer than street drugs since they are prescribed by a doctor. Vicodin, oxycotin, Read the rest of this entry →

My son Evan was a ball of energy from birth.  After a tough labor and delivery, he came out screaming and didn’t stop for the next 4 months.  At 6 weeks of age, he could lift his entire head and shoulders up while lying on his stomach, at 8 weeks old he could roll over, and at 10 months old he was up and running.  We had to baby-proof our house to the extreme.  All exit doors and windows had to have dead bolts installed…visitors thought it was Fort Knox.  We had to do it just to keep Evan from escaping.  I recall once turning my back on him when he was about 2 years old and he had somehow managed to climb up onto the countertop; he was standing there preparing to literally swing from the chandelier.  Suffice it to say, he was an active child.

Being our first, we really didn’t think too much of all this…it must be typical boy behavior.  When he turned three, we enrolled him in a local pre-school.  It lasted a Read the rest of this entry →

The way most Americans eat has changed quite dramatically from the 20^th century until present day.  Locally grown, home cooked foods have been replaced by processed, refined foods that come in a box.  Most of the nutrition has been stripped away during the processing and chemicals have been added to enhance the flavor and extend the shelf life.  Read the rest of this entry →

I never knew I had sweat glands in my shins.  I kept wondering where the water pouring down my legs was coming from…my shins and knees couldn’t possibly be producing sweat.  Perhaps my vision was just blurred from the sweat pouring off of the tip of my nose and I was starting to hallucinate.  I’m not typically a sweater, so all of this liquid pouring from my body was a bit disturbing to me.  The source of all the sweating…I was in the midst of my first hot yoga class.

Hot yoga, for the uninitiated, is officially known as Bikram Yoga. It involves going through a series of 26 poses—the exact same poses in the exact same order Read the rest of this entry →

The constant rain and cold temperatures in the Northeast has put me into quite a funk.  I have never craved sunshine so much in all of my life.  Vitamin D deficiency aside, the lack of sun has left me feeling rather depressed lately.  What to do?  A quick trip to the Caribbean is under consideration, but if that doesn’t pan out, out of desperation, I am turning to bananas.  I have been hearing for quite some time that they are happy food.  There is actually some validity to this concept.  Bananas contain tryptophan, an essential amino acid that the body converts to serotonin.  Serotonin makes you relax, improves your mood and makes you happier.

Bananas have always been a staple of mine pre and post workout.  I eat one before going to the gym and usually drink a smoothie containing bananas afterwards as well.   Read the rest of this entry →

It never ceases to amaze me when I hear a parent say their child only eats (fill in the blank) or when I hear people refer to “kid food”. What exactly is kid food?  Kids should be eating the same food we adults are eating and they will eagerly do so if given the chance.  Every year at my children’s elementary school Field Day, I spend two days handing out healthy snacks that are very generously donated by our local health food store Wild By Nature as well as our local East Quogue Farmstand. The snacks include apple slices with peanut butter, oranges, carrots, red peppers, celery and cucumbers.  The kids attack our table, devouring everything, as if they’ve never been fed before.

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If you had any doubt left in your mind about why it’s a good idea to buy products, this You Tube video clip that a reader alerted me to will set you straight.  It shows some interesting statistics that most people don’t even consider when making food purchases such as the energy consumed with producing the product and shipping it across the United States and often times abroad. The timing of this clip is perfect, since the local growing season is in full swing right now.  I just  picked up my second box of organically grown vegetables from the Golden Earthworm CSA and I feel good knowing that not only am I putting healthy food on my family’s plates, but I am helping the environment and the local farmers as well.

Here in the Northeast, we have been sunlight deprived lately.  It has been a cold, wet spring.  Not only is sunshine necessary for our sanity, but in its absence, it is very difficult to get a sufficient amount of vitamin D.  Sunshine has been on our forbidden list for quite some time for fear of developing a deadly form of skin cancer; everyone now lathers on half a bottle of sunscreen before walking out the door to protect themselves.  As a result, vitamin D deficiency has been on the rise and it is much more serious than most people realize. 

Vitamin D may be the most underrated nutrient in the world of nutrition.  The New England Journal of Medicine states that almost half of all patients in intensive care units are deficient in vitamin D, a common thread increasingly being linked to all kinds of serious illnesses Read the rest of this entry →

Fasting is not some new age hype that all the skinny people talk about.  It is an often ignored, age old custom that is our oldest health remedy.  Fasting is simply taking a break from food…as simple as it is, it can be quite therapeutic.  It takes a lot of energy to digest food.  Those internal organs are hard at work after we ingest a meal.  When we stop taking in food, our digestive system gets a chance to take a rest and our bodies will automatically heal themselves by eliminating toxins and balancing the body’s chemistry.  Health is restored through cleansing.

Years of a diet filled with artificial flavors and dyes, preservatives, pesticides and rancid oils (not to mention the air and water pollution we are exposed to)  takes its toll.  Our systems Read the rest of this entry →

Live to share. What a simple yet profound statement. I wish I could take credit for coming up with it, but I can’t. It was written on my Yogi tea bag this morning (I buy that brand of tea just for the daily inspiration). If more people looked at life from the perspective that their purpose is to share, there would be less violence and more joy and comradery in the world. By sharing your life experiences and knowledge with others, you not only enrich their lives but your own as well. It is rewarding to know you are helping someone else. You know you are doing your life’s work if you are willing to do it for free.

What do you want to share with others? It could be a hobby such as gardening, cooking, or painting, or it could be a professional skill like bookkeeping, carpentry, or computer skills. It may just be words of wisdom from Read the rest of this entry →