1.         Toast pumpkin seeds and enjoy!

2.         Season some nuts, making black pepper almonds, sweet and spicy cashews and others.

3.         Cut up raw vegetables such as carrot sticks, celery, broccoli and more. Add in some healthy tips such as guacamole, salsa or hummus.

Have fun watching the game – and do so in a healthy way with these Cinergy Health tips.

Certainly, you can first check if there is another doctor within the first doctor’s practice that you’ll like more.  You should also look through the list of doctors offered by your health plan so that you don’t go out of plan and spend more.  To narrow your list, you could check Internet sites, but Lewin cautions that some of those ratings may be filled out by office staff or by angry patients.

Next, talk with friends to get recommendations and see if you can have an introductory visit with a few of the doctors.  Dr. Lewin, the Medical Director of the health plan provider started by Daniel Touizer, offers sound advice.  As she says, “A doctor can’t take care of you. He or she can educate you how to take care of yourself. That’s important. You want someone who can explain the diagnosis, what to do about it and the short-term and long-term implications.”

One form of exhaustion is “burn-out” which occurs when you work incredibly long hours without paying attention to other important areas of your life.  Eventually you simply stop in your tracks and can’t move on.  To avoid this, you need to take time for yourself and others each day to relax and to focus on other areas.

Sometimes, the cause of exhaustion is anemia.  This can make you slow down – either gradually or dramatically.  If you feel incredibly weak or in pain, you should seek immediate medical attention. For the long term, you should make sure to get enough iron and to take important vitamins such as B12.

Certainly, in general, to avoid exhaustion you need to get enough sleep and exercise.  Eat a well-balance diet, take time every day to relax and give yourself time to explore new things and not to focus all the time on work.

1. Pick Your Personal World Record – Rather than having a flimsy goal, make a specific goal and target, and then stick to it.
2. Don’t Just Exercise – Train – Don’t just exercise with the focus on your body and your weight; you need to exercise with the focus on better health.  Train to be a better swimmer, biker, hiker, etc. rather than always thinking about what that activity is doing for your calorie count or your weight.
3. Join a Gold Medal Team – As the medical director of Cinergy Health, founded by Daniel Touizer, says, you should join a team to get inspiration from each other.  “Accountability is a great motivator,” she says. “When you have people watching your back, you begin to feel a responsibility to reach your goals together.”

First of all, the CDC highly recommends that you stay home if you are sick.  Get the H1N1 vaccine and wash your hands as much as possible.  Dr. Margaret Lewin, the medical director of the health plans program started by Daniel Touizer, Cinergy Health, recommends that you stay hydrated if you are flying.  Avoid touching your face on the trip as much as possible, since that’s how germs transfer to you, and wash your hands as much as possible.

Stay healthy on your trip by eating well, taking Vitamin D, and getting plenty of sleep.  Enjoy!

If you think you may lose your job, you should look for new coverage quickly so that you don’t have a 60 day wait period for coverage.  In addition, you don’t want to have health problems classified as pre-existing conditions with the new plan.

Try to negotiate discounts for your current doctors and locate free and reduced rate clinics, as well as federal and state plans that might help with your coverage.

Eat frequent, small meals while you travel to avoid hypoglycemia and nausea and make sure to get up and move every two to three hours on a plane or in a car.

Make sure to pack comfortable shoes and to bring your medical records with you, should you have problems while you are away.

1.    Explore the possibility of moving your office space. The rate of commercial rental space availability has reached 10% and higher in many places. This drives rental costs down. You can also re-negotiate your lease at a lower rate if moving proves to be an inconvenience or impossibility.
2.    Raw materials costs have also gone down. Be sure you pay the correct amount based on demand. Look for sales on everything from office supplies to office furniture.
3.    Asses the costs of your work force. You may find talented people available for the same or less than what you are paying now, who are eager to work, even for lower salaries.
4.    Encourage workers to practice healthier lifestyles. More sleep, exercise, good nutrition and the like will increase productivity and reduce sick days. Even consider giving health club memberships as bonuses or offer discounts as part of a “healthy employee” plan.
5.    Allow your employees to choose from a variety of health plan options. The closer a health plan is to the needs of its members, the less expensive it can be

As we all look forward to 2010 we can resolve to do the  best we can to cut costs and encourage healthier lifestyles.

While it is certainly a good sign that the number of smokers in the United States has gone down by 18.5% since 1995, the number of people considered obese has risen by close to 85% in the same time span. Obesity has surpassed smoking as the country’s number one preventative health concern.

But there is no reason to be discouraged. The CEO of Cinergy Health, Daniel Touizer believes people will take their health into their own hands when they realize the dangers of obesity and that they can effect change with just a bit of extra effort.

Dr. Margaret Lewin, the medical director at Cinergy Health, has developed 5 easily doable tips to help you get into shape and stay healthy and save money, too.

a.    Alcohol is quite caloric. Lay off the liquor, including wine and beer. Even just a 50% reduction in consumption will save you a lot of calories, and keep you healthier, too.
b.    Activate your walking muscles. Get going! Just walking for 20 minutes a day will make a difference in your overall health. Try and avoid elevators and remember to park a few minutes away from your final destination just to achieve a few extra minutes of muscles in motion.
c.    Water, water everywhere, and all of it to drink! You only think you’re hungry. Miss read body alerts make you reach for that chocolate bar instead of wonderful, cool, clear cup of water. When you are on a weight reduction program you need extra water to wash away toxins and impurities from your body. On average a person needs between 8-10 cups of water each day.
d.    You are what you eat. Stay away from foods which have lots of calories and very little nutritional value. Instead eat wholesome foods which taste good and are good for you, such as meat, dairy, fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes. Yum!
e.    Get to bed earlier. Sleep is a crucial, yet forgotten, part of good health and fitness. Your body needs to rest to stay strong and in good working order.

Keep the weight off and help keep the country’s medical bill down.

With these statistics in mind, the Medical Director of Cinergy Health, Dr. Margaret Lewin, offers the following tips.  In the course of each day, try to exercise for at least 20 minutes, drink 8-10 cups of water, and eat a balanced diet with about 2000 calories a day.  Sleep 6-7 hours each night, and cut back on alcohol consumption.

As Daniel Touizer explains, “Cinergy Health created this guide to encourage Americans to take charge of their healthcare, which will in turn lower premiums.” Here’s to a happy – and healthy – 2010.

The Medical Director of Cinergy Health, Dr. Margaret Lewin, offers the following suggestions.

1. Get your vaccines!  You can get both the seasonal flu vaccine and H1N1 at the same time.
2. When you cough or sneeze, do so either into a tissue or into the crooks of your arm. This will help to prevent germs from spreading.
3. Wash your hands as often as possible with soap and water or with hand sanitizer that has at least 60% ethyl alcohol in it.  Wash at least 20 seconds before each meal.
4. If you begin to have flu-like symptoms, stay home from work!  Even though it may be difficult for you to miss the time from work, you’ll be keeping others aware from the flu and may help your body to recover faster.
5. Don’t return to work until you’ve been fever-free for at least 24 hours.  You are the most contagious, according to Dr. Lewin, while you have a fever.

Use these important tips from Cinergy Health to have a healthy winter that is flu-free!

But just because its common and we’ve all been through it doesn’t mean we really know the truth about getting sick with a cold or the flu. Here are a few facts about colds and flu from the CEO of Cinergy health, Daniel Touizer, and the medical director, Dr. Margaret Lewin.

Influenza Virus

Coronavirus

Did you know that although there are many things in common between colds and the flu, they are not the same thing and are caused by different types of viruses? Both cause trouble to the upper respiratory system, causing stuffy noses, watery eyes, coughing, sneezing, discomfort breathing and the like; but the common cold is caused by many different viruses all of which are in either the adenovirus or coronavirus family, while the “flu” is caused by the influenza virus. The common cold is nothing more than a nuisance that we quickly recover from, but the flu, although usually we recover from this as well, can sometimes lead to very serious complications resulting is a lengthy illness and even sometimes in death.

Adenovirus

Because of the potential serious nature of the flu, it is prudent to become vaccinated against the possibility of the “flu” turning into something much worse. Check with your doctor or other healthcare provider and consider seriously becoming immunized against this winter’s influenza virus.

Explaining that “the house healthcare bill is far from perfect,” Daniel Touizer commented that, “at least it is a step towards expanding access to affordable health coverage for all Americans.”

“Unfortunately,” according to Mr. Touizer, “the House healthcare bill is radically off the mark from what meaningful health reform needs to address. While it contains elements of an effective healthcare reform bill such as emphasis on prevention and healthcare affordability, it fails to tackle the roots of rising healthcare costs.”

Daniel Touizer would like to see legislation with more of an emphasis on promoting healthier life styles and habits, as well as a reduction in the cost of medicines and drugs and hospital-based care. Also allowing consumers access to health care coverage over state lines could help increase competition and decrease prices to consumers of healthcare coverage.

Mr. Touizer, who is an entrepreneur and small business expert at the helm of Cinergy Health, is leading the way in finding solutions to some of the most perplexing health care issues now being debated in the turbulent health care discussion in the U.S.

Daniel Touizer would like to see U.S. legislation which has a stronger focus on reducing rising costs of healthcare and improving the health of Americans through better, healthier living and lifestyles.

Among our bad eating habits is our obsession with salty foods. Calling these high salt content snacks “food” is really a stretch, yet we as a nation gobble them up like mad. And when times are tough, as they are now during the present economic turn down, we eat even more of them. It is estimated that potato chips and their food-stuff relatives found in the same supermarket aisle have been consumed as much as 20% more in recent economic crisis.

So what’s wrong with chips, pretzels, and other such crunchy treats? For one thing, a surfeit of sodium leads to hypertension, high blood pressure and other diseases affecting the cardiovascular system.

“Heart disease and strokes are the first and third leading causes of death in the United States,”

said Margaret Lewin of Cinergy Health.

“We estimate that the total cost to health care to treat both these diseases is as high as $475 billion a year,”

she said.

Daniel Touizer, CEO of Cinergy concurs with the Institute of Medicine that adults consume a maximum of 2,300 mg or just one teaspoon of salt each day. According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) the average American eats 50% more salt than the recommended amount, about 3,436 mg daily.

The Rand Corporation research group said in a September report on this issue that if our nation reduced sodium intake to the recommended levels, we would save about $18 billion each year in health care costs.