Being someone who is fairly active this bit of information came as a bit of a shock. I’m no couch potato, but I do sit in front of a computer, sometimes for hours on end. Check out these statistics and you may want to get up and walk around.

As soon as you sit:
• Electrical activity in the leg muscles shuts off
• Calorie burning drops to 1 per minute
• Enzymes that help break down fat drop 90%
• After 2 hrs. good cholesterol drops to 20%
• After 24 hrs. insulin effectiveness drops 24% and the risk of diabetes rises
• People with sitting jobs have twice the rate of cardiovascular disease as people with standing jobs
• People, today, are sitting on average 9.2 hrs. a day, while sleeping 7.7 hrs. a day
• Sitting 6+ hrs. a day makes you up to 40% likelier to die within 15 yrs. than someone who sits less than 3 hrs. a day
• Obese people sit for 2.5 MORE hrs. per day than thin people
• Between 1980 and 2000:
—exercise rates stayed the same
—sitting time increased 8%
—obesity doubled
• Sitting expends almost no energy
• Walking burns 3-5 times the calories that sitting does
• Of those who sit in front of the TV at least 3 hrs. per day, those who exercise are just as fat as those who don’t

Look, we all have to work and most of us have to sit. You can help deter the effects of long-term sitting by standing up at least once an hour and taking a short walk, even if it’s down the hall or around the office.

To put it simply—
STAND UP FOR YOURSELF!

Facts: ~http://lifehacker.com

Sheri Barnes is a Fitness Coach & Trainer, Speaker and Author. Her new book—MAMA KNOWS FITNESS: Bells, Balance & Your Body helps you find time in your life to exercise through a fast and effective exercise medium—KETTLEBELLS. Visit www.mamaknowsfitness.com to learn more or call 215.880.4704 if interested in training, coaching or to schedule a speaking engagement.

355 Righters Mill Road, Gladwyne; 610-888-4810; www.shopminadanielle.com —AG

It doesn’t matter what happened to you.
It matters what you do with what happened to you.

That can apply to many situations in life, but it could just as easily be a motto for the power of public assistance. Having my medical bills covered has been an integral part of my new sustainable lifestyle. I’m healthy and I’m not burdened with a monthly bill that’s constantly out of my reach, which means that I can work within my community at lower rates and teach part-time. And unlike the relentless cycle that health insurance has become, hospital assistance has provided me with a means to an end. I’m saving more money and gradually phasing out of the program.

Beans and seeds rarely seem to surface in discussions of restructuring diets. Maybe it’s the fart jokes from junior high resonating. Or the perception that they’re too hard to incorporate into non-vegetarian cooking.
Either way, you’re missing out. Don’t infer from their small size that they’re not a source of anything worthwhile. Truth is, they’re among the nutrient-densest foods.
Allow me to acquaint you with three of my favorites from each family. And come the end of this article, you’ll see why size, in fact, does not matter.

The Seeds
Chia A tablespoon contains eight grams of carbs, five grams of fat and three grams of protein, but over half of that fat are omega-3 fatty acids, which improve heart, brain and cellular health. Chia seeds also possess an abundance of minerals. Ten percent of your recommended daily dose of calcium can be found in that teaspoon.
Their crunch plays well with cereal, yogurt and almond butter. I also eat them as a paste. Add one part chia seeds to three parts water and give them a few hours. Then, drizzle with some fresh lemon or lime juice.

Pumpkin High in magnesium and higher in antioxidants. A quarter cup contains almost half your recommended daily intake of magnesium, which, alone, should make it irresistible to those who exercise regularly and are, as a result, usually deficient. Magnesium’s harder to come by than most vitamins. So when you find a robust source like pumpkin seeds, take advantage.

Sunflower Also rich in antioxidants, especially vitamin E, which helps boost the immune system, too. They’re a good source of magnesium—25 percent of the daily recommendation in a quarter cup—as well as vitamins B1 and B6, which help convert carbs to fuel and metabolize fats and protein; copper, a key ingredient in the production and storage of iron; and selenium, an antioxidant that also appears to have some impact on cancer. Early studies have shown a lower rate of cancer-related deaths among people with a higher-than-average intake of selenium.
The Beans
Lentils Bursting at they’re skins with fiber (15 grams in a quarter-cup’s worth), protein (13 grams), vitamins and minerals (25 percent of your recommended daily portion of folate and 10 percent of  your iron). All that and less than a gram of fat. Basically, lentils are a nutritional beast. Eat them to fuel a workout and to recover from one.

Kidney Not quite the same powerhouse, but no slouch in their own right. At three grams of protein per quarter-cup, nine grams of carbs, three grams of fiber and 14 percent of your recommended daily intake of folate, kidney beans are a solid go-to if you’re crunching calories.

Fava Largely similar in profile to the kidney bean. Where it distinguishes itself is with the wondrous levodopa, which is converted to dopamine, known for its mood-lifting and anti-depressant potential. As if that’s not good enough, levodopa also triggers the release of growth hormone, which combats fat and tones muscle.
Before you go all in on a full-fava diet, hem your expectations. It’s never that effortless. But a little (a few servings a week) should provide a noticeable difference.

Todd Soura is the owner of the Doylestown-based Action Personal Training (215-230-8923; www.actionpersonaltraining.com). Read Todd’s blog at www.buckslifemag.com.

Tastes are always evolving. But, talking strictly within the confines of our eating habits, it’s felt, for some time now, as though we’re hurtling toward a watershed moment, where we’ll be presented not just with the next generation but an entirely new way of existing.
Just how much have we changed? We don’t need to venture any further back than the turn of the century for a telling sample. With the dawn of the millennium, we began to embrace in earnest the worlds beyond our own in true American fashion: We adopted unfamiliar tastes and tried to make them our own, authenticity be damned.
Fusion cuisine—hybrid meals created through Asian flavor profiles, revered French preparations and curious, but cautious, American sensibilities—grabbed hold of our taste buds.
At first glance, the comfort food we sought out in the wake of 9/11 seemed like a step backward by comparison. But much like life as a whole at that time, imaginative chefs seized the opportunity and created a new normal: an aged cheese-and-lump lobster meat mac ‘n’ cheese, for example. Pizza underwent a bit of gentrification, too, the renewed interest producing pies topped with edamame, ricotta and goat cheeses, caramelized onions, fresh mint and a drizzle of lemon vinaigrette. Even cupcakes were elevated to gourmet fare. They would be the first signs of an artisan-type meticulousness and pride in cooking.
Just before the bottom dropped out of the economy, we learned our new favorite word: organic. In its earliest usage, it was tied to indulgence because it was cost-prohibitive for daily use by the masses. But as we began our gradual retreat inward, placing more and more value in the idea of sustaining our own community, and farmers markets, in turn, morphed from novelty to legitimate resource, organic hung on and started to inch toward mainstream acceptance. Natural was OK, if inconvenient at times.
We accepted—are still learning to accept—that eating with the local seasons can be limiting, especially now, and more expensive, but more satisfying in so many ways. Straightforward farm-to-table dining, in turn, is less about exploring a new frontier, the path that progress typically follows, and more a means to humble ourselves, to get back in touch with our roots, figuratively and literally. It’s about taking ownership of and finding pride in our own foodstuffs, incorporating them into our identity.
Reinvesting in our smallest circles does not come at the cost of a global perspective. The inroads are too deep. If anything, it’s encouraging our budding interest because here it turns out that that’s how much of the rest of the world lives, out of want and necessity.
Where locally-sourced eating may have remained on the fringes here in a booming economy, sustained by the wants of a few, it became a rallying cry when our operating system froze. Then, just like with the comfort food, we realized it was ripe for the picking all along.
The question before us now, and what truly makes this an on-the-cusp moment, is not, what comes after farm-to-table cooking, but, how do we lift the lifestyle from a subcommunity to the community?

Cailen Ascher is the founder and writer of the blog, www.lifestylemaven.org. Follow her on Twitter at @CailenAscher.

The Age of Convenience is a false façade. Sure, most everything that comprises our daily lives is easier to do and to manage than it was even 10 years ago, but such efficiency has propelled us to chase relentless to-do lists.
To think, Two of me would be so much better, is to (a.) ignore all the fruit that your Type-A self has plucked, peeled and whipped into a thick, delicious smoothie in the Vitamix Advance Blending Station that you had to have, and (b.) acknowledge that your significant other is, in fact, useless when it comes to household chores, shuttling your children and resolving the burning rubber smell that wafts through the vents of your Outback. Still, we’ve all been there.
Enter Teresa Watkins, your other you. Or rather, the owner of Time Sweet Time (www.timesweettime.net), a personal concierge service based in Blue Bell. While the former aspiring news anchor names among her clients a pro baseball player, a Princeton, New Jersey, socialite and a former reality show contestant, the crux of her business, says the wife and mother of three, is everyday business—lining up landscapers, booking flights, snagging the elusive Saturday-night reservation at The Farm and Fisherman.
She’s hardly the household name that she should be, but then, the credit’s yours to claim. Don’t worry. She won’t spill. She won’t name names, at least.

How would you sum up your product?
It’s kind of like trimming the fat and inefficiencies. I can tell you this, just in general, people don’t know they have access to this type of service. You can have one entity managing your whole life.
I would imagine you’ve encountered your fair share of divas.
Last-minute things are the most demanding. Like, “Please set up a reservation at the hottest restaurant in LA (on short notice).” But I don’t really have high-maintenance clients. That would drive me crazy.
Were you always a go-to person for getting things done?
We had a lot of structure in our household with my dad being in the Navy. We had to make our beds every day, and my locker was extremely neat.
Was there a light-bulb moment when you realized you could parlay your personality into profit?
I was into my 14th year in corporate America. I had become a mom, and my work-life balance was really off. The time came when the economy hit the skids in 2008. People were holding onto jobs and I decided to leave. I couldn’t afford to be miserable.
Let’s say you get one day to be your own personal concierge.
How would you pamper yourself?
I would get a massage and a facial or a pedicure. Or if I’m home, I’ll light some candles and take a bubble bath. I don’t need to go to Paris. If you just send me to a spa, I’m good.

If you’ve never been to a working dairy farm, you owe it to yourself—and your children—to visit one before the endangered species becomes extinct.
From a safe distance, farming appears to be enjoying a return to glory of sorts. But come closer and you’ll see, as I did, that the reception may be warmer, but it’s still one of the hardest-earned livings.
Fulper Farm is a fifth-generation-owned dairy farm in West Amwell, New Jersey, just outside of Lambertville, that houses 120 Holstein cows. Mary Fulper founded the farm over a century ago. Today, Robert Fulper II and his brother, Fred, oversee the operation. It’s one of only 65 working dairy farms remaining in New Jersey. Robert and his daughter, Breanna, a recent graduate of Cornell, where she studied animal science, manage the products—and the “agri-tourism.”
Fulper grows its own feed and runs on solar power, but too much else remains out of their control: the international commodity markets (corn, soybeans), the cost of gas, the cost of milk, explosive economic growth halfway around the world, in China. In spite of such resistance, or maybe because of their survival in the face of it, the Fulpers possess a pride in their farm of a degree that few of us may ever know within our own careers.
Molly Pfaffenroth, the sales and marketing manager, narrated my recent tour of the property. Another Cornell graduate, Pfaffenroth is applying her two courses of study, animal science and communications, toward drumming up more awareness of—and, thus, interest in—the farm and the fruit it bears. It’s one of the precious few in the area that makes and sells its own yogurt and cheese—mozzarella, ricotta and string—she says. It’s sold at Stockton Market, in Stockton, NJ, and the Stangl Factory Farmers Market, in Flemington, NJ, as well as at Fulper itself (Thursdays, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., and online at www.fulper
farms.com). In season, add eight more markets to that list. And count among its regular customers Triumph Brewing Company, in New Hope and Princeton, NJ, and Hamilton’s Grill Room, in Lambertville.
The cows are milked here twice a day, at 4:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m., in a state-of-the-art milking parlor. They’ll produce 8,000 pounds of milk in a single day, most of which is sold to Dairy Marketing Services, or “the milk truck,” as it’s referred to around the farm. A lot of it will find its way to the refrigerated section of a Wegmans near you, Pfaffenroth says.
They feed their herd the hay, straw, corn and soybeans that they grow across 350 acres. Their cows and calves, it can be said, enjoy a good life. On another 850 acres, they grow the feed that they sell to other local farms. Liquid manure is collected in a lagoon and then used to fertilize the fields, which means that there’s zero runoff. The solid manure is used for cow bedding. The Fulpers rotate their crops and abide by other soil conservation practices. And, in 2011, they installed solar panels on three-quarters of an acre, which supply every watt of electricity used on the farm.
The Fulpers, you probably gathered already, are a forward-thinking family. Given the aforementioned conditions working against them in one way or another at all times, their innovation was likely born out of necessity, which makes it all the more impressive.

I’m pinching myself a lot these days. Fortunately, never once has it snapped me out of my life. Though that’s done little to curb my doubt that the last few years have been anything but pure fantasy.
Back at the start of all of this, about a year before I opened House of Cupcakes, my expectations were simple. My kids were starting school and I wanted to return to work, hopefully earn some money to put toward their college funds. We were business owners for 20 years, so I knew that I wanted to open my own store, but what, exactly, was beyond me.
Not long after, I stumbled upon a booth at an event I attended with my family. A line stretched from it as far back as I could see. I crept in for a peek at what was worth the wait: cupcakes. I went home that day, dug out every relevant family recipe and began to bake. And I continued to bake for the next six months.
Once my recipes were finally where I wanted them, I headed to Princeton, New Jersey, to find a store. It was a no-brainer, really. Princeton, to me, was a place where artisan-level quality and artistic ability are held in the highest regard.
House of Cupcakes opened in August 2008. In retrospect, the timing was bad. The recession took hold a month later. People weren’t shy about telling me that I was crazy for opening such a shop. Too much overhead, they said. I was given a few months, by most projections.
Somehow I survived that first year, and greeting me at the end of it, almost like a prize, was a call from a producer of the Food Network series, “Cupcake Wars,” which, at the time, was in the midst of its first season. I’d heard about it, but only in passing. I was asked to submit an audition video.
It was time, I decided, to drag my husband, Ron, into the cupcake business. He baked when I needed the help, but it was his made-for-TV personality that I needed now.
The producers loved us—Ron as the head baker and me as his assistant. We won our episode and the $10,000 that came with it, which we donated to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Life since has had a surreal feel. The appearance was a huge boon to the shop. We filmed four more episodes of “Cupcake Wars,” participated in a pair of Food Network events alongside celebrity chefs and were invited to be the exclusive cupcake vendor at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards.
Where we go from here, I can’t even bring myself to imagine.

Tomato Soup Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
Recipe by Ron Bzdewka

Cupcakes
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1 tsp. baking soda
1 can tomato soup
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsps. baking powder
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/2 cup nuts, chopped (optional)
1/2 cup raisins (optional)
1 package cream cheese
1 1/2 cups confectioner’s sugar
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Then line 12 muffin tins.
In a small bowl, cream together the sugar and shortening. In a larger bowl, add the baking soda to the tomato soup. And in another large bowl, mix together the flour, salt, baking powder, nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves.
Combine the soup and flour mixtures in alternate turns, starting and ending with the soup mixture. Then, add the sugar and shortening mixture. Fold in the nuts and raisins.
Fill the muffin tins and bake for 20 minutes, or until a tester comes
out clean.
Frosting
4 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
Pinch salt
2 1/4 cups confectioner’s icing sugar, sifted
Add the cream cheese, butter and salt to a medium-size bowl and, using an electric mixer set on medium-high, beat the combination until it achieves a smooth consistency.
Then, set the mixer to low and beat in the sugar half a cup at a time. Once all the sugar’s been added, return the speed to medium-high and beat the mixture until it becomes light and fluffy.
The frosting can be refrigerated overnight, if needed.

Ruthie and Ron Bzdewka are the owners and bakers of House of Cupcakes, Princeton (609-924-0085; www.thehouseofcupcakes.com). For questions about this recipe and ideas for others, email them at thehouseofcupcakes@verizon.net.