Opinion

By Michelle Stephenson

Dear Readers: As we begin anew in 2024, many Americans will resolve to eat better, exercise regularly, and take better care of themselves. The U.S. News & World Report ranked 24 diets for 2024. A panel of nutrition experts comprised of Registered Dietitians, Professors of Nutrition, and Medical Doctors evaluates the diets. Assessment is based on seven categories: the ability to produce short-term and long-term weight loss, the ease of following the diet, its ability to prevent heart disease and diabetes, its nutritional value, and its safety.

Media is currently bombarding us with proposed solutions to our weight problems and are peddling exercise equipment, gym memberships, food delivered to our doors, and even surgery for belly fat with a $250 discount and all accomplished in a single day. The promise is easy weight loss of all those pounds we’ve accumulated if we only purchase their products and services.

Editor’s note: This week’s Amish Cook was not available so we are bringing you onw from several years ago.

As we all come off the emotional roller coaster ride that was the holiday season with all of its emotional highs and lows we now enter into the doldrums of the winter months. Some of us will come off of the holiday season with an emotional high with the warmth and love that was shared with family and friends. Others will exit the holiday season with emotional lows stemmed from family strife and turmoil, unmet expectations, or financial difficulties. Whether you find yourself in the former or the latter of these two groups, most will enter into the new year with some form of anxiety.

“Mom, may we sleep in the barn on Christmas Eve?”

Happy New Year!!

Did you make a New Year’s resolution this year? So many of us do, but did you know that only 20% of those who do say they keep themselves accountable to sticking to their goals?

Dear Readers,

Christmas bells are ringing. It is close enough, you can almost touch it. Around the world homes are getting ready for this day. It may not be celebrated all the same, but it’s Christmas. To each of us Christmas brings its own sense of congruity.