Weight Loss 101
With every New Year comes a slew of exercise goals and fad diets. Unfortunately, both the goals and the diets often fall flat due to frustration associated with deprivation and/or a lack of results. Turn over a new leaf in…
The Benefits of Partnering with Valley Schools
For more than 30 years, Valley Schools has been the leader in insurance administration, vendor contracting, and consulting services. We provide school districts, governmental agencies, and public sector employees with the absolute best pricing in employee benefits and insurance coverage,…
Behavior Change
New Year’s resolutions are built around trying to make a life change, but the popular trend of setting a resolution does not guarantee a readiness to change. The Transtheoretical Model is used to measure an individual’s readiness to act by…
Should You Consider Self-Funding?
If you are a public sector employer of 200 or more benefit-eligible employees, self-funding, or self-insuring your medical and pharmacy plan(s) is an essential option to consider. Let’s compare fully insured to self-insured plans: Fully Insured Self-Insured • Insurance company…
Are You in the Right Health Insurance Pool?
For more than 30 years, Valley Schools has served school districts and other governmental agencies in administrative, financial or public service positions, providing our more than 35,000 members with the absolute best pricing in employee benefits and affordable, group health…
New Years Nuptials – Courting Success
We’re approaching the new years and if you’re anything like the majority of us, you’re teetering on the edge of serving yourself a new years resolution so big that its bound to come with a heaping side of guilt once…
Myth-Busters About Red Meat
MYTH: Red meat is bad for you. TRUTH: Contrary to the recent media headlines, the meat is healthy and can absolutely be a part of a nutrient-dense, whole-foods diet. Red meat is a rich source of the B vitamins thiamin,…
Factoring Health Care Costs into Your Retirement
If you’re contemplating and planning for retirement, there is much to consider. The basics come to mind first, housing, food, transportation, travel to “bucket list” locales, gifts for the grandkids and - last but certainly not least - health care…
Ditch the Refined Sugar…You’re Sweet Enough Already!
The correlation between sugar and inflammation is a trending topic in the media but its detrimental effects on our health are sometimes minimized. Sugar, refined or natural, is a simple carbohydrate that the human body breaks down into glucose and…
The Risk of Eating Fast Food
We know eating fast food isn’t a healthy choice, but why then do we get that happy rush when we indulge? Good old dopamine and serotonin, that’s why! When this food is first ingested, these feel-good neurotransmitters are released in…