Doesn’t it seem like we have less time in a day then when we were younger. Well obviously there is still 24 hours in a day now as there was 30-40 years ago, but how much we try to pack into that time seems to increase as we get older. With more and more responsibilities, obligations and demands onto our day, cooking a healthy meal at home is often not high on the old priority list. Welcome the time saver for this problem – Mr. McDonald’s or Miss Wendy’s or what ever fast food chain we want to throw into the mix to become a staple of many of our diets.
Let’s be honest about the truth of the fast food diet. They are not as healthy or nutritious as the home cooked meal. They have more salt, more calories and are made up of more processed foods with added preservative and flavor enhancers. None of that is good. We all know that it is not the best for us, but what to do when we have the stress of everything else bearing down on us and we need something fast. Well here are some ideas.
Try to preplan your meals. You know what nights you have a meeting and when the kids have to be at soccer practice or dance. So prepare a home cooked meal ahead of time at home that you can grab and go from home; instead of grabbing and going through the fast food drive-through. Make your own sack meal not one from the fast food joint. When to do this? How about the night before instead of watching “The Biggest Loser” on TV, help yourself to become a biggest loser and make your meals (maybe even with your family help to create some family time together) the night before.
Another thought is just because you are having to drive through to get the meal, doesn’t mean you have to pick the worst item on the board and then supersize it. We can make wise choices; most restaurants have a nutritional guide to help you know how to make the better choice. You might be a little surprised at how many calories and what is in some of your choices. Also some fast food restaurants will be better then others when it comes to nutritional value of what you are taking in.
Another thing, just because the super extra large soda is only a dollar, doesn’t mean that it is the best value for your health. Save the dollar, get some water and add some better nutritional value to your life. And if you just have to have that Coke, maybe you can survive with only a medium size.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Friday, May 18, 2012
Enjoy the sun without the burn
Sunburns can be a predisposing factor for skin cancer. Basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma, two forms of skin cancer, are the 2 most common cancers in the United States. Melanoma, another form of skin cancer, has increase mortality associated with it. It is important to prevent sunburns because the increase in the number of sunburns you have will increase your risk to get skin cancer.
While the good news is that more and more people are becoming aware of utilizing tips to reduce sunburns and sun exposure, many people (50.1% of all adults and 65.6% of those in the 18-29 year age group) are still experiencing at least one sunburn in the previous year according to this report. This report demonstrates there is still more work to be done in getting people to avoid sunburns to help reduce skin cancer.
Best preventative measures are wearing sun screen (women are better then men at this), protective clothing such as long clothing and/or wide-brimmed hat (men did better then women with this measure) and utilizing shade (both men and women were similar with this measure).
Here are a few tips on picking the right sunscreen. Look for ingredients such as zinc, titanium dioxide and avobenzone or mexoryl SX. Avoid added ingredients such as oxybenzone, Vitamin A (retinyl palmitate) and added insect repellent; as these have been found to decrease the effectiveness of the sun screen. Don’t think that increase price means improved performance, many lower or medium cost sunscreen options compare to higher end options. Creams are better then sprays or powders and look for products with broad spectrum protection and water resistant for beach, pool or exercise activities. SPF above 50+ is over kill, look for SPF 15-50+ which is enough. Make sure you reapply as needed based on activity and never go longer then 2 hours without reapplying.
Enjoy the summer, but just do it in a way that avoids sunburns to reduce your skin cancer risks.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Disease and Illness
I recently read an excellent post by Tony Ingram who is a fellow Physical Therapist that this post was generated from. I would encourage you to go to his site and read his post, Disease vs. Illness.
“Disease, then, is something an organ has; illness is something a man has.” - Eric J. Cassell, 1978
Disease and injury are things we all experience at different times and in different forms, they are apart of a normal consequence of life as we move through this world we live in. How that disease or injury affects us is sometimes part of the illness we experience. Let’s look at the difference between the two to help clarify how we cope and return to a more normal way of life after they occur and two important take home points.
Disease or injury is an abnormal condition affecting an organism. You get a virus, cancer, break a bone, twist your ankle, etc. Fortunately with the advancements of medical science and use of our immune system most diseases are treatable and often with complete healing. Likewise most injuries will heal themselves. We are wonderfully equipped to heal our tissues whether a broken bone, sprained ligament, pulled muscle or others through our immune system and our bodies healing mechanisms.
Illness is the feelings that most often go along with the disease or injury; such as pain, weakness, discomfort, distress, fatigue, dysfunction, etc. These feelings can be significantly affected by non-disease factors for example: beliefs, expectations, fears, and anxiety to name a few.
Most often a disease or injury will cause illness to follow and typically the feelings of illness will decrease as part of the recovery process as the disease or injury heals. But, and this can be a big but, they can each occur on their own.
For example you can have a disease and feel no illness. Many people walk around with high blood pressure and are unaware of it till a stroke or heart attack makes them aware of it. Others may have a cancer that is not detected early on. Take home point number one, is why regular physician visits and screenings are so important to help detect a disease that might be present even though you are not experiencing any illness.
The other end of spectrum can also happen when someone has illness, but no disease or injury has occurred often referred to as Somatoform Disorder. This does not mean that person is faking it; it is part of a complex psychological process with some sort of neurological or neuro-immune disorder in play that we don’t fully understand yet.
But lastly I want to point to the fact that illness can affect disease. The extra stress, anxiety and fear that we allow from the illness can increase our body’s production of hormones and sensitization of our nervous system that actually make the disease or injury worse or slows the healing process. This in turn can lead to greater feeling of illness and a horrible illness/disease cycle has begun. Take home point number two, is the importance of using relaxation techniques and other stress reducing skills (understanding the disease and injury process to reduce fear and clarify beliefs and expectations) can actually help you recover faster and improve your healing from an injury or disease process to break you out of the illness/disease cycle.
“Disease, then, is something an organ has; illness is something a man has.” - Eric J. Cassell, 1978
Disease and injury are things we all experience at different times and in different forms, they are apart of a normal consequence of life as we move through this world we live in. How that disease or injury affects us is sometimes part of the illness we experience. Let’s look at the difference between the two to help clarify how we cope and return to a more normal way of life after they occur and two important take home points.
Disease or injury is an abnormal condition affecting an organism. You get a virus, cancer, break a bone, twist your ankle, etc. Fortunately with the advancements of medical science and use of our immune system most diseases are treatable and often with complete healing. Likewise most injuries will heal themselves. We are wonderfully equipped to heal our tissues whether a broken bone, sprained ligament, pulled muscle or others through our immune system and our bodies healing mechanisms.
Illness is the feelings that most often go along with the disease or injury; such as pain, weakness, discomfort, distress, fatigue, dysfunction, etc. These feelings can be significantly affected by non-disease factors for example: beliefs, expectations, fears, and anxiety to name a few.
Most often a disease or injury will cause illness to follow and typically the feelings of illness will decrease as part of the recovery process as the disease or injury heals. But, and this can be a big but, they can each occur on their own.
For example you can have a disease and feel no illness. Many people walk around with high blood pressure and are unaware of it till a stroke or heart attack makes them aware of it. Others may have a cancer that is not detected early on. Take home point number one, is why regular physician visits and screenings are so important to help detect a disease that might be present even though you are not experiencing any illness.
The other end of spectrum can also happen when someone has illness, but no disease or injury has occurred often referred to as Somatoform Disorder. This does not mean that person is faking it; it is part of a complex psychological process with some sort of neurological or neuro-immune disorder in play that we don’t fully understand yet.
But lastly I want to point to the fact that illness can affect disease. The extra stress, anxiety and fear that we allow from the illness can increase our body’s production of hormones and sensitization of our nervous system that actually make the disease or injury worse or slows the healing process. This in turn can lead to greater feeling of illness and a horrible illness/disease cycle has begun. Take home point number two, is the importance of using relaxation techniques and other stress reducing skills (understanding the disease and injury process to reduce fear and clarify beliefs and expectations) can actually help you recover faster and improve your healing from an injury or disease process to break you out of the illness/disease cycle.
Friday, May 4, 2012
If you sit at work, exercise at home
You probably have heard about some research reports about the unhealthy effects of sitting to much. Studies have shown that the more hours you sit each day the increase risk of dying prematurely there is. A research study showed that those that sit more then 8 hours each day (which is typical for many Americans) had a 15% increase in dying during the 3 year follow-up compared to those who sat less then 4 hours a day. The initial report with this study stated that even if you exercised in your non-sitting time, this did not defeat the deleterious effects of inactivity with sitting.
This prompted panic in some to instantly design a stand-up work station or think they were doomed either way since their job required them to sit, so they gave up exercising. Some new research out of Finland, may allow you get back in your chair and ditch the stand-up station (unless you really like it) and encourage you to get back to exercising if you have a sit down job.
The original study done just used self-reported questionnaires to determine activity levels; these often have some problems with accuracy of self reporting. The new study by the group in Finland actually put sensors on people to actually record their activity level and muscle contractions. They followed people that exercised and sat for nine (9) hours a day and also checked them on days they didn’t exercise and sat for nine (9) hours. What they found was on the days they exercised that they had significant increase in muscle activity over the day, compared to the days they did no exercise. Other studies have shown that when we are able to get muscles to work at a moderate to vigorous level we can produce significant health benefits.
So while adding exercise to your lifestyle may not change your sitting time, it will add significant health benefits. If you have a sedentary sitting job, make sure you are adding exercise to your routine to reduce the ill effects of sedentary lifestyle and do not go home and add to the sedentary habits by sitting in front of the TV the rest of the night. Also try to create some mobility to your sedentary sitting job by trying to get up and move around the office a little more. Make an extra trip or two to the copy machine or printer. The added activity might add some years to your life.
This prompted panic in some to instantly design a stand-up work station or think they were doomed either way since their job required them to sit, so they gave up exercising. Some new research out of Finland, may allow you get back in your chair and ditch the stand-up station (unless you really like it) and encourage you to get back to exercising if you have a sit down job.
The original study done just used self-reported questionnaires to determine activity levels; these often have some problems with accuracy of self reporting. The new study by the group in Finland actually put sensors on people to actually record their activity level and muscle contractions. They followed people that exercised and sat for nine (9) hours a day and also checked them on days they didn’t exercise and sat for nine (9) hours. What they found was on the days they exercised that they had significant increase in muscle activity over the day, compared to the days they did no exercise. Other studies have shown that when we are able to get muscles to work at a moderate to vigorous level we can produce significant health benefits.
So while adding exercise to your lifestyle may not change your sitting time, it will add significant health benefits. If you have a sedentary sitting job, make sure you are adding exercise to your routine to reduce the ill effects of sedentary lifestyle and do not go home and add to the sedentary habits by sitting in front of the TV the rest of the night. Also try to create some mobility to your sedentary sitting job by trying to get up and move around the office a little more. Make an extra trip or two to the copy machine or printer. The added activity might add some years to your life.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Probiotics a good thing?
Over the last few years we are seeing the term “probiotics” being placed on various foods and being touted with many health benefits. Probiotics refers to live micro-organisms that interact with your existing bacteria in your digestive lining to produce a positive effect on your health, primarily your immune system.
The general research has been very promising that these probiotics can help reduce the length of an illness in people compared to placebo interactions. Those taking the probiotics also showed increase in biological markers for improved immune function. While the results from these early studies are very encouraging, the problem is that every individual strain of probiotic strain has different effects. Currently there is no consensus on which the best are and how much of any of them we need to be the most beneficial. So don’t believe the hype on why you need to buy one type over another. And realize the probiotic effects may be limited, so don’t think overdosing on them is protecting you extra from other poor diet and health practices. And just taking them in supplement form may do you no good, so it is best to get it in real foods so you at least get the other benefits from a healthy food.
So even though the research is not yet fully complete, it still might be beneficial to incorporate foods like yogurt with live bacterial cultures into your diet. Even if the probiotics don’t do anything for you, you still have eaten a nutritious food that has lots of other good benefits.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)