Control Your Health Part 3

Today I'm going to talk about hypertension or high blood pressure. It's estimated that over 70 million Americans have this disease. Some are being treated and there are a great many who have no idea that their blood pressure is elevated. First and foremost, get it checked, know what your numbers are.

Then you can begin to manage it. Even if you don't know your numbers, assume that you have it and begin to take care of yourself. First thing is to reduce your salt intake. The end of June I did a series on salt. Go back and take a look at those posts for more information. Avoid the prepared or processed foods as well as foods that are just naturally salty.

Reduce the saturated and trans fats in your diet. the trans fats are mostly in processed foods.

Avoid excessive alcohol which elevates the blood pressure.

Manage your stress through exercise, meditation, better sleep. Ask for support from your family and friends.

Lastly, but should be the first thing that you do is to control your weight. Losing just 5% of our body weight can have a significant impact on the blood pressure. Eat lots of greens, fruits and vegetables. Specific foods that are helpful for blood pressure include avocados, cantaloupe, broccoli and kidney beans.

Give up the Soda Pop

I was just at the store and watching what people were buying in preparation for the fourth of July. I almost got sick when I saw people buying case of soda pop. I was reminded how so many people who are trying to lose weight say to me "but I drink diet soda." My question to them is why? What is the nutrient value of soda pop - zilch, zero, none, nada. It doesn't matter whether it's diet or regular. What you're getting is either sugar or chemicals that taste like sugar, carbonated water which leaches the calcium out of your bones setting you up for osteoporosis later in life, more than a healthy dose of caffeine depending upon what brand you are drinking and oh yes, you get that other chemical artificial flavor!

Why or why would you put that stuff into your body?? The other thing that dieters may not be aware of is that diet soda can actually increase your appetite, so that you eat more. Go back to the basics - water, it's good for you!

Soy Good or Bad

We've heard a lot about soy being a super food because in cultures where it is a staple in the diet, there is less disease and better health. We tend to go overboard when we hear something like this. When you look at soy more closely, it is good, but in it's natural form that it is most beneficial.

Be wary of processed foods that contain soy. Many of the beneficial properties of soy are lossed in the processing of the food. Soy in it's best form is in things like miso, tempeh, tofu, and soybeans.

More Cheating on Your Diet

One of the biggest stumbling blocks for many people who are on "diets" is the abstinence from alcohol. I say, drink wisely. If you really want an alcoholic beverage, try sipping one after you have eaten a healthy and filling meal. It can be your dessert. Happy Hours can be lethal to your diet as you are more likely to overindulge and crave junk food. So make Happy Hour an occasion that doesn't occur every day.

Sipping water between bites of an indulgence or between sips of an alcoholic beverage will help make the indulgence or drink last longer and you will eat or drink less.

More Cheating on Your Diet

When you're cheating, you can always add in some healthy foods as well. For example, if you're going for the ice cream, top it with fruit or nuts.

If you're going for the chips or pretzels, add some peanut butter, avocado or hummus. These are all healthy choices that add some protein in the snack and help you burn the carbs in these snacks.

More Cheating on Your Diet

There is no question that at some point you will cheat on your diet. It will happen. Plan it and call it your free day. If you're going to cheat, get the very best thing that you are craving. Choose the best looking piece of cake, your very favorite cookie or candy bar. Don't just settle for some candy that you may not like all that much.

Go for what you really want.

Cheating on Your Diet

Most of you know that I am not an advocate of diets. If you're on one here are some tips about cheating that are healthy. One of the reasons that I'm not an advocate of diets is that most people fee deprived on a diet. Your favorite foods are usually not on the diet.

So here is a way to make it work for you. Make it occasional. One of the better things I ever heard was to take 1 day a week when you eat whatever you want to eat. Thisis the day to eat your favorite foods.

When you have a craving for ice cream, eat the real thing. Stick to brands that are just sugar, cream, and milk. Don't go for the low fat options, eat real ice cream. If your head is telling you it is OK to eat this, then you are less likely to eat the whole carton. You'll be happy with a small bowl.

Diets

If you have had the TV on at all since right before Christmas you have seen a plethora of different diet and weight loss ads. They have dwindled somewhat in the past few weeks, but they are still out there in force.

Truth is, yes diets will work for awhile, but be honest. Every diet you have ever tried probably did work until you went off of it. The problem with diets is that they do not create a change that is lasting. Very few if any can stay on the diet because they feel deprived.

One of the people that I have been coaching regarding diet got it and she has written a new book about refusing to diet. I will give you more details as I get them. Once she got her head in the right place which she describes beautifully in the book, she began to put to work the healthy choices that we talked about. Doesn't mean that she can't have whatever she wants. She eats whatever she wants to eat. The difference now is that she doesn't want the whole cake, just a piece is fine. She has lost over 120 pounds which is testimony enough.

Lifestyle Changes For Diabetics

If you have diabetes or you need to decrease your blood sugar, lifestyle changes are better than the medications. You may still need to take medication, but altering your lifestyle can make a huge difference.

The first and most important change you can make is to begin to exercise. You don't need to go out and buy a gym membership, although if that will motivate you to go, then by all means do it. You can do simple exercises at home, or just walk every day for 60 minutes nonstop. You'll be amazed at how much this helps.

Secondly is to watch what you eat. I'm not saying to go on any rigid diet. I'm saying, watch portion size, always have protein with every meal and eat 3 meals a day at least. Not such rigid and hard guidelines to follow.

Best Diet

You all know that I really don't like the word diet. But I recently read an article on the best diet for life. It started out by saying that the Mediterranean diet was the best diet but soon digressed to say that really only part of that was true.

What the researchers found was that the healthiest part of the Mediterranean diet was eating lots of fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes (like beans and peas). This is not exactly what I think of when I here Mediterranean diet. But it is what I have been saying for a long time.

Eating these things was associated with a longer lifespan. In a separate but similar study, the researchers found that by eating these components, there was a reduced risk of developing dementia.

Ten Things To Do To Decrease Stress #1

Remember to eat. This sounds pretty simple, but often times when we are stressed, we simply forget to eat. Eating 3 meals a day is critical to keeping up your energy.

Also, when you don't eat you can begin to develop symptoms of a body in need of food such as headache and fatigue.

The other side of this coin is also prevalent in our society today and that is that when we are stressed all we do is eat. While you need food, don't make it a comfort in times of stress. Eat sensibly and at appropriate times.

Joint Pain - Osteoarthritis

As we begin to age, many of us begin to experience joint pain. This is usually a result of osteoarthritis, often referred to as degenerative joint disease. The wear and tear on our joints does take a toll as we age. The joints most likely to be affected are the weight bearing joints like the hips and the knees.

The very best thing you can do for your joints is to lose weight. Because the joints most affected are those weight bearing joints, if you are carrying around an extra 10, 20 or 50 pounds, the effect on the joints is going to be dramatic. So as you begin to lose weight, the other thing that will help the joints is the healthy diet, high in antioxidants. The other part of that equation is exercise. Begin slow and easy and build it up. The more you can strengthen the muscles that support those joints, the better the joint will function. If you want to know how to get started with your exercise, go get my free eBook on making exercise simple.

Food Journals

I know keeping a food diary can be a drag, but it can also be very enlightening and help you figure out your habits. As you are eating, write down what you're eating, how much and when. Also think about what emotions you're feeling and who you are with as you're eating. Sometimes other people can be a trigger for you to eat more.

Try it for a week and see if there are insights for you to glean from this. It just may help you identify when you are an emotional eater and what your triggers are. For more support, see Laurie's blog on refuse to diet.

Burning Calories

I'm not particularly an advocate of counting calories, although we all know that if we are looking to lose some weight, we need to have fewer calories in than we burn each day. So how many calories do you have to burn to lose weight?

Of course, the answer here is first eat less calories than you burn. To lose 1 pound you have to burn 3500 calories. Keep in mind that this means if you eat 2000 calories a day you have to burn 5500 calories to lose a pound. This feels a bit futile in my estimation. Also, keep in mind, to calculate how many calories you burn depends upon your current weight, the activity and the duration of the activity. For example. for a 170 pound person with 30 minutes of walking at 2 miles per hour ( so you walk a mile in the 30 minutes) you burn about 97 calories. That really feels pretty disheartening. To burn 3500 calories, you would need to walk 36 miles! That's not likely to happen.

Now you can see why I'm not an advocate of calorie counting. Best to eat sensible, stay away from the high fat and sugar foods and exercise regularly.

More Healthy Ways to Cheat on Your Diet

Yesterday I talked about ice cream. I forgot to mention one thing about ice cream. One of the things you can do is to top your ice ream with fresh fruit or nuts. This will help you get a fruit serving in, make the ice cream taste better and you'll feel like you're really "cheating."

I also mentioned yesterday to have one day a week when you get to eat what you want. I want to add to that a bit and say, select a reasonable sized portion. If you are really craving a cookie, then pick one that is a reasonable size, don't go for the biggest one you can find or make. I had a friend once who said she ate just one cookie, but it was one of those the size of a 12 inch pizza! Make whatever you choose something special. If you want a candy bar, choose your favorite one rather going for a bag of bite size candies. The adage is true here as it is with potato chips, you can't just eat one, so if you only have one candy bar, you won't eat the whole bag.

Healthy Ways to Cheat on Your Diet

I shuddered a bit when I wrote diet in the title, because of the many negative connotations that brings up. But the reality is that many of you out there are on a "diet." Many of you are likely feeling deprived and if you do slip then you really let it all go. So here are some tips for "cheating" in a healthy way.

Keep your cheating to occasional. I like to say give yourself permission to eat whatever you want one day a week. You could do this as often as once a day depending upon your overall health, weight, activity level and overall diet.

First, eat real things. If you are a big ice cream fan, then eat ice cream where the ingredient list is basically cream, sugar and milk. Avoid those ice creams with lots of additives. Also keep in mind that low fat may mean very high sugar. You are better off to do real ice cream made with cream as you will get less sugar. Be reasonable about how much you eat. I know you could eat half the carton, bu this is a treat, so spoon out 1/2 cup and celebrate that 1/2 cup and enjoy every bite instead of just shoving down.

Balancing the Diet

Eating a balanced diet was an adage that worked well when our food sources contained less chemicals and our fruits and vegetables were more organic in nature. Today eating a balanced diet will not give you the health that it once could have. Today, you need to supplement in order to maximize your health.

The problem is that most doctors know less about nutrition than you do. And they know even less about supplements. I think I have said it before but, nutrition is usually offered as a 1/2 to 1 day of course work in medical school and it is documented to be the least attended class. Some physicians have gone out and learned more about nutrition on their own, but that is not the norm. While same may do this, the other part that is missing is their knowledge of supplements and what they can do to assist you to have a healthier life. The reason for this is because medical school focuses on illness not wellness. So your doctor has been indoctrinated into healing people once they are sick not into keeping them well so they don't get sick.

Blood Type Diet

I just wanted to mention a few more things about some of the diets out there. One of them is the blood type diet. This one only makes sense if you are aware that there are some things that certain blood types tend to have more difficulty eating. For example, the Blood Type O are more likely to have a hypersensitivity to dairy.

One of the issues with the blood type diet is that you may not know your blood type. Getting typed can cost you $25-30 or more depending upon where you have it done. Of course if you donate blood, you can find out just for donating. This is obviously a great public service to those who need blood transfusions.

The other issue here is that if you live with 4-5 other people, it may mean that you are cooking a variety of foods for each meal. How long will that last? If we go by how long an individual can cook specified meals to follow a diet, if they have to cook more than one, it is likely to go by the wayside fairly quickly.

Diets

I know you've heard my rant on diets before, but one more time. Diets do not work. Why? because there are a plethora of diets out there and there are always people who say they work for them and there are a whole lot of other people for whom the diet does not work. The major problem with diets is that the minute you say diet, I can almost guarantee that your mind says deprivation. You will have to be deprived to follow the diet. That's why making healthy choices is so much better than A Diet.

There is a lot out there about low carb diets, but I would rather see you make healthy choices with carbs. The carbs that are healthy choices are fruits and vegetables.

Best Diet Tips #6

Lastly, there is not magic bullet for weight loss. Yes, there are many diets and plans out there that will help you lose weight, but until you change what is in your head, you are more likely to go off of the diet and gain the weight back, plus some. When you have the strong urge to go eat, ask yourself the question, "Why do I want to go eat?" Sometimes it is because you have not eaten for 6 hours, but I dare say that many times you will get the urge to eat not long after a meal. It's not hunger that is triggering this urge. Also, think about what you're telling yourself you want to eat. Is it healthy foods, or are you craving empty carbohydrates - ie. junk food.

Getting in touch with this will help you make that life style change. It's easy to say it's a life style change, but until you know what is triggering you to eat, you will never make it.