Choose You Blog
Overstuffed: Expert Tips for Conscious Eating
Enjoying the holiday season, and all of the delicious food that comes with it, is important. Denial rarely works, I can personally attest. But there is a way to ensure that you don’t hit the new year with more of you than you intended. Nutrition expert Kathie Nelson, who has been helping me with my eat right pledge, offers her best tips for how you can eat and achieve your health goals.
“I just need to lose those last 5 pounds (or 10 or 15 or whatever).” How many of you have ever said that? Most people do at one time or another and dietitians hear it very often, too. It seems those last few pounds are the most problematic. Maybe since the ultimate goal is in sight you tend to “take your eye off the ball”, you become a little lax, wishing and hoping that whatever you have been doing up to this point will just keep you going in the right direction. How is that working for you? My guess is, not very well. It is never easy to lose weight and my suggestion for getting those stubborn pounds off is probably something you have heard before and although you may not want to hear again, it does work plus there is something else that you might not know about.
The first suggestion is easy to do, it is not fancy and you do not need a lot of pricy equipment. Have you guessed what it is? It is the dreaded food record. Why dreaded? It takes time and effort to do it correctly. Food records can be very revealing or they can be a waste of your time. In order for them to work, all your really need is pen and paper—that is the easiest part. There are also apps for your phone or programs available (usually for a fee) from the internet if you like a more tech approach plus there are a variety of food journals at your local bookstore. Even those are not going to help if you are not conscious, deliberate and complete about recording your intake. Let’s break it down.
Conscious means you are aware of every morsel and sip that passes your lips—it is easy to forget that broken cookie or last bite of pasta from your children’s plate or that glass of wine you drank while preparing dinner. Deliberate means every morsel and sip gets recorded shortly after consumption because it is easy to forget what you ate. Being conscious and deliberate have the advantage of making you aware and giving you the opportunity to ask yourself if you really want that food and if you are willing to write it down. Finally, complete means you give an honest and accurate measure and description of what you eat. After all, it is all about calories. Keeping these points in mind, take a look at this scenario. Read the rest of this entry »
I was on the phone with Kathie Nelson, my nutritionist, and I was asserting all of these things I knew. I knew, for example, that a palm sized portion was about 1/2 a cup or 1 carb choice. Roughly. She agreed. And we talked some more. Then I said that belly fat was the most dangerous kind. Suddenly it hit me–I had absorbed this information without the crucial single most important bit of knowledge: why?
Belly fat, Kathie explained patiently, seemed to be more easily absorbed into the bloodstream and that’s when the true health hazards begin. Cholesterol. Triglycerides. Clogged arteries. Heart disease.
Like a bolt, I realized that I was making sort of thoughtless health choices. I was making good eating choices, good exercise choices, but without really understanding why beyond a general “be healthy, prevent cancer.” I see the outside. It’s easy to get focused on that. My pants are tight or fit well. My hair looks shiny and healthy (or frizzy). That sort of thing. I do not see fat in my blood stream, nor do I feel it.
So without getting too above myself in the science and medicine of it all, here’s the lowdown:
- In your abdominal cavity/stomach area your organs are surrounded by visceral fat. <– Good
- If you eat too much with too little activity, the visceral fat builds up. <– Bad
- The more visceral fat you carry, the more likely you are to develop: <– Bad
- Heart disease
- Breast cancer
- Diabetes
- Metabolic syndrome
- Gallbladder problems
- High blood pressure
- Colorectal cancer
There’s a reason Choose You includes “quit smoking” as one of the pledges. There are a lot of benefits. In fact, the Great American Smokeout lists them in When Smokers Quit — What are the benefits over time?
Here are a few that really caught my attention:
- 20 minutes after quitting: Your heart rate and blood pressure drop. (Mahmud A, Feely J. Effect of Smoking on Arterial Stiffness and Pulse Pressure Amplification. Hypertension. 2003;41:183.)
- 12 hours after quitting: The carbon monoxide level in your blood drops to normal. (US Surgeon General’s Report, 1988, p. 202)
- 2 weeks to 3 months after quitting: Your circulation improves and your lung function increases. (US Surgeon General’s Report, 1990, pp. 193, 194, 196, 285, 323)
- 1 year after quitting: The excess risk of coronary heart disease is half that of a smoker’s. (US Surgeon General’s Report, 1990, p. vi)
That’s amazing — less than half an hour after quitting you’ve already got the first benefit.
I know you know that smoking is bad for your health, and that every study says you should quit for your own good. You don’t need me telling you or trying to tell you why you should quit smoking. You have to find your own reasons to quit.
Kids can be a good one. Health. Cancer prevention. Lowered blood pressure. Cost savings. Pick any one. Pick any of the many methods out there to help you quit.
I wish you luck. I wish you well. If you want to quit smoking, tomorrow is a great day for it, and you’ll find a ton of support.
Originally, I wanted to title this post “I Hate Cancer,” but I decided to go for a more positive angle (at least in the title). Last week, a close friend of mine lost his mother to breast cancer. As he told me over the phone, I recognized the sound in his voice – the sound of pain and of hurt. When we got off the phone, it was a complete wrap for me. I sat at my desk crying for hours and scribbled “I HATE CANCER!!!!!!” on a sheet of paper. I hate this disease…I hate it. The tears that I shed for him and his family were soon joined by tears related to another close friend’s mom, who is currently battling stomach cancer.
Why?
Why these women? Women who are wonderful mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, aunts, friends, and more…Questions that hurt to ask, especially since there’s no one to answer.
Needless to say, I’ve been in a funk since. There are no other words to describe it. It hurts me to see my friends in these situations…Hurts me to my core because I know that feeling. After a couple of hours of crying, I changed my tune and my outlook on this situation. While I do hate cancer, I decided that I wasn’t going to focus on that. Cancer cut to the core of my friend’s family by taking his mother too soon, and I decided that was where I was drawing the line.
Cancer can take away many things, but it can never take away our memories…Sweet, sweet memories. So, last night, I baked a cake for work and decided to dedicate it to the sweet moments that we’ve all shared with those that we loved and lost to the “C” word.
The cake has been dyed pink in sweet memory of Ms. Ernita, and I made a candy ribbon out of multi-colored pareils representing all the various cancer awareness colors. This cake can never bring back our loved ones or take away the pain, but I can tell you this much…I haven’t shed a tear since I baked it. And, that’s a start.
Love and sweet memories...
P.S. I am many things but professional cake decorator isn’t one of them 
Did you see the Mad Men episode when Don Draper wrote his New York Times op ed about why he’s giving up tobacco…with a cigarette dangling from his lips? The American Cancer Society appeared in a subsequent episode, attracted by Don’s anti-tobacco declaration. They were interested in a campaign to spread the word that cigarettes were a leading cause of cancer, and they desired to create a movement to quit smoking. About a decade later, in 1976, the Society hosted its first Great American Smokeout. At the time, they only asked people to quit for a day.
A generation later, most Americans know they shouldn’t smoke. And the American Cancer Society’s big idea has accomplished a lot:
- Nearly 75 percent of the United States population is covered by 100 percent smoke-free workplace and/or restaurant and/or bar laws, despite aggressive efforts by tobacco companies to defeat such laws.*
- Thirty-five states, the District of Columbia, the Northern Mariana Islands, and Puerto Rico now protect nonsmokers by prohibiting smoking in workplaces, and/or restaurants, and/or bars.*
- Forty-seven states and the District of Columbia have increased their cigarette taxes since 2000.*
However, the Great American Smokeout’s work isn’t finished yet. Now, instead of a day, the Smokeout asks people to give up smoking forever. The Choose You program includes “quit smoking” as one of the top five most important pledges we can make towards good health. For good reason.
According to 2010 Cancer Prevention and Early Detection Facts & Figures:
- Tobacco use remains the single largest preventable cause of disease and premature death in the United States.
- Each year, smoking accounts for an estimated 443,000 premature deaths – including 49,400 deaths among nonsmokers as a result of secondhand smoke – and costs the nation $193 billon in health care expenditures and productivity losses.
- Tobacco use increases the risk of at least 15 types of cancer, and 30 percent of all cancer deaths, including 87 percent of lung cancer deaths, can be attributed to using tobacco.
It’s one thing to know you shouldn’t smoke, but it’s another altogether to quit. Quitting means overcoming not just habit and ingrained compulsion, but also addiction. Shannon, the spectacular writer who also goes by Mr. Lady, quit smoking recently. I asked her about that — why she quit, how she quit, and, more importantly, how it was going.
If you don’t know Shannon, you should, but if you don’t, you may not know that she recently had major surgery. You also may not know that she’s beautifully, refreshingly open and willing to share the easy and the hard. This is the sort of conversation that inspires and enlightens because it is full of truth and integrity; in other words, it is full of humanity. That, I think, is the core of making a good health choice for yourself: acknowledging your humanity and how worthwhile the you within that is. I think thats’ something Shannon manages well, and it is something I heard in her story about quitting smoking this time.
Discovery Health reported today that new research shows exercise helps you develop new brain cells.
“New research shows that in addition to causing the release of chemicals called endorphins — well-documented as the source of the “runner’s high” — exercise may contribute to the formation of new connections among nerve cells in the brain and even to the growth of new cells. Other research has underscored the strong correlation between exercise and higher mental function.”
Discovery wrote, “The question we are left with is, what should we do to stimulate our personal cognitive development, and when do we know it’s working? When you do sit-ups, you expect to develop killer abs. We know that when we run or bike for an hour, we feel either exhausted or invigorated by an endorphin rush. But that wears off quickly. How do we know we are doing enough to help the brain muscle?
. . .
The bottom line is, until we know better, it is best to keep running, or start an exercise program that gets the blood pumping. It’s good for mind, body and soul.
Go read the full article to understand the research and how endorphins and exercise help you get smarter and healthier!
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