Choose You Blog

By: Alpa Patel, ACS Strategic Director, Cancer Prevention Study-3

Now that the holidays have passed and I am settling into the New Year, I spend a lot of time saying “I have to.” I have to catch up at work. I have to go to the grocery store. I have to clean my house. I have to exercise… and so on. I think to myself, ‘there just isn’t enough time in one day’.

Yet, earlier this month, on Saturday February 4, we celebrated World Cancer Day, an annual initiative of the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC).  It’s only one day, 24 hours, that helps bring worldwide awareness to the fight against cancer.

The initiative got me to thinking that it is amazing the difference one day can make. What if one day of your time could bring us even closer a world with less cancer?

As it happens, there is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for us to pay it forward to the next generation, just as our parents and grandparents did for us, by joining the Cancer Prevention Study-3. I enrolled in this study because I dream about a day when cancer is a thing of the past.

There was a day when people didn’t know that smoking kills. There was also a day in 1952, when the American Cancer Society began recruiting 188,000 men into a study which later helped link smoking to dying from lung cancer and other diseases.

Similarly, there was a day in 1959, when the Society began recruiting one million men and women who gave their time and information to help further uncover the harmful effects of smoking on health.  Participation also led to a better understanding of the harms of overweight and obesity.

Again in 1982, there was a day when 1.2 million men and women committed their time to helping American Cancer Society researchers better understand the causes of cancer. These men and women helped bring us a few steps closer to a day when cancer won’t steal more precious time from anyone.

By signing up today, you could join the fight. It takes about 30 minutes to go to an enrollment appointment, where you provide consent, fill out a brief survey, have your waist circumference measured, and give a small blood sample.

It takes about an hour to fill out a longer at-home survey, and another 60 minutes every 2 to 3 years to fill out surveys from your home. The total commitment one would make over the 20 to 30 year period is about one day.

That’s all it would take for YOU to help create a world with more birthdays. 300,000 people like you will give one day of their time, providing vital information to help researchers find out how to better prevent cancer.  One day…that might later translate into timeless memories, and years of life for your children and for generations to come.

Alpa Patel, PhD is a cancer epidemiologist with expertise in demonstrating the roles obesity and physical inactivity play as risk factors for cancer. She is particularly interested in the health benefits of sitting less & moving more. Patel is currently the strategic director of a nationwide cancer prevention study aimed at understanding the genetic, lifestyle and environmental causes of cancer. 

Choose You Trivia: Did you know that about one quarter of Americans get no physical activity at all? Don’t be one of those people!

One of the most important ways to help prevent many life-threatening health conditions, including some cancers, is to get more physical activity on a regular basis. It’s easier than you think. All you have to do is start walking.

Walking is easy, convenient and free. Walk in your neighborhood or at the local park, or if the weather is cold and rainy, at the mall (just don’t stop in the food court). The only equipment you’ll need is a pair of comfortable walking shoes and clothing.

This month, we challenge you to start walking for better fitness. Here are some tips to get started:

Set specific goals:

Set healthy goals that you can achieve and measure. So instead of saying “I’ll walk more often,” be specific. Say how long you will walk, where and when. For example:

In March, I will walk for thirty minutes four times a week around my neighborhood in the evenings after dinner.

Keep track:

Mark on your calendar each time you complete that walk. If a conflict arises, don’t skip your walk – move it to another time or convenient place.

Build a following:

Inviting someone else, like a family member or a friend, to walk with you can help you stay motivated. You’ll have someone to talk to, and you’re less likely to skip your walk if you will be letting someone else down. Ask your friends to join Choose You as well, so they can get the same tips and support.

Celebrate your success:

Once you accomplish your goals of walking this month, remember to celebrate your success. Salute your accomplishment in ways that fit into your healthy lifestyle choice. Instead of eating a piece of pie, try going dancing, buying new workout clothes, or scheduling a massage.

By: Kimberly Wright, Director, Mission Solutions with Health Promotions

My favorite season is the spring. The days get longer, the flowers are blooming, the birds are singing… I feel happy, hopeful, and experience a real sense of awakening.  When it’s warm outside, I often take advantage of the outdoor track on the campus where my daughter goes to swim practice, and I join the other moms for walks, runs and occasional use of the hand weights.

During the winter though, it’s a completely different story. It’s freezing, dreary and the winter blahs seem to suck all the life out of me. Just making it from point A to point B is hard enough, and working out feels more like a chore. Even worse, the icy weather makes me want to eat heavier foods (like steak, chili, baked potatoes with plenty of toppings and red velvet cupcakes), then retreat to the comfort of my bed and snuggle up under a blanket.

Fortunately, I have found ways to employ some climate control, and weather the winter without freezing my routine. Here are two ways I make it happen:

Paying for a workout class – It’s amazing what can happen when I fork over money for a workout.  I’m a real penny pincher and don’t like to be wasteful, so spending a little up front motivates me to not only show up to class, but to work out even harder and really get my money’s worth.

Shifting my food focus – I shift my focus to making healthier food selections such as fresh fruit and veggies, baked chicken, sweet potatoes, and desserts that use fruit.

Getting over the winter blahs is a challenge for many of us. I know it’s hard to get started at first, but I know that when I do, I begin to feel more relaxed, and I even feel a sense of pride at the fact that I chose me and made it happen.

Kimberly Wright works with the American Cancer Society health promotions department to help support prevention and treatment programs, but on a more personal level she is a wife, mother of two and active in her community. Staying fit while trying to juggle her career, family and personal time is no easy task, but as a representative of Choose You she says not to be discouraged, there are definitely ways to make it all work.

By: Anita Rice Peer Coach, Cancer Information Specialist

I was around twelve or thirteen years old the first time I ever smoked a cigarette.  This was in the seventies, and in the little town I grew up in you could walk into the neighborhood dime store, toss two quarters at the clerk ( yes – fifty cents!) and walk out with a pack of smokes without the clerk ever having batted an eyelash.

At fourteen, I recall actually smoking in the local children’s hospital and on my high school campus, as smoking was allowed then. At seventeen, I tried to quit for the first time, by sucking on lots of hard candy and taking up jogging to preoccupy myself.   I succeeded for about two years.

Then at nineteen, after a death in the family, I began smoking again with a vengeance, making it through a pack a day or more. I did not attempt quitting again for several years, until age thirty-two, when I enrolled in college. I was living in Austin, Texas, and the first round of smoking bans was just coming into effect. I didn’t like being an outcast, and I sure didn’t like the eight week rounds of bronchitis I experienced every winter.

This time, I attended a Nicotine Anonymous meeting, and stopped cold turkey for about four months. Then, following a difficult final exam, I took one drag from a friend’s cigarette, and I was off to the corner store again to purchase a whole pack.

Rather than giving up and continuing to smoke, this time I immediately returned to my Nicotine Anonymous group and told them what happened.  I was so familiar with the merry-go-round of quitting, starting, and quitting again, that I knew if I kept smoking, I would inevitably want to quit anyway.  I was sick of repeating this pattern, so this time I didn’t give up.

Fourteen years have passed since my last cigarette.  I tried many of the tips listed in the American Cancer Society guide – “Quitting Smoking: Help for Cravings and Tough Situations”- and I have managed to do anything BUT smoke when I’ve had an uncomfortable emotion or a craving.

I would be lying if I told you that getting over the physical aspect of nicotine addiction was the end of my smoking struggles.  I had to learn how to feel everything all over again, which really blind-sided me.  I never appreciated how much emotion smoking suppressed.

Eventually, I re-learned all the experiences of life without smoking—watching television, eating out, dating, taking exams (and failing them!), graduating from college, losing beloved pets, being rejected, etc.  I not only survived, but I emerged a much healthier, more authentic person than I had ever been.

I seldom, if ever, think about smoking now, but I am not fooled.  Nicotine addiction is real, and like any addiction, it is possible to relapse. I am very, very grateful for my freedom from nicotine. Remembering what I went through to gain my freedom from smoking helps me keep perspective when cravings.

Check out QuitBuddy, the American Cancer Society’s new SMS tool to help smokers stay motivated to quit. Click and share this blog post on Facebook. Each time you “share” Choose You with friends Sprite Zero donates $1 toward cancer prevention awareness — and your friends learn about putting their health first! Remember, sharing is caring!

By: Colleen Doyle, ACS Director, Nutrition and Physical Activity 

Love is in the air – and not just because Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. It’s also National Heart Month – a time to show our hearts a little love, and do what we can to reduce our risk heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States.

Fortunately, there are things we can put in our cereal bowls, lunch boxes and dinner plates every day that can help reduce our own risk for developing heart disease.   Not only that, a lot of these things can also be part of a healthy diet that can also reduce your risk of developing a variety of types of cancer. A two-for-one!  Now who wouldn’t love that?

Oats, beans and apples

You’ve probably heard that we should eat more fiber.  There are two types of fiber: soluble fiber, which helps reduce serum cholesterol levels and is therefore good for your heart; and insoluble fiber, which helps keep a healthy GI tract, which is good for your colon!

Oats, beans and apples – along with other fruits, vegetables and grains – are great sources of primarily soluble fiber, but contain insoluble fiber, as well.  In general, I tend to tell people to not get too hung up on what type of fiber they eat – just to eat more!  Shoot for 25-30 grams of fiber each day.  Check out my articleExpert Voices blog, Jump on the ‘bran wagon’ for better health, to see how easy it is to get that amount with a little planning.

Bananas, berries and broccoli

Eating more fruits and vegetables is important for reducing heart disease risk.  Low in calories and bursting with nutrients, fruits and vegetables can help reduce high blood pressure (a risk factor for heart disease) and also may help with weight control – an important way to reduce your risk of both heart disease and cancer.

Shoot for at least 2.5 cups of colorful fruits and vegetables each day, and because we don’t know which of the hundreds of nutrients that are packaged in produce are most protective for our health – eat a variety each day!  Sprinkle berries on your cereal, add lettuce and tomato to your sandwich or start your dinner with a salad topped with red peppers and carrots.

Brown rice, whole wheat pasta and….popcorn

Brown rice, whole wheat pasta, and yes, even popcorn, are whole grains – foods that are packed with fiber and other nutrients that help regulate blood pressure.   This same fiber and other nutrients may also help reduce the risk of colon cancer, and eating whole grains is a key component of the ACS recommendation to eat a mostly plant-based diet.  Shoot for at least half your grain sources during the day to be whole grain – kick off the day with a 100% bran cereal, snack on some popcorn (skip the butter!), wrap your fish taco at dinner in a corn tortilla.

Salmon, tuna and mackerel

These fish contain omega 3 fatty acids – a type of fat that may help reduce cholesterol and triglyceride levels, and also blood pressure.  (Other sources include walnuts, flaxseed and canola oil).  The American Heart Association recommends that we eat fish – particularly these types – at least two times per week.

While it doesn’t appear that eating fish high in omega-3’s impact cancer risk, serving fish in place of red meat like beef, pork or lamb is a healthy swap, as red meat consumption is associated with an increased risk of colon cancer.  So why not swap out a filet mignon with a filet of salmon sometime this week?

Avocados, nuts and seeds

Not only can these foods add some great texture and flavor to your diet, they also provide heart-healthy poly- and monounsaturated fats which can help lower your cholesterol.  For years, we used to think the type of fat you eat impacted cancer risk, but the research just hasn’t panned out on this. While these foods may not directly influence cancer risk, they can and should be included as part of an overall healthy diet. One thing to keep in mind – they are high in calories, so you don’t want to go overboard!

Red wine and dark chocolate

Well, we can’t talk about heart health around Valentine’s Day and not bring up red wine and dark chocolate!  Moderate alcohol consumption (no more than one drink per day for women and two for men) is associated with reduced heart disease risk.  Red wine, with its particularly high level of antioxidants, has been linked for years with heart health, although the jury is still out on this (some studies suggest that grape juice may have the same impact).  Similarly, some studies suggest that small amounts of high quality dark chocolate (look for those labeled with ‘at least 70% cocoa’) may also offer some heart-healthy benefits due to its high levels of antioxidants.

Not to be a buzz-kill (pun intended), but both of these are examples of how too much of a good thing is not a good thing.  Even though moderate consumption of red wine may reduce heart disease risk, risk of breast cancer increases at this level.  And too much dark chocolate?  That’s a lot of extra calories, sugar and fat.  But a 5 oz glass of cabernet and a small piece of dark chocolate with your Valentine….?  You decide!

What will you start doing TODAY to reduce your risk of heart disease and cancer?

Colleen Doyle, MS, RD is a registered dietitian and director of the nutrition and physical activity program with the American Cancer Society. Her research stresses the importance of diet and exercise in managing and preventing chronic diseases. As co-author of the Great American Eat Right Cookbook, Doyle helps you create a culinary menu that’s both nutritious and delicious.

Life seems to have gotten in the way of my workout schedule.  For months I was doing great.  I walked at least 3 miles several days a week and I was really toning up and feeling fabulous.  Then I got “busy.”  The word busy is in quotes because it’s one of those catch-all words for life happening and I don’t need to elaborate for people to understand.

I work from home and sit at a desk for hours without moving, so carving out specific time to workout really works best for me, but I’m not able to do that right now so I had to find another plan.

To be considered at least moderately active a person should do 30 minutes of activity five or more days a week – and in 20 to 30 minute intervals.   One thing I’m good about doing for myself is taking a true lunch break.  I have an internal alarm that goes off at noon every day and that tells me to eat something and step away from the computer.  Usually after my meal I would just relax and talk on the phone, or watch a little television.  But what I’ve recently been doing instead is using the time to tidy up my house.  I literally focus on one room or task each day and it not only makes getting active a productive activity, but my house looks pretty spiffy!

• In the kitchen, I load or unload the dishwasher, wipe down countertops and other surfaces, take out the garbage and recycling, and check the fridge for spoiled items.  I try to put a little “attitude” in my motions so my body is moving more like a cardio workout.  This is usually my chore du jour at least twice a week since kitchens can get messy so quickly.
• On another day I’ll focus on the floors throughout my home.  I sweep and mop the hardwoods and tile.  The carpet in my bedroom gets some spot treatment and a good vacuum.  My area rug gets shaken outside and vacuumed.
• Then it’s on to dusting (which I hate!).  I take everything off all the surfaces, dust the surfaces, dust all the furniture nooks and crannies, dust all the items that were on the furniture, and place it all back in its original place.  I also give the ceiling fan blades a good wipe down and dust the floor baseboards (it’s amazing how much dust baseboards accumulate in a just a week’s time and how much you have to bend and stretch to get them clean).
• And then it’s on to linens.  One day a week I strip the bed and put on fresh sheets.  Dirty clothes get washed, ironed and folded.  (I don’t know why ironing is so exhausting, but it is!)
• Of course, the bathroom always needs attention and can always be counted on for some calorie-burning cleaning activity.  Wiping and scrubbing tubs, showers, sinks, and mirrors is a great workout – and I love the way everything gleams right after it’s been cleaned.
• I have cats, so they also benefit from my desire to stay in shape.  Their food bowls get hand washed and dried each week.  Pet beds are shaken outside, vacuumed and lint brushed.  And of course, the dreaded litter box has to be dealt with.  The old litter gets dumped and the box is washed thoroughly and dried.  Then I add in a new liner and litter.  And if you don’t have cats, but have a dog, I suspect that giving your furry friend a bath each week would burn some calories!

If you aren’t at home during the day, maybe try doing chores first thing in the morning (if you’re an early riser), or immediately after work.

If you’re skeptical that cleaning is really a workout, check this out… the American Cancer Society’s “Exercise Counts” calculator

estimates that a 150 lb. person who engages in light cleaning burns approximately 240 calories per hour.  That’s not bad at all!

And I must admit that even though I know the caloric facts I just shared, I do still feel like I need to do some traditional exercises.  But, as I mentioned, I’ve been too busy to carve out gym time.  However, over and over you hear the advice to do a workout while you watch television.  The thing is, at night when I’m watching TV I just want to decompress and take pleasure in the “veg out” experience.  So this tip was tough for me and if I worked out while I watched TV it makes me enjoy my favorite shows less and resent the workout a little.

So, what I’ve been doing is only working out during the commercial breaks.  (Cleaning the house 30 minutes a day is giving me my basic workout, and the commercial break exercises are just an added bonus.)

Each 30 minutes of network programming has about 8 minutes of commercials, so if you watch television for 2 hours a night and workout during the commercials, you’ll get in another 30 or so minutes of additional exercise. Simply do arm curls with light weights, lunges, sit-ups, or whatever other activity works best for you.  (I’m a fan of push-ups and squats.)

So to put it simply, all I’ve been doing is using my lunch hour as a time to step away from my home office and get some chores done (in addition to eating a sensible meal), and then at night when I watch television I use the commercial breaks to get in some traditional exercises.

Try it, and let me know if it works for you!  BTW, if you decide to try my “commercial break workout” during the Super Bowl be prepared to sweat since there are about 70 commercials during an average Super Bowl game.

Lynn Lamousin is a Choose You subscriber from Atlanta, GA who signed up to Eat Right, Get Active, Get Regular Health Checks, and Protect My Skin. (She quit smoking many years ago, but sometimes still dreams about cigarettes.) Her mother and brother both lost battles with cancer.