Choose You Blog

By: Shannon Overton, Manager, Organizational Communications

Until recently I was a self-proclaimed, processed-food, refined-sugar, refined-flour, diet-soda junkie!  I always thought I ate relatively healthy – rarely getting fast food and always opting for low fat snacks – but my pantry was full of processed cereals, crackers, and nutrition bars, and my fridge was full of diet soda. I always had to have my daily sugar “fix”, whether a piece of candy or a cookie.  I began reading about the health benefits of eating unprocessed foods at a point in my life when I often felt tired, and I seemed to catch every virus that crossed my path. I made the decision to choose myself by eliminating processed foods from my diet. When I say processed foods, I mean pretty much anything that comes out of a box, package, or can – including my beloved diet soda.

What did I feed myself and my family? As challenging as it sounds, I started making all of our meals from scratch. My motto became, “If I want it, I have to make it.” I was already cooking dinner most nights of the week and having leftovers the next day for lunch, but breakfast and snacks were the biggest challenges.

With the help of a few online food bloggers, including Deliciously Organic and 100 Days of Real Food, I learned how to cook using unprocessed organic ingredients.

• Instead of tortillas out of a package, I started making my own tortillas with whole wheat flour – they’re not as pretty and round as the store-bought kind, but they sure taste good!

• I stopped buying quick-cooking rice. I never thought about it before, but rice does not come out of the field ready to cook in 5 minutes; it is processed so that consumers can cook it in 5 minutes.

• Instead of processed cereals, nutrition bars, crackers, and pretzels for breakfast and snacks, I quickly learned how to make granola for our morning cereal, and granola bars, a homemade version of Lara bars, and muffins for our snacks.

• Fruits and vegetables also became a “convenient” snack because I no longer had the option of pulling crackers out of a box.

Believe me when I say this process was not easy for me or my family. My husband almost cracked a tooth on my first batch of homemade granola cereal, I had some serious diet soda withdrawals, and my four-year old threatened to go live with a family who had pretzels.

Fortunately, we made it past those initial hurdles, and the health benefits are paying off in a big way! I have not been sick, I have so much more energy and I no longer crave the sugary snacks I used to love. In fact, when I recently decided to give myself a break and indulge in some candy it backfired, and I felt dreadful for hours afterwards. I never thought I would ever be able to say that candy made me feel sick!

By choosing to put myself first and eat healthfully, I ultimately chose to put my family’s health first — and that’s the biggest pay-off of all!

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: Kimberly Wright,Director, Mission Solutions with Health Promotions

I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes the idea of setting time aside for myself makes me feel a little guilty, or even (gasp) selfish. On the increasingly rare occasions when I’m not working, cleaning the house or taking my children from Kung Fu to swim practice, instead of being thrilled at the opportunity to relax, I panic!

“Any time away from kids and work means the ball is getting dropped,” I find myself saying. “There is always something that has to be done!”

And it doesn’t help that when these sought-after breaks do become available, a little monster appears on my shoulder… urging me to pour a large glass of wine, eat an unhealthy snack and ditch my workout.

Here’s what you may find surprising though. For me, the very same things that keep me busiest, also keep me motivated. A simple photograph of my husband and children is a constant reminder of my need to choose myself and ignore that pesky monster. Let me explain.

Eight years ago, I lost my mother to colorectal cancer, a condition that can be prevented in many cases through regular screening. Even though I am an adult, I may never stop feeling like a little kid that misses her mom. I decided to do everything I can to prevent my family from experiencing such a loss unnecessarily.

And one day it hit me. While sitting on an airplane, the flight attendant’s message resonated with a bang. When she said “put the oxygen mask on yourself first before helping others around you” it just made sense – if I don’t survive, how can I help my family?

So now, I make it a point to take time out for me. My husband and I tag team playing chauffeur to our children and making sure their homework is complete. And sometimes, when I know I’ll have the entire house to myself… (shh, don’t tell anyone) I take the day off!

For the sake of my family, I’ve made the Choose You commitment to eat right and stay active. I urge each of you to give yourself permission to make a commitment to you, and take care of yourself just as well as you take care of your family.

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!

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 Linda Tallau, Choose You Contest Winner

Prior to the autumn of 2010, I considered myself a very healthy person.  I was always physically active – a runner and a cyclist who had also just gotten into Zumba. From dawn to dusk, I just could go, go, go! But my health took a frightening turn on September 29, 2010.

While undergoing a routine, annual mammogram, my doctor saw two suspicious lumps in my left breast.  I tried to remain optimistic over the next few days as I went through multiple x-rays, ultrasounds and an MRI. But on a sunny Monday afternoon less than a week later, as I stood looking out my kitchen window, my physician called with the terrible news – I had lobular carcinoma in situ, a condition of the milk glands which puts you at higher risk of developing breast cancer.

I typically bring in the New Year with a bang, but I started 2011 with an exhausting regimen of medical activity.  It seemed as though whenever I started feeling better another treatment was just around the corner.  My energy level was at an all-time low, so I couldn’t do the athletics things I used to enjoy. I had no appetite, so I lost a lot of weight.  Then, to complicate matters even further, another condition led to surgery on my right foot. I needed to wear a brace for the rest of the year.

By the end of 2011 I was tired of being in doctors’ offices, tired of feeling crappy and frustrated that I had gained 20 pounds of additional weight.

Despite it all, I am excited about 2012 and being a Choose You contest winner. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to fly to Los Angeles to train with fitness expert, Holly Perkins. Choosing You is important, but it’s definitely a challenge trying to carve time out for yourself, especially when you’re sick. I must say though, what I went through over the previous year has given me a whole new perspective.

I know it’s a cliché, but it’s true – remaining positive and hopeful helps get you through! I’m Choosing Me this year because it would make no sense to be miserable. I have friends that have survived cancer, and are now cancer free.  But I also admire the true warriors, those that are fighting terminal cancers; who inspire me to “keep on keeping on” and to be thankful for the life I have left to enjoy. That’s something each of us can do, cancer or no cancer.

I was 53 when I was diagnosed, and the disease took me right into menopause. I may not be able to do everything I used to, but I can develop a new schedule starting from this point on.

The two-day training with Holly Perkins helped me develop a strategy to get my fitness routine back on track. There are definitely limitations – my right foot is still healing and because of my breast condition I cannot do a lot of lifting and stretching. But, I’m not letting that hold me back from learning a new routine and getting the year off on the right foot (literally).

Click and share this blog post on Facebook. Each time you “share” Choose You with friends Sprite Zero donates $1 toward Choose You— and your friends learn about putting their health first!  Remember, sharing is caring!

I admit it. I’m kind of a New Year’s “resolution junkie”. I’ve always loved the end of one year and the beginning of another. It’s a time to reflect on the last 12 months, take stock, plan ahead – and get real.

According to surveys, a lot of us feel the same way. Supposedly, about 50% of us will make some kind of resolution.  And likely, those resolutions will be related to eating better, being more active and losing weight.

All lofty goals, of course, but according to those same surveys, only 8% of us will achieve what we actually set out to do and 45% percent of us will have thrown in the towel by the end of January.

We have such high hopes to eat better, we’re so motivated to exercise more, and we so want to live a healthier life. So, why is it so hard, then, to keep the promises we make to ourselves?  According to researchers at the National Institutes of Health, people who consistently maintain a new behavior for 6 to 8 weeks are more likely to be able to continue the effort long term.

Part of ‘getting real’ is figuring out how to set ourselves up for success and make it easier to achieve what we set out to accomplish. Especially when it comes to eating better and being more active, there are some solid steps we can take to help avoid resolution FAIL.

Start small

Be realistic in your expectations and what you expect to achieve.  Take large or long-term goals and break them down into smaller, more manageable goals:  running a marathon may not be a realistic goal, but training for a 5K and building to a 10K might be. 

Be specific

The more specific you are in identifying your goal, the more successful you will be in developing an effective plan of action to achieve it.  Instead of “I want to eat more fiber”, you might start with “I will add 2 servings of fruits and vegetables to my diet each day”.  Rather than “I’m going to walk more”, try “I will walk one more mile each day”.

Keep track

Many studies show that keeping a food and/or activity journal can help keep you on track and motivated. If you set a goal that involves improving your diet, a food diary will give you insight into not only what and how much you consume, but can help you uncover why you are eating when and what you are. You’ll figure out if there are particular times of the day that are challenges for you and whether certain circumstances (or people!) cause you to overeat.

Schedule your workout

Try writing down your planned exercise sessions in your calendar, elevating them to ‘priority status’, just like you may do with other appointments.

Don’t rely on willpower

If you’re trying to eat less sugar but that ‘hot doughnut’ sign tempts you on your way to work, find a different route. If you’ve set a goal to drink more water and less soda throughout the day, keep a pitcher of water close by.  If you are committing to getting up early to work out, save yourself some time by setting out your clothes and shoes the night before so they are ready to go first thing when you roll out of bed.

Temptation is all around us, but being proactive about reducing these temptations and creating an environment that makes it easier to eat better and be more active will help set you up for success.

Set up a support system

Support from family and friends are an important part of making and sustaining healthy lifestyle changes. Begin to think of who is most supportive in your life and who can provide encouragement – and help you hold yourself accountable – along the way.  You might find your friend is better at keeping you motivated and your co-worker might support you best by providing you with creative healthy recipes.  Let your family and friends know how best they can support you!

Reward yourself

Treat yourself for the milestones you achieve What’s important is choosing a reward that is right for you and that helps you continue moving toward your goals to live healthier (like new workout clothes or a bubble bath, instead of chocolate, when you meet your exercise goal for the week).

So, what about you? Are you setting any goals to eat better and being more active this year? How will you set yourself up for success? What challenges do you anticipate? How do you see overcoming them?

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!

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.

My Facebook stream is usually a list of family news and health updates. The other day, as I looked through the list, people were asking for prayers and positive thoughts for relatives stricken with various diseases, often cancer.

I stopped and wondered: they’re updating us, their Facebook friends, but are they updating their doctors?

The Department of Health and Human says:

“Family news can be important to doctors, too. Researchers say that if a patient’s close relative develops a disease that can run in families, the patient’s risk may go up, so doctors could change their recommendations for screening tests.

At Baylor College of Medicine, Sharon Plon saw this in data on close relatives of about 11,000 patients across the country. The analysis looked at colorectal, breast and prostate cancers.

Dr. Plon:

“Our hope is that physicians and patients will be more sophisticated about who needs the more intensive or earlier screening, so we can pick up cancers at an earlier age.’’

That sophistication, though, depends upon patients keeping their doctors informed. Understandably, you may not prefer to Facebook friend your doctor, but do find a quick and easy way to send them news to ensure that your chart is up-to-date.

A new study shows that yoga can help women undergoing radiation treatment for breast cancer:

At the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Lorenzo Cohen saw this in women who did yoga or stretching. He says the stretching group reported feeling less tired, but the yoga group got this plus less stress and lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

Dr. Cohen says it’s best to do yoga regularly:

“It’s constantly exposing yourself to the positive benefits and the relaxation that we feel after a mind-body practice that can be quite useful.’’

The study presented at a meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

I’m a big fan of yoga, so this doesn’t surprise me but it does delight me. I use yoga to relieve muscle pain and tension, release stress, build my core, improve my muscle strength, center my emotions, and okay, biggest use is to help deal with hormonal fluctuations those of us easing into middle years often experience. The best help? It can ease my night sweats and insomnia. That’s an anecdote, by the way, not a scientific study.

But consistently, lowering the cortisol seems to help. And science does bear that out.

Yoga is an exercise that cancer patients can usually manage, and being active is important, as Colleen Doyle. M.S., R.D., explained in a recent Choose You blog post about managing exercise during cancer treatment (make sure to read that and check with your doctor before adopting any exercise routine).

Have you tried yoga? What did it do for you?

Consistently, health and cancer research shows that early detection and intervention greatly increases the chance of a positive outcome.

But what do people who lack health insurance or income do to get health checks? And what if someone does have insurance but it doesn’t cover preventive health checks such as mammograms?

The Department of Health and Human Services announced on Monday, August 1, 2011:

Historic new guidelines that will ensure women receive preventive health services at no additional cost were announced today by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Developed by the independent Institute of Medicine, the new guidelines require new health insurance plans to cover women’s preventive services such as well-woman visits, breastfeeding support, domestic violence screening, and contraception without charging a co-payment, co-insurance or a deductible.

“The Affordable Care Act helps stop health problems before they start,” said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.  “These historic guidelines are based on science and existing literature and will help ensure women get the preventive health benefits they need.”

Before health reform, too many Americans didn’t get the preventive health care they need to stay healthy, avoid or delay the onset of disease, lead productive lives, and reduce health care costs.  Often because of cost, Americans used preventive services at about half the recommended rate.

Last summer, HHS released new insurance market rules under the Affordable Care Act requiring all new private health plans to cover several evidence-based preventive services like mammograms, colonoscopies, blood pressure checks, and childhood immunizations without charging a copayment, deductible or coinsurance. The Affordable Care Act also made recommended preventive services free for people on Medicare.

This adds on top of other services now guaranteed without cost sharing, including

• well-woman visits;
• screening for gestational diabetes;
• human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing for women 30 years and older;
• sexually-transmitted infection counseling;
• human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) screening and counseling;
• FDA-approved contraception methods and contraceptive counseling;
• breastfeeding support, supplies, and counseling; and
• domestic violence screening and counseling.

This means that preventive health checks should be accessible to all, not just those with insurance that provides good coverage.

The regulations also directs the Institute of Medicine to do a full scientific review to determine how to help keep women healthy.

These regulations go into effect on August 1, 2012.

For more information on the HHS guidelines for expanding women’s preventive services, please visit: http://www.healthcare.gov/news/factsheets/womensprevention08012011a.html. The guidelines can be found at: www.hrsa.gov/womensguidelines/.

Maya Angelou once said, “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” She believes that sentiment applies to each action we take, including eating. Recently, Angelou told Nate Berkus that she believes many of our eating issues come about because we aren’t really eating what we want. “Yes I’ll have that second helping, yes I’ll take more potatoes,” she says we decide, when instead what we really want is a small slice of that chocolate cake. In her book, Great Food All Day Long: Cook Splendidly, Eat Smart, she wrote:

Angelou shares her health story: she had found herself suffering from health problems because she was overweight. She tried many diets and solutions, to no avail. Then she decided portion control was the secret to success, but portion control of good food. She cooked her favorites, ate small portions frequently, and threw out the window rules about what to eat and when.

On NPR, she said too many rules and too much rushing are crushing good cooking, and more importantly, the place of meeting we’ve had over good food. From that interview came this great quote:

Eating good food, she says, should be a time to enlighten the spirit.

Nourish. We should eat nourishing foods, and Angelou reminds us that the food and the experience of eating should also be nourishing…to your mind and spirit as well as body.

Angelou lost thirty-five pounds, which she has kept off, and did so while eating what she loved.

Her book, Great Food, All Day Long, shares recipes that don’t omit but also don’t overdo usual diet no-nos such as sugar and butter, and each dish could be used for breakfast, dinner or lunch. She hopes the food is nourishing and fulfilling, which equals delight.

The recipes are for “down home” delicious food that includes a lot of nutrition.

What foods nourish your body, mind and spirit while helping you eat right?

I remembered that sunscreen isn’t truly waterproof or sweat proof when I read this from HHS HealthBeat:

“Even if sunscreens say they’re waterproof, they’re not. Sunscreens can wash off with sweat, or just being in the water. When this happens, their sun protection washes off, too, leaving users at greater risk for burns, premature skin aging and possibly even skin cancer. So the Food and Drug Administration has set new rules to help people know what they’re getting and when to use it.”

I specifically buy sunscreens that say waterproof or sweatproof because if we’re outdoors, we’re likely either in the water or sweating! Sometimes those sunscreens even cost more. I can’t seem to wean myself away from those; my mind feels sure they are more effective. They must have some basis for saying it, right?

That’s a little true, but not quite accurate, as FDA dermatologist Jill Lindstrom explains, “Sunscreens may only use the term `water resistant,’ and must clearly indicate how long water resistance actually lasts.’”

So the sunscreen currently marked “waterproof” and “sweat proof” are actually only able to withstand water and sweat a little better than regular sunscreen. How much is a little? Well the new FDA guidelines only approved two lengths of time for water resistance claims: 40 minutes and 80 minutes.

That means you really ought to reapply sunscreen every half hour or so, especially if you are in full sun during the main hours of maximum sun exposure: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

How can you tell whether your sunscreen can resist water and sweat for 40 or 80 minutes? You might not know until the new label requirements take effect next summer, June 2012.

As you probably know, the FDA recently issued new guidelines for sunscreen. Those new requirements are to improve clarity and honesty in labeling:

• You should be able to read any sunscreen label and clearly know the depth of its protectiveness (5 versus 15 versus 50) and the breadth of its protection (e.g., broad spectrum).
• Sun screens cannot claim to work longer than two hours without special FDA approval.
• The new requirements also stipulated truth and straightforward information about how it works in the water or with sweat: “Water resistance claims on the product’s front label must tell how much time a user can expect to get the declared SPF level of protection while swimming or sweating, based on standard testing.”
• Most importantly, the new FDA guidelines state that manufacturers cannot make claims that sunscreens are “waterproof” or “sweatproof, or identify their products as “sunblocks.”

You can check manufacturers sites to see if they offer any more detail about claims of time they work in water or with sweat.

Err on the side of caution to best prevent skin damage, premature aging, and skin cancer.

Weight gain is not inevitable as you age, alleged a Mayo Clinic article that hit my inbox today. I decided to click through and read what miracles I was missing yet .

I closed my eyes and ticked off my lifestyle list to see how it measured up from another article from the experts:

• only whole grains
• small portions
• healthy, fresh food choices
• strong limits on junk
• “eat this, not that” choices such as fat free sorbet instead of ice cream
• no sodas, juices or drinks other than water except in rare cases
• daily exercise
• healthy sleep (6-8)

and so on.

Okay…here’s their magic formula:

• Don’t eat: Potato chips, Potatoes, Unprocessed red meats, or Processed meats. Or see pounds creep on despite otherwise good habits.
• Do eat: vegetables, nuts, fruits and whole grains. And see less weight gain.
• “Alcoholic beverages and fruit juices were associated with a small but gradual increase in weight. Sugar-sweetened beverages were a major contributor to weight gain.”
• Limit TV.
• Get a good night’s sleep.

No surprises, and I see that I’m on the right path, although I still have a few things in my life it appears good medical science would rather me leave behind: the sitting in the desk chair job, meat, wine (and sometimes margaritas), and an addiction to Bravo.

So I paused and wondered whether I’d be willing to utterly give up any of that, cold turkey, to be healthier? I decided I’m willing to cut back further. But not quite to eliminate.

What about you? What do you still have in your life that medical science would rather you leave behind? Are you willing to do it?

Or…what have you cut, bad habit-wise, out of your life already?