You’ve heard this all your life…”you are what you eat”. But often, we get confused about what we should be eating. While there is a lot of information available to us about healthy nutrition, it’s good to start with a few sound principals.

As a rule, people of all ages, who wish to be healthy may want to look at the portions of food we eat. You’ve heard of supersizing no doubt? You don’t have to supersize in order to be eating too much…you can do that just by having portions that are a bit larger than they should be.

Most people have “portion distortion”. Get a good reference book on the subject of portions (any diet or nutritional book) and start measuring your portions.

Yes, get out the measuring cup, the tablespoons and the scale. Do this until you relearn the proper amounts of food to eat. Check yourself periodically to make sure you are staying on target. You’ll be amazed with the results.

Eat organically as much as possible. Food today is loaded with hormones, pesticides, anti-bruise chemicals and the like. Simply washing your fruit may not get rid of the pesticides, and you certainly cannot get the hormones and antibiotics out of your meat. If you cannot grow it yourself (and know it’s clean) then consider purchasing foods that are certified as organic.

We, as whole human being, like to stay in balance as much as possible. I believe that much of our stress, much of our illness, and indeed a large part of aging is due to being out of balance. This principal holds true for our eating habits as well.

We need all components of nutrition. We need the fats (healthy fats), carbohydrates (complex carbohydrates) and the protein. Stay away from dietary recommendations that tell you to avoid “all fats” or “all carbohydrates”. You need all three. Balance.

Excerpt from Aging with Success, page 21-2.; (C) Barbara C. Phillips, NP

Here is another reason to keep your weight under control.  Those extra pounds are not worth losing brain cell function! See what you think about this new study.

—-

Healthy women who put on weight between the premenopausal and postmenopausal years risk losing nerve cells in the brain, research suggests.

Gaining weight is a “highly modifiable” risk factor that may be targeted to prevent or slow the progression of potentially harmful age-related changes in the brain, the University of Pittsburgh-based study team suggests in the June issue of Psychosomatic Medicine.

Dr. Isabella Soreca and colleagues analyzed brain imaging data obtained from 48 healthy older women who were tracked over a 20-year period as part of the longitudinal epidemiological Pittsburgh Healthy Women Study.

They report in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine that an increase in body weight during the transition to menopause and beyond was “uniquely associated” with a lower volume of gray matter (the portion of the brain containing nerve cell bodies).

Soreca and colleagues say this finding is “particularly noteworthy” given that these were healthy older women who entered menopause naturally and had no history of cardiovascular disease or psychiatric disease and none were obese in mid-life or later on.

“Women may be particularly motivated to maintain a healthy weight in the postmenopausal years, should it be confirmed that weight gain causes alteration in brain function that is important to quality of life,” Soreca and colleagues conclude.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE56F5I820090716

I see lots of people every day in my practice. Most of them have health issues, and just want to maintain their current status. Only a few really want to become healthy.  But the ones that do, inspire me to do my best work…not only with them, but with myself.

Case in point. Over the last year, I watched a woman lose over 100 lbs – her starting weight was 399 pounds. This is a woman with many physical and mental health problems, and frankly, I didn’t think she would be able to stick with a plan. However, she asked for assistance and I gave it.

My immediate pleasure at watching her lose a few pounds soon gave way to pure astonishment as month after month the pounds she lost added up. I became her most vocal cheer leader. I cried with her when her loses added up to 100 lbs. Over time we have reduced the amount of medication she is on her blood pressure and her diabetes. As she continues along her path, I fully expect that we will be able to discontinue many of her medications. Obviously…she is doing super!

Watching her change prompted me to reevaluate my own health status. How many extra pounds have I added to my frame in the past 10 years? How come I was not following my own advice about diet and exercise? The truth is, I was blaming it on not having enough time in my life to properly prepare meals, eating on the run instead of sitting down to a meal, and working all hours instead of finding 30 minutes to exercise.

This past June, as I marked another year, I decided it was time for this health care provider to take her own advice and take care of herself.  Since June, I’ve released 36 lbs (and counting!). My diet is far healthier and I’m exercising on a regular basis (though not as much as I should). It’s a process I will continue to perfect. My goal is maintain and improve my health as I get older. I want to avoid all medications, all illnesses. 

Since I quietly started on my own journey this past June, I have been amazed at the new people who have joined my practice seeking health. People who want to age in a way they will have health and the energy to live an active life. As one woman put it, she wants to have enough sass to be a sassy older woman.

It’s all so exciting. I am currently putting a coaching program together to work with even more women who want to get healthy and who want to grow into their own sassiness. 

Let me here what your greatest needs are in terms of your health. I’m listening.

I get lots of people who come in and ask about sleep apnea because someone told them they are snoring.

But really…what is sleep apnea?

Apnea means literally without breath. There fore sleep apnea means you are without breath while you are sleeping.

While there are three types: obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), central sleep apnea and mixed apnea, the result is the same: you wake up because your brain wants you to sleep. Sometimes you do this literally dozens of times per night. Consequently, your sleep is extremely fragmented and you are tired.

SA is very, very common. The NIH estimates it affects 12 million Americans. That’s a lot of people…and even so, when I sent someone in for a sleep study, they are often surprised.

Are you at risk? Perhaps. Risk factors include being male, overweight or obese and over the age of 40. But guess what…anyone can get it. In my practice…I see it mostly in women (but then I see more women than men).

The problem with sleep apnea is that it can cause cardiovascular disorders such as hypertension; memory impairment, weight gain, impotency and headaches. In addition, I’ve seen folks who have suffered heart attacks and strokes as well as have been involved in motor vehicle accidents.

Ask your health care provider about it. It is one of those things that most people don’t know they have…maybe even you. Find out if you have it and get it treated.

Further information can be found at:
American Sleep Apnea Association

NIH: What is Sleep Apnea

Mayo Clinic: Sleep Apnea

Many, many women (not to mention children and men) need to lose weight in order to live a healthier life. Water is such a remarkable thing, but seldom do we give it the credit that it deserves. Did you know that over 66% of your body weight is nothing but water? It’s amazing!

Here are 4 tips on how to incorporate more water into your day to help facilitate your weight loss goals.

1. Drink plenty of water. Our body needs a lot of water so give in to water. Water is not just way to flush out toxin but if you have more water in your body you will generally feel healthier and fitter. This it self will discourage any tendency to gorge. The best thing about water is that is has no calories at all.
2. Start your day with a glass of water. As soon as you wake up, gulp down a glass of cool water. It’s a wonderful way to start you day and you only need a lesser quantity of your breakfast drink after that. A glass of water lets out all your digestive juices and sort of lubricates the insides of your body. You may have your morning cup of tea but have it after a glass of water. It is good for you.
3. Drink a glass of water before you start the meal. Water naturally needs some space so that you feel fuller without actually having to stuff yourself.
4. Have another glass of water while you are having the meal. Again this is another way of making yourself full so that you can actually rise from the table eating less but feeling full just the same. Instead of drinking it one gulp, take sips after each morsel. It will help the food to settle faster so that you get that feeling that you are full faster.

For more weight loss tips visit Weight Loss Information

BOSTON — As you age, walking can keep the pounds away, according to new research presented at the annual meeting of the Obesity Society, an organization of weight-loss researchers and care providers.

Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh found that overweight middle-aged people who walked briskly for 30 to 60 minutes a day lost 7 pounds in a year and a half, while similar adults who didn’t exercise consistently gained seven pounds in that time.

In the second study, University of North Carolina researchers did an analysis of data on young adults, ages 18 to 30, over a 15-year period and found those who walked four or more hours a week were the least likely to gain weight as they aged.

For the complete article –> Click here

“What is the most important thing I can do to protect my health/improve my health?”

I’ve been asked this many times and my answer is always the same. Change your eating habits and get moving.

Two recent articles/studies have pointed this out again. You don’t need to run a marathon, ride the STP (Seattle-to-Portland bike ride), or spend the majority of every day at the gyn in order to see the benefits of exercise. Yes, we are all busy – but as I remind myself…if I don’t take care of me, what will tomorrow bring?

For further reading, here are the two articles I mentioned. When you are done reading…go for that walk!

Ill effects of inactivity reversible with exercise

Obese boomers face immobile future

By Stephanie Schupska University of Georgia
As female baby boomers crawl toward menopause and retirement, eating disorders among this age group have started to rise.

Anorexia Nervosa and Related Eating Disorders, Inc., reports that some speculate the eating disorder increase in this group, born from 1946 until 1964, is because they’ve consistently considered image to be of major importance.

Connie Crawley, a University of Georgia Cooperative Extension expert, agrees. “Women of all ages are very conscious of their bodies and sometimes have a very negative opinion of their bodies,” she said. “Now that the baby boomers are aging, their body changes are really kind of hitting them harder than probably the previous generation. So now there are women who are becoming much more concerned about the normal changes in body fat distribution that come with age.”

Crawley is a UGA Extension nutrition and health specialist and a registered dietitian. She says many people focus on the physical symptoms of an eating disorder, but “the self-esteem issues, the coping skills, dealing with all the changes as one gets older,” are the real issues.

Read more…

BBC NEWS | Health | Smoking and obesity ‘age people’

Being overweight and a smoker makes a person biologically older
than slim non-smokers of the same birth age, UK and US researchers
have found.

Smoking accelerated the ageing of key pieces of a person’s DNA by about
4.6 years. For obesity it was nine years. These genetic codes are important for regulating cell division and have been linked to age-related diseases.

The study in the Lancet was based on 1,122 twins from a database held by St Thomas’ Hospital in London. The researchers looked at telomeres – strips of DNA that cap the end of chromosomes and appear to protect and stabilise them. Telomeres shorten each time a cell divides, until there is nothing left, making cell division less reliable and increasing the risk of disorders. This happens naturally with ageing.

Accelerated ageing

Both smoking and obesity are important risk factors for many age-related diseases, therefore Professor Tim Spector and colleagues set out to see whether they might accelerate telomere shortening. Among the study sample, all women aged 18-76, 119 were clinically obese, 203 were current smokers and 369 were ex-smokers.

By analysing blood samples for DNA the researchers found telomere length decreased steadily with age, as expected. However, the telomeres of the obese women and smokers were far shorter than those of lean women and those who had never smoked of the same age. Each pack year – the number of cigarette packs smoked per day multiplied by the number of years smoking – was equivalent to a loss of an additional 18% on top of the average annual shortening of telomeres. A woman who had smoked a pack per day for 40 years accelerated her ageing by 7.4 years, according to telomere length.

Chromosomal clock

Professor Spector, from the twin research unit at St Thomas’ Hospital, said: “What you are seeing here is that the entire body is ageing from smoking, not just your heart or your lungs. So you are accelerating your whole chromosomal clock by this activity which is an important message for younger people to think about. People would probably think twice if they knew that at every age they were five or seven years older than their contemporaries biologically because that has influences on their skin, brain and bones.”

Tobacco smoke contains poisons. The research suggests that these poisons may affect cells at one of the most fundamental levels. Excess fat is believed to disrupt the chemical proposition of the body in a negative way. Such stressors can damage the body. Dr Lorna Layward, research manager at Help the Aged, said the work supported what we already know about smoking and obesity being extremely damaging to health.

“While the research is not conclusive, we should take heed of the alarm bells. Most over 65s are not getting enough exercise which has massive implications aside from obesity, such as declining strength and mobility.

Giving up smoking is the biggest thing you can do reduce your chances of developing coronary heart disease. “In today’s fast-paced life, many of us say we don’t have time to exercise or eat healthily, but unless we change our ways we will soon have to find time to cope with ill health.”

Source: BBC Health