The more active we are, the healthier we are. All forms of aerobic activity or "cardio" that get us breathing harder and our hearts beating faster are associated with improvements in numerous health conditions including heart disease, hypertension, stroke, insulin sensitivity, osteoporosis, and depression. Muscle-strengthening activities (more on these in a later post) build muscle strength, endurance, increase bone density and can boost our metabolisms. And stretching exercises increase flexibility, can reduce stress and prevent injury. All three of these exercises are recommended, but how much? And how much are we getting? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that all adults receive 2.5 hours/week of moderate-intensity* aerobic activity (30 minutes 5 days/week) and muscle-strengthening activities on at least 2 days per week; however, 80% of adults in the United States do not meet these guidelines with 51.6% meeting the aerobic activity guidelines and only 29.3% meeting the muscle-strengthening guidelines. Some of the most common reasons adults cite for not adopting more physically active lifestyles include: not having enough time, a lack of self-motivation and confidence in their ability to be physically active (low self-efficacy), find exercise inconvenient, and a fear of being injured or have been injured recently. Our environment can also affect our ability and desire to be active, for example, if we lack encouragement and support from our family and peers or if our neighborhoods lack parks, sidewalks, bicycle lanes or safe spaces. Discovering and addressing our unique barriers to physical activity should be the first step on our path to a more active lifestyle. What are your barriers? Without taking the appropriate time to reflect and become more self-aware of your own habits and roadblocks, they will repeatedly get in your way. Here are some ways to overcome common physical activity barriers, ways to make it fun and how to ensure your environment supports your goal to move more: Schedule it in. Treat physical activity like a regular part of your daily or weekly schedule and write it on your calendar. Also, keep in mind that all types of activities count as long as we’re doing them at a moderate or vigorous-intensity for at least 7 to 10 minutes at a time. Schedule in small bouts of activity throughout your day and surprise yourself with how much activity you can fit in! Make it fun! Bust out your favorite tunes on your MP3 player while hiking on the trail or power walk in the house while watching Leslie Sansone’s Walk away the Pounds. Recruit fitness buddies. Rather than meeting your friends over pizza and beer or for a latte, find a beautiful place outdoors for a walk, some flag football or a kickboxing class. If your friends aren't interested, branch out and hit up meetup.com! Set S.M.A.R.T. goals. When planning your goals, go through all the details. When and where will you do it? How will you fit it into your schedule? What do you need to get started? Writing things down often adds a level of accountability and opportunity for rewarding yourself. (More on S.M.A.R.T. goals in another post) Get a pedometer. Did you know that those who wear pedometers walk at least 2,000 more steps (1 mile!) per day than those who don’t? Fit physical activity into your daily routine: walk or ride your bike to work or shopping, walk the dog, exercise while you watch TV, park farther away from your destination, etc. Get the family on board: having a network of friends and family who support your efforts to move more and eat healthy will be fundamental to your success. Explain your desire to lead an active lifestyle to friends and family; ask them to support your efforts. Partake in post-dinner walks, coordinate a hike over the weekend or rent a Zumba video for a family workout in the living room! Leverage your lunch hour! Is there time to fit in a walk or some chair yoga into your break? Get your coworkers involved and hit the streets! Change your mindset: If your barrier is low-energy, convince yourself that if you give it a chance physical activity will increase your energy level; then, try it. You may be surprised by the result. Our mind is truly the first battleground. Learn a new skill. It’s often our lack of self-efficacy and confidence that prevents us from being active. If that’s your barrier take some time to learn an activity you’ve always been interested in, such as ballroom dancing, square dancing, or swimming. Plan for setbacks! Effective change involves small changes and problem solving. Roadblocks will always appear, whether it’s the impending holidays or rain in the forecast that may cancel your scheduled walk. Get in the habit of brainstorming specific strategies to overcome your unique roadblocks in advance so you’re prepared to overcome them! One last note on weight loss: for those striving to lose weight, it has been found that many people may need more than the equivalent of 2.5 hours/week of moderate-intensity physical activity to maintain their weight and up to 5 hours/week (~45min/day) to lose weight. Start where you’re at, reflect on your barriers and try out those tips above. *You can tell if it’s moderate-intensity by doing the talk test: you'll be able to talk, but not sing the words to your favorite song. You can tell if your activity is vigorous-intensity if you aren’t able to say more than a few words without pausing for a breath.
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We’ve all heard the phrase ‘you are what you eat’, but what about when you eat? There is a lot of interesting research that suggests when we eat and how organized we are with our meal schedules can affect our weight. Let’s start with some research you’ve probably heard of: breakfast. It’s the most important meal of the day many claim, one which helps students perform better in school. Research also shows that skipping breakfast is associated with increased prevalence of obesity. The thought is that skipping breakfast increases hunger throughout the day, making us overeat at our next meal. Data also suggests that eating breakfast helps minimize impulsive snacking. Not everyone is convinced that this is the case, however. Of course what we are eating for breakfast is a more critical factor. For example, a veggie egg scramble on whole wheat toast vs. a grande mocha and maple nut scone from Starbucks, (containing a 770 calories and 59 grams of sugar - almost 15 teaspoons! - together). What about meal frequency? Is it better to eat frequent, small meals or eat three square meals a day? The jury is still out, but compelling evidence does show that eating multiple, small meals can suppress hunger and overall serum insulin concentrations. This is important news as high insulin levels are associated with obesity and cancer. One other interesting finding regarding the when is in those of us who eat late at night. Data suggest that the consumption of carbohydrate-rich foods in the late evening increases glycogen levels in our muscles. Unless this stored glycogen is burned as fuel, it will ultimately be stored as fat. Therefore, consumption of late-evening meals with carbohydrate-rich foods may also be related to obesity. In addition, eating late at night also affects the circadian rhythms of the hormones leptin and ghrelin, which affect hunger and satiation (or fullness). Leptin signals satiation thereby decreasing food intake while ghrelin induces hunger, affecting meal initiation. Eating late at night (as well as being sleep deprived) turns leptin down and raises ghrelin up, a bad combination for those trying to manage their weight. So…perhaps the when isn't the entire story, but being conscious of it can be a powerful tool for weight maintenance. Don’t skip breakfast or other meals and try to eat every 2-4 hours. Take inventory of your eating and sleep habits and focus on meals that keep your blood sugar in balance (and don't forget the power of Sugar Blockers!) Have you ever watched with envy a child offered ice cream, take a bite or two then push the bowl away? Children are naturally intuitive with their eating, but we lose this skill with age. Cultural and social factors influence how much, when and why we eat, along with our lack of presence. Children are good at intuitive eating because they live in present time. They aren’t thinking about what they ate today or yesterday or what they’ll eat later or even how the cook feels - they’re only focused on eating when they are hungry, what they want to eat now, and the amount of food to satisfy their hunger for that moment. The Clean Plate Club is an example of not eating intuitively and a new study reveals that adults fall victim more than children, as we would expect. Researchers analyzed almost 1,200 diners in eight countries, including the United States, Canada, France, Taiwan, Korea, Finland, and the Netherlands. Despite differences in gender and geography the study found that adults finish 92 percent of what's on their plates while kids eat just 59 percent. Other highlights from the study revealed that men are more likely than women to trust their bodies to tell them how much to eat. In addition, it was found that intuitive eating was lower among those with a higher BMI and that intuitive eating was associated with fewer disordered eating behaviors. Are you a member of the Clean Plate Club? Have you lost your ability to listen and respond to your body’s natural hunger and fullness signals? Well, fear not as there is considerable evidence that intuitive eating skills can be learned (or re-learned). Often called "mindful eating” intuitive eating is also an effective weight management strategy and we can start today. Using smaller plates and bowls is one solution as they "trick" our brain into thinking we've eaten more. But really, mindful eating begins with sitting down at a table with the TV off. Remove all distractions, and focus on your meal. Setting the table and lighting a candle can help as well. Mindful eating involves honoring the sensations of hunger and fullness and giving ourselves permission to eat. When we tell ourselves that we can't or shouldn't have a particular food, it can lead to intense feelings of deprivation that build into uncontrollable cravings and, often, binging. We can pause in the middle of a meal and ask ourselves how the food tastes, and what our current fullness level is. Doesn’t food taste 10 times better when you’re hungry anyhow? If we decide that we are no longer hungry, give thanks to Tupperware, to-go boxes, and refrigeration! And remember, it takes up to 20 minutes for our gut to communicate with our brain that we're full, so slow it down a bit :) Mindful eating also involves honoring our feelings without using food. Food is often used as a crutch when dealing with anxiety, loneliness, boredom, and anger, but food won't fix any of these feelings. It may comfort for the short term, distract or even numb us, but food won't solve the problem. What other activities can we enjoy or how else can we manage these emotions? We can also encourage mindful eating in the children that we touch. Research tells us that mothers who eat intuitively use less controlling feeding practices with their children and that parental monitoring and restriction of food intake can negatively impact our children’s BMI, emotional eating, and Intuitive Eating Scale scores. The more we as parents and caregivers can trust our own bodies, the more easily we can let children instinctively trust theirs. The journey towards intuitive eating is a process one engages in overtime. It may even pose more of challenge for those who have a long history of dieting, self-imposed food restrictions, or body image concerns. With time, practice and self-compassion we can all re-learn to eat intuitively and pass this gift to those around us. Do you practice intuitive eating? What are your experiences and bits of advice that can help us on the path to well-being? Fiber. It’s one of those nutrients we often hear about, but did you know that most Americans are deficient in it? Public health guidelines from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advise Americans to eat between 20 and 38 grams of fiber a day, but most adults don’t even eat half that much. This post will describe what fiber is, its fabulous health benefits and how we can ramp up our intake. (And I promise you won't grow a sunflower out of your bum!) Dietary fiber is basically the parts of plant foods that our bodies can't digest or absorb. It passes relatively intact through our stomach, small intestine, colon and out of our body. Fiber is present in all plants that are eaten for food, including fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, lentils and peas. Though there are many types of fiber, they are generally categorized as either “soluble” or "insoluble”. Soluble fiber dissolves in water to form a gel-like texture, helping to slow down your digestion and make you feel full. These fibers help lower cholesterol and help regulate blood sugar levels. Soluble fiber is found in oats, lentils, apples, oranges, pears, strawberries, nuts, flaxseeds, beans, dried peas, blueberries, psyllium, cucumbers, celery, and carrots. Insoluble fiber does not dissolve in water and adds bulk to your stool and speeds up the passage of food and waste through your gut, helping prevent constipation. It also helps regulate your intestine’s pH. It is found in whole grains such as whole wheat, barley, brown rice and bulgar, nuts and seeds, zucchini, celery, broccoli, cabbage, onions, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, green beans, dark leafy vegetables, raisins, grapes, and root vegetable skins. Most plant-based foods, such as oatmeal and beans, contain both soluble and insoluble fiber. However, the amount of each type varies in different plant foods. Eating a wide variety of fibers is the ideal solution to gaining all the health benefits. Benefits of a high-fiber diet:
Ways to boost your intake: We should get at least 20 grams of fiber a day, but more is better. Slowly adding more fiber to your diet can avoid bloating and gas by giving your body time to adapt. It is also important to drink plenty of liquids while increasing fiber.
Last week I introduced research indicating that the risks of diseases such as type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease are strongly related to the glycemic index (GI) of our overall diet. Typically foods with high GI’s are high in sugar and/or starch (think desserts, white flour, cereals, rice, potatoes). But what can we do to lower a foods impact on our blood sugar if we do choose to eat a cupcake or some potato chips (preferably baked - here's a great recipe I use), which are high-GI foods? I recently finished reading The Sugar Blockers Diet (thanks for the recommendation Ilana!) and learned about sugar blockers, or ways we can slow the absorption of glucose into our blood stream. These various means to block sugar are powerful since, according to research in the book, reducing the size of after-meal blood sugar spikes by just 30% reduces insulin demands, promotes weight loss, makes diabetes easier to control and can actually reverse prediabetes. If knowledge is power, here’s to power! Sugar blocking power! 1. Increase particle size: Ways to increase the size of carbohydrates particles that reach your stomach. Example: Cook your pasta al dente, or slightly undercooked. It will take longer to digest and raise your blood sugar less than if you over cook it. Try it out and let me know how you like it! 2. Stomach barriers: Things you can do to physically impeded the passage of carbohydrates from your stomach to your intestine. Example: Eat something fibrous (like a salad) before your meal. 3. Intestinal “brakes”: Substances that slow stomach emptying. Example: Eat a handful of nuts or a piece of cheese before a meal. 4. Enzyme inhibitors: Substances that inhibit enzymes that break down starch into sugar. Example: Amylase is a digestive enzyme that breaks down starches into smaller carbohydrate molecules. It is secreted by our salivary glands and pancreas. Vinegar inhibits amylase and is thus a sugar blocker. Eat a salad with a vinegar-based dressing to lower your after-meal blood sugar level. Vinegar-based dressings are always a healthy choice over cream-based and they're so easy to make! I make this balsamic vinaigrette often. 5. Sugar sponges: Substances that soak up glucose in your digestive tract. Example: Foods or supplements high in soluble fiber (found in legumes like beans and peas, oats, seeds and nuts, some vegetables and fruit). I will discuss the different types of fiber in depth in my next post. 6. Liver helpers: Substances that enhance your liver’s ability to take up glucose released into your bloodstream during meals. Example: Our liver is our second largest organ that performs many essential functions related to digestion, metabolism, immunity, and the storage of nutrients within the body. Alcohol helps the liver take up glucose after you eat, so enjoy a glass of wine or even a shot before your meal. I personally love beer, but it tends to have more carbs than wine or liquor so choose wisely and watch for portion sizes. 7. First-phase simulators: Ways to get the beta cells of our pancreas to secrete insulin sooner rather than later, making it more effective. Example: Protein triggers the first-phase insulin response, so eat an egg with your toast or meatball with your spaghetti. 8. Insulin sensitizers: Techniques that sensitize your body to insulin so that less is needed to handle the after-meal glucose surge. Example: Reduced sensitivity to insulin is a major contributor to type 2 diabetes. The one cure for insulin resistance is exercise, so be sure to exercise every 24 to 48 hours. A 20 minute walk is sufficient. Resistance exercises (lifting weights, pushups, pull-ups, etc.) are effective too since the more muscle cells we have the more glucose they absorb. 9. After-meal exercise: Taking advantage of your muscles’ ability to remove sugar from your bloodstream without insulin. Example: Taking a walk after a meal. A while back I wrote an article titled Calories In, calories out* that described the balancing act of weight loss. However, there was one caveat: not all calories are created equal. In other words, calories from the different foods/drinks we eat (from fats, carbohydrates and proteins) do not affect our bodies in the same way. Many foods that contain natural sugars, added sugars, and starch (rice, potatoes, pasta, breads, baked goods) raise our blood sugar. These foods are considered to have a high-glycemic index. Proteins and fats on the other hand do not significantly affect our blood sugar and are considered to have a low-glycemic index. So why does this matter? Well, research from the Harvard School of Public Health indicate that the risks of diseases such as type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease are strongly related to the glycemic index (GI) of the overall diet. Other studies show that low-GI diets improve our sensitivity to insulin, improve weight loss maintenance, and decrease our levels of LDL (aka “lousy”) cholesterol. The moral of the story: eating lower glycemic-index foods reduce your risk for heart disease and diabetes and also assist in weight maintenance. I am not touting for the Atkins diet here. I believe that low-GI diets are easier to stick to on a day-to-day basis compared to low-carb diets. Look forward to a later post on helpful recipes and ideas on how to eat the low-GI way in addition to ways to combine foods to lower their impact on our blood sugar. 'Till then here's a link with a list of the GI indexes of 100+ foods. What are your thoughts on the glycemic index? Last year I read an article in the New York Times on the benefits of reading fiction. Since then, I've jumped into the world of fiction head first, making up for all the years I've immersed myself in non-fiction. My chronic desire to be “productive” has drawn me to non-fiction in general, thinking that my time is best spent learning about health or psychology or biology….but really the benefits of fiction are vast. Especially for those (like myself) who struggle with expressing and reading their emotions and of those around them. The study highlighted in the article found that after reading literary fiction, as opposed nonfiction, people performed better on tests measuring empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence. It makes sense since our brains don't make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life (which is why self-talk is so powerful!). Researchers say the reason is that fiction often leaves more to the imagination, encouraging readers to make inferences about characters and be sensitive to emotional nuance and complexity. Scientists call this capacity of the brain to construct a map of other people’s emotions and intentions “theory of mind.” And this capacity starts at a young age! A 2010 study found a similar result in preschool-age children: the more stories they had read to them, the keener their theory of mind — an effect that was also produced by watching movies but, curiously, not by watching television. Take note parents: preschoolers who have a TV in their bedroom and are exposed to more background TV have a weaker understanding of other people's beliefs and desires, and reduced cognitive development. Since reading that article I’ve read more than a dozen of awesome novels. Check out the website Goodreads.com if you’re interested in some good recommendations. Currently I am reading A Confederacy of Dunces, one of the most hilarious and outlandish books I’ve ever read. It’s a blast uncontrollably laughing aloud on public transit and sharing with my fellow riders who express curiosity. What are your favorite works of fiction? I would love to know your thoughts and get your recommendations. “Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.” ― Henry Ford Self-talk is that inner running dialogue we have with ourselves. It’s that voice that says, "You sure are handsome" or "You are going to have a great day". It might say, “You look like crap today" or "You sure have gained a lot of weight”. The voice can be positive and optimistic, or negative and critical. It can exaggerate, discourage, and drain our energy with ruminating thoughts or it can inspire and uplift and strengthen. Which voice will you choose? Our self-talk has a great influence on our emotions, actions, and ultimately our personality. To change our attitudes we must change the inner dialogue. Positive affirmations are a form of positive self-talk. By saying them repeatedly to yourself, you can make a direct impact on your subconscious mind, which eventually accepts them as reality. Positive affirmations challenge negative beliefs that undermine and replace them with positive self-nurturing beliefs. It is a kind of "brainwashing" only we get to choose which negative beliefs to wash away. Positive affirmation exercises have been shown to have a broad range of beneficial effects. They can buffer stress by reducing rumination in response to failure and our reactivity to social evaluation. Positive self-affirmation boosts our self-image, increase self-esteem and self-regulatory strength and enables one to transcend self-image concerns. They can help change harmful behaviors or accomplish goals, and they can also help undo the damage caused by negative scripts, those things which we repeatedly tell ourselves that contribute to a negative self-perception. For an affirmation to be effective, it needs to be present tense, positive, personal and specific. Repetition is also a key tool. To get started:
If you're interested in learning further techniques, check out Shad Helmstetter's book What to Say When you Talk To Yourself. What are your affirmations? It's a challenge to practice affirmation exercises regularly, but I try. As I just started a new job, one of my current affirmation is"I am strong and intelligent and will succeed at all I attempt". I also enjoys saying "Rejoice evermore", "I choose love here", and "I am at peace". Some great ones for weight loss include: "I accept my body shape and acknowledge the beauty it holds", "I am grateful for the body I own and all it does for me.", and "I love and care for my body". Remember, the mind is a powerful force: "We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are.” - Anais Nin I have not been practicing what I preach as of late, sitting a lot at my desk. As I wrote in a prior post, sitting is the new smoking in terms of harm to overall health. It’s associated with increased risk for heart disease and diabetes as well as weak core muscles and tight hip flexors and hamstrings. This week, I’ve been making a diligent effort to stand up while on the phone, take frequent walks around the office and ensure that I head out to a nearby trail on my lunch break. I also did a little office yoga session and am inspired to keep this going. Yoga is a centuries old tradition, combining movement with breath. It is a great form of exercise that reduces muscle tension, increases flexibility, muscle strength and tone, provides cardio and circulatory health, and can even boost immunity. I printed out the picture in this post that I found online and posted it to my wall. If you Google “office yoga” there are tons of great resources and PowerPoint presentations to give you even more ideas for simple stretches and strengthening exercises you can do from your desk and chair. Spread the word to your coworkers and let’s be the healthy role models we know we can be! Now…if I can only get a standing desk. That’ll be my next move. Also, check out this dope infographic by the Huffington Post: Your body on yoga "With enough butter, anything is good." - Julia Child I thoroughly enjoy butter. Sauteing a mirepoix, on toast with ikrá (roe), cooking eggs, in baked goods….salty, sweet with its creamy mouth feel…delightful. But it has such a bad rap, doesn't it? The purpose of my blog article today is an attempt to redeem butter. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, claiming 631,636 lives in 2006 and accounting for more than 1 in 4 (26%) of all deaths that year. Risk factors for cardiovascular disease include high blood cholesterol, hypertension, diabetes, obesity/overweight, and poor diet. The role of butter -- and other high-fat dairy products -- in raising cholesterol levels is debated among scientists. Many mainstream nutrition authorities conclude that butter is bad for cholesterol levels. However, a recent review in the Advances in Nutrition journal conclude that though butter increases LDL (low-density lipoprotein aka “lousy”) cholesterol, it also increases HDL (high-density lipoprotein aka “healthy”) cholesterol and therefore might not affect or can even lower our total cholesterol ratio. Other research confirms that there is no significant evidence concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Additional research even suggests bioactive properties of dairy fat and their role in reduced adiposity. Though daunting to read, Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes is a great resource that addresses this low-fat conundrum and details the compelling case that refined carbohydrates are in fact the primary cause of weight gain and “diseases of civilization” such as heart disease, hypertension and diabetes. More about that in a later post. The jury may still be out, but I do not fear butter. However, before you start cooking Paula Deen style do understand that butter and high-fat dairy products are high in calories, which we all need to be mindful of for successful weight maintenance. One last note: not all butter is created equal. Mike’s Daily Apple did a great review of grass-fed vs. grain-fed butter regarding its health composition and taste. Grass-fed was the winner with a higher vitamin content, better fatty acid composition and better taste. Kerrygold is an example of grass-fed butter you can purchase at most grocery stores, in addition to Organic Valley Pasture Butter. Finally, it is also important to keep in mind that many toxins are stored in animal fat. According to the FDA, most human exposure to dioxins comes from food, with 95 percent of that coming from animal fats. Ahh…though I do love butter so, there is still a call to my favorite mantra about moderation. Enjoy your butter, buy good quality butter, but use it judiciously. |
AuthorHello and welcome! My name is Andrea Notch Mayzeles. I am a Certified Health Education Specialist, Mom, and Master of Public Health dedicated to the path of well-being. As a wellness professional I am committed to continued learning and am here to share research, recipes and musings on health, psychology, personal development, and parenting. I hope you enjoy! Categories
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