We all know that everything makes a difference when it comes to a healthy lifestyle. If you find it difficult to make major changes to your diet and exercise routine, start with small changes. See how many of the following you can commit to:
Add a fruit or two to your breakfast. Or make fresh juice with 2-3 of your favorite fruits.
Have a small portion of uncooked vegetables (salad) with your lunch.
Replace unhealthy snacks like cookies and crisps with your favorite dried fruit.
Try fruit yogurt instead of ice cream.
Replace regular coffee with decaf, or better still, herbal teas.
Use olive oil if you must have deep fried stuff.
Have fresh lime instead of carbonated drinks.
Stop eating three hours before your bedtime.
Replace white sugar with brown sugar.
Replace white bread with brown bread.
Replace white rice with brown rice.
Replace regular milk with skimmed milk.
If you must have cheese, have cottage cheese or feta cheese.
Do at least 10 minutes of simple exercise, like stretching or jumping, before breakfast.
Take the stairs instead of elevators.
Park your car a little farther so you have to walk to it.
Take a 10-minute walk during your lunch time – slowly increase to 20 minutes.
Take a 20-minute walk a couple of hours after dinner – with your spouse, kids or dog.
Do some form of intense exercise at least once a week – swimming, cycling, hiking, other sports.
Eat 5-6 small meals instead of 3 big meals a day.
Please share your own health and exercise tips too.
The single most important piece of advice I’ve ever gotten on running came from my high school sports/fitness instructor. By running I don’t mean sprints, I’m referring to slightly longer distance runs – anything that takes you over half an hour. This is what he told me:
“Run the first part with your legs, the middle with your mind, and the final with your heart”.
So next time you go on a challenging run, split it into three parts. For the first part just use your legs, focus on the physical movement, the muscles, the blood flow, your feet hitting the floor. For the second part shift the hard work to the mind; affirmations, positive thoughts, visualizing the outcome, self talk. For the final part, run from the bottom of your heart. Pure, unadulterated passion and belief. Completely detaching yourself from the physical movement and complete ignorance of any pain or tiredness you may be feeling, with the awareness that the pain is only temporary and that there is not a force in the world that’s going to stand in your way of completing the run.
Before you know it you’ll be running distances you never thought you were ever capable of. The three part method. Works like a charm.
The placebo effect has an evil twin: the nocebo effect, in which dummy pills and negative expectations can produce harmful effects. The term ‘nocebo’ was coined in 60′s and means ‘I will harm’ in Latin. Nocebo effect has been studied far less than the placebo effect but the results are as far-reaching.
Robert Hahn of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who has studied the nocebo effect extensively, says: “Beliefs and expectations are not only conscious, logical phenomena, they also have physical consequences.” In clinical trials, about a quarter of patients in control groups experience negative side effects, often matching in severity to those associated with real drugs. Patients undergoing chemotherapy often start feeling sick days before the treatment.
According to Hahn, surgeons are often wary of operating on people who think they will die – because such patients often do. The mere belief that one is susceptible to a heart attack is itself a risk factor. One study found that women who believed they are particularly prone to heart attack are nearly four times as likely to die from coronary conditions than other women with the same risk factors. The ultimate cause of the nocebo effect, however, is not neuro-chemistry but belief!
Sam Shoeman was diagnosed with end stage liver cancer in 1970s and given just months to live. Read the rest of this entry »
Our poll on What Makes You Happy? has got over 200 votes so far. And ‘relationships’ has continued to be the winner, followed by health and career. Interesting, isn’t it? Question is, why most of us don’t spend most of our time, energy and money trying to enhance our relationships?
The risks of speed eating were recently published in the British Medical Journal:
“Japanese researchers queried nearly 3,300 people about eating habits and discovered that those who reported eating quickly until they felt full were three times as likely to be overweight as slow eaters who stopped before they were full.”
I find it interesting that this study was done in Japan, because in Okinawa, a place known for its healthy and long-lived populace, there is a saying – hara hachi bu – which loosely translates “Eat until 80% full.” If you have a tough time slowing your pace of eating, do what the Okinawans do. There’s no guarantee, but you have nothing to lose but weight.
It wasn’t easy compiling this week’s list of links/posts as there were way too many awesome articles swirling around the blogosphere to choose from, but here are the shortlisted six that are a must-read.
Let’s take Trevor’s idea one step further, let’s find out the reasons why people don’t exercise. Please tell us your reasons through this poll – full confidentiality guaranteed:
Trevor Lunn has been one of my best friends, mentors and inspiration for almost two decades. At 60+ he is healthier and fitter than most people half his age. He recently left his long-term publishing career to pursue his dream of getting a degree in Health Sciences. Now he is a full-time university student in Melbourne, majoring in exercise science, psychology and nutrition. He has agreed to share his knowledge and wisdom about health and fitness through this blog. Here’s the first one:
Welcome to Health – Hard Talk. Here will not be found “handy hints and tips” or the latest headlines about “health research” reported in the media, or the supposed quick fixes or mystical herbal or alternative remedies. Here there are no easy, comforting words intended to lull you into the belief that there is little that you can do to improve your own health status; that it’s all in your genes or your circumstances make it unavoidable.
What you will find is ideas and recommendations drawn from high quality scientific literature. They will not be my ideas. They will come mainly from epidemiological studies conducted by the World Health Organization and governments and from scientific research published in peer-reviewed, reputable journals. For now references will not be provided though they can always be requested.
This journey is intended to help you understand where you are with your health compared to the population, what risks you expose yourself to and, hopefully, how you can address these risks and move towards a healthier life. Join me and see where the journey takes you.
Here’s a starting and perhaps startling thought. The leading modifiable risk factor for all-cause mortality world-wide is cigarette smoking. The second is physical inactivity. Putting that into simple language, cigarette smoking kills more people than any other risky behavior and physical inactivity kills more than any of the rest.
If you are in the majority, you do not exercise enough. What’s enough? We’ll get into the detail of that later, but the quick answer is 30 minutes of moderately vigorous activity at least five days a week. Why don’t you do it? Here’s a useful exercise to try. It’s called a Decisional Balance by psychologists. Draw a simple table with two columns side by side. Head one “pros” and the other “cons” Now write down under the “pros” heading all the positive outcomes you think would result from exercising and in the “cons” column all the possible negative outcomes.
But that’s just based on 81 votes! Do you think the results would change much if we had 800 votes instead? Please help get some more votes, and let’s find out.
A respected friend of mine asked me the purpose of this survey, and whether I guarantee confidentiality. Yes, absolutely. I can only see this chart – no names or anything else. And the purposes of the survey are a) personal curiosity and b) obtain interesting statistics to share with my readers. Fair enough?
What do you think really makes people happy? I have wondered this question for years. Is it money that allows you to buy the things and do the things that you like? Or is it strong relationships – people you love, and people who love you? Or is it success in your chosen career and the recognition that comes with it? Or optimum health, fitness and energy to enjoy life to the fullest? Or a religion that connects you to a higher being and guides you to do right? Or does it come from contribution to community or society or mankind or other life or our planet earth?
What makes you happy? Please take this poll and tell us. Please limit to three of the six choices. Get your friends to take this poll too. The more participants, the clearer the answer.
We all know that everything makes a difference when it comes to a healthy lifestyle. If you find it difficult to make major changes to your diet and exercise routine, start with small changes. See how many of the following you can commit to:
The risks of speed eating were recently published in the British Medical Journal:
