I had a great conversation with Gabrielle Mazar on her podcast. The episode was called “The True Impact of Lifestyle on Your Health” and a lot of valuable information was shared.
Topics discussed include the importance of awareness about the foods you eat (they may not be as healthy as you think), the pillars of a healthy lifestyle and the reasons why your genes do not control your destiny.
Please click the link below to if you’d like to listen:
Have you been a couch potato for too long? Do you want to finally do something about it? If so— kudos to you! One of the first things you should do is set specific health goals so that you have a depiction of where you currently are (point A) and where you wish to be (point B). Moreover, it may turn out that the gap between A and B is substantial, and consequently, many changes are required in order to close this gap.
Some people in this situation may be able to successfully make significant life changes in a short time to bring them closer to attaining their goals. However, this may prove too difficult for most people, and attempting to make extensive changes quickly can easily be a set-up for failure. I submit that making gradual and progressive small changes over time is a much better way to achieve big goals and close the gap. In short, for most people, baby steps are the way to go.
I wonder how many people reading this have a treadmill that now serves as a wardrobe. You purchased the treadmill with a strong desire to exercise and become healthier, which you did at the outset. However, over time, your commitment to becoming physically fit began to wane, and the treadmill began collecting dust. Not too long afterward, it began collecting piles of clothes. It is now difficult to even recognize it as a treadmill.
What can you do? The answer is to take baby steps. If you resolve to exercise consistently, make gradual changes. Start by removing a few articles of clothing each day over the course of a week. Now take a look at it—you actually have a treadmill again. Next, use it to take a five-minute walk. Over the following weeks, take longer walks and then short jogs. Then, begin to take longer runs on your brand-new closet-turned-exercise machine. You’ll feel great, have a lot of fun, and will be doing magnificent things for your health.
In most instances, consistent and progressive baby steps are the best way to close the gap and accomplish big goals.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I hope that you have enjoyed it and found it informative. Please feel free to share it with anyone you think may benefit.
Your outcomes in life will be determined by the actions that you take on a consistent basis.
For instance, if you are working towards a specific goal, then it is the actions you take regularly in the service of that goal that will determine if and when it is accomplished.
Regarding health, if you consistently eat unhealthy foods, then you are likely going to go on to develop lifestyle-related diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and cancer.
Conversely, if you consistently eat healthy foods, you will significantly lower your risk of developing such conditions.
Consistency is key.
Just like eating a single slice of pizza will not cause you to suffer a heart attack, eating a single bean and quinoa salad will not turn you into a picture of good health.
Within reason, doing something once or twice will not have an appreciable impact on your outcomes.
It’s what you do most of the time that counts. Your small actions, added up over time, will have enormous effects on your life, whether good or bad.
Consistency is king.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I hope you enjoyed it. Please feel free to share it with anyone you think may benefit from it.
A few weeks ago, while I was taking a break from a busy ER shift in the doctor’s lounge, the television was on, and commercials were airing. The first two were promoting popular fast-food restaurant chains. The third was an advertisement for a chocolate cookie produced by a famous cookie company. Finally, the fourth was touting the benefits of a well-known prescription medication to help control the metabolic derangements caused by type 2 diabetes (DM2).
Watching this sequence of promotions, I was struck by how absurd and illogical this seemed. As many of you may be aware, DM2 is predominantly a disease of lifestyle—individuals develop this disease by consistently eating unhealthy foods. It is preventable and reversible by living a healthy lifestyle. And here were three commercials endorsing foods that can lead to the development of DM2, followed by a commercial advocating for a medication that can help control the damage created by DM2, which, of course, was caused by the foods advertised in the preceding ads.
Please realize that I am not telling anyone what they should and should not eat—that is a personal choice. I share this story because it stirred my thoughts and raised questions in my mind, and I hope it does the same for you.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I hope that you enjoyed it and found it informative. Feel free to leave comments and also feel free to share it with anyone that you think may benefit from it.
In my last post, I wrote about fiber and its many health benefits. I mentioned that it lowers cholesterol and triglycerides. I also stated that it reduces the risk of developing chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and several types of cancer. As an added bonus, it makes you feel fuller sooner and without increasing your caloric intake.
I stated how many different types of fiber are the food of choice for the 39 trillion bacteria living in our gut—our gut microbiome. Moreover, a thriving gut microbiome is responsible for many of the health benefits of fiber. When the bacteria in our gut are presented with different types of fiber, they produce small molecules called short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs). Aside from providing several of the health miracles described earlier, SCFAs also provide 70% of the energy needed by the cells of our colon, which will keep them functioning well.
To digress for a moment, have you ever heard of leaky gut syndrome? I certainly have. Over the years, I’ve had many patients who have told me they have this condition. But what exactly is a leaky gut? I mean, how does one’s gut leak? Well, it all comes down to the health of our colon cells. These cells are held closely together by molecules called tight junctions. If these junctions work normally, the colon cells will be held closely together. If these junctions are not operating as they should, the colon cells will separate, and there will now be spaces between cells. Substances within the gut, such as bacteria, bacterial toxins, and molecules from food, can now move through these openings and find themselves outside the gut. This, my friends, is a leaky gut.
You may wonder why it is such a problem if these things “leak” out of your gut. Well, the fact that 70% of your immune system lives just outside the gut is one big reason. When your immune system encounters these things, it can lead to allergies, excessive inflammation, and even autoimmunity. Furthermore, the muscles and nerves within the gut can be adversely affected, leading to distressing symptoms such as constipation, diarrhea, bloating, and abdominal pain.
Once again, I’d like to point out that you can lower the risk of developing many diseases and also allow yourself the opportunity to feel fantastic through the simple act of eating whole, healthy foods.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I hope you enjoyed it and found it informative. If so, please feel free to share it.
Building healthy habits is the best thing you can do if you’d like to start living a healthier lifestyle. However, I’ll admit that developing good habits can initially be challenging.
One thing you can do, especially in that difficult beginning stage, is to make the easy things difficult to do and make the difficult things easy to do.
Allow me to explain.
Let’s say that you are a person who currently loves snacking on unhealthy foods, but you’d like to change and instead begin eating healthier snacks such as fruits, vegetables, and some nuts. You love your cookies, candies, cakes, and chips. Whenever you get the munchies and are in the mood for a snack, all your favorite foods are right there in your kitchen. That’s easy, right?
So, you have to make the easy thing hard to do. This translates to ridding your home of all your favorite yet unhealthy snacks. Next, stock your kitchen pantry, refrigerator, and countertops with fruits, vegetables, and nuts—make the difficult thing easy to do.
The next time you are in the mood for a snack, all those healthy and tasty snacks will be easily accessible and right there for your enjoyment—easy, right? How about baby carrots and hummus? Or maybe a banana and grapes?
Moreover, if you really want to snack on some junk food, you will have to leave your home and either walk or drive to the nearby store, which is going to be relatively difficult, and it will be less likely that you will do it. This will help you to start building healthy habits.
This concept applies not only to health habits but to any behavior that you’d like to change. Let’s say that you are a shopaholic. You absolutely love going to the stores, buying all sorts of goodies, and paying for them with your favorite plastic card. However, let’s also declare that you want to change this habit and become more financially responsible. Well, in that case, make the easy thing difficult to do. I don’t remember where, but I remember reading somewhere the recommendation to put your favorite credit card in an empty coffee can, fill it with water, and place it in the freezer. The next time you have the urge to hit the stores, your credit card will be frozen in a block of ice. If you’d really like to go, you’ll have to wait for it to thaw. Hopefully, your impulse to shop will have passed by then.
Making the easy difficult and the difficult easy is a great way to help build new habits.
If you know of anyone who might benefit from reading this post, please feel free to share it with them.
Welcome to the end of the final week of the Swap Challenge!
I hope everyone was able to swap out at least one unhealthy meal for a healthy one each week over the past month. More importantly, I hope that you found it delicious and satisfying.
This week I’d like to share a tuna recipe without the tuna. It uses chickpeas and vegan mayonnaise and is delicious.
Two of the most important things you can do to help maintain good health and help prevent the development of lifestyle-related diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease, are eating healthy foods and exercising. If you are not accustomed to doing these things regularly, it may very well be difficult to get to this place. So, what can you do to move in the right direction?
The most important thing, the key factor, is the establishment of healthy routines and habits. If you can develop healthy routines and habits, everything else will become simple and fall right into place. Understandably, the initial set-up of healthy habits may be challenging. I would thus like to offer two ideas to help get you started on your journey.
First, I believe that for most people, trying to accomplish too much too quickly may be overwhelming and possibly become a setup for failure. As a result, it is better to start small, take baby steps, and gradually advance.
The next ideas I want to share are concepts I learned back in my college physics class—inertia and momentum. Inertia is the propensity for a body to remain unchanged with regard to its motion. So, if a body is at rest, it will tend to stay at rest. Momentum can be thought of as the energy gained by a body in motion.
How about a practical example demonstrating how these concepts can help a person develop healthy routines? Let’s say that you don’t run at all and would like to run for thirty minutes five times each week. Currently, you have a great deal of inertia—you don’t run at all and would tend to remain in this state. However, once you start to break free from your inertia, by perhaps going for a light run twice this week for five minutes each time, you will also begin to build a small amount of momentum. Next week you might commit to running three times for ten minutes each time. You’ve just broken free from more inertia and have developed more momentum. You then decide that you will run four times the following week for ten minutes each session, and then for the next two weeks, you will increase your time for those runs to fifteen minutes. Each week you will be unloading more inertia, developing greater momentum, and finding that the runs are becoming easier and more enjoyable. Over the ensuing weeks, you will hit your goal and feel fantastic. The momentum you have developed will make you unstoppable!
These all-important concepts of inertia and momentum are not only pertinent to running. They can be applied to almost anything else. Some other things that come to mind are eating healthy, studying a new language, practicing a sport, or learning a new skill, such as playing the piano. You can achieve so much in life by breaking free from inertia and taking advantage of momentum.
