Scottsdale resident and Paradise Valley Community College fitness professor Jacky Burke is a recognized fitness and anti-aging expert. Here are Jacky’s top 10 tips for better health and fitness in 2008:
10 Tips for Better Health in 2008
By Jacky Burke, MS, ATC, CSCS, CPT (personal trainer, athletic trainer, strength and conditioning specialist)
After the holidays are over, and you have finished buying gifts for friends, family, and loved ones, it is time for you to focus on yourself. It is a great time for you to look at your health, and examine whether you can live a healthier or more active lifestyle that will help you live a longer, more productive life. While many people set New Year’s Resolutions that fall to the wayside within a month, there are many small changes that you can make to your lifestyle that can make your health so much better in the long-run, without committing to depriving sacrifices. Here are ten suggestions that you can start today, and will make a big impact on your health.
1. Read food labels
Every day the media reports another harmful effect of a certain food. Sometimes it seems as if there is nothing left that we are allowed to eat! How can people without a dietician’s degree figure out what is healthy, and what is not? The best thing for you to do is to start reading food labels. Actually read the ingredients in the foods you are selecting. Ingredients are listed in the order of amounts; that is, the first ingredient listed is the largest component of the product, then the second-most is listed second, etc. If sugar is listed first, then that product has a lot of sugar in it. Try to keep sugar the fifth-listed ingredient, or lower, in the foods you buy.
2. Eliminate trans-fats
Trans-fats are getting a lot of press lately, and most people in the U.S. are not sure what the big deal is. If people don’t understand the issue, how can they make a decision? Should you worry about trans-fats in your diet? According to the USDA and most nutritionists, you should. Trans-fats in most foods are healthy fats that have been chemically changed to unhealthy fats. While that might come as a surprise, it makes sense why food manufacturers would do this. Healthy fats tend to be liquid at room temperature. Most foods we buy are solids. So, the healthy fats would separate out, thus making the food less “stable” and probably less appealing to a consumer. Consider the convenience of buying peanut butter, like Jif, where the peanut butter is consistent throughout. The other choice is “natural” peanut butter, where the healthy fats separate out and form a layer on top of the inside of the jar. Not knowing the health difference, people have been choosing the more convenient, consistent peanut butter. The food manufacturers are thrilled since the trans-fats will also last longer (not break down) so it increases their profit margin. However, according to Frank B. Hu, MD, PhD, of the Harvard School of Public Health, who released a report in March of 2007 about research he had done on trans-fats in the diet, stated that:
“This research shows that trans fats are a very strong risk factor for coronary heart disease, and it serves to justify current efforts to get trans fats out of the American diet.”
To know whether a food has trans-fats in it, you will need to read the label. In the list of ingredients, if “shortening” or “partially hydrogenated” are listed, then there are trans-fats in that food product, even if labeling elsewhere on the container says otherwise.
3. Make an appointment with the doctor
People are living longer and longer lives thanks to advances in modern medicine. However, some effects of aging are being focused on more and more since in earlier times, they weren’t an issue since people died before these effects could cause much damage. Now we are seeing how they can be detrimental to good quality of life. The most dangerous aspect of these “natural” effects of aging is that they tend to not have warning signs until they are quite serious. For example, high blood pressure, or hypertension, is known as the “silent killer” since it has very few symptoms, and people might not know they have it until it is so serious it causes a heart attack or stroke. Osteoporosis, or weakening of the bones, is similar in that people wouldn’t know they have it until even a simple fall causes a major bone break. Simple tests at the doctor’s office can screen for these diseases, and make a major impact on reversing their progress (yes, you can reverse either of these, and many other “natural” effects of aging with a healthy lifestyle!) before you suffer a major health crisis. Make an appointment for a check-up with your doctor, and ask to have tests done that are appropriate for your age.
4. Start walking
Physical activity is so important to health! So many people remain sedentary, though, with various reasons why they can’t do any today. No more excuses! Any body can go for a walk. It doesn’t have to be strenuous, it doesn’t have to be fancy with designer shoes and outfit, and the weather doesn’t even need to be perfect. Walk around your neighborhood, on a treadmill at home or at the gym, or even just walk around inside your home at a brisk pace. No time limit, just do what you can and then try to do more another day. Do this often. The health benefits are innumerable.
5. Simple resistance training
Most people know that aerobic exercise (like the walking just mentioned) is so important. Most people don’t know that resistance training can be just as important. Like walking, resistance training doesn’t have to be fancy, expensive, cumbersome, or intimidating. Even ten minutes a few days a week can make the quality of your life and your health so much greater. Resistance training prevents osteoporosis (and walking doesn’t, contrary to popular belief). It prevents muscle wasting, which is an effect, not of aging itself but inactivity, which in turn causes decreases in hormones that keep us looking and feeling young, including those that are responsible for healthy, tight skin, a higher metabolism, and even sex drive. Doing regular resistance training increases natural levels of these hormones safely. Like walking, some simple exercises can be done right a home in just a few minutes a day, and there are options for any fitness level. Please visit my website for suggestions at www.BodyDefinitions.com.
6. Control Stress
Stress is detrimental to health. It causes weight gain, poor sleep, it’s linked to heart disease, and isn’t good for mental health, either. Managing stress can seem like an impossible task, but it doesn’t have to be, and a little change today can make a big difference. First, try to organize one area of you life that is not. This can be anything from scheduling appointments, to paying bills, or an actual messy area of your home or office. Try to start a new routine or system that is more organized and less likely to cause missed appointments or mistakes or time lost looking for things. Start small, and you will save time lost in the future. Then, next time you have a chance, try organizing a second small area. In time, you will have made yourself more efficient, and this will pay off in terms of controlling stress.
7. Reconnect with friends
Did you connect with any friends or loved ones over the holidays this year that you wish you would have? Friends and loved ones are invaluable to our mental health. Mental health improves our overall health. Ever heard the old phrase, “laughter is the best medicine”? The positive effects of feeling good resonate throughout our bodies. Your friends can truly be the best medicine for your well-being. Don’t let work and responsibilities take over your life, and forget that there is another side to life out there, especially as business gear up for the New Year, and want to go full-steam ahead. Don’t get caught up in numbers and money, remember that friends and family are what really count. At the very least, remind yourself, especially in times of stress, of a favorite joke or a funny event that will always bring a smile to your face.
8. Examine vices
“Everybody has to have one vice.” Why? Instead of using this as an excuse for something detrimental to your health, like smoking, eating junk food, or drinking excessively, examine if you have a vice in your life and then take a step to try to get past it. Quitting smoking can be one of the hardest things a person can do, but you don’t need to do it all in one day, and there is help. Take one step today toward getting your vice out of your life. Make a call to a doctor to get a nicotine patch or prescription, or tell a friend or family member of your plan to try to make a change, and ask for their support. Or, do some research into how detrimental your vice might be to your health to increase your motivation to change.
9. Make one nutritional substitution
While nobody eats a perfect diet, most people do make bad choices throughout the week, and these few bad choices can add up to a couple extra pounds per year. After ten years, after 20 years, those added pounds well, add up! Just making one small change today, and kept for those same ten or twenty years, could make the result totally different! For example, if you drink soda, try switching to something less harmful to your waistline. A typical 12-oz soda has 140 calories. One of these per day, 7 days a week, is 980 calories. If you are overeating by only this much, in one year you’d gain 14 ½ pounds!! Imagine that in ten years! Switch to water or unsweetened green tea instead for a thinner waistline and a healthier body. And, by the way, nutritionists aren’t convinced that diet sodas don’t cause weight gain, too, even if they don’t have calories. If you don’t drink soda, is there another small change you could make? If you have a late-night snack, switch to something healthy like a piece of fruit instead of chips or ice-cream. By the way, have a healthy, decent-sized breakfast to prevent these late-night cravings. Any of these small changes can make you feel so much better, and look better too!
10. Get enough sleep
Getting good quality and quantity of sleep can seem like an unrealistic pipe dream. It doesn’t have to be the case. If you have trouble falling asleep, all of the previous tips can help you sleep better, getting exercise helps burn off hormones from stress that cause anxiety and makes us tired, feeling happy from good experiences with friends helps us sleep better, and eating properly, along with drinking enough water, also increases the quality of sleep. Sleep experts recommend some simple tips to help you fall asleep at night, including not watching TV in bed, keeping bright lights to a minimum around the time you want to fall asleep, and being comfortable from a temperature and bedding standpoint. Try one or all of these tips to help you get to sleep tonight. Feeling rested the next day makes you have so much more energy, and then you have the ability to do more of what is asked of you each day. This in turn helps lower your stress level, helps you have more time to spend with friends, helps you have the energy to make better nutritional choices you can see how they are so linked together, but in turn, make us have such higher quality of life, and you sure might as well make the best of the one life we have.
Jacky is offering a free fitness assessment and consultation for Air Conditioning by Jay customers. Contact her at 602-391-6210 by January 18th to arrange one for you.
