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Staying Healthy for the Holidays: Stress

12/24/2014

Pie chart courtesy of oregonbookreport.com

Here we are on Christmas Eve. Many of us will be traveling and visiting family we may only see once or twice a year. We all have those relatives that drive us crazy. The overbearing mother, the screw-up sibling, or the drunk grandmother. Some of us will be buying last minute gifts as we scramble to spend every last penny to fulfill our perceived duty of gift giving. Lets not forget the creation of the perfect holiday feast! All these add up to a tremendous amount of stress! The holidays do not need to be so stressful. We can turn that stress into the "joy" that everyone talks about. Here, in the last "Staying Healthy for the Holidays" installment, are five easy stress reduction tips.

Breathe. Number one thing you can do to reduce stress is to stop and breathe. If you are feeling overwhelmed step into an empty room, close your eyes and breathe deep. Practice abdominal breathing, infants do this naturally, but somewhere along the way we start to breathe from our chest. Sure our lungs are in our chest, but our diaphragm (the muscle responsible for breathing) is located at the bottom of our ribs. As it pulls downward towards our belly when we inhale, it pushes our guts outward distending our belly. So to properly get a full breath we must breathe from our abdomens. Feel your belly push outward as your inhale through your nose, filling your lungs from the bottom of your ribs to the top in one long breath. Exhale slowly and controlled through your mouth. Try to exhale half as fast as you inhaled. If it took you 4 seconds to inhale, take 8 to exhale. This usually helps to calm and center me when I need it.
Exercise. Exercise has been proven time and time again to reduce stress. The human body is a magnificent machine, and it adapts and evolves as needed. When we exercise we are causing stress to our body. In turn our bodies adapt to that stress by increasing our stress threshold. No only does it increase our stress threshold, but it releases pent up energy that may manifest as stress or anxiety.
Get a massage. Massage has also been proven time and time again to reduce stress. Although it works differently than exercise. Massage itself does not cause stress (unless you have issues with caring touch). What massage does do is increase serotonin production, the "feel good" hormone. This hormone is also released when we eat chocolate, and who doesn't like chocolate? Massage also slows breathing, reduces muscle tension, increases micro-circulation, and often leads to better sleep (sometimes during the massage). This all reduces stress physiologically.
Ask for help. It takes a stronger, nobler person to ask for help. Let go of control and ask for help with whatever you need it for, be it cooking, cleaning, or perhaps it's food and clothing. All to often I find myself struggling with a project at home, steaming that it's not going how I want it to. I have a hard time asking for help, but once I do...the job gets done...holy crap that was easy. Fear is often the cause of not asking. Fear that the individual will say no, or judge us because we can't do it ourselves. Perhaps it's an inability to relinquish control, a typical "type-A" personality trait. Whatever the reason behind it is, it will take practice to ask, and practice makes better!
Give AND Receive. If you have the means, charity is a great way to add more meaning to your life. Meaningfulness in life leads to a greater feeling of accomplishment and overall happiness. "Tis the season for giving", does not mean go buy the most expensive diamond, car, or TV. It means helping your fellow human or animal in ways they cannot help themselves. But the equally important part of giving, is receiving. Creating balance between the two is paramount to creating fullness in life. Be open to receive help, complements, and charity. You will be happier and less stressed for it!

So speaking of stress, my daughter just had one of the biggest blow-out diapers in the history of blowout diapers...gotta go get the hose. Stay healthy!

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Staying Healthy for the Holidays: Staying Active

12/12/2014

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Hello all, and welcome to the second installment of Staying Healthy for the Holidays. Ahhh...holidays, endless hours spent indoors watching holiday favorites like: "It's a Wonderful life", "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", and for the more refined tastes, "Scrooged". Let's not forget that annual 24 hours of "A Christmas Story"! Today I want to discuss ways to stay active and avoid the sedentary behaviors that tend to happen in the cold winter months. Staying active can help avoid Seasonal Affective Disorder, keep the pounds from accumulating, improve your immune system, and also stave off aches and pains associated with lethargy. While it might be natural to feel like you want to hibernate like the (Chicago) bears, there is nothing in our known history where homo sapiens have ever hibernated. We hunted and foraged to stay alive in winters. Many Northern European descendants have evolved to have a natural amount of "brown fat". This is commonly found in hibernating animals and actually creates heat through a chemical process similar to muscle energy production. It is believed to be lost in most humans as we leave infancy however, and we would die in just 3 days without water, so ixnay on the ibernationhanay. Here are five easy tips to staying active this winter!!

Find an outdoor winter activity. There are a number of fun activities to do in the winter. There is snow boarding, skiing, ice skating, cross country skiing, sledding, playing in the snow with your kids, make a snow fort, snowman, ect. Rule number one of a great stay active program is making it fun, if you find the activity fun you are more likely to stay active! Getting out into the sun also promotes vitamin D production. Getting just 30 minutes of sun exposure produces 10K-20K IU of Vitamin D! So get out there and try something out.
Check for local indoor leagues. If you really can't stand the cold, many indoor community centers, gyms, or schools offer winter leagues in a variety of sports. Football, basketball, soccer, kick ball, dodge ball, and volleyball just to name a few. Get together with family or friends and start a team. Make sure to not take things too seriously and have fun!
Take a walk. Dress in layers and actually go for a walk. Walking has been shown to be better for keeping your metabolism high than running. You will burn more calories during a 30 minute run vs. a walk, however, the walk will burn a higher percentage of fat and your fat metabolism will stay up after for a longer period of time. After a run your fat metabolism actually drops off, sometimes to levels lower than they were before. Also if the snow is deep, that's that much more energy expenditure!
Check for local sport groups. Most common type is probably a running club. Here in Kalamazoo we have Kalamazoo Area Runners, Borgess Run Camp, and Gazelle Sports. There can also be swim clubs, ski clubs, ect. These clubs will help you get started training in a their perspective sport. They also offer comradery and professional advice.
Strength Train. Strength training is the best way to burn fat and increase fat metablolism. Also if your metabolism is higher, you will naturally create more body heat (think thermogenics). You don't need a gym membership to strength train, you only need you! Body weight training and plyometrics is a great method of staying strong while needing little to no equipment. Your best bet is to find a place where you can get some one-on-one personal training to give you ideas on how you can do these things at home. If you plan on starting a running regimen during this winter I highly recommend strength training as a part of that, as you need to get into shape to run, not run to get into shape!

I hope you find these tips helpful. I understand how difficult it is to get or stay active during the winter, but anyone can do it if you just apply yourself! If you are in the Kalamazoo area and want some more help, feel free to call or email me! Next I will discuss how to avoid and reduce stress this season. Stay Healthy!

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Staying Healthy for the Holidays: Food

12/3/2014

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Holidays...food...cold weather...stress. How do we help ourselves stay healthy during these glutenous, often emotionally overwhelming times? In this three part blog adventure I'm going to help you to find ways to stay healthy this holiday season. Lets start with the food.
The holidays are are most certainly always a time that it becomes easy to over eat, and not just over eat, but engorge on yummy fatty sugary treats, or what we lovingly refer to as "comfort food". This is a natural thing for our bodies to crave in winter. Much like a squirrel who fattens up for the winter hibernation, our bodies crave a nice layer of fat for insulation. Especially here in the bitter cold north states. What gets us in trouble is the shear amount we eat. There is nothing wrong with eating most of the "comfort food" we serve during the holidays, as long as we limit our servings. According to WebMD the average American consumes 4,500 calories at Thanksgiving dinner...scary. Here are 5 easy tricks to change how you eat.

Portion your food! Half you plate should be veggies then your protein and lastly starches or sugars. If half your plate can be Grandmas broccoli salad, Uncle Ben's green bean casserole, and Auntie Josephine's Yams you are all set. Next grab some ham, deviled eggs, or turkey to cover almost the rest of your plate, and then choose your favorite starch (mine is oyster stuffing!!) to finish your plate. Eat slowly and pay attention to what you are eating, savor the food and chew, chew, chew. Make the meal about how good it tastes and not about how many servings you can shove into your gullet. Keep in mind that one plate of holiday foods can easily top 1,500 calories or more if you are not careful. So one plate is more than enough.
Limit snacking. The easiest way to rack up the carbs is hanging around the hors d'oeuvres table snacking on crackers, chips, candies, and pastry treats. Grab a few naughty items you wish to sample on a small plate and then stack the mixed nuts and/or veggies from the veggie tray and walk away to sit with some family while you eat instead of hovering over the food. The veggies and nuts will help fill you up without too many calories to counter act the lack of substance and caloric density the rest of the food has.
Cut back on sauces. Especially the gravy. I will admit, gravy is f'ing good, especially true drippings gravy with the little gristly bits floating around...mmmmm. So rather than avoid it, which is ridiculous in my book, I try to only put it over one item, and just one spoonful. Then I get my wonderful gravy without adding an extra thousand calories.
Drink water. If you have a hard time feeling full after one modestly heaping plate of food, drink and entire glass of water directly after eating. This will help you to feel full and also aid in digestion. Also choosing water over juice or soda can save you several hundred sugar based calories.
Bring a healthier option. Whether you are hosting, or you are bringing a dish to pass, finding a delicious "healthier" option can be great way to help family to eat better too. Of course, you will not want to tell them these are healthy options, as people tend to associate "healthy" with "taste bad". Some delicious and easy to make traditional healthier options may be shrimp cocktail, granola bars, 5 bean salad, avacado deviled eggs, or roasted root veggies. Shelled nuts are a great novel item to bring as well. Nuts are one of the healthiest things you can eat, and having to de-shell them slows down the snacking process causing people to eat less. Plus it's damn fun to crack open and dig out the nutty treasure from inside!

Look for the next installment about how to keep up with, or start an exercise program when the weather gets cold. Stay healthy!

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Staying Healthy for the Holidays: Stress

Staying Healthy for the Holidays: Staying Active

Staying Healthy for the Holidays: Food

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