Tips for a healthy, balanced 2017

“Tips on how to be a healthier this year.”

— Dr. Dale

From Tips for a healthy, balanced 2017  

Many of us have made a commitment to do better in 2017. For me, it is a personal decision to get healthier and in the process decrease the probability of chronic disease.

I cannot count the number of calls and inquiries about weight management I receive at this time of year. I always advise that a healthy lifestyle has three essential elements: adding more fruits and vegetables to your diet, weight management and physical activity.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only 13 percent of Americans consume the recommended 1.5 to 2 cups of fruit every day, and less than 9 percent for vegetables. I know it isn’t easy, but making an effort will be positive for your overall health.

Try different vegetables, use herbs and spices for seasoning and purchase fruits and vegetables that are in season. I learned I actually like kale. I mix it with cabbage, make salads and incorporate it into soups — much to my children’s dismay. With fruits, I have found that smoothies are a great way to mix it up.

To keep me motivated, I always remember this statement from the American Cancer Research, which is, “The risk for cancer can be reduced 20 percent by just eating five or more servings of fruits and vegetables per day.”

Weight management is the second platform for a healthy lifestyle. American Cancer Research says, “The risk of chronic disease can be reduced by 60 percent to 70 percent by making sensible food choices, achieving and maintaining a healthy weight and being physically active on a regular basis.”

While I am by no means at my optimal weight, I have employed some strategies to help me achieve my goals. Reducing the amount of sodium in my diet by seasoning with herbs and spices, using no-salt-added canned, frozen or fresh vegetables, and reducing hidden sodium from processed meats, pizza, bread and condiments has helped.

Sometimes it’s not what I eat, but how much of it. Controlling portions is important. Dietary guidelines suggest we eat 2-3 ounces of meat, poultry or fish per serving. As a reference, 3 ounces is about the size of a deck of cards — a lot smaller than one would think!

Physical activity also helps in achieving a healthy lifestyle. Learning to incorporate physical activity into jam-packed schedules is a different kettle of fish. It is recommended to do at least 30 minutes of moderate activity five or more days per week.

For me, walking and gardening — in my case, helping with pine straw, leaves and pine cones — have been my go-to activities. The yard is clean and I have done my activity for that day. You may find it easy to incorporate more walking in familiar places like the grocery store. I park farther from the building and walk around the entire store.

Dancing also has been a fun way to get moving. The unintended benefit is that my entire family gets involved because my husband and children also enjoy dancing.

Finally, be smart about your choices and persevere. It may be best to begin with small changes and gradually build up to larger ones. Don’t quit! If you fall off the wagon and don’t meet your goals one day, there is always tomorrow.

Reflections: New Year's reminds us it's never too late to begin again

“Never say never.”

— Dr. Dale

From Reflections: New Year's reminds us it's never too late to begin again

Just one week into the new year, the resolutions we made in the light of Jan. 1 fireworks may already have lost their sparkle, too.

The books we vowed to read may still be on the shelf unopened, the rooms we resolved to de-clutter and tidy still a mess, the exercise routine we swore to undertake still in the planning. There’s something about that fresh, first page on the calendar that inspired us, but with the passage of each day, our resolve erodes, leaving us feeling more and more as though we missed the New Year’s boat and its opportunity to make a new start

Good news! The first of January is an arbitrary notion of when the year begins. It came to us by way of the Roman Empire, whose Julius Caesar decreed Jan. 1 to be the beginning of the new year in a political compromise, winning out over the winter solstice and the vernal equinox, the latter of which was his personal preference. Calendar reform under Pope Gregory tweaked the length of the year and leap days and was adopted in countries most influenced by the Roman (or western) Catholic Church; thus the eastern, or Orthodox tradition, still following the Julian calendar, often reflects Christmas and Easter dates different from ours.

This is but one of the culturally diverse notions of when the old year ends and the new one begins. The first full moon day in January (this year, Jan. 12) marks the celebration of the Mahayana Buddhist New Year, which, although more solemn, bears resemblance to our own in that it encourages reflection on one’s life and attention to important goals for improvement in the journey toward enlightenment. A fire ceremony sometimes invites individuals to write negative karma – the consequences of failures or poor choices – on papers, which are then burned to symbolize release.

With the new moon on Jan. 28, Chinese communities around the globe will welcome the New Year of the Rooster with celebrations ranging from three days to 15.

Homes are cleaned to sweep out any bad luck from the past year and make way for good. Families hold reunion feasts, honor deities and ancestors, and mark the event with fireworks and parades and parties and tokens of good health and fortune. So if 2017 no longer feels new, the lunar New Year offers a chance to begin again at the end of January.

Even though we’re likely still to be slogging through slush and snow, March brings another opportunity. The vernal equinox, the official start of spring when the length of daylight is equal to that of darkness, is on March 20. For Wiccan and other Pagan spiritual communities, it is Ostara, one of the eight great Sabbats that are sacred to mark the turning of the Wheel of the Year. For Baha’is and Zoroastrians, it is Naw Ruz or Norooz – New Year’s.

Among India’s 1.2 billion people, whose vast religious and cultural diversity places New Year’s celebrations from mid-February until late March and even into April, there are many rituals and traditions that help individuals, families, and communities to mark a new start.

For all of these and many more, there are seasonal and spiritual new beginnings when we celebrate what has been and what is yet to be, with new possibilities and the perennial emergence of new life.

If calendars are arbitrary, then New Year’s is in the mind and heart of the seeker. Any birthday, any new moon, new month, even any new week or new day can be a new beginning, another opportunity to begin that project, mend that relationship, get on the road to the degree or to health and wellness or just (just?!) being more the person that you long to be. It’s never too late to begin again, and every new beginning is a triumph over disappointment, defeat and despair, an opening, some of us would say, for grace, which makes all things possible.

As writer Anne Lamott puts it, “Grace is spiritual WD-40. It eases our way out of grippy, self-righteous stuckness,” and “We get to start a new, sillier, more self-forgiving day whenever we want to.

Yes, maybe we eat a tiny, tiny bit more candy than is ideal. Then? We start over again, and again, and again. Starting now. Ready, set, go!”

How to Reframe Your New Year's Resolutions for a Healthy, Successful 2017

“Ringing in the new year in good health.”

— Dr. Dale

From How to Reframe Your New Year's Resolutions for a Healthy, Successful 2017

As the year ends, we start looking forward to making resolutions that improve our human condition in 2017. The most common New Year’s resolution is, of course, the ubiquitous “get healthy and stay fit,” which generally includes the dreaded diet.

There have been many fads to accomplish this superhuman feat over the last several decades including the all-tuna diet, multiple fat-burning drugs of questionable efficacy and the big favorite of stapling the ear lobe to curb any and all detrimental behaviors. 

Although 60 percent of us make resolutions upon ringing in the New Year, only about 8 percent are successful. Perhaps it's time to reframe our resolutions so that we have a fighting chance of seeing them through.

Firstly, the definition of "get fit and stay healthy "should not equate to pounds lost or marathons run. Interim improvements are extremely valid and more likely to lead to long-term success than an epic failure out of the gate.

To start, define what “getting healthy” means to you. Do you have the stamina to do the activities you enjoy with family and friends? Are you satisfied that you feel good about how you present to others? Keeping healthy and fit should feed your self-esteem, not lower it. Set reasonable goals. If you have not been a runner in the past, running four miles a day is not likely to happen. Rather, start with a goal like walking or exercising 20 percent more per month than you do right now. Be honest about your baseline and then set targets for each month until you feel great. 

We know more about nutrition now than we ever have before. Look up the information and make a list of recommended foods and incorporate them daily. Start small, develop a taste and then make intentional increases monthly until the end of 2017. Chart your improvements so all the world, including you, can see success. 

Focus on feeling better – not turning back time. If you are a smoker, stop. Whether it is cigarettes or vaping or anything related, the risk benefit-ratio is definitely to the negative. One in 15 cigarette smokers will die of cancer. Lung cancer kills more people annually than the other top three cancers combined. Vaping has been shown to deposit toxic chemicals directly into the lungs. For your own health and for your loved ones, make this a priority in the coming year. 

Secondly, be a caregiver to yourself. In the U.S., about 43.5 million of us provide unpaid care to someone else every year. It is honorable; it is the right thing to do. But how many of us provide the self-care needed to sustain these efforts?

Start with sleep. Rest is required for rejuvenation but it has many other benefits, too. Sleep has been implicated in affecting depressive tendencies, accident risks, memory, life span, inflammatory response, creativity, attention, academics and yes, even maintaining a healthy body weight. Yet, at least 40 percent of Americans do not get the recommended hours of shuteye.

Add to that the fact that the number of people visiting the doctor to maintain their health continues to decline, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and about half of us do not comply with recommended medications. Not surprisingly, our health continues to crumble. So, we are tired and ill, which does not lead to the get-fit-and-healthy goal above. Just like putting our oxygen mask on first in an airplane emergency, we need to work on ourselves – and then assist others. Not to the point of narcissism, of course, but we need to be strong to support those in our lives. So take your medicine, get some sleep and call in the morning.

Beyond the physical, we also need to nurture our spirit to find the nirvana of feeling well. Maybe it's in the form of art or music. Maybe it's in communing with nature by hiking. Maybe it is experiencing other cultures or food. Whatever the outlet, it should allow you to let go of stress so you feel calmer and happier, and it should make you smile if not laugh out loud. Laughter can relieve stress, improve blood pressure and even burn a few calories. It's OK (and even necessary in this day and age) to schedule time for leisure and pleasure. It is even OK to relax, sit on the couch and enjoy a television show (in moderation).

Thirdly, give up non-productive anger. Whether your trigger is politics, inflation or taxes, ask what you can do to impact it directly. If the answer is nothing, let it go. Anger in itself can have detrimental effects on our health. Freely expressing your anger often impacts others around you, battering their emotional well-being and productivity. It also increases fatigue, adding to our poor sleep habits, and is nothing but an energy drain. 

While "focus on the positive" might sound like a slogan from a simpler time, it is as true today as ever. Use the five-to-one rule. For every negative statement you make, say five positive things. Keep track on a little index card. Or at the very least, refrain from saying five additional negative statements in a day. You might be surprised how quickly it becomes habit, but it won’t without some effort.

Lastly, practice kindness. Whether you focus on random or intentional acts of kindness, the effects will be more beneficial than we imagine. Kindness has been touted to improve success, cognitive functioning, energy and heart health; it has even been said to slow aging. Regardless of the science, kindness actually makes us feel better when we show it to others. More than that, it models the way for those around us to continue to pay it forward. It gives us reasons to get up off that couch and act. It connects us to our fellow human beings, the crux of trying to live in a community.

So, yes, make your resolutions. Make them count by making wise choices that help you incrementally find success. Don’t beat yourself up before you even get started by making goals not even an Olympian could attain. Make your goal self-love and satisfaction this coming year. In the end, 2017 will be a chronicle of the year that was and that story will be in the books. Make yours a best-seller.