Entries Tagged 'diet' ↓

We try to promote healthy habits at Family Care Centers.

Especially if you have issues with weight, or blood pressure, or cholesterol, you’ve probably heard us recommend changes in diet and exercise:

• Reduce your intake of saturated fats
• REALLY cut back on your starchy carbs, and up your intake of colorful fruits and vegetables
• Exercise more regularly, at least 3 times a week
• Get the down to a healthy body weight

These recommendations are key, and if you can adopt them, a good many of your health woes will either disappear, throttle way back, or not occur to begin with.

But if it were that easy, everyone would be doing it…and Big Pharma would be out of a job.

Here’s a link to a related website, to help you stick it to ‘em, and get healthier in the process:

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Most of us can recall an encounter with the vitamin aisle at the supermarket, pharmacy or health food store.

It can be a confusing, frustrating event.

Vitamin C for colds, vitamin B for energy, calcium for your bones…we can even have trouble recalling what certain supplements, like copper, are supposedly good for. And there are dozens of brand names to choose from.

I can certainly understand people’s cynicism about supplements, given all the conflicting news out there. Currently, there are no recommendations from the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) on using dietary supplements to prevent such health conditions as heart disease or cancer.

However, there is plenty of data that supports supplementing our diet with certain vitamins to optimize health. This is especially true for people in certain high risk groups and those who are not following a healthy, well-balanced diet.

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I can’t exactly say that I’m a shining example of health.

As a physician and family man, I think I do okay: I exercise regularly, including martial arts at least twice a week, don’t smoke or drink, and try to moderate my stress levels (haw).

But I don’t weigh what I did when I was a high school senior, and drink more coffee to get through the day than I’d care to admit. I eat too many carbs, get too little sleep, and don’t eat enough organic food.

These may not sound like much, but they should.

Nevertheless, I can still recommend 4 of the most important ways to avoid an early grave, and have a fine old time doing it (there are 7, but the final 3 will be in the next post). Partly because I’ve seen a lot of people do it right and do it wrong. Partly because the medical field has seen a lot, and has the studies to back up the advice it’s trumpeting from the mountain tops.

But also because, hey, the advice is so sensible and my self-respect has increased enough that I’m finally adopting the following principles myself.

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