December 2007 Archives

Now that you know what NOT to do for New Year's resolutions, let's talk about how to do it right! In order for your resolutions to be effective, they need to be specific and realistic. Always run them by a friend, since they can tell you if your goal is realistic for you or not.

Short term goals are ones that you would achieve in a week or a month. Long term goals are ones that take 4 months or longer to achieve. Long term goals require several short term goals along the way. Most New Year's resolutions are long term goals. They are often not achieved because appropriate short term goals weren't set along the way. Most of the time I recommend short-term goals to start with.

Let's get started!

Hopefully you've picked one or two areas to work on. Remember, 3 at the most! One of mine, as you already know if you read my Christmas post, is to volunteer at the local homeless shelter. I want it to be specific (measurable) and realistic (achievable). So my resolution will be:

• I will volunteer at a rescue shelter 12 times this coming year.

I picked 12 times because it averages to be 1x/month which is realistic for me. It's also measurable; I will be able to tell if I met my goal or not.

To keep track of my progress, I will make a note on my calendar each time I volunteer. In order to achieve this goal, I should identify what steps I need to take. By writing down the steps in achieving the goal it helps me to see what small things I need to do to move towards reaching the goal.

1. Contact local shelters and find out what types of opportunities they need help with and what days/times are most needed.
2. Decide which shelter to volunteer for.
3. Find a friend to go with me.

If your long term goal is to increase intake of fruits and vegetables, you would need to set several short term goals to meet that.  Here are some things that might help:

1. Make a list of fruit/vegetables snacks that I like and put it on the fridge as a reminder.
2. Sign up for healthy recipes to be sent to my email (the American Institute for Cancer Research has health-e-recipes).
3. Try a new way to prepare a fruit or vegetable once a week.
4. Sign up for a healthy cooking class.
5. Shop for fresh fruits and vegetables twice a week.
6. Keep fresh fruit out in a bowl on the counter or kitchen table.
7. Keep track of fruit and vegetable intake on the nutrition tracker.

Here are some other specific and achievable healthy eating/ wellness resolutions:

• I will do 30 minutes of physical activity 5 days a week.
• I will eat fruits and/or vegetables 5 times/day.
• I will eat at least 24 cups of fruits + vegetables each week.
• I will Drink 8 cups of water daily.
• I will not drink more than 36 oz. of soda per week.
• I will try cooking a new healthy recipe once a week.

For cancer survivors, you may want to do some research on whether there are specific recommendations regarding lifestyle and survivorship for your cancer. I will be addressing that more in 2008, but a good place to start is www.cancernutritioninfo.com.

In the next post I will talk about tracking progress and rewarding yourself. For now, start resolving! Feel free to share your resolution by posting in the comments. I'll be happy to give you feedback.

Happy 2008!!
- Julie

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2008 is soon approaching and many people are thinking about setting new year's resolutions. Most of the time, I recommend that people don't set resolutions, because they are usually completely unrealistic OR they are ineffective because they are not specific enough.

Here are some examples of unrealistic resolutions:

1. I will not eat ______ this year. ("I'm not eating any more chips... ever"!).
2. I will walk on the treadmill every day this year. ("I know I hate walking... but I'm going to walk EVERY DAY!").
3. I will spend less money and get out of debt this year. ("I'm going to quit buying so much stuff").

There is danger in setting unrealistic resolutions. These resolutions aren't achievable. I take that back; they could be achieved, but would require a LOT of time and energy and expertise in order to succeed. Most people are not willing to put those kinds of resources into their resolutions and end up failing.

When resolutions aren't met, the emotional consequences of failure are remembered and guilt builds up. Often, this failure can be the biggest barrier to reaching future goals.

Here are some examples of ineffective resolutions:

1. I will exercise more this year. ("I didn't really exercise before, so that shouldn't be too hard!")
2. I'm going to start cooking this year. ("I don't really know how, but I guess I'll figure it out.")
3. This year I will be more organized. ("I've got to get this place cleaned up... the house, the yard, the mail, my office...".)
   

The problem with these resolutions is that they are far too vague! They won't be achieved because there's no way to measure if you've done it or not. This will leave you distracted and not focused on the things that you really want to achieve this coming year.

Next time I will discuss how to set a realistic resolution. Before doing that, it's important to pick your priorities. You cannot change everything at once, so pick no more than 3 specific areas that you want to work on.

Enjoy your last few days of 2007!
- Julie

Merry Christmas to all!I hope that you have had a meaningful day spending time with those you love and thinking of those you can't be with. I know that I am stuffed from lunch and have just had a serving of fruit trying to make sure I keep getting those protectors despite all the promoters I enjoyed!

During the holiday season, I find myself thinking more about the gift of love that God sent to us. I then have to question how well I do at passing that love on to others, both ones that I know and ones that I don't.

This evening my family and I served dinner at the local Salvation Army shelter. It was a meaningful experience, everyone that we served with was very kind and those that we served were both nice and gracious. There was plenty of food and unfortunately we had to throw a lot of food away because there was too much to keep. Even Krispy Kreme had donated more than 50 dozen donuts!

Unfortunately, a lot of the food that is available for low-income is what we call "nutrient poor" and "calorie dense". Basically this means that there are lots of calories and few beneficial nutrients. This leads to the paradox that exists when people with less access to money and food are actually overweight.

Mainly I am reminded from this experience that there are people that need to be served every day of the year, and are often forgotten when it's not the "season of giving". I know that I am guilty of this. There are so many volunteers around this time of year that they have to turn people away. However, during the rest of the year there is a shortage.

I want to do better at serving those that are often forgotten or ignored. In the coming year feel free to ask me how that's going and to keep me accountable:) I encourage you to do the same, find your local organization and see what they need. Is it goods, money, volunteers? Can you help?

This will lead up nicely to my blog on New Year's resolutions!!
Merry Christmas!
- Julie

It's almost here, Christmas is only 4 days away!! The holiday season seems to be one of the hardest times to make healthy choices. It's like there are unhealthy foods easily available and staring at you no matter where you are. In your house, office, friends' house, at the mall, in Target. And there is very rarely anything nutritious available. Aside from the tangerines and other citrus fruit in season, it's hard to come by a healthy "treat" this time of year.

Really, the season starts in October as we lead up to Halloween and extends through to Easter. You know we have a problem when there are peeps for every occasion. Pumpkin peeps, Christmas tree peeps, Valentine peeps, St. Patrick's day peeps, all leading up to the real time for peeps.... Easter! And not to mention how every other candy has added their own holiday flare. How can regular old fruits and vegetables ever keep up in this kind of market??

So here are my tips for staying on track during the holiday season.

1. Safeguard your home. Don't keep extra junk food ("disease promoters") around. It's hard enough to resist everywhere else, not to mention in your house.
2. Keep healthy food in the house. This will encourage you to eat more "protectors" or disease fighting foods. These include fruits, vegetables, whole grains and nuts.
3. Fill 1/2 your plate with vegetables/fruits. Don't forget to keep working on your fruit and vegetable intake, especially as you increase your amount of junk food this time of year.
4. At holiday meals, be sure that the foods you serve are a variety. Most holiday meals consist of meat, starch, starchy vegetable, vegetable cooked in fat and topped with sugar, more starch and dessert. Remember to serve those non-starchy vegetables and skip the rolls this year.
5. Don't eat everything that is available. I know this seems obvious, but remind yourself which food items are special to you this time of year and treat yourself with those. Don't treat yourself with not so healthy foods that you don't even think are that good!
6. Enjoy a taste. If someone gives you special treats as a gift, you can always have a taste and then throw the rest away. Yes... I said throw it away! There are 3500 calories per day produced in the US (after exports). Something is going to be thrown away, so it might as well be junk food.
7. DON'T FORGET TO EXERCISE! Often exercise gets pushed aside. This is the worst thing to do at this time. When our calorie intake AND stress levels increase, we have to keep the exercise to burn up the calories and de-stress. Make it a new holiday tradition to take a walk after the meal and before dessert.

Those are my Holiday Eating Survival Tips! So relax, enjoy the company and your health as you prepare for another year.

Julie

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Heart disease is the number 1 cause of death in the US (Cancer is #2). And now that cancer treatment is more effective, many cancer survivors are going on to develop heart disease after cancer diagnosis. When I talk to survivors about a healthy lifestyle after cancer, I make sure to address their risk for cancer coming back as well as other chronic diseases, like heart disease, osteoporosis and diabetes.

When talking about heart disease risk, dietary fat always comes to mind. An article, from MSNBC was published last Thursday (Dec. 13th) and addressed an important question regarding nutrition. It focused on whether saturated fat (often termed "bad fat" along with trans fats), is really as bad as nutrition experts say.

It is important to keep in mind how we come to recommendations and conclusions regarding nutrition and what are the "good" or "bad" foods. Some recommendations are based on trends that we've noticed from one culture to another. These are important observations, however this method does not control for many factors, including physical activity habits, genetics or stress management.

The best way to study something is to do randomized, blinded study that controls for the factors that can confound results. However, have you ever tried to blind someone to something that's in their food? Sometimes parents try that on their kids by disguising vegetables. It doesn't work so well!

It's also hard to get people to comply with the "experimental diet". Therefore, nutrition studies are VERY hard to produce what I would call real results. Meaning that the study shows something, but are you sure that the experiment group actually received the nutrients as planned.

Usually, what I do with results is to try to look at them in the context of what most studies are showing, or what the big picture says. In this case, with saturated fats we may or may not know exactly how each specific saturated fat (there are several different types) affects our heart health, or cancer risk.

Here's the big picture: Diets where fat consumption is mostly unsaturated fat have been shown to be beneficial in many areas, including heart disease, arthritis, cancer, as well as potentially affecting inflammation. Is it likely to harm you if you cut back on saturated fats? Probably not. Unless you count missed time with your confidant, ice cream, as an opportunity cost.

In these cases, I lean towards the theory that there are no risks to eating healthy. For now, we suggest eating less saturated fat. In the future, we'll be able to look at each person's genetic profile and make specific diet recommendations. For now, we have to go with what we know.

Remember... We have NOTHING to lose by making smart nutrition choices! How we define "smart nutrition choices" might change with time, but that's the science of it!

Click here to read the full MSNBC article

Julie

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It's easy to learn about what foods you should eat to prevent cancer, or live healthy after cancer. However, it's MUCH harder to actually do it!! For many people that I work with, I have them keep track of what they are eating so we can set some healthy eating goals and really identify what areas of their food intake needs improvements.

This is something you can do too! Use the tracking form below keep track of what you're eating each week. Some people write down everything they eat. Sometimes I suggest that they just keep track of certain aspects of their food intake. Especially if it seems like too much work to write down everything you eat, just focus on 1 or 2 things.

Download nutrition tracker

Here are some examples of things you can track to see how you are doing:

• Write down all foods and beverages consumed
• Focus only on the fruits and vegetables you eat
• Keep track of your fluid intake
• Focus on one meal (for example, breakfast)

Keep track for a week. At the end of the week look back over each day and make some observations on what choices you made. Keep in mind these are OBSERVATIONS, not judgments. Many people use this time to criticize what they did. Don't! That isn't productive. We want to observe what is going on, and focus on some things to change.

If you didn't make the best choices, think about why (I call these barriers). Was it stress? Emotions? Convenience? Knowing why you made the choice is the first step in making a change.

Once you decide what to work on, write it down where you can be reminded of it daily. Put it on the fridge, on your bathroom mirror or in your wallet. Keep track for another week and see if you improved. Again, look at your barriers and pick one area to work on.

It takes 3 weeks of making a change before it becomes a habit.  Work on one thing for 2 or 3 weeks before you decide to focus on something else.

Happy Tracking!!
Julie

I received several comments via email regarding the relationship between breastfeeding and cancer risk. So I give the people what they want, more information! There are many benefits to breastfeeding. Most of the research done has been on the benefits of breastfeeding for baby.

It is true, breastfeeding is definitely the best choice of nutrition for a newborn. The breastfeeding recommendation for infants is that breast milk be the exclusive form of nutrition for the first 6 months. After that, foods are introduced and breast milk continues to be a compliment to solid food.

Breastfeeding is associated with decreased risk for obesity during childhood and adulthood and therefore decreases risk for cancer. Breast milk also contains many beneficial compounds that support a healthy immune system for the baby.

However, the benefits don't stop with the baby. More recent research suggests that breastfeeding can decrease risk of cancer for the mother. More specifically, the benefits come from the lactation process, meaning that benefits for mother are linked to the process by with the mother produces milk to breastfeed. That means that it is beneficial whether the milk is produced for the mother's own child (via breast or breast pump), for another child or for storage in a human milk bank.

The link between lactating and breast cancer is strong and suggests that it can reduce the risk of both pre and post menopausal breast cancer. The reduced risk is thought to be related to the change in hormones that happens during lactation. A full report as well as a summary of these results can be found at the American Institute for Cancer Research website (www.aicr.org).

I forgot to mention in the last post about my favorite nutrition newsletter, Nutrition Action. They did an excellent review of this report. If you'd like to order them delivered directly to your door, check out http://www.cspinet.org/nah/index.htm.

Some people say it's all about the breasts. In this case, it is!

Julie