We all realize that it’s that time of year again – the beginning of the Holiday Season! We’re planning for Thanksgiving the day after tomorrow. Then, it’s a mad dash of shopping, cooking, eating, drinking, parties, family get togethers, religious events, perhaps traveling, and lots of joy (and possibly sadness depending on our circumstances) until after New Year’s Day. In other words we’ll be incredibly busy and have little time for ourselves, and, even worse, our daily routines will be disrupted for months! Despite this, the Holidays are a good thing. We just have to plan. This is not a time for thoughts such as “I’m not going to gain weight!”, or, “It’s impossible so I won’t even try!”, or, “I’ll wait until after the New Year!”, or “I’ll skip all those parties!”, or, whatever. The truth is we’ll all party and eat and drink – some of us will maintain our weight but most of us will gain at least a few pounds despite our best intentions. By planning, however, we can minimize the damage and enter the New Year healthier by doing a few simple things. We must be honest with ourselves because we know what’s going to happen otherwise. The first thing we must do is try to get at least and extra 30 cumulative minutes of physical activity each and every day. This can be simply walking while shopping or visiting. Next, since we are planning to snack and drink more, we should cut back on our regular meals and try to keep the accumulation of goodies in our homes and work spaces to a minimum by taking inventory and throwing them out daily if necessary. We all know what to do – we just have to do it. Thirdly, we should keep some type of record or diary of what we consume and where we’re going to go so we know what we’ve done and what we’ll probably soon do. This sounds too easy and it is, but, we’ll only do it if we begin now.
Archive for the ‘Principles’ Category
The Holiday Season Need Not Cause Weight Problems: We Must Begin Planning for the New Year Now!
Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011The Weight Loss Blues Affect Everyone – Even “Experts” Like Me!
Thursday, October 13th, 2011“Too much knowledge is a dangerous thing” a sage once said. This is the way my wife and I feel now. Since we’ve recently cut way back on our professional activities we’ve had much more time to travel. In fact, we’ve spent over four of the past eight weeks traveling – 31/2 weeks driving to Oregon and back and last week driving to northern Wisconsin for a blissful week in the gorgeous north woods. Even though we kept active – kayaking, swimming, hiking, horse back riding, etc. – we both gained around 4 – 5 lbs. which we are having a devil of a time taking off. This despite our knowing what to do and being very knowledgeable in calorie counting. I get on the scale frequently and know how my patients feel when dieting. It’s frustrating! However, why we gained the weight isn’t a secret if we think about it. Firstly, although we were active on our trips, the physical activity was more intermittent and not as constant during the day. Secondly, we were, of necessity, eating out a lot and our food choices were not the best for weight control. Thirdly, we usually eat only two meals a day – a late breakfast or early lunch and a dinner later in the day. When traveling, the norm is, more often than not, that we eat three meals a day plus snacks which are more difficult to control when away from home. So, our problem was not one of ignorance or lack of knowledge of what we should have done, but one of our not planning and anticipating what would happen to us. Because of this lack of preparation, we blew it. Even the old cliche “Eat, it’s OK you’re on vacation,” doesn’t change the outcome. We now have to lose those pounds! It would have been better to not have gained weight by planning and applying the principles we know so well. Until we do this we will be forever flumoxed by our weight management.
To show how much I haven’t changed, I reread my previous post of January 20, 2010 where I lament my new year’s weight gain as well as my post on February 9, 2010. You should read these too.
After Attending the Recent American Diabetes Association Scientific Meetings, I’ve Changed My Idea of What My Blog Should Be
Thursday, July 1st, 2010We just left Orlando, Florida, where the Annual Scientific Meetings of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) were held. I’ve been a member of the ADA since the 1970′s and I have been active especially in our local area ADA (the Northern Illinois Southern Indiana Area). As usual, the ADA national meeting was excellent with attendees and faculty from all over the world sharing in the latest advances and knowledge in Diabetes understanding and treatment. Although our knowledge about Diabetes and our ability to treat it is constantly expanding, it dawned on me that new knowledge and education is not the problem – it is our inability as patients and health care providers to use the tools and apply the knowledge we already have. Of course, research should and must continue for the future, but, what about the millions of individuals who have Diabetes now? In future posts I will continue to attempt to get individuals to use the tools we already have, especially lifestyle, to be healthier and I will talk much on my feelings that “Health Insurance” as we think of it today is really “Illness Insurance.” The only person that can really insure our health is our self. In future posts I will comment on not only my mantra “Your Weight Management = Your Lifestyle Management = Your Health Management” but also topics such as the health care debate, quality of life, and other issues.
Meaning of “Your Weight Management = Your Health Management”
Thursday, November 5th, 2009I’m new at this so please bear with me – I must admit that I’m truly the “Old dog who is learning new tricks!” As I was doing my physical activity (swimming) at our local health club yesterday, I realized that I didn’t explain what I meant by the theme of my website “Your Weight Management = Your Health Manangement.” Understanding this is important as I believe it’s the basis of what we all must do to be healthier and have the quality of life we deserve no matter what our physical condition is – within reason, of course. It’s really simple. It means that eating the right amount of calories to maintain our weight (if we are not overweight) or to lose weight (if we are overweight) plus daily physical activity (as much as we are able to do up to an hour a day) is exactly what we have to do lifestyle wise to not only prevent medical problems from developing but also to help medical problems we do have such as diabetes, heart disease, sleep apnea, high blood fats, etc. It’s really not all that hard to do. In future postings I will discuss things like calories, physical activity, my thoughts on what have been called “good” foods and “bad” foods, how many calories to maintain our weight or lose weight, and most importantly why all of us need to constantly try to improve or maintain good lifestyle behaviors. I’ll also explain how the effects of an unhealthy lifestyle which are overweight and poor physical fitness cause huge problems when superimposed on the genetic diseases such as Type 2 Diabetes. Again, I look forward to your comments. To do so click on “no comments” at the bottom of the page. I hope the clicking on “no comments” “to make a comment makes sense to you as it doesn’t to me.
Your Weight Management = Your Health Management
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009Finally, I’m able to sit down and post my thoughts on my blog! Now that the time has come, however, I’m asking myself what do I really want to do. What I don’t want is another medical blog devoted to diseases and specific questions about these diseases and their treatment which is usually based on medication, supplements, or surgery. My main purpose is to communicate and amplify on the theme of my blog and my website – “Your Weight Management = Your Health Management” – through lifestyle. In other words, we need to have a discussion on the doable lifestyle behaviors necessary to prevent and treat lifestyle related diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, high cholesterol and other blood fats, sleep apnea, and osteoarthritis. We certainly can’t do anything about our genes or the environment we grew up in or are growing up in, but we can learn how our lifetyle contributes both negatively and positively to our overall health and well being when superimposed on our genes and what we need to do about it. I am also looking for help and suggestions from you in how to affect such changes.
