Bigger is NOT better, Part 3

I talked in my last post about knowing your Body Mass Index to help you get started on a healthier path and reverse the trend toward a fatter world.

But the BMI is not the only number you need to know to be fully aware of the state of your own health. You also need to know your total cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar.

Why are these numbers important?

First, let’s look at cholesterol. According to the American Heart Association, cholesterol is a soft, waxy substance found among the lipids (fats) in the bloodstream and in all your body's cells. It's used to form cell membranes, some hormones and is needed for other functions. But a high level of cholesterol in the blood is a major risk factor for coronary heart disease, which leads to heart attack.

The total cholesterol number breaks down into three major components, HDL, LDL and triglycerides.

HDL, or high-density lipoprotein, is known as "good" cholesterol because a high HDL level seems to protect against heart attack. However, a low HDL level indicates a greater risk of heart attack and may also raise stroke risk.

LDL, Low-density lipoprotein, is the major cholesterol carrier in the blood. If too much LDL cholesterol circulates in the blood, it can slowly build up in the walls of the arteries feeding the heart and brain. Together with other substances, it can form plaque, a thick, hard deposit that can clog those arteries.

According to the Mayo Clinic, triglycerides are a type of fat found in your blood. When you eat, your body converts calories it doesn't need right away into triglycerides. The triglycerides are stored in your fat cells. Later, hormones release triglycerides for energy between meals. If you regularly eat more calories than you burn, you may have high triglyceride levels.

Now, let’s look at blood pressure. The AHA defines blood pressure as
the pressure of the blood against the walls of the arteries. Blood pressure is expressed as systolic pressure over diastolic pressure. The systolic number is always stated first. The higher systolic number represents the pressure while the heart contracts to pump blood to the body. The lower diastolic number represents the pressure when the heart relaxes between beats.

High blood pressure, also called hypertension, is a serious condition that can lead to coronary heart disease, heart failure, stroke, kidney failure and other health problems.

The last important number we’ll look at is blood sugar. Wikipedia defines blood sugar as glucose in the blood. Glucose, transported via the bloodstream from the intestines to body cells, is the primary source of energy for the body's cells.

A blood glucose test measures the amount of glucose in your blood. Glucose comes from carbohydrate foods. Insulin is a hormone that helps your body's cells use the glucose. Insulin is produced in the pancreas and released into the blood when the amount of glucose in the blood rises.

Normally, your blood glucose levels increase slightly after you eat. This increase causes your pancreas to release insulin so that your blood glucose levels do not get too high. Blood glucose levels that remain high over time can damage your eyes, kidneys, nerves, and blood vessels.

My former company conducted a health risk analysis in February of this year, and I got all of my numbers. Overall, they’re good. My analysis showed I have a low risk of heart disease and diabetes, but that there are still a few things I can do to improve my health. I was pleased with my results.

Do you know your numbers? What would a health risk analysis show for you?

BIgger is NOT better, Part 2

In my last post, I talked about the CDC's 2007 data for the fattest states in America. Mississippi weighed in as the fattest state, and Colorado was the leanest. But almost all 50 states have gotten fatter.

Kentucky, my home state, ranks as the seventh fattest state.

According to the World Health Organization, this is not just a problem in the U.S. The whole world is getting fatter. Globally, there are more than 1 billion overweight adults, at least 300 million of them obese.

Like I said in my last post, this is bad news. But if we are going to even begin to turn this trend around, we need to be armed with some information.

Starting with this: What is considered overweight and obese? How do you know when you have crossed the line?

The CDC defines overweight and obesity as ranges of weight that are greater than what is generally considered healthy for a given height. The terms also identify ranges of weight that have been shown to increase the likelihood of certain diseases and other health problems.

Overweight and obesity is most often measured with the BMI, or Body Mass Index. It uses weight and height to calculate a number that, for most people, correlates with their amount of body fat. An adult with a BMI between 25 and 29.9 is considered overweight, and an adult who has a BMI of 30 or higher is considered obese.

Here is a BMI calculator. Try it. Are you too fat, underweight or just right?

Now, what are you going to do about it?

A good series of 10 topics on the Workout IQ blog highlights weight loss problems and how to deal with them. The series addresses such topics as challenges to working out, having unrealistic expectations and fear of failure. It's a good starting point for those of you wanting to lose weight.

If you have calculated your own BMI and faced the results, you've armed yourself with the information you need to get started on a healthy path. It may not be all you need, but it's a good start.

And if just one or two people can take this step toward a healthier future, maybe there's hope yet for Mississippi, Kentucky and the rest of the world.

Bigger is NOT better!

Each year for the past few years, when the Centers for Disease Control releases its data on the fattest states in America, I’ve felt sick. Disgusted. Appalled.

This year is no exception. How is it that we have let ourselves go so badly? And what is it going to take to reverse the obesity trend?

According to the CDC’s study of the fattest states in 2007, Mississippi tops the list for the third year in a row. Mississippi is the first state ever whose obese population exceeds 30 percent over a three-year average. Another 35 percent of Mississippi adults are overweight.

Colorado is still the leanest state – but its number of obese adults increased from 16.9 percent to 17.6 percent. Even the leanest state can’t rest on its laurels – or its love handles.

This Web site has a nice analysis, along with a map and ranked list of all 50 states.

And, where does my home state of Kentucky rank? It’s in seventh place, with 28 percent of the population obese and 66.4 percent obese or overweight.

That only leaves about a third of us maintaining a healthy weight in Kentucky. This means that as a healthy weight person in Kentucky, I’m a minority. Now, as a white female, I never thought I’d be a minority. I wish I could say I was proud, but I’m not.

In addition to all of the overweight adults in Kentucky, my state also has the third highest rate of overweight youths aged 10-17. So our children are getting fatter, too.

Fellow Kentuckians, you need to get off your fat arses and take that weight off!

I am not enough of an expert to know the answer to the growing obesity problem in America. We can start by laying off that extra soda and bag of M&M’s in the afternoon. Try some fruit or yogurt instead. We can also get up and walk now and again instead of sitting so much.

It seems pretty simple to me. So why is it so complicated?

Are you a lark or an owl?

Do you wake up early in the morning, refreshed and bouncing with energy, ready to meet the day? Or would you rather stay up late into the night, then sleep in the next day?

"Larks," or morning people, prefer to go to bed early and get up early, whereas "owls," or night people, prefer to stay up later and sleep later.

Most of us are programmed by our circadian rhythms to sleep at night and be awake in the daytime. The circadian rhythm is a roughly-24-hour cycle in the biochemical, physiological or behavioral processes of living beings. The term "circadian" comes from the Latin circa, "around", and diem or dies, "day", meaning literally "approximately one day."

I took this quiz and came up as "very much a night person." Trouble is, my current schedule requires me to get up at 6 a.m. in order to be at work at 7:30 a.m. Maybe this explains why I am perpetually tired at work! My natural rhythm and my work schedule are at complete odds with each other!

This article from the BBC says the answer to why some of us are larks and others are owls may lie in our genes. Researchers found a link between people's preferene for mornings or evenings and a gene called Period 3. If you have a long form of this gene, you're more likely to prefer early mornings. If you have the short form, you're probably an evening person.

I'm betting I have the short form of Period 3. That would explain a lot.

This site from the Medical College of Wisconsin has some interesting information about the body's biological clock and how light affects our brain.

If you're a lark, you probably don't have too much trouble with a normal daytime work schedule. If you're an owl, however, it can be more difficult.

There are ways to train yourself to be a morning person, such as putting your alarm clock across the room, getting up at the same time every day and turning on bright lights as soon as you get up.

Or, if you're like me and your natural rhythm and work schedule are at odds, you can just resign yourself to not going to bed as early as you should and being tired the next day. Naps work great for making up the difference in sleep! If you can escape to your car and take a brief power nap at lunch, it will go a long way toward helping you feel more alert in the afternoon.

Take the quiz above and see if you're a lark or an owl. Let me know what your results are. How do you deal with the differences between your natural circadian rhythm and your lifestyle?

Make your whole household healthy

Committing to a healthy lifestyle isn't easy. Sometimes, it's downright difficult.

But if you don't have a supportive partner or family, it's almost impossible. One person can't do it alone when everyone else in the house is eating junk food.

I know from experience. When one partner’s favorite dinner is Hamburger Helper, and they are eating potato chips and M&M’s all the time, it’s hard for you to focus on eating vegetables, fruits and lean meats.

Healthy eating also requires expanding your palate to include new recipes, flavored in different ways with spices and oils instead of creamy sauces, and cooked in healthier ways, such as sauteeing, broiling or baking. It’s hard to do these things when your partner wants everything deep-fried and won't try healthier ways of flavoring foods.

Luckily, I have a supportive partner now, one who is just as committed to healthy living as I am.

As I’ve written before on this blog, my parents modeled healthy eating habits to us kids. Our daily snacks mainly consisted of fruits, and dinners included meat, potatoes or rice and vegetables. We drank milk on a regular basis. Potato chips, desserts and soft drinks were kept to a minimum.

The key was that the whole family supported healthy eating habits.

Exercise is also an important component of a healthy life. And it's much easier to keep exercising if your partner or the whole family is involved.

Your exercise partner can be your spouse or significant other, or it can be a good friend or family member. My stepfather and stepbrother used to go to the gym together. My husband and I go to the gym together now.

A partner can keep you motivated, urge you to exercise when you just don’t feel like it, spot you during weightlifting and encourage you to do new exercises.

An article I found here says one of the single best things you can do to help ensure your health and fitness success and give your efforts a much-needed jumpstart is to embrace your family and draw them into living healthier with you. It offers tips for getting the family started on a healthy lifestyle together.

So grab your partner and your kids, fix a healthy dinner together and then go take a walk afterward!

Are you trying to be healthier? Is your family healthy? What obstacles stand in your way?

A mid-year's resolution: How I'm going to keep living healthy

Since we are now halfway through 2008, it's a good time to reassess our healthy living goals for this year. As I wrote in my last post, it's a good time to recommit yourself to the goals you may have set back in January, or to set new goals for the second half of the year.

Here are some of the goals I've been thinking about during this mid-year week.

Examine my diet. I have already begun doing this, and I have written about it here in previous posts on coffee creamer and whole wheat bagels. I have a few other foods I'd like to investigate to get a sense of what I'm really eating and make changes accordingly.

Strength training. I have set a concrete fitness goal to be able to do an unassisted pull-up within the next few months. Right now, I'm lifting about two-thirds of my own body weight.

Develop this blog. My Healthy Life blog is about two months old now, which is young in the blogosphere. I am quite enjoying it so far, and I have done well with establishing a regular posting schedule and sticking to it. My goal for the rest of the year is to promote my blog and expand my audience, and get feedback from you, my readers, about what you would like to see here.

Professional development. I work at a newspaper, and newspapers have been notoriously slow to embrace online and multimedia. An online media specialist named Howard Owens laid down a challenge for journalists to become "more wired" in 2008, and I took up his challenge. This blog is one of the results. He laid out a list of ten goals to meet, and I still have some work to do. This list has inspired me more than anything else professionally this year, so, over the next six months, I will continue my "getting wired" gameplan.

Reconnect with friends. It's hard sometimes for me to find the time to send a simple e-mail to friends I haven't talked to in awhile, but we need friends as part of a well-rounded, healthy life. Thus, I would like to reconnect with some of my old friends, and renew some relationships that have languished. I have also recently found some old college friends on Facebook and MySpace, and I need to keep up with them and what's happening in their lives now.

Enjoy my hobbies. Among all of my other goals, I want to keep enjoying my hobbies. The main two things I do in my free time are gardening and roleplaying. I hope I don't get so busy doing everything else that I neglect these hobbies.

The first half of 2008 has had its ups and downs, and I hope that by sticking to the goals above, I can have a better second half of the year.

One of the cores of living a healthy life is consistently growing, changing and improving. These goals will be my blueprint for the next six months to make my life as healthy as it can be -- physically, mentally, professionally and socially.

What are your mid-year's resolutions? What's your blueprint for the rest of the year?

A mid-year’s resolution: Vow now to keep living healthy

Today is the last day of the sixth month of 2008, which means the year is half over. Six months down, six to go. Wow, time flies so fast!

This is a good time to reassess your goals for this year. Did you make a New Year's resolution? Take another look at it. How are you doing with it? Are you sticking to your plans? Did you falter?

Whatever your resolution may have been, if you have faltered, it's not too late to get back on track.

Do you have other changes you wish to make in your life? Make them now. Don't wait until next year.

If you take a look at your goals for this year and feel down on yourself because you have failed to meet those goals, don't despair. Remember, 2008 is only half over. You still have six months to go!

Resolve to make the last half of 2008 better than the first!

So, what's your mid-year's resolution? I'd like to know. I'll give you some of mine in my next post.

Nine qualities it takes to live a healthy life

What does it take to live a healthy life? Why are some people able to maintain a healthy lifestyle while others just can’t quite seem to stay on track?

I have always wondered this. After all, I’m not really all that special. I’m just an average woman who tries to eat as healthy as I can and exercise on a regular basis. Why am I able to stick with a healthy lifestyle while other people I know are not?

So I thought about that for a few minutes, and I came up with a list of qualities I think it takes to life a healthy life and stick to it.

First, you have to have a desire to be as healthy as you can be. But desire is not all it takes. I know many people who want to be healthier, but they just can’t seem to start in the first place or stay with it.

So it also takes dedication and commitment. It takes a mindset to consider healthy living a lifelong choice, not just a temporary thing.

It also takes a lot of honesty, mostly with yourself. You have to be willing to look at your life and your habits critically, and be willing to admit when you are not doing something as well as you could be. You have to be willing to not make excuses for the areas that need improvement, and you have to be willing to change.

You also have to possess enough courage to embark on a healthy path and stick with it. This is especially essential if you have a lot of changes to make. If you are eating a lot of unhealthy foods now and not exercising at all, or if you need to lose a lot of weight, you’ll have to tap into the courage to tell your family and friends – and yourself – that you want to be better, that you want to make some changes. You may have to find the courage to stand up to those who ask why you are doing it or tell you that you can’t do it. You have to find the courage to tell yourself over and over that it’s worth it.

Living a healthy life also takes just a little bit of defiance – the defiance to do what you need to do even when others don’t. I would, however, advise you to keep your defiance to yourself. It’s not a good idea to criticize your friends’ choice of foods; otherwise they won’t be your friends for very long. Simply go for your healthy choice, no matter what they may choose.

You also have to defy all our societal messages for easy, fast foods. Healthy foods are not easy, nor are they fast. I spend quite a bit of time each week slicing my greens and vegetables for my salad. I do so because I am defying the easy path – which would be to go out for a hamburger and french fries.

Along with defiance, a good quality to have to live a healthy life is a bit of defensiveness. In an ideal world, you shouldn’t have to defend or explain yourself. But people will ask why you are eating a salad when everyone else is having pizza or why you don’t want a piece of chocolate cake. And you need to be prepared to answer, strongly and honestly.

Another important quality for living a healthy life is compassion and forgiveness toward yourself. You won’t always be perfect. There will be times when the right foods won’t be available to you, or you just won’t have the will to pass up that huge slab of chocolate cake. It’s okay. Don’t beat yourself up, consider yourself a failure or give up on your healthy lifestyle just because of one piece of chocolate cake. Vow to do better next time.

Living a healthy lifestyle also takes a willingness to grow, learn and change. Your body’s needs will change over time. What you need to maintain your weight in your 20s and 30s may not be what you need in your 40s and 50s and beyond. Health and nutrition experts are also constantly uncovering new information. You need to always be finding and learning new health and nutrition information so you can look at it critically and apply it to your life. You’ll need to make adjustments, but once you have a healthy foundation in place, it’s not so hard to tweak it here and there.

Finally, you need the perseverance to stick with a healthy lifestyle over the long haul. You’re not just doing it for this week, this month or this year. You’re doing this for your whole life. You will need to constantly renew your commitment and remind yourself why it’s important to you.

Living a healthy life is the most important thing you can do, not only for yourself, but also for your family and friends. If you can tap into some of these qualities, you stand a much better chance of getting healthy and staying that way.

These are the qualities that help me. What qualities would you add to the list that have helped you or someone you know life a healthy life? Leave me a comment!

Letting the cable sleep*

(*with apologies to rock band Bush for the paraphrase of their song title)

I did it. I have made a major lifestyle change.

As of yesterday, I no longer have cable television. I had it disconnected. It no longer fits my lifestyle, and in today’s tough economy, it’s just costing me money for something I’m not using.

I’ve had cable TV ever since I was a child. I remember when my parents had it installed, and we used a rectangular box with a slide bar to select the channels.

Television has come a long way since then, but in my own household, I have always just had the basic package. A few comedies and dramas on the networks were all my husband and I watched, so we just needed enough to get good reception. For many years now, we have not been beholden to the network schedule. We would tape shows on the VCR and watch them later.

Ever since the writer’s strike earlier this year, we have gotten away from taping network shows. For three months, there was nothing new to tape, and during that time, we switched over to buying full seasons of shows on DVD and watching those.

We’ve gotten spoiled. We don’t have to deal with re-runs or commercials, and the next episode is on whenever we decide to turn it on. It’s great!

As the economy has started to slide downhill and gas and food prices are increasing, we decided we could kill the cable and use the money to offset the rising prices.

Even when the new shows come back on in the fall, I don’t think we’ll be going back to cable. We’ll be content to just wait until they put the season out on DVD and buy it then.

How does cutting my cable off fit into a healthy life?

It is an example of evaluating your needs and your wants. I no longer need cable, but I do need extra money to fill my gas tank and buy groceries.

It's also a lesson in patience. We have been used to taping the shows when they're on, then watching them a day or two later. Now, we'll have to wait several months to a year to buy them on DVD.

In the meantime, we'll save some money.

In order to keep your life healthy, you need to reassess things from time to time, and if you see something that is no longer serving you – especially if it’s something you are paying for – let it go.

You can reduce your costs, as in my case, or you can reduce your stress or gain time by making lifestyle changes that reflect what you need – and maybe what you want – at this time.

What lifestyle changes have you made lately? Let me know.

How long do you want to live?

How many years would you like to live? Is 50 enough? Or would you like to be around for 60, 70 or 80 or more?

While most of us don't know exactly how long we have to live, recent research backs up a core belief that I have held for many years: Our lifestyle choices influence our lifespan.

The study, published in the journal PLoS Medicine and conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health, says that life expectancy has declined in nearly 1,000 counties, especially for women, "primarily because of chronic diseases related to smoking, overweight and obesity, and high blood pressure."

According to a New York Times story citing the same study, most of the counties with declines are in the Deep South, along the Mississippi River, and in Appalachia, as well as in the southern Plains and Texas.

In the worst-performing counties, all in southwestern Virginia, the drop in life expectancy over the 16-year period was nearly six years for women and two and a half years for men. In the counties showing the greatest improvement, many in the desert West, life expectancy rose nearly five years for women and nearly seven years for men.

This trend reflects the long-term consequences of smoking -- a habit women took up after men did -- and the slowing of the historic decline in heart disease deaths. It may also represent the leading edge of the obesity epidemic, according to the Washington Post.

If that is the case, we ladies can expect our life expectancies to drop significantly across the United States in coming years, ending a nearly unbroken rise that dates to the mid-1800s.

This is not good. Not good at all. The researchers call this decline a "reversal of fortunes."

Aptly put. If we are not making the best choices we can about our diet, exercise and health, then we may be responsible for shortening our own lives.

The Washington Post story cites health trend information that we have seen before, if we've been looking.

But I'll cite it again here, because it seems that we're just not getting it:

• About half of all deaths in the United States are attributable to a small number of "modifiable" behaviors and exposures, such as smoking, poor diet and lack of exercise.


• About 33 percent of women are now obese, compared with 31 percent of men. Extreme obesity is twice as common in women (7 percent) as in men (3 percent).


• Being overweight greatly increases the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. A national survey in 2002 found that 85 percent of diabetics were overweight or obese.


• In recent years, the prevalence of high blood pressure has been increasing in women, as well -- partly the result of weight gain. In 1990, 42 percent of women older than 60 had hypertension; by 2000 it was 51 percent.

We need to reverse our fortunes back the other way. But can we?

The study's authors argue that their results are troubling because an often-stated aim of the U.S. health system is the improvement of the health of “all people, and especially those at greater risk of health disparities.”

In a 2006 study, the same group concluded that life expectancy disparities would have to be addressed through public health strategies aimed at reducing the risk factors that cause chronic disease and injuries.

Okay, this sounds great, but why wait on them? We can do this as individuals, if only we will. There is enough health information out there that if you just want to badly enough, you can change your lifestyle and get healthier.

Unfortunately, studies like this one make me pessimistic that enough of us really -- I mean really -- want to do what it takes to live a healthier life. How many of us say it's too hard, or that we don't have enough time or money or that we just can't give our favorite foods up?

If you're still using those excuses -- and that's all they are -- then you're not ready to make a lifestyle change.

And if you're not ready to make a lifestyle change, and to listen to what experts like the authors of the Harvard study are telling you, then you are well on your way to shortening your own life.

I realize our choices are not the only factor. There are genetic factors that influence our health as well. We may have a family history of cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure or diabetes.

But our health is not a foregone conclusion, either. We can control whether we succumb willingly to our genetics or whether we go down fighting. Do you want to just throw your hands up and say, "Well, I'm going to get cancer (or diabetes or high blood pressure) anyway, so I may we well eat what I want and not bother"?

Or do you want to fight it?

I choose to fight it.

We make our own health fortunes. What will you choose?

What is a healthy life? Or, why am I starting this blog?

I see the world in terms of its impact on the health of any individual's life. Your eating and exercise habits, your relationships, your career, your spiritual values - they all contribute to the level of health in your life.

I'm going to guess that if you are reading this blog, you would love to have a perfectly healthy life - that you would like to be at a perfect weight, have the perfect romantic relationship, have perfect friends, have the perfect amount of money, have the perfect career. Hey, I would, too.

But one thing I have learned is that a life does not have to be perfect in order to be healthy. Perfection is not possible, and the more you strive for it, the less likely you will be to achieve it. The harder you try for it, the more you will stress yourself out, and the less healthy your life will be.

So, if it's not about perfection, what is a healthy life about?

It's about balance, between discipline and indulgence, between stress and relaxation, between the good and the bad.

How do you achieve that balance? Only you can decide that. What is balance for me may not be balance for you. What works for me may not work for you. I can pass along information, tell you how I relate that information to my own life and even give advice on how you can do the same thing. You are, of course, free to take or leave my advice, or modify it to fit your own needs.

Since I am just starting this blog, I should probably answer a critical question before we go much further. Who in the world am I, and why do I presume I can give advice to anyone?

I am just a person with a skill for writing who tries to live the best life I can. I am not a health professional of any sort. I am a communications professional with a background in journalism who is jumping into the “blogosphere.” Go to my Web site to learn more about me.

Since journalists are trained to interpret, distill and disseminate information for an audience, I can do this for you. My chosen topic is health. I have a passion for health topics and healthy living. I enjoy researching and reading about health and applying it to my own life. Sometimes I agree with what I read; sometimes I disagree. It all goes back to that balance thing.

A healthy life is one lived as well as you can, with as much care and attention to the only thing you will have for your entire life: yourself. You only have one body, one mind and one spirit. It is important to nurture those three aspects with the choices you make.

I realize that genetics play a big role in your lifelong health, but so does lifestyle. It's the lifestyle part that we can - and should - control, to the best of our ability. How do we do that? Well, that’s what this blog is all about. I hope you’ll share the journey with me.