You CAN make small health improvements II....

Today's post: Friday, 7-18-2008

Yesterday we posted why it is that in upgrading your health habits and actions to protect your health it’s very important to begin with tiny changes you clearly can do with relative ease; to actually begin doing the small changes you decide are that doable; & to do this in several of the key areas at the same time.

We posted a very small list of ideas to try including try adding more things, even one initially, that will protect or improve your health. (Our earlier posts have dozens more including dark chocolate & unsweetened cocoa with no milk added.)

We also posted on two of the most powerful & beneficial to your health AND inexpensive supplements to consider begin taking if you do not take them now.

Here are some ideas to consider trying in several of the areas.

A. One of the best areas to try is to add MORE things to what you eat & drink that will improve your health. (See yesterday’s post.)

B. A delightfully easy area to work on that can have truly astonishingly large benefits is to take supplements. (See yesterday’s post for two ideas.)

Here are two more to consider adding if you don’t already take them.:

A good multivitamin plus minerals that’s reasonably easy to take is extremely important to include.

One that does a decent job including the most important & best known vitamins and minerals AND does it without tons of artificial colors -- plus it’s reasonably priced -- is the Daily One from & available at Whole Foods Markets.

It can be really easy to miss one of these vitamins and minerals in your food & other supplements; but it can really mess up your health if you happen to do it for too long a time.

Taking a good multivitamin plus minerals that’s reasonably to take will insure that you always have the basics covered. And, it’s no surprise that studies show people who take a good multivitamin plus minerals tend to be in better health than people who don’t.

So, if you don’t already take one, this is a great one to consider adding.

But what if you already take many supplements including the three we just suggested? One good way to protect your health is to watch for supplements that do things you particularly want done for your health. (We included some supplements in our post recently on optimizing your biomarkers for heart health for example.)

If you are a man who would like to escape prostate cancer, here’s one to consider.:
(Women might wish to consider it also as supplements that prevent all cancers or prostate cancer also tend to prevent breast & ovarian cancers as well.)

I recently read that studies have found that supplementing with the mineral boron has cut the incidence of prostate cancer in half.

Even better, based on a study I read long ago there is a chance that taking boron will help you be & stay more alert when you are tired or fatigued.

I’d already been taking boron for years for the extra alertness when I read the good news that I may also have been cutting my risk of prostate cancer in half.

The amount of boron in the capsules I take is 3 mg.

And, it too is reasonably inexpensive.

Note that for many of the supplements, each one will protect your health in several ways & have multiple health benefits just as the four I’ve suggested here.

So, it’s no surprise that studies find that people who take a good multivitamin plus minerals & several other supplements each day, “multi-supplement takers,” enjoy better health than people who do not.

And, I include it here because of that & that it’s so easy to get started doing.

C. Regular Exercise.

The good news as I’ve posted about quite often is that regular exercise has an incredible list of health benefits if you do it.

The bad news is that NOT doing regular exercise has the exact reverse list of health penalties –
AND in today’s world where our work, recreations, & transport all tend to be sedentary and our lives already a bit over scheduled, getting regular exercise each week can be quite a challenge.

One way to find time for it is to not only watch less TV but to substitute exercise for some of the times you now watch TV.

A second is to get a stationary exercise bike or treadmill for while you watch some kinds of TV programs or to watch at the gym as many set up to make this easy to do. This is a great way to watch sports that interest you but aren’t playoff games where your favorite team is playing. It also works for routine news and weather and for lighter entertainment shows.

A third way is to do several bits of 5, 10 or 15 minutes at more than one time each day. Research has found that this is often easier & more doable than trying to only do 30 minute sessions AND, even better, it gets the same or better health results as 3o minute or longer sessions if the short bits add up to that many minutes.

A fourth way is to do your exercise or some of your most important exercise early enough in your day in the morning that the demands of the day won’t de-rail you.

And, just a few short sessions of exercise each week that you do regularly can total 500 calories or more which will give you a full forty percent of the health benefits of an ideal exercise program of SEVEN times that much.

Even better, it’s much easier & more doable to get that level from not exercising at all than to doing a LOT more. That means you are more likely to start doing it & keep doing it.

Once you do that, you can also gradually begin trying more strength training or interval cardio or simply doing more exercise.

Here are just handful of ideas you can try.

Take a 5 or ten minute walk on your lunch hour--or right after you get home from work.

Twice a week turn off the TV for half an hour and do exercises.

Try what I once read Clint Eastwood did when his schedule got busy, simply take a few two or three minute breaks a few times each day and do a set of a few push ups or crunches.

Exercise with dumbbells that are a bit light for you & do a few exercises such as push ups (or push ups from the knee), half squats, or crunches that use your body weight. Then do 3 fifteen minute sessions for your upper body & on alternate days do 3 days for 15 minutes of leg exercises. And, do this early each morning.

This is a bit more advanced than just adding a bit of walking here and there to your week. But, as I’ve previously posted, I find it very doable and extremely reliable even when my weeks are super busy & over scheduled.

D. Begin to eliminate harmful foods and drinks from your life & take in less of the things that aren’t that good for you.

As our regular readers know, this is one of our most frequent post topics. The reason is that:

far too few people know the information on what things are now known to be truly harmful, how many of these things are in the foods & drinks they might otherwise take in because they are now so routinely available everywhere;
& how many people who are competent at their jobs or even otherwise well educated, still keep ruining their health and running up future medical & prescription bills by continuing to eat & drink this stuff.

Once you get into it AND you know how horribly bad for you these things are, it’s not that hard to do.

Why this stuff is so harmful is in many of our other posts & in articles by other health experts and doctors & that HMO’s are now giving their patients.

But here are some ideas.

One of the most important, if you haven’t done it already, is to simply stop buying or drinking soft drinks whether regular or diet

Then, instead, drink water, green tea or tea with no milk, or even coffee if you avoid adding nondairy creamer or too much milk fat or sugar to it. Or drink club soda or Perrier water if you crave the carbonation. Also, if you do it in moderation, real fruit juices and real vegetable juices and low fat and non fat milk also work.

This one can knock ten or twenty pounds off of you with no added feeling of hunger if you have been drinking soft drinks daily.

A second is to eat fresh fruit or vegetables instead of snack foods that contain mostly refined grains and salt or sugar.

A third is to read all the labels of the food you buy at the store including foods such as ice cream, bread, jams and jellies, pancake syrup, & peanut butter that you tend to think of as real foods with normal ingredients. (Unfortunately, you almost don’t even need to read the labels on pie crusts, cakes, commercially baked goods, and any kind of packaged snacks, the ingredients they are made of are so bad today.)

Then, the first week you simply throw out & permanently stop buying any food or drinks that contain high fructose corns syrup.

Then, the second week you simply throw out & permanently stop buying any foods or drinks that contain any partially hydrogenated oils or have a trans fat reading of anything other than zero or that contain something called interesterified fats.

A fourth one is to stop buying or eating any foods made with refined grains. You might want to save this one for last as so many foods we’ve taken for granted are normal foods are made with refined grains. It means usually tossing the bun on hot dogs and hamburgers AND tossing the bread on sandwiches you buy for lunch and eating them Atkins style, for example.

We now know that people did not evolve to eat grains.

Most people who eat only whole grain foods or eat only whole grain foods 80 or 90 percent of the time and get plenty of regular exercise & who aren’t fat can get away with eating grains healthwise.

But refined grain foods tend to make you fat and sick. For most people it’s a more advanced step. But if you haven’t been exercising or just began doing regular exercise or you are at all fatter than you would like or fatter than you should be, it’s one we recommend highly.

Now for the key part.

Write down your ideas as to what you can try within the next few days in each of these areas and try it.

Then do this adding a bit more once a month.

This is doable. You can do it. And, it will pay huge health dividends.

It may even protect you from getting a cancer you would have otherwise gotten, having to take diabetes drugs, or having a heart attack.

To recap, the areas are.:

1. Add some good for you foods.

2. Add some supplements or new ones that do things you want done.

3. Begin or continue doing regular exercise.

4. Stop eating & drinking things that contain ingredients that will make you fat and sick.

It sounds simple. And, once you get used to it, it IS simple.

But, until you do it, your health is at risk; and you’ll be sick from things you could have avoided; plus you’ll be a good bit fatter than you’d like.

If you haven’t started already, take a piece of paper or open a new word processing document & write down what to try next week in each of these four areas.

You’ll be glad you did.