Eating healthy to stay healthy
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Today’s topic for National Women’s Health Week is eating healthy. Eating right can help you stay healthy for a long time.
So how do you eat healthy?
Michael Pollan sums it up pretty well:
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
Eating more fresh fruits and vegetables is a great way to start eating better. They not only have lots of fiber and vitamins but also phytochemicals and possibly many other things in them that have not even been discovered yet that can help us stay healthy.
Canned vegetables tend to have lots of salt added to them and canned fruit, a lot of sugar. Frozen is ok, but fresh is probably the best. Try to avoid boiling vegetables as the vitamins can be lost that way. Steaming is great way to prepare many different vegetables.
Nuts and seeds are also very good choices. Try to find some that are not salted. Its not always easy to find them so I tend to buy the nuts sold for baking. Unsalted sunflower and pumpkin seeds are even more difficult to find, but some health food stores may have them.
The other type of plant food is grains. Good choices are whole grain bread and pasta. And brown or wild rice instead of white. In the winter I eat hot cereal for breakfast – either oats or millet. In the summer I eat the Kashi puffed grains which has no sugar or salt added to it.
Most groups of people who tend to live a long time tend to eat very little if any meat. Not eating as much meat can help the environment too – lots of food has to be grown to feed farm animals, which could instead feed people.
Lots of research continues to show that overeating and obesity can lead to a number of health problems including diabetes and heart disease. Its also best to reduce the amount of salty and sugary foods eaten.
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May 14, 2008
The importance of strength training exercise for women’s health
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Many women focus on cardiovascular exercise but strength training exercise is also important for your health. As people age they tend to lose large amounts of strength if they don’t continue participating in strength building activities. By maintaining your strength as you get older you can decrease your chances of injuries. And by maintaining more muscle mass you are also less likely to become overweight, as muscles use more calories.
Strength training exercise can also help to prevent or delay osteoporosis. As strength training exercise makes muscles stronger, it also cause bones to increase in mass and become stronger. So weight bearing exercise that builds muscle strength is essential to keeping your bones strong too.
And don’t forget the WOMAN Challenge:
As I mentioned in previous posts the goal of the challenge is to walk 10,000 steps or exercise for 30 minutes each day.
Its been 3 days into the Challenge and I don’t know if I’m doing ok or not with it. I walked on my treadmill for 40 minutes today, but according to my pedometer I’ve only walked 3763 or so steps on Tuesday. It seems I would have taken more steps than that on the treadmill. I wonder if the pedometer is working right. According to the treadmill I walked 1.53 miles, but less than one mile on the pedometer.
At any rate, I’m going to continue with it. The Challenge has virtual teams so people can encourage and support each other – if you want to join my team follow these instructions:
First you have to register at the site, then go to ‘Find a Team to Join‘ , then scroll down to Missouri, click and then choose the “Ideas For Women .com” team.
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Related Posts:
- National Women’s Health Week and WOMAN Challenge
- Exercise for your heart with WOMAN Challenge
- New Year, New Starts!
May 13, 2008
Please tell me that there are not women this stupid!
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Really. Is this real? Could there really be people this stupid? Are there really women this stupid? If so, we still have a really long ways to go!
If you can’t see the video – a brief summary: the woman thinks Europe is a country, is not sure if France is a country or not. Never mind that she doesn’t know what country Budapest is the capitol of.
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Exercise for your heart with WOMAN Challenge
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For National Women’s Health Week I want to focus on things you can do to prevent illness and stay healthy – or even reverse some health problems you already have. Today – the topic is cardiovascular exercise.
Cardiovascular exercise – also known as aerobic exercise – is important for heart health. It is exercise that uses your large muscles like your legs and makes your heart and lungs stronger and can help to lower your blood pressure and cholesterol levels
Walking, running, jogging, bicycling, jump-roping, and swimming are all examples of cardiovascular exercises you can do outside. If you want (or have to) exercise inside using a treadmill, stationary bicycles or elliptical trainer are some options.
To give your heart a good workout you need to make sure that you do your cardiovacular exercise with a certain amount of intensity, but you don’t want to overdo it. One way measure the amount of exertion while exercising is by monitoring your heart rate. Some people check their heart rate manually and some people use a heart rate monitor. I use a heart rate monitor while using a treadmill when I exercise.
At any rate research has shown that people who are in general more active throughout their life tend to be healthier and live longer. The Surgeon General recommends that people should get 30 minutes of activity most days of the week. And for most people that is around 10,000 steps.
The WOMAN Challenge (Women and girls Out Moving Across the Nation) is a program coordinated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office on Women’s Health. As I mentioned in previous posts the goal of the challenge is to walk 10,000 steps or exercise for 30 minutes each day. The Challenge is an 8 week thing that started on Mother’s Day.
I decided to take the challenge! Its only been 2 days so far though – and I have been away from home so I have not done so well yet! Monday, for example, I only did about 1800 steps. But then I spend part of the day in a car driving so I should be able to do better tomorrow!
The Challenge has virtual teams so people can encourage and support each other – if you want to join my team follow these instructions:
First you have to register at the site, then go to ‘Find a Team to Join‘ , then scroll down to Missouri, click and then choose the “Ideas For Women .com” team.
For more information about walking 10,000 steps a day here are a few good links I found:
How many steps do you walk each day?
Should You Walk 10,000 Steps Per Day for Weight Loss?
The 20% Boost Program: Fit Walking into Your Life – The realistic way to build up to 10,000 steps a day
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Related Posts:
- The importance of strength training exercise for women’s health
- New Year, New Starts!
- National Women’s Health Week and WOMAN Challenge
May 12, 2008
Women’s Health Weekly Review: May 4 – May 10
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Pregnancy
“Pregnant women with blood sugar levels in the higher range of normal—but not high enough to be considered diabetes—are more likely than women with lower blood sugar levels to give birth to babies at risk for many of the same problems seen in babies born to women with diabetes during pregnancy, according to a study funded in large part by the National Institutes of Health.” The risks include: shoulder dystocia, and “abnormally large body size at birth”.
Also “women who gain more or less than recommended amounts of weight during pregnancy are likely to increase the risk of problems for both themselves and their child“. Problems associated with too much weight gain include increased fetal growth, infant birth weight and cesarean delivery. Problems associated with too little weight gain include poor fetal growth, lower birth weight and premature growth.
Breast Cancer
A new study indicates that “radiologists can recommend a six-month follow-up diagnostic mammogram rather than an immediate biopsy for patients with ‘probably benign’ breast lesions”
Cancer tumor growth rates tend to vary but a new study shows that tumors have “generally slower growth rates with increasing age at diagnosis“.
Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is a type of cancer which starts in the milk ducts of the breast and is expected to be found in over 50,000 women this year in the U.S. alone. When it metastasizes to other parts of the body it is not due to the actual tumor cells but instead it is the surrounding cells and tissues – the tumor’s microenvironment – that is responsible.
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Related Posts:
- Pregnancy – diet, weight gain and diabetes
- Breast cancer update – 7/12/07
- Breast cancer research update – 7/20/07
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