Got2Gab.com

It seems like everyone from TV shows, to internet articles, to friends and family are obsessed with weight.  Weight loss or weight gain, managing your health is the most important issue.

To be obsessed with anything  isn’t a good thing, but to realize that you have a problem is really the first step.  Talking about how much you want to lose or gain weight, with your family and friends is the second step.  But, the most important step is actually implementing change in your day to day life.   Not dieting but changing your lifestyle, not working out at a crazy pace, but working out moderately.

A good example of this is the show that my family and I are now obsessed with.  It’s called The Biggest Loser.  In season after season we watch tired, sickly, obese people of all ages, battle it out in the gym to lose their much loathed, extra pounds. From the beginning of every season you watch as these people go through weeks and weeks of grueling workouts and end up going through an amazing metamorphosis. While watching this show, it really helps you realize your own goals.  But, there is a difference between realizing that you’re underweight/overweight and actually doing something about it.

Stop eating things that you know are bad for you.  Foods with excess fats, sugars, coloring, products using refined flours, etc.  Making a change to your diet will ultimately make you lose the excess pounds, feel better, get healthier, and increase the likelihood of living longer.

Some good tips are:

• Drink plenty of water (for most folks that’s 8- 8 ounce glasses a day= 64 ounces a day)
• keep away from sugars (found in: juices, soda, desserts, added to tea and coffee, etc.)
• Have pre-cleaned, pre-cut veggies in zip bags, in the fridge and ready to be eaten at a moments notice
• Cook healthier (remove most butter from your diet, and replace it with extra virgin olive oil &/or conola oil)
• Eat a well balanced meal (not just protein and carbs, or protein and veggies, but a portion of them all)
• Eat several times a day (5 times= 3 meals, 2 snacks)
• Work out about 30 minutes (to start), 5-6 days a week of doing aerobic workouts such as a treadmill, workout video/dvd, elliptical machine, bicycling, speed walking, jogging, running, swimming, playing vigorous sports, etc.
• Weight training= alternate days of working the upper body and lower body
• If you’re not feeling satisfied or full, grab a handful of lettuce or veggies, even a few nuts for a much needed boost in your day
• Don’t eat too many fruits altogether (at the same time), spread them out throughout the day. Fruits can be high in natural sugars and need to be limited per sitting, especially in people who are diabetics
• Figure out your BMI ratio (body mass index). This calculation will help you figure out just how much you should weigh at your specific age and height

Most importantly, find a workout buddy or partner that’s willing to workout with you and be your support system.  If they start to cave and eat horribly bad things, you’ll be their strength and push them through. If you start to give in to temptation, they’ll keep you focused.

One very important note to remember is- if you’re craving something, you can always look online and find the low fat/low calorie alternative recipe for it.  Try to prepare the foods you always loved, but a healthier version, and if you give into temptation every now and then, control yourself.  If you’re going to die without a doughnut, have one- and I mean just ONE!

Hopefully these tips, coupled with your own personal motivation, and the encouragement of your friends and family, will help you put your best foot forward  and start on the journey to becoming a better you, happier and healthier than you’ve been in years, and a great role model for those around you.

Everyone’s personalities vary widely, but its very important for a person to keep thinking positively, no matter what situation they’re going through.

People often get down, feeling depressed and hopeless when a lot of troubles come their way.  Be it problems with: their health, relationships, work, self-esteem, finances or what have you.

Many professionals in the medical community wholeheartedly believe that thinking positively helps people get over illnesses quicker, and they may stay healthier faster than they ever would have, if they would have continued to think negatively.

Some medical professionals feel that 50% of a persons state of thinking is related to their genetics, 10% is related to life circumstances, and 40% is related to the person themselves. So, if you are able to think positively no matter what the situation, you have already boosted yourself up by 40%!

Some people may seem jaded when they think positively even when the world is crumbling around them.  But, honestly those people do know what circumstances they are facing, but they choose not to dwell on the negative aspects in them.  They choose to figure out what’s going wrong in their lives and try their best to be proactive to keep those things from causing so much turbulence in their lives that they will not be able to cope, thus turning into a gelatinous mess, blubbering fools, crying at the drop of a hat, and so on.

It’s good to cry, scream, let your feelings out, and then say, “Well, now that I’ve done that, I can move on from here.”

Don’t forget about the great things you have in your life and even if you’re at the lowest of the low and you have nothing and no one to turn to, remember you can always turn it around and have so much to hope for.  Once you’ve reached the bottom there’s nowhere to go, but up.

Most people would say that they slept pretty well in their childhood years.  As we age, we are preoccupied with tv, video games, the internet, phone calls, etc and we can’t seem to sleep as much, once we become teenagers.  When we get older and enter college, we have to cram for tests, and stay up long hours to complete assignments, so sleep goes on the back burner.  Once we’re out of college, our sleep patterns may begin to level out to some degree, but then again when we become stressed from work, we sometimes can’t sleep as well.   Well, that was all in the past, but things really change once you become a parent.   Did you expect that at that point you’d have plenty of sleep?

The first year of a child’s life, they pretty much wake up throughout the night, but it gets better when they’re closer to one year old.  Then later, when the child is past about a year old, their sleep pattern gets better and they might not wake up during the night, except on rare occasion.  But then, we’re so busy with all the little things we couldn’t get done when the little person was with awake, that we want to do those tasks in the peace and tranquility, of a quiet home.

Then again, doing so sets you back again because the longer you stay awake to do your tasks, the less you’ll sleep, and you can be sure you’ll get woken up pretty groggily and exhausted in the morning, because you needed more sleep.

Recent studies show that lack of sleep heightens the risk of a variety of major illnesses including: cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity.

But, how much sleep do we need exactly?  Well, it’s safe to say that every person is different.  Some people may only need 7 hours of sleep to function well, while others may need as much as 10 hours of sleep to function properly.  It doesn’t mean that certain people are lazy or incapable of doing much, it just means that their bodies are in need of more sleep, to catch up on the rest that their body is lacking.

A great tip to get your mind prepared for sleep is to turn off most of the lights (in your home), turn down the tv or stereo, brush your teeth and get ready for bed (from nearly an hour before bed), all to send the signal to your brain that sleep is impending.  Some people even choose to lay in bed, read a good book, and eventually their eyelids will feel like they have 50 pound weights on them, and they’ll slowly drift into a peaceful slumber.

Either way, get the amount of sleep you need, by going to bed around the same time nightly.  Don’t drink any caffeine within a few hours of bedtime, keep things calm and quiet to signal your brain that sleep is on it’s way, and be selfish for once, and get all the sleep you need.

In this day and age, people often times have so much to do and little time to do it.  Between juggling jobs, caring for their spouses and kids, cleaning house, cooking, appointments, phone calls, etc. many people don’t make it a priority to just unplug themselves from everything, even if only for a day.

People need to realize that they are their own advocate and there is no need for them to explain their actions to anyone else, to satisfy them.  Each person is living their own life, with their own goals and ideas in mind and when they need to do something that will benefit them indefinitely, they don’t need to find an excuse to tell people why they are doing it.

You have every right to find your center and begin to seek a way to live your life in a calm fashion.  Find ways to reduce your stress and chaotic lifestyle by prioritizing the things that you are doing now vs the things that need to be done.  You may choose to extract several things from your “to do list” that you hastily added to your (already bursting at the seems) load.  Removing these tasks may help uplift you and remove a great deal of weight off of your mind.

It’s imperative that every human being gets a chance to be “off” at least once a week (or more) to recharge their energy, refocus on what’s important in their lives as well as giving their bodies and minds a chance to rest.  Each person should be able to plan a day (weekly), when nothing is required of them, except the bare minimum. A day when they have nothing written on their schedules except to have a good time that day, doing whatever they need to do to please themselves.

If someone is not in charge of recharging themselves, chances are, nobody is going to sit them down and tell them that they’re doing too much.  The old adage, “The more you give, the more people will take” comes to mind.  Make it a routine, where one day (or more) a week you become unreachable by phone, e-mail, texting, or what have you. On that day, do very little except to sit back and kick up your heels, you just do whatever it is that you need to do to keep in touch with yourself.

Often times, we are encouraged to do more and more tasks daily and it is a major detriment to our health.  A common problem with most adults, is stress. Stress leads to all sorts of medical issues, such as depression, obesity, lack of focus, etc. as well as causing the person to be on edge all the time, and not much fun to be around. Not to mention, they’re so caught up in what needs to be done and what to do next, that they don’t get the chance to enjoy the moment. They need to sit back and enjoy the little things that they may have done,  a thousand times before, but may have never noticed the true beauty in it.

When stress is overlooked and they keep pushing themselves and don’t see the warning signs that their bodies and minds are about to shut down, they may start to enter into the dangerous burn-out phase.

Burnout is commonly characterized by:

Emotional symptoms of burnout:

Behavioral symptoms of burnout:

Recovering from Burnout:

There are 3 tips that are very important to remember if you feel yourself slipping into burnout terratory or if you have a family member or friend going through it.

Tip #1- Slow down or take a break

Tip #2- Share what you’re feeling with someone who can give you some support, and give a helping hand to help you through this tough time

Tip #3- Reevaluate your goals and priorities- Remember that your goals are not set in concrete. If you have to reevaluate the things you think are important for you to accomplish to please other people, refocus yourself and do what you feel needs to be done to improve your life, by your own standards.

Pursue a hobby that you’ve always loved and let fall by the wasteside or search for hobbies that you may have always wanted to learn.  Either way, find something that interests you enough to spark the passion in you to come out and make you feel like yourself again, or better.

Most people know that they should have a yearly physical and get blood work taken to be sure that everything is balanced.

Often times testing for vitamin D deficiency is not normally done without asking for it specifically.

A relative of mine, at the prodding of her Mother, recently went in for a check-up and found out that she was so low in Vitamin D, that her doctor had to put her on high powered Vitamin D supplements for 1 month, and then she has a follow-up appointment after that to be sure that the levels have become normal again.

Living in Western Washington State (as we do) or any other cold/rainy place for most of the year, you know that we tend not to get enough sun exposure and thus we become Vitamin D deficient.  Most of the body’s vitamin D requirements are met by the skin in response to sun exposure. Other less potent sources of vitamin D include foods such as salmon, sardines, cod liver oil, and vitamin D-fortified foods like milk and some cereals. Vitamin D can also be obtained through supplements.

Low Vitamin D may cause:

• a heart disease risk (such as: congestive heart failure and chronic blood vessel inflammation)
• high blood pressure
• alters hormone levels to increase insulin resistance, which raises the risk of diabetes
• may cause obesity
• reduces immune system (thus causing recurring illness)
• depression or “the blues”

Several studies have shown that people with low vitamin D levels were twice as likely to have a heart attack, stroke, or other heart-related event during follow-up, compared with those with higher vitamin D levels.

Vitamin D Deficiency on the Rise

Vitamin D deficiency is much more common than previously thought, affecting up to 50% of (healthy) adults and children in the U.S.

Researchers say higher rates of vitamin D deficiency may be due in part to people spending more time indoors and efforts to minimize sun exposure through the use of sunscreens. Sunscreen with a sun protection factor (SPF) of 15 blocks approximately 99% of vitamin D synthesis by the skin.

In Conclusion

Thinking that you get enough sun exposure, or thinking you’re eating all the right foods, is not a guarantee to keep you from checking your Vitamin D levels.  Be sure that the next time you go to your doctor for  your annual physical (or any other visit), to request that your Vitamin D levels get checked.  The possible side effects and complications of being Vitamin D deficient, far outweigh any fear you may have of getting pricked (with a needle) at the lab, or any other reason you can think of to be careless by not asking about your levels, because it’s imperative to find out if your Vitamin D level’s are normal.

So take out your favorite sunscreen, lather it on and try and enjoy at least 15 minutes of sun exposure a day.