Five Things EVERYONE Should Do
By Mark Young
Below are five things I think everyone needs to do. Some are related to looking good. Some are related to feeling good. Others are just related to staying alive (which is a real bonus if you’re going to do all that work to look and feel good). All in all, the thought process is pretty random, but if you’re not doing all of these things you need to start.
Eat Breakfast
You can’t start a fire without wood and you can’t start your metabolism without fuel. Skipping breakfast is the equivalent of failing to put a log on your metabolic fire. It just isn’t going to get started until you eat. What’s more important to note is that people who eat breakfast are less likely to be overweight and less likely to overeat later in the day. Ideally, breakfast would be a larger meal with meals actually tapering in size towards the end of the day.
Certainly there are those of you with excuses. Trust me, I’ve heard them all. But that doesn’t change the unalterable truth that unless you’re eating breakfast you’ll never have the body that you truly desire.
Start by eating something small within an hour of waking. Experience with hundreds of clients we’ve dealt with demonstrates that you will eventually become hungry in the morning and it will get easier.
Take Your Blood Pressure
Did you know that your blood pressure is a better predictor of cardiovascular health than your cholesterol numbers? In fact, high blood pressure does more damage to your arteries than cholesterol ever could on its own. For cholesterol to stick to your artery walls there needs to be damage and do you know where that damage comes from? Yep, you guessed it - high blood pressure.
And just in case you’re not worried about your heart, arterial damage can also affect your skin (giving you wrinkles), your eyes (giving you glaucoma), and even your parts south of the border (causing erectile dysfunction in men and loss of sensation in women).
An ideal blood pressure in the average healthy adult is 115/75. If yours is higher than this you need to do something about it as this is a MAJOR risk factor. But before you go racing to the doctor to get the latest and greatest medication consider whether you’re actually doing everything you can for your arterial health.
If your food choices are poor and you’re completely inactive you probably need to address this issue. Go get the meds if you need to, but don’t get too comfortable as these can’t stave off the effects forever. Start taking care of yourself and make it a concrete goal to get your blood pressure under control without the aid of drugs and you’ll live a healthier and happier life.
Floss Your Teeth
With all the tooth whitening products out there you’d suspect that many of those beautiful smiles would be healthy smiles, but unfortunately several of them aren’t.
Despite having brilliant looking pearly whites, many people fail to make the time to floss and this could end up being a fatal mistake. It appears that unless we take care of our gums we’re susceptible to bacterial infections causing gingivitis and other conditions. More importantly, people with these conditions are likely to experience artery damage as a result.
Scientists don’t know yet if the bacteria themselves get into the bloodstream and damage the arteries or if there is some other kind of low grade inflammatory response that affects them, but they do know that taking care of the gums reduces the risk.
Take the few seconds to floss your teeth and it might be a lifesaving experience.
Exercise a Minimum of 5 Hours Per Week
You’re busy aren’t you? In fact, you’re probably so busy that this seems to be a high price to pay for better health doesn’t it?
Well let me explain to you the most common scenario in North America to see if I can change your mind. And by the way, I’m not reading this from the statistics in a magazine either. These are the people we deal with every day.
Many people are inactive. They then become overweight or obese from being inactive. Carrying the extra weight puts excess strain on the body and they start to experience lower back, hip, or knee pain. Often they end up taking pain medication because they can’t handle the constant ache. Unfortunately, the pain leads to less movement and more weight gain resulting in Type II Diabetes. For this a doctor prescribes Metformin. In the same visit the doctor notices that the person’s blood pressure and cholesterol are sky high so they’re also now taking some form of blood pressure medication and a Statin like Lipitor for the cholesterol. The person finally decides to fight back and follows a severe diet program and loses weight rapidly only to regain it just as fast. Now they can’t lose weight for the life of them because their metabolism is shot from crash dieting, their whole body aches and they’re essentially a walking pharmacy. They’re completely depressed and their doctor has no other recourse, but to put them on antidepressants and possibly anti anxiety meds to help them relieve the stress. If they’re female the doctor will also probably suggest some calcium and vitamin D because their bones are becoming brittle from inactivity. Ultimately, they feel completely exhausted and defeated every day, they can’t look in a mirror much less shop for new clothes, and they feel that there is no hope. In essence, they’ve almost completely given up.
This is often when people finally come to us in search of one last chance to turn their lives around. If they’re not there yet, they’re usually at some place along that slippery slope and would eventually reach the endpoint given enough time.
The main point here is that all of this could have been averted if people had just made a little time each week for themselves to go out and exercise for just 45 minutes per day. In fact, just walking for 30 minutes per day is a great start.
Time might seem short with all of your work, family, and social obligations, but if you were to picture yourself in the place of the person at the end of the scenario above I guarantee you the price would not seem so high. If you can’t picture yourself there…just wait.
Inspect Your Private Parts
Many Cancers start in places that most people don’t like to talk about. Unfortunately, this often leads to lack of information on the topic and, sadly, many people die as a result of late detection. If you’re sensitive towards this topic you can skip the rest of this article. However, I’d suggest you forge forward as the information below might just save your life.
Women
It is well known that women should administer a self breast exam regularly to detect lumps that could be dangerous. However, it is less well known how often women actually do this. Because early detection is key to fast and effective treatment, make sure to do this on a monthly basis. If you think you’re not likely to remember just let your partner know that they can do it for you when they remind you it needs to be done. My guess is that you’ll never miss an exam again.
Some statistics suggest that at least 50% of sexually active women will contract human papillomavirus (HPV) at some time during their lives. Many scientists believe the number is even higher than that and that most women don’t know they have it. The biggest issue is that this can eventually lead to cervical Cancer and in most instances THERE ARE NO SYMPTOMS in the early stages. This is why it is so critical to get a pap smear annually after a woman becomes sexually active. Granted, this appointment probably won’t be your favourite day of the year, but it could be the most important day of your life.
Men
Remember when you were a teenager and your parents told you not to touch anything down there or you’d go blind? Well I’m here to give you outright permission to do just that. At least once a month it is imperative to check your testicles for lumps you don’t recognize. In fact, even if you don’t think you have any lumps it is important to get to know how things “should feel” so if you eventually do develop a lump you’ll recognize it as being out of place. If you do find something it is always better to get it checked out than to rationalize it away. Better safe than sorry. For the record, I don’t suggest using the same “ask your partner” strategy as I mentioned above for the breast exam. In this case, it might be a long time before you get your next exam.
Finally, the one test men don’t like to talk about - The prostate. The sound of a rubber glove snapping onto the hand of a doctor standing behind you is the stuff of nightmares to most men, but Cancer scares me MUCH more. In fact, prostate Cancer is the most common Cancer in Canadian men. It is estimated that in 2008 approximately 24,700 men will be diagnosed with prostate Cancer. So…as much as you hate it…every man over 45 (or 40 if your family has a history) should get a prostate exam annually. Don’t forget to ask for a PSA (prostate specific antigen) test while you’re at it. The manual prostate exam can sometimes miss things this test will pick up.
Summary
The main point is that the stuff I’ve written above are simple things that need to be done to keep you looking and feeling great while living a long and exciting life. Many of them only need to be done once yearly, monthly, or daily, but they’ll hardly take any more than a few minutes at a time (except for the 45 minutes of exercise daily…which really isn’t much time in the grand scheme of things).
If you’re looking for some small steps to take to get healthy…now you can start stepping.
Add comment October 28th, 2008
