January Health Resolutions: Part I I read the oddest tidbit in the paper today. It was a blurb on a newly coined medical term – “Orthorexia Nervosa,” so named by Dr. Steven Bratman, an American Author. It means fixating on healthy food and carries a danger of death! I’m not sure if this was supposed to be tongue in cheek or a joke, but it comes from a book called “Health Food Junkies” and is supposedly serious. I won’t even comment on the idiocy of the oxymoron…dying from healthy food. I take exception to that term, being the self-professed health food nut that I am. I suppose everything in moderation is the key. And that’s the key for New Year’s resolutions. I’ve been doing my own little survey amongst friends and acquaintances. Everyone seems to have the desire to drop a few pounds. It’s the method that varies wildly. One friend wants to buy a membership at a gym which will force her to get her money’s worth and not just forget about the issue. My daughter works out at a gym every weekday and is in great shape. Another friend bought a diet book with some Christmas money and plans to start a whole new regimen of eating according to the Protein Power Lifeplan. Another person has vowed to stay out of the kitchen and order in so she doesn’t have to taste and eat food before it’s put on the table. I know a very thin woman (and that doesn’t necessarily mean healthy) whose kitchen is state-of-the-art with every bell and whistle you could imagine, and she doesn’t know how to cook, or prefers not to. That could be a diet in itself…not good for family members, though. We do seem to spend an inordinate amount of time obsessing over food, either the lack of it, the taste of it, or the fatness of it. When did we start focusing on food so singularly? I think it was about the time when sliced white wonderbread became passe in favour of focaccia and Olive Bread….and Chicken Cordon Bleu came into favour (not replacing bread) and added many more calories to our diets. I’m afraid that affluent society breeds greed and overeating. We have so many tasty snacks and treats that have never been heard of in the rest of the world. Even in Europe, people don’t eat junk food like we do here. The first thing to do with a New Year’s Resolution is to make a conscious lifestyle change…not start a diet! Diets almost always fail, and if one thinks in terms of diet, it seems to mean that it has a beginning and an end. Who ever usurped that word to have the new meaning of losing weight. When I grew up diet meant eating, lifestyle and nourishment…not losing weight…but words change and so do we, and even more pointedly, so does the stuff we put into our mouths. One of the biggest stumbling blocks to living a healthy lifestyle after a year of not, is our bodies themselves. Our bodies know enough to go into survival mode when deprivation starts, and there’s almost no fooling the bodily instinct. Also those pesky white adipose cells cry out for more and once they grow, they never go away. It’s the brown fat cells that are functioning properly and are distributing the energy to where it should go. So here we have to worry about our bodily instinct, our brains (because food depletion can cause serious health problems,) our hunger pangs, and our environment (which keeps harping on slimness and beauty.) What a hurdle to overcome! There’s also the insidious multiplication factor whereby the brain craves feel-good foods when we least need or can absorb them. This means that we have to keep the brain healthy before all else, or it becomes a vicious circle….crave snacks, gain weight, hate ourselves, try to eat healthy for a while, crave snacks…etc. So, in the lifestyle change it’s important to feed the brain with Ginkgo, CoEnzymeQ10, Ginseng and other brain nutrients as well as eat healthy food. The more we complete this new cycle, the less we will crave the bad stuff. I have a friend who started to take immune system supplements because she was feeling rundown and wanted to keep on working out. She suddenly realized that she did not crave the junk food that she previously found necessary. She felt better, healthier and was able to work out better which improved her dopamine to the brain as well. And that brings me to exercise. We all know people who’ve become compulsive joggers, bikers, biathletes, personal sports fanatics…well, their bodies are getting lots of dopamine from the physical activity. I actually read that the jolt of dopamine that one gets from all out exercise is higher than from taking Cocaine. I’m not sure if that’s true, but the athletes seem to be getting great satisfaction out of their activities. We can exercise moderately and be fit and happy, though. A brisk walk of 20 to 30 minutes every day is definitely a step in the right direction. I’m not such a great fan of going to the gym because many people can’t afford the cost on an ongoing basis. A monthly fee of $50.00 translates to $3000.00 after five years. But some people cannot exercise at home alone. That’s why I feel it is important to incorporate “life” into exercise. I run up and down stairs, and I have two flights of them. I make a point of doing everything with intensity, including carrying the laundry from upstairs to the basement and back. I look forward to the time to change loads so I can run again. I park far away from the mall entrance I want to use and walk from one end of the mall to the other just to have the extra walk in winter. I do my little isometric calisthenics and stretch at every turn of the staircase (so-to-speak.) There are many ways we can focus on exercise in our daily lives. Within reason, my husband and I walk to friends’ homes and to restaurants. Once you begin to think about walking more, the opportunities just present themselves…but the brain nutrients help to convince us that that is what we should be doing rather than taking the car everywhere. In the final analysis, losing weight is very difficult, moving onto a new lifestyle is not if you do it gradually and work on all the different aspects of healthy living. Make your life work for you, not the other way around. E-mail me if you need positive reinforcement. I find that when I keep in touch with others who are working on the same thing, it’s much easier to say “NO THANKYOU” to that piece of pizza, that bowl of Lays, or the leftover chocolates from Christmas. Forget about weight….and think about health! A good maxim to start off the new year: "You decide what it is you want to accomplish and then lay out your plans to get there, and then you just do it. It's pretty straightforward." --Nancy Ditz Back to the Writing Index