The big picture

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Someone who well but overlooks other lifestyle factors isn't getting the big picture of good health. A balanced eating plan is critical; but we should also practice other health-promoting behaviors such as doing at least 30 minutes of physical activity a day, not smoking, managing stress, and getting enough sleep.

Food Insight

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If walking is your exercise of choice, here's a way to make your exercise more vigorous and varied-walking with poles.

Nordic walking is like cross-country skiing. You maintain a basic marching rhythm: swinging your right foot forward as you plant the pole with the left arm, then your left foot swings forward and the right arm plants its pole. How will it benefit you?

WALKING WITH POLES:

* Burns about 40 percent more calories, according to researchers at the Cooper Institute in Dallas.

* Raises the heart rate more than simple walking, yet volunteers perceived it as a less strenuous workout.

* Provides upper-body exercise; strengthening back and shoulder muscles, torso, and arms, and helps build upper-body bone density.

* Allows you to walk faster, but puts less stress on knees and reduces impact on legs.

Any sporting-goods store carrying hiking equipment should have poles. Most come with a basic instruction booklet,

UC Berkeley Wellness Letter

Count Your Many Blessings

KEEPING a daily gratitude journal for just two to three weeks has been shown to improve mental health and general well-being in organ-transplant recipients. Recording thankful thoughts also increases energy, enthusiasm, and attentiveness in healthy people.

Begin counting your blessings today!

Dr. Andrew Well's Self Healing

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Dieting ... NOT!

IF your goal is to lose weight and keep it off, diets just don't work, according to an analysis conducted at UCLA.

Traci Mann, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Psychology, and colleagues analyzed 31 diet studies tracking participants from two to five years. Dr. Mann says, "Any number of diets can help people lose 5 to 10 percent of their body weight within six months, but the weight gradually comes back." According to Patty Beckwith, M.P.H., R.D., UCLA dietitian, "Lifestyle modification in relationship to food and exercise is the only effective method to achieve and sustain weight loss."

A lasting solution to the weight problems that affect almost 60 percent of Americans will not come in the form of a diet designed for short-term weight loss. A long-term solution is realistic only when-for the rest of your life-you're willing to adopt a lifestyle that fosters eating in moderation, controlling calorie intake, and exercising almost every day.

Healthy Years

Royal Beans

BEANS are often dismissed as peasant food. But for your heart and circulatory system, they're fit for royalty. Eating beans regularly can lower cholesterol, lower the risk of having a heart attack, and influence blood sugar.

One study found that people who ate one serving of beans a day-usually black beans-were nearly 40 percent less likely to have had heart attacks as those who rarely ate beans.

Full of protein, fiber, vitamins, minerals, and slowly digested carbohydrates, beans make an excellent and versatile food.

They work well as a main course, in soups, as a side dish, or mashed with garlic for a healthy dip or spread.

Go ahead. Eat like a king!

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Harvard Heart Letter

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SALT Under Pressure

TWO of the world's leading salt experts pooled the results of 10 studies on kids ages 8 to 16 and three studies on infants. Cutting sodium by an average of 42 percent for four weeks in the children, and 54 percent for 20 weeks in the infants, lowered their blood pressure significantly.

Blood pressure may not reach high levels until middle age, but it starts rising early in life. Try to cut back on high-sodium foods for the whole family now.

Nutrition Action Health Letter

COPYRIGHT 2008 Review and Herald Publishing Association
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning