united for healthy oregon

Archive for May, 2009

You must understand that having a healthy body is not possible unless you make it, in fact, a lifestyle. It sounds ironic, but unfortunately most people believe you can have a life of junk food, high fat/cholestrol food (or binge eat) and still attain the body, look, or figure you want if you dedicate MOST of your time to reaching your goals. This is the main misunderstanding of any fast food diet plan or any other system, there are no breaks when reaching your goals. A healthy lifestyle isn’t something you reach and are done with. Like I said before, it is a lifestyle. Something you can never reach, but only keep getting closer to. The day you reach your final goal is the day you stop driving yourself to reach your potential, but instead settle for where you are. A mindset that should never be used for any low calorie diet plan, or any desire in life. This is avoided by establishing what I call ‘evolving goals’. Landmarks that are changed the moment you reach them, giving you the satisfaction of knowing you reached a landmark, but continue to focus on the goal that is still ahead of you.

Along with advancements in technology comes the pressure of creating ways to make people live longer, and the medical world is aware of this and the easiest way to promote this is encouraging a healthy lifestyle. 

Fast food diets, low calorie diets, and low cholestrol diets are just a few of the popular diet and exercise programs for people to achieve a healthy lifestyle. A healthy body does not come from a book or plan that some ‘health genius’ composes and sells, all of the essential resources needed to attain a healthy lifestyle through any fast food diet, low cholestrol diet, low calorie diet, or any other diet is available to you if you look hard enough. The body is a complex machine that works in a simple mechanism: it needs a certain ratio of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats based on the activities you do throughout the day. 

It becomes more difficult in trying to achieve a healthy body with the highly processed and preservative food industry making healthy foods harder to find for the diet and exercise plan or other system you decide to pursue. Each weight loss or diet program can provide you with the essential information needed to understand what you must do for reaching your goals, but where lots of them stop is in guiding you to the top nutritional food sources that you need. Diets and weight loss programs that deliver food to your door are becoming more and more popular because of the ease of access, the well rationed food portions and quality of food you receive. Read more about a healthy lifestyle here.

Have you noticed that there is often a sharp divide in between the allopathic health community and the naturopathic health community? In other words, the Medical Doctors and the Natural Health Professionals often seem to disagree fundamentally. But which is right?

Perhaps it is not so much of an issue of being right as it is an issue of roles and expertise. Perhaps it is not that Medical Doctors are bad or that natural health solutions are a hoax. Perhaps they should work together!

In the part one of this report, we’ll discuss the medical side of the issue: Pros and cons. Then we’ll do the same for the natural side, then wrap the discussion up.

The downside of the allopathic approach to health

One of the biggest problems with the medical approach to health is side effects. Quite simply, there are no pharmaceutical drugs that do not have undesirable side effects. Some have fewer side effects, some have more. Some side effects are very serious, others are not. But all drugs have side effects.

Another bad aspect to allopathic health is that it generally is designed to artificially and often superficially correct the problem, but not deal with the root issue. For example, when you take cold medicine, it does nothing for your cold – it just suppresses the symptoms so that you don’t notice the cold symptoms as much.

So for me, the biggest problems with using pharmaceuticals is that they are toxic, can be dangerous, and often do not address the root health issue.

On the plus side, the Medical approach excels in crisis situations. For example, if I were in a car accident and were in critical condition, I would not go see a nutritionist. I would go to the hospital, where they could forcefully intervene and hopefully save my life.

The best way to living a healthy lifestyle, eating healthy and forming healthy eating habits for the long run, has always come from within, within the home that is. We cannot look to others, books, magazines and publications for making us a healthy family or giving us the healthy lifestyle we would want to live. Sure these publications could give us the inspiration and motivation to take that step ourselves and to live a healthy lifestyle of choice. Everything still ends up with the home and family and we need to take that extra step in being courageous consumers when it comes to our choice of food.
One of those choices would be whether we want to continue eating obese foods, such as fast food, refined foods, processed foods or bleached foods. We need to take the responsibility and get back to what Mother Nature provided us, with food in its natural form, without any instructions to refine or process these foods. Obesity is directly linked to bad food choices in the form of highly refined carbohydrates and sugars which really is only a form of poison to our bodies. Gone are the days when considering those foods nutritious or beneficial to our families.
A solution each of us have available is to return to the bygone years of food production, or processing at home, sure it is less convenient, but the benefits are overwhelming an in a sense, you don’t have to watch what you eat really if you are consuming natural, high fibrous and unprocessed food. These foods will not only provide a healthy lifestyle, but will enable you to take care of a healthy family through healthy cooking and eating.
Ways to produce healthy food for your family would be to look at obtaining a grain mill and natural whole wheat grains which you can mill in your own time and for purposes you need such as baking and providing daily natural and fresh bread to your family. Another would be to start a victory garden, or vegetable garden in your back yard or in smaller pots in order to provide your own vegetables and salad items for the table. These foods are so healthy and nutritious for your family that you would reap the benefits almost immediately without worries of consuming unnatural processed and refined foods from the store.
Make healthy cooking and eating a priority for your family and the benefits will be seen before long. Benefits would include healthy digestion, disease fighting nutrition, obesity suppression etc. which will lead to a healthy family and lifestyle you will be grateful for. Not to mention the fun and satisfaction in producing your own food, being independent wholly from buying all your food from the supermarket. You can start your journey on the road of independence and take charge of your healthy eating habits, cooking and eating to promote your healthy family
A last word on healthy eating habits is this: there are many ways to promote the healthy family lifestyle you want and deserve, look at fresh produce you can grow in your own yard, storing whole grain which will last years, and when milled will give you the best and freshest whole wheat flour you can use for all your healthy cooking requirements. Canning vegetables and sauces is very easy too and is a skill you can learn in a very short time. In a day and age where the economic future is uncertain, being able to produce and store your own healthy food is vital to your health and lifestyle you would like to preserve

When it becomes law, families will save on their premiums,” President Obama declared in his weekly radio address before Christmas, pitching his health care reform.                                      If only that were so. Nobody who tracks health insurance sees any sign of softening premium prices for people who already have insurance, Obamacare or not. Premiums for 2010 were up 10% and are predicted to keep growing at the same rate in coming years.Health insurance is beginning to resemble air travel–where deep-pocketed business passengers subsidize penny-pinching vacationers. Insurance companies, under the measures in Congress, would be forced to take all comers, young and old, healthy and sick. Over ten years they would confront $871 billion in spending on uninsured and newly subsidized customers, costs that would be passed along to the young and healthy. The federal government isn’t going to pick up all of that tab. So those now insured through a private plan at work or one bought individually will have to chip in.

If you’re thinking the legislation will tamp down overall health care spending, reconsider. Policy analysts ranging from the neutral Congressional Budget Office to the HMO lobby see no abatement in the growth rate of health care spending. That sector of the economy is growing at a 7.4% annual rate, says actuarial firm Milliman. Medicare’s chief actuary, Richard Foster, thinks that the Senate bill would expand health spending by $234 billion above current projections.

The premium hikes will result from cost shifting, better known as passing the buck. The House and Senate insurance bills aim to cover their costs in part by cutting annual Medicare reimbursements to hospitals, doctors and drug companies by $45 billion. Those providers will likely try to offset the cuts by negotiating higher rates with private HMOs–which then get passed along through higher premiums. That’s exactly what occurred after past Medicare and Medicaid cuts, according to the CBO analysis. Families USA, a nonprofit group advocating expanded federal involvement in health care, says insured families are already absorbing $1,000 a year in costs shifted away from uninsured patients.

If you are interested in living a truly healthy lifestyle, then you may need to make some drastic changes. The foods you eat are very important when it comes to your health. You want to eat a balanced diet that covers all of the food groups. This will help you look and feel your very best. Make sure you limit your consumption of sugary foods and that you pay attention to the size of your portions.

Most people don’t realize the amount of damage that what they drink can do to their health as well. All of that soda you drink each day can be difficult for your body to digest. Reducing the amount of sugar and caffeine that you consume will help you to feel good all day long. You won’t have to worry about periods of the day when you are sluggish.

Getting enough sleep is vital to your overall health. Those individuals that don’t get enough have slower reaction times and they tend to be irritable. It can make it harder to complete daily tasks and to stay focused on what you are doing. Try to go to bed at the same time each night and get up each morning at the same time.

You need to engage in at least 30 minutes of exercise each day regardless of how old you are. This can be walking, running, playing a sport, or a combination of things. The key to staying motivated to exercise is to choose activities that you enjoy. This way you will look forward to them instead of feeling forced to take part in them.

Even if you don’t feel bad, you need to see your doctor at least once a year for a full check up. This way you will be able to rule out any various types of illnesses that may be affecting your body. Pay close attention to any symptoms you have in between check ups. Early intervention is one of the best ways you can find various types of illnesses.

Make sure you carefully monitor your level of stress. While some stress is normal, too much of it can definitely take a toll on you. It can affect your appetite, your attention span, and your sleep patterns. If you are having trouble dealing with stress in your life, you may want to seek professional assistance.

Take some time for yourself too and you will be healthier. We often take on too many responsibilities and that doesn’t leave time left for relaxing activities. Try to spend a few hours each week doing something for yourself. It can be taking a bubble bath, reading, or visiting with a friend. This will help rejuvenate your mental health without too much effort.