March 23rd, 2009 03:36pm
Mike DeDoncker
We pretty much know the conventional healthy eating advice — cut down on the fatty meats and cheeses, consume more fruits and vegetables, switch to whole-grain breads and pastas and be mindful of realistic portion sizes.
The main idea is to take in high-grade fuel and leave out the excess calories that will weigh down performance.
Well, don’t forget to count the calories in what you drink. While it probably doesn’t make a significant difference that you order the diet soda to go along with your double cheeseburger with bacon and extra sauce, it is a saving of 140 to 150 calories.
In fact, sugared soda is the number one source of refined sugar in the American diet at 10 to 12 teaspoons in a 12-ounce can. That’s enough to earn it the nickname of liquid candy.
Here, according to a chart I found in ”Take Charge of Your Health” by Aileen Ludington and Hans Diehl, are some other drinks and their calorie counts:
1 cup of coffee with cream and sugar — 75, 1 cup of orange juice — 110, 12 ounces of diet soft drink — 0, 12 ounces of fruit punch — 140, 1 cup of nonfat milk — 90, 1 cup of whole milk — 160, 12-ounce milk shake — 425, 12-ounce beer — 150, 1 cocktail — 150, 12 ounces of mineral water — 0.
Plain water also has no calories and doesn’t irritate your system — but it is PLAIN.
So, if you can’t stick to water, drink what you want but remember to count your liquid calories in the total.Â
March 16th, 2009 03:47pm
Mike DeDoncker
Unless we have some decidedly un-springlike weather, I’ll be somewhere on the Sinnissippi Bike Path when spring officially arrives at 6:44 a.m. Friday.
I’ve been getting outside to run in a — mostly — straight line now for a couple of weeks after spending the winter going around in ovals and abusing my hips on the YMCA’s indoor track. When I gave up racing — not like I was a threat to beat anyone in my age group — a little over five years ago I also gave up running outdoors in anything colder than 20 degrees above zero.
I’ve read several articles about how exercising outdoors in cold weather helps build your resistance to wintertime ailments — and when I ran outside in winter, I rarely had a cold or the flu — but just couldn’t continue to push myself out the door when I knew I wasn’t training for anything specific.
Now, instead of just feeling the moderating temperatures, spring running is kind of a jailbreak for me and that makes it all the more fun. My hips sure appreciate it, anyway.
So let me encourage you to take your workout outside. It’s getting to be that time.
February 18th, 2009 06:13pm
Mike DeDoncker
In a few months short of 40 years at the Register Star, I’ve listened to a lot of stories because I had to.
This Sunday, I’m going to listen to one because I want to. The Coronary Health Improvement Project (CHIP) is bringing Appleton, Wis., florist Verna Van Nuland to the YMCA of Rock River Valley’s Northest Branch at 8451 Orth Road from 4:30 to 6 p.m., and I want to hear her story.
The local CHIP organization, of course, has been advertising the appearance so I already know part of it. She was on the express route to inspecting daisy roots and had already made her funeral arrangements and written a goodbye letter to family and friends when a doctor suggested the CHIP eating program to her.
She’s lost 75 pounds, bicycled over 1,300 miles and gotten rid of a boatload of medications since then. In short, she got her life back.
There’s no getting around it that CHIP, when adhered to completely, is a vegan eating plan. It’s tough. I know, because I tried it. But no one says you have to do it all the time every day. I still try to have totally vegetarian days every week and most of the time I make it.
The point is that the evidence that CHIP is definitely onto something good is growing all the time.
Hey, there’s no football on this Sunday and I don’t think they’re televising spring training yet, so why not give CHIP a looksee.
January 20th, 2009 06:00pm
Mike DeDoncker
Last month, when we were preparing to make a HealthyRockford.com year-end video for 2008, I looked online for the top quotations ever made on the subject of health for help in writing the introduction.
I was just rifling my desk for something else and found the printout I made of the quotes. Upon reading them again, I thought “Gee, some of these are actually pretty good advice.” Here’s a sample of their wisdom:
“As I see it, every day you do one of two things: build health or produce disease in yourself,” — Adelle Davis.
“What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn’t much better than tedious disease,” — George Dennison Prentice.
 ”Health is not valued till sickness comes,” — Dr. Thomas Fuller.
“Health is not simply the absence of sickness,” — Hannah Green.
“To insure good health: eat lightly, breathe deeply, live moderately, cultivate cheerfulness, and maintain an interest in life,” — William Londen.
Even some that were meant to be funny are worth thinking about.
“There’s lots of people who spend so much time watching their health, they haven’t got the time to enjoy it,” — Josh Billings.
“It’s no longer a question of staying healthy. It’s a question of finding a sickness you like,” –Jackie Mason.
And, of course, “Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.”Â
January 19th, 2009 02:48pm
Mike DeDoncker
One of the more enthusiastic people I’ve met since starting to work on HealthyRockford.com is Willow Junya, the owner of Thai Cuisine restaurant on E. Riverside Boulevard.
In Willow’s culture, everything that goes into the body is medicine — food as much as anything — and he is an avid student and practitioner of healthy eating.
So it was interesting when he included in a newsletter he writes for his customers and other acquaintances, his thoughts Â
about foods to help boost the immune system.Â
Here are his recommendations:Â
 Yogurt — Packs a healthy dose of good bacteria that can protect the body against harmful bacteria and infections.
 Turmeric — Found in every yellow curry, and its golden color comes from curcumin, a polyphenol with strong cold and flu-fighting properties.
Garlic — Much of its immune-boosting properties come from its sulfur-containing compounds, which also give the bulb its aroma, particularly one called allicin. The compounds are effective against bacterial, viral, fungal and parasitic infections. They also enhance the immune system and have anti-tumor and antioxidant features which help guard cells from everyday wear and tear.
Oregano — Its antioxidant activity is due to a high content of phenolic acids and flavonoids, color compounds that are also anti-inflammatory. It can protect against the common cold, influenza, fevers and indigestion. One of the little-known facts about Willow is that he loves to cook Italian and has developed several healthy recipes along that line.
Red bell peppers – They have twice the vitamin C of most vitamin C-containing fruits and vegetables. Vitamin C is know to maintain the skin, which is the body’s first line of defense against microbes and viruses. It may also help to increase white blood cel count and antibody production.
Green tea — Has undergone minimal oxidation during drying and processing and some studies highlight a compound called epigallocatechin gallate or EGCG, a powerful antioxidant that has been shown to inhibit the growth of cancer cells.
Ginger — Often recommended as a tea or bath for those with a cold or flu because it is helpful in increasing sweat production, which may help get rid of germs and sweat out toxins.
Oyster — Often thought of as one of nature’s most potent aphrodisiacs, probably because of their high zinc content which is necessary for testosterone production. In any event, zinc is good for protecting the body against colds and flu.Â
Broccoli — A source of vitamins, A, C and E. It is also high in glucosinolates, which stiumulate the body’s immune system. It also has a high concentration of sulforaphanes, which are potent anticancer agents.
 Willow advocates incorporating these foods into your diet as well as regular exercise to help boost your immune system, stay healthy and boost energy levels.
January 8th, 2009 01:40pm
Mike DeDoncker
As people survey the scene of a disaster, it seems someone always says, “Well, at least we have our health.”
Of course, they’re right.
And with the ongoing disaster known as the current U.S. economy threatening to hang on for a long while, it’s more important than ever to make sure the health you have is good health.
As an example, one of my personal training clients who operates several manufacturing plants in northern Illinois, says that because of the financial collapses on Wall Street the plans of every one of his employees aged 62 to 64 to retire in the next one to four years have been destroyed.
 If they’re lucky enough that my client can keep them in jobs for that long — and he’s not so sure of that — they will have to work an extra three to five years, until they are 68 or 69, and hope things get substantially better in that time just to get close to where they were before last year.
That’s another 600 to 1,000 times that they have to be healthy enough to answer the bell. My guess is that the same is probably true for every other worker, regardless of age.
If, like me, you can’t remember the last time you saw your primary care physician, I suggest you make an appointment. If you don’t exercise regularly, start. If you smoke, try to quit.
You know the rest — eat right by giving up the refined carbs and sugars and going for more whole grains and fruits and vegetables, including the green, leafy kind; get plenty of sleep; learn ways to deal with stress and so on.
The main thing is to find a plan that fits you and stick to it, even if it takes several tries before you succeed.
Nobody knows how bad the economy is going to get, but you’ll always have your health.
January 5th, 2009 12:21pm
Mike DeDoncker
When I read the story on HealthyRockford.com today about an exercise room designed for holding meetings, I was reminded of the reaction of Will Smith’s character in the movie “Independence Day” as he looks inside an alien space ship he has just downed in a dogfight.
It goes something like “I gotta get me one of these.”
The story, at http://www.healthyrockford.com/homepage/x1277304555/Board-meeting-too-boring-Take-a-hike-instead talks about a Buffalo, N.Y.-area health club that has opened a room in which the meeting participants can get a workout on treadmills or elliptical trainers during their discussion instead of munching donuts, falling asleep or whatever.
It seems like Rockford, which traditionally does a lot of its meeting in the early morning, would be a perfect place for this. The participants could get in a morning workout, get their business accomplished and be ready to hit the office invigorated for the day.
Of course, there would be a couple of things to work out about the workout. The meeting participants would most likely want a place to wash off the workout and they would probably still need to eat breakfast so a place that could provide the workout might also have to offer those too.
I can think of only two or three places in town that might be able to pull this off without a huge new investment but fitness trends change all the time and we can always dream.
December 30th, 2008 11:28am
Mike DeDoncker
When it comes to New Year’s resolutions, I’ve whittled mine down to one that works – the same one every year.
I vow to be just as bad, but no worse, in the new year as I was in the old one.
This resolution works for me because the idea instead of resolving to lose a bunch of weight, improve my exercise routine or watch my spending more closely – all of which I would probably break just as fast as most anyone else — is to try to emphasize positives, the things that I think I already do well and do them more often in the new year.
It doesn’t matter if other people think I do them well, Â just that I think so.
I think the same approach can work for anyone. Figure out two or maybe three things that you do well — politeness, generosity, leadership, or whatever — and practice them more often. You may find that that person who now emphasizes those positives is more motivated to drop those five pounds that have been hanging around for too long or has the willpower to finally put out that last cigarette.
You get a better, healthier, happier you and no resolution to make yourself over was needed.
December 17th, 2008 03:32pm
Mike DeDoncker
Among the things we ran across Tuesday while covering Windsor Elementary School teacher Amy Conklin’s success in a Weight Watchers’ contest were her tips on sticking with a weight-loss plan.
You wouldn’t have seen them unless you went to www.weightwatchers.com/inspiringstories to follow everything about the story, and I wanted to make sure they got repeated here since weight loss is likely to be high on a lot of New Year’s resolution lists.
Her tips are:
“You need to eat to lose weight. It may sound counter-intuitive, but when you deny your body nutrition by not eating, your metabolism slows down, making it harder to lose weight.”
“Don’t set a time frame for your weight loss. It can be a recipe for disaster. If you set a goal date and you are off track on achieving it, you are more likely to give up.”
“Lose weight and get healthy for yourself. Trying to lose weight for someone else or for an event means you aren’t ready to make a lifestyle change. Weight Watchers isn’t a diet, it’s a lifestyle (yes, I’m letting her get away with an endorsement, but to not do so would be to change her quote). This is one instance in life when it is OK to be completely selfish. Everyone who loves you will reap the benefits of this commitment to your health.”
“Be realistic about your goals. Rapid weight loss is not healthy and in most cases not sustainable.”
Her last tip is another endorsement, and one is enough. You can visit the Weight Watchers’ Web site if you want to read it.
In any event, I hope this may help you if weight loss is your goal for 2009.
December 9th, 2008 06:40pm
Mike DeDoncker
Lucky us. We’ve gotten our third — or is it fourth, already — blast of snow, and enough cold weather to make sure there is plenty of ice to go along with it.
This can put a real chill on outdoor workouts unless you don’t mind adapting to the conditions. And outdoor activities in winter can burn some serious calories while doing wonders for shaping and strengthening legs and glutes.
Here are some examples of calorie expenditures per hour for winter activities using a calculator found at www.fitday.com/webfit/exerciseinfopage.html and my information of 5-foot-9, 185 pounds and 60 years of age:
Ice skating (general) 423
Cross-country skiing (moderate speed 4-4.9 MPH and effort) 494
Downhill skiing (moderate effort) 353
Sledding, tobogganing, bobsledding or luging 423
Snowshoeing 494
Moving an ice house (including setup and drilling) 353
Snowmobiling 176
Of course, running and maybe even bicycling aren’t impossible in the snow. You could think of winter activities as seasonal cross-training.
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