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Fall is my favorite time of year... time for the harvest, saying goodbye to the summer heat, and looking forward to the reset of long winter nights. It is also a great time to get outside and enjoy the sights and smells of the change of seasons. Have you been out for a leisurely walk lately? Have you taken the time to detach a bit, breath deeply, and get some great, slow-paced exercise?
As we work on our wellness choices and power pantry additions and deletions, we need to consider our physical activity as well. Experts (like the American Heart Association and the CDC) suggest 150 minutes a week of aerobic / cardio exercise (like a brisk walk or bicycling), and some form of strength training (legs, chest, biceps, core, etc.) on at least two days a week. If we can do something (get out and take ourselves for a walk) several days a week, that is at least a start to meeting these simple weekly goals of physical activity.
Make the commitment to regular physical activity, as part of your wellness lifestyle choices. You can plan a short in-home workout (knee bends, push ups, running in place, stretching, crunches...) or if you have the time and money budgeted, get a membership at the gym. The vital encouragement here is to do something.You'll be glad you did.
By the Way
Always remember that responsible dog owners take Fido for a couple of walks a day, and the vet says that's how it should be for Fido's joints to stay healthy and digestion to function well. If it's good for our dogs, why isn't the same advice just as valuable for us? Give it a shot this fall and take time for a walk.
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Many health practitioners who follow a wellness-lifestyle agree that various functions in our bodies get sick together, and also, as we improve our wellness, these functions will heal and get well together. What is good for the parts of our bodies is good for our body overall.
This month is breast cancer awareness month, and it really hits home in our family - my wife's mother is a four-year breast cancer survivor. When I came across a great article from Dr. Joel Furhman last week on strategies for preventing breast cancer, I thought it would be great to share it. I would say this article strongly supports the fact that what is good for preventing breast cancer will go a long way toward improving overall wellness.
Check out the article from Dr. Fuhrman:
Ten Strategies for Preventing Breast Cancer
You may question whether this article is relevant for you (especially the guys), but I guarantee that it has valuable information and support for adjustments to our pantries and lifestyle. What is good for any of the parts is definitely good for the whole.
How do Dr. Fuhrman's ten points stack up? The first half are all diet-related (higher quality nutrients; limit animal proteins; include flax and chia). Six through ten include getting three hours of exercise a week and eliminating alcohol and smoking.
We're all affected by cancer. It impacts our families, our friends, coworkers, neighbors... and can affect us directly as well. Even if we're young and 'healthy' now, our lifestyle choices have an indelible impact on our lives, and by extension, on the lives of those around us. Try incorporating Dr. Fuhrman's guidance, and take a step toward a power pantry and a wellness lifestyle.
By the Way
Dr. Fuhrman is one of the few prominent web doctors who exhaustively footnotes all of his research and perspective. Check out the References at the end of the Preventing Breast Cancer article; he's done his homework...
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Pursuing a wellness lifestyle and stocking a power pantry can bring with it a lot of change, and with a lot of change can come disappointment and a defeatist attitude. When we hit these rough patches in our journey we need a good pick-me-up, and I think the gold-standard in that department comes from Dr. Norman Vincent Peale.
I first came across Dr. Peale's materials when I was a kid. I had seen Guideposts magazine on numerous occasions and always appreciated the perspectives of celebrities and commons folks that were shared, and the sometimes miraculous stories the magazine conveyed. Dr. Peale founded Guideposts with his wife in 1945, and it maintains a robust subscriber base to this day. Sometime after college, I got a copy of The Power of Positive Thinking, and benefited greatly from the guidance I found there.
If you've never read The Power of Positive Thinking, you need to. And even if you've read it before, there's no time like the present for a refresher. To take away any excuses you may have, here is a link to get a free PDF or ebook version of The Power of Positive Thinking from Guideposts:
Positive Thinking 2014
Take heart, you may have some struggles right now and your wellness lifestyle is falling behind, or your pantry isn't reflecting what you really want to feed your body, but you can launch right back into shape with a reset of your thinking. There are useful, simple tools at the ready in resources like Guideposts and Dr. Peale's writings. Optimism is the antidote to so many common ills, if we'll just take a deep breath and resolve to see how much of life is going our way. Here's to living a life that is positively charged.
By the Way
If you get to know Dr. Peale through his writing, you should also get to know Og Mandino and Horatio Alger. Horatio Alger was one of the first American writers to bring practical, motivational content to his writings, back during the Great Depression. He was renowned for influencing the lives of the down-and-out, to seek and strive for something better in life.
Og Mandino wrote many easy-to-read books with substantive content to give the reader simple, memorable tools for self-motivation and to spur us to help and grow others. Happy reading!
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There are significant side benefits to working on a power pantry and living a wellness lifestyle. One that I became aware of in the last year was the opportunity to block and even reverse hereditary challenges that may be programmed into our genes. Our DNA is determined by our parents and our lineage, and brings with it whatever challenges and opportunities our family and ancestors live(d) with. Even so, we can significantly influence how our health progresses by the lifestyle choices we make.
In my family there is cancer (dad's side) and good longevity (mom's side) some diabetes on both sides, and then aches and pains, thinning hair, etc. What is good to note, as quoted in a recent article in Prevention magazine, "Your lifestyle absolutely influences how your genes express themselves." Really?... hmmm... So even though cancer runs in my family, or diabetes, or even long life, I may not be destined for that result? That's the fact. Our wellness and power pantry choices can steer our physical well-being in whatever direction we want. The choice is ours.
Consider this study of the FTO ('fat') gene in the Amish. This gene is prevalent in a majority of European descendants, and with the Amish being almost solely European in their lineage, they were a good study group. The results showed that Amish lifestyle choices (significant daily, physical exertion) trump the presence of the fat gene. Here is a great overview article on the topic and study.
The Amish Obesity Studies
When the physical activity of the Amish was tracked, they were logging 14,000 to 18,000 steps a day (women and men respectively) when 10,000 steps a day is considered a very active lifestyle. So even though many Amish pantries wouldn't pass as a power pantry (they eat what they like, not what is necessarily nutrient dense or healthful), you wouldn't know it by their waistlines. While the obesity rate in the general public is 30%+, the rate in the Amish community is 4%.
Even though our genetic coding comes to us at birth, the fact is our power pantry and lifestyle choices, today, really matter. If obesity, heart disease and cancer run in your family, don't succumb to that fate for yourself. Our wellness choices will determine our health journey much more than our ancestry. We are more than our genes.
By the Way
There is a fairly new technical field of study related to this understanding of genetics and nutrition called nutrigenomics. The concept is that, since the mapping of the human genome, we can closely consider the genetic makeup of an individual and then chart a custom nutrition plan and wellness plan for them which will yield optimal health. That idea could have passed as science fiction just a few years ago, but it is gaining research support, and we may have these resources within our lifetime. Check out this article on Wikipedia about nutrigenomics for more information.
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The tried and true aphorism that 'a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step' is as true today as it was when Laozi wrote it around 550 BC. And living a wellness lifestyle with a well-thought-out power pantry certainly takes some steps. How is your journey going?
Maybe you're new to this idea of reading labels and being more discerning about your food choices. Do you regularly purge processed foods from your fridge and pantry and look for some great veggies, greens and fruits to include daily? Maybe you're getting out for a walk more often, or making the time to linger with family or spend time in prayer. All these things are worth the first step you take as you invest in your wellness.
It is valuable to make a few mental markers along the way. Remember where you came from, and note well where you are now. Sometimes you may marvel a the positive gap you see between the two. For me, compared to when I began my wellness journey in 2010, I'm 30+ pounds lighter, with one or two migraines a year (instead of 2+ a month), no aches and pains in my joints or knees, and energy that I haven't had for 25 years. That may not be the norm, but it's just short of miraculous to me, and I'll never go back to living a standard American lifestyle now that power pantry habits have taken hold.
Have a look at aspects of your journey, make note of where you are, and consider engaging more actively in numerous ways:
- Nutritional excellence - eating with an eye on the nutrient density of food, leaning into fresh, plant-based, whole foods as much as possible
- Physical activity - daily activity that gets our body moving, keeping you flexible, strong and vibrant
- Meaningful relationships - relating with people who care for you and who you can care for
- Engaging community - being part of something bigger than yourself where you can make a difference
- Spiritual investment - quiet time for meditation and prayer to reset and gain perspective
So take a step today. Maybe it seems like a long journey, but don't worry about that; just start where you are. You'll be making incredible progress before you know it.
By the Way
We can sometimes get hung up on our 'failures' or get distracted because we backslide. Struggle is a normal part of the journey. My encouragement is to simply write a great page today. We're all writing the chronicle of our lives, one page at a time. Today is a blank page, and yesterday's page is in ink and we can't change it now. Resolve to write a great page today...
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As you're working on your power pantry, and maybe reading up on better choices you can include, you may come across the raw-food / cooked-food debate. Contention over the right form of food has raged on for decades, and from what I can see, there is still no clear winner. What we can conclude is that including more raw foods in our pantry and diet is better than an overabundance of cooked and processed foods.
Read up on the benefits of a raw diet from experts like Dr. Joel Fuhrman and Dr. Andrew Weil. I appreciate that both of these doctors take a middle of the road approach to food choices and diet advice. The guidance they offer is repeatable and holds value for majority of our population. What we can glean from their perspectives is that there are great benefits to eating a substantial amount of our foods as raw foods, but there is also value in including cooked foods in our diet.
If you're experiencing significant health challenges, you may consider a time of a strict raw diet, like a raw juice fast, as a means of detox. This is a great way to benefit from a supercharge of antioxidants, fiber (if you're blending instead of juicing) micro-nutrients and phyto-nutrients available in raw fruits and vegetables. Big picture, and long-term, cooking of some foods is beneficial because it corrects and improves what may be unhealthy or even poisonous (like carcinogens in most mushrooms which dissipate when cooked).
Check out this article from Dr. Weil about choosing raw over cooked foods, and this one from Dr. Fuhrman. What we can conclude is that consuming more raw foods (fruits and veggies) has great health benefits, and there is also a place for cooking of some foods. If you're really into the raw/cooked debate, read up on Dr. Paul Kouchakoff, M.D., whose research concluded that at least 51% of our diet should consist of raw foods in order for our bodies to digest and metabolize in a healthy way.
Wherever you fall on the raw/cooked food spectrum, try including a substantial amount of raw foods in your choices today. The reality is that we don't get nearly as much raw, unprocessed food as we should, so making the effort eat raw more often is a great addition to a power pantry.
By the Way
I've always appreciated a scripture verse written by Paul, an avid Christ-follower who shared great guidance and wisdom with the early church. In his letter to the Corinthian christians Paul said:
"Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for, 'The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it.' " (1 Corinthians 10:25) Of course, Paul was describing the 1st century marketplace, where everything sold was basically local and 'organic'... wise choices which we may do well to follow.
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Looking at mortality rates is sobering. I was recently reminded that the number one killer in the US is heart disease; I guess everybody knows that. What was so sobering is that it claims an average of over 2,000 lives in the US, per DAY. Over 778,000 people in America die of major cardiovascular disease every year. When you add that over 570,000 Americans die of cancer every year, it makes me stumble back a step. I knew the numbers were large, but that's over 3,600 people per day who die of these two diseases.
If you're following the current Ebola outbreak, some 3,500 people have died of this highly contagious and deadly disease since this outbreak began. But that's in about 7 months (the first case was diagnosed in March 2014). I'm not downplaying what's happening with Ebola - it is scary and deadly, and it mostly finds its victims--they don't go looking for it. Contrast that with heart disease and cancers which are, for the most part, lifestyle diseases. We make choices of how we will live and eat and how active we will be, and consequences show up, good or bad.
Integrative and holistic medicine is proving, with strong evidence and repeatable clinical results, that top killers like heart disease and cancer are controllable and reversible, and even preventable, through an intentional wellness lifestyle. All the things that go into a power pantry lifestyle like whole foods, strong relationships and community, regular exercise, and even meditation, bring our bodies the health and healing they crave.
I think 100 years from now people will look back on these times as an unfortunate season of indulgent ignorance. We have literally millions of people living an unnecessarily deadly lifestyle which costs them quality of life and cost us all trillions of dollars.
So my encouragement is for each of us to continue on our own power pantry journey, and by that, do our part to reverse the trend. Maybe your spouse or a relative or coworker is longing to overcome weight issues, or aches and pains or lack of energy. Or maybe they know that heart disease and cancer lurk in their genes and they can see the fate they will suffer if they don't improve their lifestyle. Press on in your power pantry journey, and find someone to share it with today.
By the Way
Another reason that our industrialized, unhealthy food supply and lifestyle isn't sustainable is how much it costs. In the US, we're logging $2.8 trillion in healthcare spending per year--almost $3,000 per person, and more than any other industrialized nation. While I think we're blessed to have the best healthcare in the world, we use so many health services which are really lifestyle responses, that it isn't sustainable long-term. Eventually this cost will catch up to us and things will have to change.
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We are, very simply, what we eat: this is something I think we all know from childhood, when we don't care a whit about our health and it's more fun vying for that piece of chocolate than thinking about what is nutritious. Times change, and our bodies change, and I know there is an innate niggling voice encouraging us to make a healthy choice, if we'll just listen to it.
Maybe it is middle age which gets us distracted toward healthier choices and listening to our bodies instead of listening to our desires. Maybe it is getting exasperated with the aches and pains of 'aging' where we decide we just can't live like that any longer. However it happens, I think we all come to terms with our food choices as a catalyst for either health or sickness.
I like to glean and forward resources for lifestyle wellness, and as a friend and I were talking the other day, I mentioned a great pair of documentaries that he was not yet aware of. These are based on the belief that we are what we eat, and that food matters. In fact, the title of their initial work is 'Food Matters'. This insightful work is the product of tremendous research and expert perspectives compiled by James Colquhoun and Laurentine ten Bosch. Their follow up piece, 'Hungry for Change', is just as valuable.
What you'll learn in these great documentaries are more fundamentals on why whole foods make such a beneficial difference, how our bodies crave nutritional offerings like vitamins and micronutrients, and how conventional, western medicine continues to get this wrong. You'll hear from experts and get valuable encouragement to convince you that, if you're on your own wellness journey, you're not crazy and you're not alone.
Start by having a look at their website: www.foodmatters.tv. You'll find an incredible amount of wellness and nutrition information, all in one place. Materials from recipes to wellness guides to articles, and one of their most significant resources, www.fmtv.com - a clearing house of nutrition and wellness-related videos and documentaries. Take a wellness step today as you work on your power pantry. It's our choice, and today is the best day to begin.
By the Way
You can watch Food Matters and Hungry for Change instantly on Netflix, if you're a subscriber.
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I had a great breakfast conversation with a friend yesterday, as we caught up on family and life and eventually about power pantry choices. Our dialog strayed into the basics of what to purge from our pantries and fridges, and what are great replacement foods (whole, unprocessed, nutritionally-dense foods).
I was reminded, as we talked through making these improvements in our eating choices, how important it is to read package labels. A great power pantry has the least processed, most nutritionally dense food that you can find, while also respecting preference and budgets and convenience. That means there will certainly be some easy-to-eat convenience foods, and some comfort foods, but the majority will be whole foods which are nutritionally-dense and good for us. And we'll know what we're eating by being uber-choosy and scouring the labels on anything that is packaged or prepared.
That got me thinking about an ice cream switch we made a few weeks ago. We had been on a frozen yogurt kick for a few years. Being from Lancaster County, we buy Turkey Hill products -- it's good and supports local jobs. Several weeks ago, I re-read the ingredients on the Vanilla Frozen Yogurt and realized it has this laundry list of 15 ingredients, including carrageenan, maltodextrin, mono- & di-glycerides, etc. Uhg... I know I had read that list in the past, but I guess the fact that it was yogurt was more compelling at the time and we would buy it anyway.
Then I looked at Turkey Hill's All-Natural Vanilla Ice Cream. Wow... five ingredients. It's literally ice cream like you used to make in the crank-handled churn (if you ever did that as a kid). We didn't need maltodextrin and carrageenan to make great ice cream. Just a few fresh ingredients: cream, non-fat milk, sugar, vanilla, and vanilla bean. Yummm...
So now the Mullers are on the Turkey Hill All-Natural Ice Cream band wagon. That's the way our treats should be. There's nothing wrong with comfort foods as part of our power pantry. What is often the problem is that we end up with a wolf in sheep's clothing (something that looks 'healthy' like frozen yogurt, which actually has some really unhealthy ingredients).
Today would be a great day to question what's in your pantry. Take a look at the labels. Be discerning. Are the ingredients natural? Nutritious? Even if you think you're a 'seasoned' label-reader and aware of nutritious choices, I'll bet you too can find something that needs a healthier substitute.
By the Way
A great compliment to a comfort food treat, like ice cream, is a simple addition like frozen berries. We keep a stock of frozen berries in the freezer (strawberries, blueberries and red raspberries are the most affordable; blackberries are great as well). That way you're getting some power-packed anti-oxidants in the berries with your treat. You may even want a drizzle of raw honey on top. Mmmmmm....
