So how did last week’s challenge go. Did you try something you liked or was it more of an “interesting” experience. (As my kids say – it’s not my favorite….)

This week the challenge is actually quite simple. Measure your waist to hip ratio.

You may ask – now why would you want to do that? For many years people relied on the scale to determine if they were healthy. It didn’t take long to figure out that that didn’t really work well. I was a member of Weight Watchers as a teenager and really, the weight ranges that were given were not suitable to my body frame. (Seriously 107 pounds…? Have you seen me?) Then along came the body mass index (BMI). This did improve things a bit as it did incorporate height as well as weight (along with frame size). So for years it was considered a key indicator of heart disease. Now the BMI does have some shortcomings. If you are muscular you could be deemed overweight – which is not the case or with some, you could be quite tall and “lean” but have a larger amount of body fat versus lean muscle. So along came the waist to hip ratio.

The waist to hip ratio seems to be a better indicator of heart disease risk than the BMI. This is because it can give an indication of abdominal fat. Now abdominal fat is a risk factor for heart disease and metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is a combination of medical symptoms, namely elevated blood sugar, high blood pressure and centralized weight gain that can also predispose you to heart disease.

So, get out your tape measures (the non-metal ones of course!). First measure the circumference of your hips at the widest part. Then measure your waist at the smallest part (for most people this is just above the belly button). Don’t suck it in – that will not be accurate. Come on, if you are going to do it be truthful….

It doesn’t matter if you measure in inches or centimeters since we are just looking at the ratio.

Now divide your waist measurement by the hip measurement. If your ratio is 1.0 or above for men or 0.85 for women you are at higher risk. Low risk for men is 0.95 or below and 0.80 or below for women. If you are at high risk (or in between) please ask your naturopathic doctor (or family doctor) to check your fasting glucose, Hb1Ac and fasting cholesterol levels (including triglycerides, LDL and HDL). This will help determine if there are any underlying conditions that need to be addressed as well as help you to decrease those ratios.

Until next time… a not quite perfect 0.84. HIIT workouts here I come!

So winter is not usually the best time for this but I am really quite familiar with the fruit that is available in the summer. The winter has other interesting things like pomegranate and dragon fruit. Can you believe I bought pomegranate for the first time this past December… That is kind of sad. I had tried the juice but not eaten the actual seeds. Now it is one of my son’s favorite fruits. It was quite fun to cut it, open and see all the seeds. Since I had not had one before I actually needed to look online to see how to peel it…

Pomegranates are full of antioxidants and vitamin C and have an interesting sweet, tangy taste. Who knew? (Apparently lots of people – just not me….) You see we get stuck in the rut of eating the familiar, things we grew up with. For many, unless you have to make a change, it is hard to go and try new things. (Millet anyone…?) So that is my challenge to you this week – go and try a new fruit. Then make a comment below and let us know what you tried and how it was. Let’s learn from each other!

I want to try dragon fruit – I will let you know how it is next week.

Welcome to the year of the rabbit!

Alright now, this is not a new concept: “Develop an attitude of gratitude” – but how do you do it?

It is very easy to get caught up in the negative stories and emotions of the day. There are always things happening  – news stories, life in general -  that can really bring you down. So how can you work on being able to let things “flow”? By flow I mean observe, respond and feel, but don’t get caught in that negative place. One great idea that I find very helpful is to write down 3 things that I am grateful for that day. By ending the day on a positive note it reminds me of all that is good in my life. That really helps to let some of the negative stuff just “flow” on by.

Now these things don’t need to be big. Looking back through my journal some things I have been grateful for are puddles, sleeping in, and big, toothy smiles.

Today I am grateful for close friends, good long distance plans and quiet.

What are you grateful for? That’s this weeks challenge. Every night before you go to bed write down 3 things you are grateful for and start to “flow”.

So how did last week go? I found that over the holidays I really didn’t keep my proper fluid intake. This week was challenging. I needed to use visual cues (like my water glass) to remind me to drink. It is a bit better this week. I feel more thirsty again if I haven’t had enough.

So on to the next challenge – use a pedometer.

This challenge can be for anyone but especially for those looking to increase their activity level. Sometimes regular exercise sessions can be a challenge. A pedometer is a very inexpensive piece of equipment that can help you increase your physical activity levels. We know that increased physical activity has tremendous health benefits. In fact, regular moderate activity (brisk walking for 30 minutes most days) was associated with a 27% decrease in mortality compared with no activity. A recent study found that pedometer users actually increased their regular physical activity by almost 27% over the baseline. That alone helped decrease the participants BMI and blood pressure.

Now, one of the issues with a pedometer is they are not able to measure your activity intensity. (A heart rate monitor is much better for that.) So, some research has been done to try to figure out how many steps per minute equals what intensity.

So here it is, the magic number……

100 steps per minute = moderate intensity.

It is recommended to spend 150 minutes per week doing moderate intensity exercise. So to achieve that you would need to walk a minimum of 3000 steps in 30 minutes five days a week (or 3 episodes of 1000 steps in 10 minutes).

How many steps do you take in a day? Wear your pedometer every day for a week and see what your daily average is.

Now see if you can add in one 10 minute session of 1000 steps 3 times in the week.  Spend the next week seeing where you are and work to increase that number by 1000. After that spend the next week increasing that value by another 1000 and then another until you have added in 3000 extra steps.

Remember, all journeys begin with the first step!

Every year about this time the gym is filled with new members and the candy shops are empty. Each January 1st people set goals of losing weight, getting healthier and exercising more.

In fact here are the top 10 most popular new year’s resolutions.

Did you make any of these? Why do most people end up breaking their resolutions before the end of January?

One of the reasons I can personally vouch for is that they are just too vague. Honestly, if I resolve to lose weight I break that one before the 2nd of January. That’s when all the holiday excess usually catches up on the scale… If I set a goal of exercising 3 days a week for 30 minutes I find that it is much more achievable. In general the dreaded g word…. goals… is much more effective than resolutions if they are set correctly. For years I dreaded setting goals. I have changed in the last few years. How can I get anywhere if I am just drifting through my life. I wanted to become a Naturopathic Doctor and I accomplished that goal. I wanted to become a better public speaker so I am working on that by being a member of Toastmasters.  So what do you need to do to refine your New Year’s resolutions so you actually succeed?

A key method of goal setting is the SMART system. Set goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. So instead of losing weight or “being healthier” why not walk an extra 2000 steps per day or drink 3 more glasses of water. These are realistic goals. It is not realistic for me to set a goal of running a triathlon in June. But it would be reasonable to set a goal of running for 30 minutes twice a week. You get the idea.

The other part is timely. Goals that are too far out of reach can be part of your “bucket list”. They can be noted but really the commitment is not there until you see the glimmer of achievement. The goals you set today can help you complete those bigger goals.

Resolutions are not just for New Year’s – what do you want to accomplish. Use the SMART system and make this a great year!

To determine how much water you need a day you need to take into account a few factors, namely your weight, your activity and your climate. First take your weight (in pounds) divide it by two and you will get the number of ounces of water you need each day. That gives you a basic intake. You will need to increase the amount if you are very active or if the weather is very warm. That will compensate for the amount lost through perspiration. If you are a coffee drinker please remember that coffee dehydrates the body. You lose a cup of water for every cup of coffee you drink so you need to add an extra glass of water to make up for that loss.

So if you weigh 160 lbs you need to drink 80 ounces of water per day. That is ten 8 ounce glasses (roughly 10 cups). If you normally drink a cup of coffee you will need 11 glasses.

If you are not used to drinking that much water it may seem like you spend most of the day in the bathroom. The trick is to start slowly and don’t chug all your water in one go (especially in the evening). That way your body can slowly adjust to the increase in fluids.

Also if you don’t like the taste of water you have options. Adding lemon, lime or oranges to the water will flavour it. Some people also like the addition of cucumbers. Herbal teas that do not contain caffeine also count as water.

Remember drinking enough water is just a habit – once you get started your body will get thirsty when you haven’t had enough. Use a visual cue like a glass or water bottle to remind you to drink or set your alarm on your work computer to remind you to refill your glass.

Cheers!

Have you ever gone to get blood work and had everything come back “normal” and yet you knew something was not right. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen this in practice. Typically, standard lab analysis is done to determine what we call pathology. Pathology is when something has crossed the line and is dramatically affecting the health of the body. Now there are many times when something hasn’t crossed the line but it is getting close. I consider this the difference between normal and optimal health. When you are looking at health you don’t want to just “not be sick”. That isn’t good enough. You want to have optimal health so you can do the things you desire.

I have had a number of patients whose thyroid TSH numbers were “normal” but they had many symptoms of an underactive thyroid. They were very tired, constipated, had deep heel cracks and their mind was foggy. Conventional lab analysis said everything was normal but they knew it was not. When you look at blood values from a more functional standpoint you can see patterns and values that indicate these suboptimal states. Did you know that in Canada TSH reference ranges are from 0.5 to 5.0 and in the US they are more narrow from 0.3 to 3.0. That means that a number of people in Canada sitting between 3.0 and 5.0 are not considered hypothyroid and yet the majority of them are symptomatic. This does not mean medicating everyone with Synthroid – this is a bad idea. Doing things to help the thyroid function before it gets to the stage of requiring external thyroid hormone is better. There are a number of things that can be done to help regulate the thyroid gland, from herbs to nutrition, before the need for medication. By looking at lab values from a functional perspective there are ways to help people regain their optimal health and prevent the progression to more serious disease.

The assessment of thyroid function is just one example of a functional interpretation. There are many more. It is an interesting way to gather information about your health, not just pathology. This includes things like picking up nutrient deficiencies, detoxification issues, energy problems, and blood sugar imbalances before the symptoms escalate to disease.

As I am sitting knitting with some beautiful baby alpaca yarn I can’t help but think about the importance of warmth. As the days get colder and we wear our heavier coats, what does warmth have to do with health? When Logan was a baby a wise friend and teacher told me about how important it was to keep him warm. Since he was born in September I knew that I needed to layer him, but what I didn’t realize was how important it was as he got older, as well. When we are physically warm and comfortable we don’t need to expend energy. What that means is that we don’t need to shiver or shake to physically warm up. It also means that we have that energy available for other things. Being cold decreases our immunity. Our body has less resources to fight off the germs and viruses in the current environment. Going out in the cold with wet hair will not necessarily make you sick but it will take some extra energy to keep you warm – extra energy that could be used to support your immune system.

So this winter layer up when you are outside. Both my kids have wool long underwear which is amazing for keeping them warm. It doesn’t get clammy like cotton when they sweat and you don’t need to wash it all the time like polyester.

Young children are not great judges of whether they are warm or not. Susan Johnson, a pediatrician in the US gives this insight.

So why do children rarely complain that they are cold? Children often are not connected with their body before the age of 7 to even acknowledge or communicate that they are cold. They live in the moment and are so excited and stimulated by all that they see that they don’t have the capacity to sense the coldness of their body. This is why children often will play in a swimming pool or ocean until they are literally “blue” denying that they are cold or that they need to come out of the water. So as parents, we have to help our children develop their sense of warmth. By helping them develop this sense of warmth, we are actually strengthening their immunity and laying the foundation for a healthy body and healthy organs in their adult life.

So help yourself and your family this winter and dress appropriately for the weather. It can help keep you healthy. Children may not always want to wear the “right stuff” but you can. Be a role model and show them how great it is for you. Enjoy the winter!

Trick or treat! It’s that time of year again.  Halloween is just around the corner which means the sugar fairies across the world are preparing.

Just what are the sugar fairies you may ask?  Well at our house, a few days after Halloween, a sugar fairy arrives and takes a BIG chunk of our kids Halloween candy and delivers it to other kids who may have not gotten any. In exchange for this wonderful sharing by our children they get a little gift perhaps a book or small toy.

This tradition actually started the first year my son went trick or treating and it worked great. We decreased the candy without having to cajole or bargain.  She does leave a little bit behind (which often gets forgotten and ends up in the closet – only to be found next Halloween!) so we are not asking for complete sacrifice but it definitely helps.  We all know what refined sugar does to the body (and the mind).  Just go to any classroom the day after Halloween.  Excess sugar suppresses the immune system and causes issues with blood sugar balance which can lead to mood changes as well as changes in energy levels.  It also takes away from the consumption of good things. Many people after Halloween will send a “little” snack of 1 or 2 chocolate bars in their kids lunch.  What is this instead of? If you send them with an apple does the apple get eaten or did they fill up with the candy first.  I would suggest limiting the candy to times when you know what has been eaten first. Maybe save it for when they are home on the weekend or after school. Then you see that the apple has been eaten first. I am not saying to eliminate it completely (I do have children and understand the feelings of “being left out”).  If there is no other preexisting health concern except for the general need to minimize sugar, some candy (rarely) is tolerable.  That being said, daily consumption does not constitute rarely. Sugar is highly addictive and greatly contributes to childhood obesity.

Some people allow their kids to eat as much candy as they want after Halloween. They call it “Self-regulating”. This might work with older children because they recognize the connection between eating too much candy and feeling sick but with the younger ones that connection is not made. It might be recognized in the moment…”Mommy I had too much candy, I feel sick!”… but not remembered. When they feel better, they will eat it again. Be the parent and help them figure out what is an okay amount.

Now back to the sugar fairy. Since Henry is working with me we no longer have a worthy group to take the candy to (he definitely cannot bring it to work with him now!) so my sugar fairy is open to suggestions. Do you have any groups that would benefit from some extra candy? Maybe Henry can visit his old colleagues… or perhaps this year it will be donated to the trash!

Happy Halloween!

One summer afternoon Henry and I were sitting with friends enjoying a hamburger. We started discussing different recipes and I mentioned my favorite turkey burger.  My girlfriend’s eyes lit up. She is always on the look out for great “low-fat” recipes.  That quickly changed when I told her my secret ingredient – butter.  Butter added to turkey burgers makes them absolutely delicious. Tender and juicy. When I told her about the butter she looked at me mortified (kind of like when some has found out their peanut buster parfait is actually made with ice cream – not frozen yogurt). The discussion of butter versus margarine started anew.

Here are 3 reasons why butter is better than margarine.

1. Butter just tastes better.

For some foodies this is enough. Really imagine sitting down with a freshly roasted cob of corn and topping it with margarine…

2. Butter is a natural food – margarine is not

Margarine was developed by a chemist back in the 1800′s. There was a prize offered by the French government for anyone who could come up with a satisfactory substitute for butter that would be suitable for the lower classes and the army (in other words – cheap). It was originally made by mixing processed beef fat with skim milk. As time went on the shortage of beef fat combined with the advances in hydrogenation of plant materials soon led to the addition of vegetable oils.  Wow nothing about health there…Vegetable oils are generally liquid at room temperature so in order for them to be hardened they had to undergo a chemical modification. This at the time was hydrogenation. This hydrogenation process leads to the formation of chemically formed trans-fats. We now know that trans-fats are a risk factor for heart disease so now there are a number of non-hydrogenated margarines on the market today. These margarines still need to be processed to be solid. Some add things like palm oil and others undergo a process called esterfication. This is thought to be safe but like trans-fats 10 years ago the long term results are unknown.

On the other hand butter is quite easy to make. In fact, if you want, you can make your own butter at home. All you need is a glass jar, some cold heavy cream and some clean small rocks. Put the rocks in the jar followed by the cream and shake. Soon enough you will have butter. Or put the cream in a butter churner. All it takes is agitation. A physical not a chemical process. Butter is a natural whole food.

3. Butter contains good nutrients and vitamins. Margarine has to have good things added to it.

As you have probably seen, the addition of omega 3 and plant sterols to margarine are thought to improve heart health. (They had to compensate somehow after feeding people all those trans-fats for so many years) These bad trans-fats were originally formed from the hydrogenation of the vegetable oils. Chemically formed trans-fats increase the bad cholesterol and decrease the good cholesterol. Therefore increasing the risk of heart disease and stroke. Anything that contains a hydrogenated product will contain trans-fats. Even if the label says it is trans-fat free.  All that means is that the recommended serving size contains less than 200mg of trans-fats per serving (in Canada anyways). If you eat more than the recommended serving size (20 crackers instead of 5…) you may be getting more trans-fats than you know.

Butter contains vitamin A and it also contains naturally occurring trans-fats. These are actually quite different from the chemically formed ones. Something to think about when you see trans-fats listed on the label of butter. These trans-fats are CLA and vaccenic acid. Recently vaccenic acid has been found to actually have a lipid lowering effect which is the exact opposite of the chemically formed trans-fats.  All this without the addition of omega 3 or plant sterols.

Naturally occurring foods are better. The less processed food in our diet the better. Of course still be reasonable with your butter and don’t eat to excess – that is just common sense with any food.

So butter is a naturally occurring food that not only tastes better than margarine, it is easy to make and it is actually showing health benefits that margarine only hopes to attain.

So really the burger is better with butter.