by kelsey | Feb 16, 2017 | Diet, Heart Health, Wellness/Health
In celebration of National Heart Month, I think it’s fitting to discuss the significance diet and activity play in promoting a healthy heart. Heart disease is the number one killer of Americans and affects both men and women. Genetics do play a role, however a heart healthy diet and and regular activity can help minimize the effects and complications of heart disease. Whether you have heart disease in your family or not, it’s still good to follow a heart healthy eating plan. Highlights of the diet include:
- Lots of fruits and veggies! I’m sure you already knew this one, but the benefits of getting your 5 a day servings of fruits and veggies are worth reminding you again. Most of us know this, the hard part is doing it. Try adding them to your meals, have fruit as a snack, get a double serving to help you reach this goal.
- Fiber! Fiber is very beneficial in combating heart disease. Incorporating more whole grains (and fruits, veggies, and beans/lentils) into your diet will increase your fiber and aid in heart health. Oatmeal, brown rice, wild rice, whole grain noodles, whole grain breads, and even popcorn are considered whole grains. Aim to get at least 25-35 g/day.
- Choose lean proteins. Decreasing the amount of saturated fat in your diet will help reduce plaque buildup. Choose white meat poultry without the skin, 90% or greater lean hamburger, fish, beans, etc….stay away from processed meats! Fatty fish such as salmon, tuna, herring, and trout offer additional benefits as they are loaded with healthy omega 3 fatty acids.
- Choose healthy fats. Incorporating more plant fats such as canola oil and olive oil into your diet and reducing your intake of saturated and trans fats has been shown to improve heart health. You want to choose foods that are lower than 5-8g of total fat per serving and <3g saturated and trans fat per serving. Choosing low fat dairy products will help reduce the amount of saturated fat in your diet as well.
- Hold the salt! Excess sodium can increase blood pressure and cause heart failure. Aim to keep your sodium intake below 2400mg/day. You can do this by doing more home cooking, avoiding boxed or packaged goods, cooking with salt free seasonings, and not using table salt.
- Exercise! At least 30 minutes of exercise a day has been shown to improve heart health. If you can do more, the better!
Making small changes or substitutions will help you have a healthier heart and reduce risk for disease. Reading labels is really essential to help you make good choices, so take some time in the grocery store and really examine the products to ensure you’re making healthy choices!
-Kelsey
by Dan | Feb 12, 2017 | Exercise, Goals, Motivation, Wellness/Health
Don’t you wish sometimes that you knew everything? Or at least knew more than you do? One thing is for sure, there will always be questions you will be seeking answers for. When you are working on your health, or trying to figuring out more how to take care of your health, there should never be a shortage of things to learn. If you are serious about your health, you should always be striving to learn more as well. There are many questions to ask: Who, what, where, how, and the ever important why?
Many questions, with many answers. All of which can lead to power…power for you as individuals, power to take on more things in your life that you like to do…power to enjoy life to its fullest! In order to gain this power, you have to have input.
You will continue to collect data throughout your life, and with life’s experiences. You then use all of this information in ways that will lead to gaining more knowledge, both in good ways, and bad ways. How you utilize all of this knowledge is what will lead to wisdom! Wisdom is powerful, and each of us can use it to our own advantage as well. We gather all of this date, information, and knowledge through our interactions, and the people we surround ourselves with.
When is comes to exercise, we learn from what others have done, both what works, and what does not work. Our friends and training partners are great sources of this knowledge, and we can all learn from each other. What we learn from each other is experience…and experience is wisdom!
How we choose to use this experience can influence others who want to do the same thing, such as how to get started exercising, or how to stay exercising; how to do better with our diets; how to finish/compete in a marathon!
The amount of things to learn in this world, in our lifetime, is limitless. We will never know everything. There will always be something that somebody else knows more on, and that is what makes this so special…we can all learn from each other. We should all learn from each other. We all have our own unique lives, unique stories, unique experiences. The old saying, “the more you know, the more you know you don’t know”! How true is this? Use those training partners, friends to your advantage. We all have wisdom in different things. But, there is one thing more important yet before this can be shared.
If we do not know ourselves, we will not get very far! Only we as individuals can know ourselves better than anybody else. And then once you know yourselves, then…
…you can put it into practice. Then, it can become of value. Value not only to yourself, but to others. We always had a saying in medical school as well when it came to doing a procedure, or something new: See one, do one, teach one. You have to see something first in order to try and do it, and once you do it, then how do you teach it? If you can teach it, then you are very knowledgeable to that subject, and can help spread that knowledge on to others. That is how you become a better you…passing on that knowledge to someone else. Next week I will be talking about teaching, and how this can help you become a better you! Keep moving everybody!
Dr. Dan
Consecutive Exercise Day #: 3425
by kelsey | Feb 9, 2017 | Diet, Food, Holidays, Weight Management, Wellness/Health
Another holiday is just around the corner and everyone knows what Valentine’s day brings besides a lot of love: Chocolate. The one item that seems to make everyone happy, but may not be the healthiest of treats for us to enjoy. This Valentine’s day you can enjoy your delicious treat without feeling guilty. Although chocolate may not seem healthy, there are some perks to eating chocolate. Dark chocolate is good for the heart and lowers high blood pressure. So when you’re thinking of getting your loved one that nice box of chocolates, maybe go for a box of Dark Dove Chocolates. If you don’t like eating the dark chocolate plain you can melt the chocolate and dip it in strawberries. It is a treat that will leave your taste buds wanting more and you will find it easy to prepare. If you want to stay sugar free, try making sugar free gelatins in a shape of a heart. Add fat free whip cream on top for a little extra punch to the dessert. If you want choices and variety to your dessert try a chocolate fondue. Melt chocolate and choose sides to dip into the chocolate. Some choices of sides could be bananas, strawberries, pretzels, pineapple, marshmallows, dried apricots, pear slices, apples, or any of your favorite snack foods! If you want to add more to your sweet tooth, try a sherbet ice cream with a dark chocolate topping. If you crave a saltier valentine’s day treat then you can try a trail mix with mixed nuts, sunflower seeds, raisins, pretzels, marshmallows, dark chocolate m&m’s, or a low fat candy such as Twizzlers.
Enjoy and Happy Valentine’s Day!
Kelsey
by Dan | Feb 5, 2017 | Equipment, Exercise, Family, Goals, Motivation, weight lifting, Wellness/Health, Winter
We all have things we would like to accomplish. We all have ways that we think will help to get there. But, one of our main obstacles is our own mind. We start doubting ourselves, we think we can’t do it…we are afraid. Each of us needs to find our inner courage to be able to accomplish those things we want in our lives. It always helps to have the support of family and friends to help get there as well.
Get past our fears, and start looking at the positives that can come out of it. We will have more strength, energy, and overall live a more happy life because we are getting past our fears, and living our dreams. We have to think of all of the obstacles that we may encounter, and what we may need to do to get past that, or come up with an alternative instead.
When we live in South Dakota, weather is always a factor. If we did not get out to exercise because of the cold, we would miss 6 months of the year! Now, whether we are outside in extreme conditions or not, we need to come up with alternatives that would work that we could still exercise, and keep moving. Anything inside…a stationary bike, a treadmill, a soft mat or carpet to do body weight exercise, and even lifting weights in general.
I found out for myself that I had to work at it continuously when it came to working out with weights. I was out of my element. After I got going on it, I found it to be very enjoyable, and it also helped work on other areas that running, walking, or biking did not utilize. You definitely get sore in areas you did not know you even had doing this. But, that is always what keeps things more interesting…you get to experience and do different things that you normally would not have done.
But again, in order to accomplish this, you have to get past your fears, find your inner courage, and get creative. Do different things. You never know, you may come across something with exercise that you really enjoy, and that would work into your schedule, and…have fun with! Finding that courage though is the challenge.
Get past your own mind as the obstacle. If you can dream it, you can do it. There are always problems that come up, but there are always solutions! You just have to keep working on the solutions until you find the right one! Once you do this, your life opens up, and allows you to experience a whole different world. It allows you to become better!
If we did not have dreams, life would be pretty boring. All of us want to have a better life, a more fulfilled life, but we may not always want to put in the effort or work to accomplish it. More often though, we are afraid to try, afraid of what somebody else may think or say, so we quit. Don’t ever let anybody else dictate what should or should not be with your own life! You are in the drivers seat…you are the one this is about. Dream, and dream big! Then, have the courage to keep going, and working, and adjusting, and adapting, and then…enjoying you! Find the courage that will make you…a better you! Keep moving everybody!
Dr. Dan
Consecutive Exercise Day #: 3418
by Dan | Jan 29, 2017 | Exercise, Family, Goals, Heart Health, Motivation, Weather, Wellness/Health
How many times do you hear somebody say, “if you want it, you need to take a chance!” Exercise, just like life, is the same way. You never know what you are truly made of until you take a chance. Here Sarah is showing her muscles, getting ready to take on another race. She has done many half marathons, but never a marathon. She has always said she is only “half stupid”. Well, come October this year, she is going to be doing her first ever marathon…26.2 miles! She is taking the plunge. I have no doubt she will finish, but she is nervous. She has never done one before. Just like for everyone else, we don’t know what our body is capable of, until we “take a chance”. People don’t take a chance because they think it is impossible, too risky, or even pointless.
Those who have heart say, “Give it a try”. Only by going too far can you truly know how far you can go. We take chances every day in our lives. We take risks, we worry, we may even think some of the things we do are “stupid”. But if you have heart, the sky is the limit. Who knows what you are capable of achieving. We even surprise ourselves many times.
But you have to start. You have to start somewhere. You have to start sometime. The time is now. 5 minutes, then 10 minutes, then you are doing a mile, then a 5k. What is your end point? Who knows! We ourselves don’t know what are limits are…and then most of those limits are created in our heads. We don’t believe we can do them, so we don’t even try. Unless you start, you will never know!
Our run club has been going on for over 4 years now. We started our very small…so small that for much of that first year it was the “Dan and Sarah club”. It keeps growing every year. People start to see that it is more than just running. It is about socializing, making friendships, …laughing. It is about taking a chance. Taking a chance on becoming a better you! Everyone starts out slow, and then you keep building. Quality takes time! Overcoming our fears, and our minds, tend to be the biggest obstacles.
When my daughter Megan was home over the Christmas break from school, she came running with our run club on Sundays a couple times. It was much colder here than it was back at school. She had to overcome her resistance to the cold, but once she got going, she ended up going 6 miles with us! That is the furthest she has run! Now she has been talking about doing a half marathon sometime in the future. This is a swimmer talking about running! We need to get out of our comfort zones, and if no exercise is our comfort zone, then we just need to get moving!
In life, you have to take chances. If you don’t take chances, life gets pretty boring. Be adventurous, take a chance…you will surprise yourself with what you are capable of achieving. This whole process will help you become a better you in every aspect of your life!
If you get a chance, take it! If it changes you, let it! I have said many times things worth having or doing are never easy. That is why accomplishing them makes them so much better! Don’t go through life having regrets, wishing you had done this, or done that. Go do it! What is stopping you? Yourself! Believe in you! The return on the investment of you is incredible. You are priceless…you only get one life. Live it to the fullest!
What are you waiting for? Tomorrow? Next week? Next year? How about today! Today is a great day to become a better you…so take a chance on you! I have a feeling you are worth it!
Keep moving everybody!
Dr. Dan
Consecutive Exercise Day #: 3411
