by kelsey | Nov 9, 2016 | Diet, Food, Goals, Weight Management, Wellness/Health
Does your plate look like the one above? It can be challenging at times to meet the dietary recommendations for the 5 food groups. Our meals are often in-balanced and over-portioned due to our lack of knowledge, time, or effort in preparing the meal. Meal planning is a great tool to help you make healthy meals, use appropriate portion sizes, and help you meet your health and wellness goals (as well as a budget!). Choosemyplate.gov has some excellent resources in helping you get started with meal planning. They also have menus to give you some ideas on what a week’s meals should look like. Go visit: https://www.choosemyplate.gov/budget for more information and tips and direction on how to get started! I recommend doing weekly meal planning and if possible incorporate some batch cooking into that to help you save time and efforts on those week nights that you’re short on time and energy! If you’d like individual help with this, please contact me…more than happy to help get you started with improving your nutrition!
-Kelsey
by kelsey | Nov 8, 2016 | Etc.
We discuss eating strategies for your weight, heart, etc, but we also have to eat right to keep our skin healthy and glowing! Winter will be here before we know it and the winter months make it hard on our skin as the air is dry and cold! The beauty industry has a variety of products to help promote healthy and glowing skin, however diet is also an important factor. Research on the best foods for healthy skin is limited, but what we do know is that antioxidant rich foods are effective in promoting healthy and glowing skin. Antioxidants are substances that protect our cells against free radical damage. Free radicals are molecules made when our body breaks down food or by environmental exposures such as tobacco use or radiation. They damage the cells and may play a role in diseases such as heart disease and cancer. A colorful diet is most effective for skin health and each color offers specific vitamins and minerals such as: beta-carotene, lutein, lycopene, vitamin A, vitamin C, and vitamin E. A diet rich in the following foods will help you get beautiful and healthy skin you’re wanting!
- Red, Orange, & Yellow Produce: carrots, tomatoes, red and yellow peppers, apricots, etc
- Green Leafy Vegetables: spinach, romaine lettuce, broccoli, etc
- Blue & Purple Produce: blueberries, raspberries, eggplant, etc
- Lean Proteins: beans, lentils, nuts
- Fatty Fish: salmon, mackerel, sea bass
It’s also important to be mindful of foods that can cause greasy and oily skin such as high sugar and high fat foods: pastries, cookies, fried foods, etc. These foods should be avoided or limited and instead focus on a balanced diet rich in fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, low fat dairy, and whole grains. In addition to diet, eliminating tobacco abuse and using sunscreen are effective in promoting healthy skin. These recommendations are not only going to benefit your skin, but also your overall health. Color and variety in your diet will help you look stunning always!
-Kelsey
by Dan | Nov 6, 2016 | Exercise, Family, Goals, Motivation, Wellness/Health
We all have goals or ideas in our minds that attempt to make us feel like we are a success. But what really does it mean to have success? Is it achievement of a goal? Money? Our health? What? Success if defined as the achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted. That could mean something different for all of us. But deep down, what is success to you? For me, I would feel like a success if I were a good Dad/Husband. I am always trying to be successful with my health, and staying active. I am always trying to be a better doctor. But deep down, I would feel like a failure if I would not be considered a good Dad/Husband. We all get busy. We all feel like we get pulled in multiple directions. This is where you have to start making a plan, and figuring out the direction you are taking.
This is where it is important to sit down and think, and come up with a plan. Organize it. Write it down…it will be more concrete for you. Keep looking back at your plan, and it is OK to make modifications, just don’t veer way off of your original plan. Somewhere in that plan will be the reason you want to be successful. Somewhere in there is how you will become a better you. That deep down desire! Never lose site of that.
How much more true could this be? Focus all your power on your burning desire of what you want to accomplish…what it will take for you to be a success…a better you!
For me it will always focus back to my family. My kids are all off to college, so now it is just Sarah and I…and of course Zeus. Zeus is like having another kid at home! But for all of us, over time we keep evolving, growing, maturing…changing! True success will be discovering who you really are!
Family will always be a focal point. It you don’t have a true focal point, you will find yourself struggling, floundering, and not really feeling like you have a purpose. Exercise helps me stay focused on this aspect of it. Now when we all get together, it really is something special. I see this only growing stronger as time goes on. That same evolving, maturing, growing process for the kids as well.
I would like to think that that focal point for my family is with Sarah and I…that we are the rock…the stabilizing forces for this family. Exercising together keeps us healthier, and also allows both of us to lead by example, for not only our patients, but our kids! Now that is true success!
Believe what you are doing will make a difference, not only for you, but for others. That is being a success…becoming a better version of you, which will help others become a better version of themselves. Enjoy life to its fullest while we are here. We are not guaranteed tomorrow. Don’t waste what time you do have. Stay healthy, keep moving, and enjoy life, with all of its ups and down. Enjoy the ride of this roller coaster life. You will learn from it, and become better for it…you will be successful! Keep moving everybody!
Dr. Dan
Consecutive Exercise Day #: 3327
by kelsey | Nov 1, 2016 | Etc.
Our very own “Dr.Dan” (Dr. Dan Reiffenberger) will be on the program “On-Call” on Thursday night at 7 pm on PBS. He will be talking about Brain Trauma as it relates to Concussions. We are proud to have him be the leader of our STRIVE 2 Survive and wellness activities at the clinic and he is an excellent resources and expert in this area. Be sure to check it out!
Episode page: http://www.prairiedoc.org/brain-trauma-nov-3-2016.html
Dr. Dan’s information page http://www.prairiedoc.org/dan-reiffenberger-md.html
His appearance will also be promoted on the Prairie Doc Pages
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ThePrairieDoc/
Twitter account: https://twitter.com/theprairiedoc
by Dan | Oct 30, 2016 | Exercise, Family, Motivation, Wellness/Health
We all have challenges that come up during our days, during our lives. We all need that extra support from family and/or friends. Your spouse can be your best advocate, cheerleader, support system, crying shoulder…all around everything. Utilize this source if available to you. If not, then other family members, or friends. People who you can count on for support for you. Just remember it goes both ways!
These are all people who can help provide advice, tips, give support, help, offer assistance, and give guidance. These are all things that you can also provide to someone else…a way that will complete the circle of helping you become a better you.
One of the greatest things I’ve learned from running is the importance of having amazing friends…and spouse! It is no different for anybody. There are times when you need to be “picked up” in regards to your mood/attitude, and times when those people around also need the same thing.
Here is just a sampling of some of the people involved in the Watertown Run Club. Many of these same people were the ones I was training with for the Twin Cities Marathon that was on Sunday Oct. 9. The motto of the run club is “we leave no one behind!” It was a great source of support for each of us. I found myself enjoying the Sunday runs more than any other run. We all had the same goal of completing and competing in the marathon, but the training runs were a time for all of us to discover who we are, and who the people we were running with were. My shirt on the back of the marathon shirt has the quotation: Success…A Journey, not a Destination! One of the things that I discovered is that we may have started out as a group of people who got together because we all like to run, but something more was developing…
…we were going to finish our training as a group of friends! Friends who developed out of running! There were struggles each of us had during those 4+ months of training for the marathon. We all had times when we needed help. A quote by past president Ronald Reagan sums is up well: “We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone!” Direct hit! This applies to us…this applies to all of us!
We all need support at times, but to me, nothing is more rewarding, more amazing, than to be able to support someone else when they need it. When you do this, it comes back to you as rewards that you were not really expecting. A feeling that goes to the core of who you are, and who you want to be…to become a better you!
Sarah has been my biggest support person. I can’t tell you how good it made me feel when she was waiting at the finish line for me! (and cheering me on when I saw her at mile 17!) Because of Sarah, because of her support, assistance, guidance, advice, help, tips…love…I become better. All of us can become better, but it will take work. Work just like we have to do when we are watching our diet, trying to do more exercise, trying to take care of ourselves. Never turn your back on those people important to you. You become better, and they in turn, also become better. Amazing how this works out! Try it! Continue to work at becoming a better you! Keep moving everybody!
Dr. Dan
Consecutive Exercise Day #: 3320
