One pound of fat requires 7 miles of blood vessels

Fact: Every pound of fat gained causes your body to make 7 new miles of blood vessels.

Knowing this, it’s easy to see why obesity and heart disease often go together. Most of the new blood vessels are tiny capillaries, but also include small veins and arteries. This means if you are “only” 10 pounds overweight your heart has to pump blood through an extra 70 miles of blood vessels.

 The good news is that this also works in reverse. If you lose a pound of fat, your body will break down and reabsorb the no longer needed blood vessels. This is encouraging to dieters, as one pound does not seem like a lot to lose, but even that little bit of difference will result in a large benefit for your heart!

Tools to help keep your Family Healthy

Do you know how much screen time your child had today? How about what size portions they should have given their age? How much physical activity did my family do today? The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute has put together a nice site full of tools to use to assist in keeping your family healthy.

 

Tool parents can use to help keep your family healthy

60 Minutes a day!

Lower Your Risk of Heart Disease

Returning to exercise after flu or illness

If you are coming down with an illness, it is best not to strenuously exercise. Your body needs to use it’s energy to overcome the illness.  Exercising strenuously is like burning the candle at both ends.  The body doesn't have the energy to fight illness, so the illness takes longer to overcome.

 Never exercise if feverish.  A fever indicates your body is fighting an infection.  Exercise can cause your body temperature to rise dangerously high and lead to  heatstroke. This can also  lead to dangerous dehydration and even heart failure. Good advice is when returning to exercise, work out one day at a low intensity for every two days you were ill. I tell patients to cut their intensity to 50% of what they normally do, and start back with a short duration say 20 minutes or so.  Use the two hour rule. You should feel fully recovered two hours after exercise. If you are exhausted for the remainder of the day it is too much on your body. It should take at least two full weeks to build build back up following a nasty cold or flu bug.  Drink plenty of water during this time to help thin any mucus secretions from the lungs, this helps your body to expel these. Be aware that some antibiotics   –  Cipro and Levaquin –  are known to increase the likelihood of muscle rupture, therefore go slow and stretch. 

There is no such thing as “sweating out” toxins, germs or viruses. so put all your energy towards resting and getting well.

Nausea Vomiting / Diarrhea  These can cause dehydration and electrolyte imbalances. Wait to exercise until the symptoms have stopped completely and you are re hydrated. One way to know if properly re hydrated is looking at the color of your urine. If the urine is bright yellow you are not hydrated. The color should be a very pale yellow. Also look at the skin on the back of your hand and give it a pinch. Does the skin stay up for several seconds, or does it quickly go back down. It should quickly go back down.  Electrolyte depletion can be very serious in heart patients, especially those on diuretics.  If in doubt or concerned ask your physician to draw electrolytes.  A weak 50%water to 50% electrolyte drink such as Power aid, or Gator Aid might be advisable.  Of course eating a banana which is easier on the belly than something like orange juice, also helps.  

Most importantly listen to your body, go slow, give yourself the time to heal. Stop exercise if you notice your heart racing, shortness of breath, chest discomfort, weakness.

Be the leader

Setting a healthy example involves mothers and fathers who can encourage children to leave the couch
. 


What’s happening to our kids that makes them quit wanting to play?
http://www.letsmove.gov/learn-facts/epidemic-childhood-obesity

Getting children to be more physically active seems as if it should be so simple. Do you play with your children? When is the last time you threw the Frisbee  played catch, had a snowball fight, played tag, raced around the block, had a pillow fight, wrestled, arm wrestled, challenged each other with a yoga pose, or weight lifting. Even your teens will enjoy these activities. You could enroll them in classes and programs during school or afterward that are filled with games, sports and other activities. 
i
As parents we need to be role models, make it a lifestyle, teach it not just preach it. Be the mentor, be the instigator, keep it lifelong.

Healthy Snack Ideas

10 tips to Live by or Heart-Healthy Families

Fitness for Aging

Fitness as we age

It is important to work on physical fitness life long.

Physical fitness benefits include reduction of heart disease, reduction in Alzheimer’s and most importantly independence.  A recent study showed Finnish men who lost more than 15% of their cardiorespiratory fitness over a 10-year period faced a near doubling of their risk of acute MI over the subsequent decade and more than twice the risk of dying of any cause, a new study shows. But as we age fitness programs change. It isn’t realistic to ask the very elderly to jog, participate in spinning classes, hit the elliptical or rowing machine like those who are younger. The issues with mobility and frailty prevent such activities for most. So what does one do for fitness as they age?

Walking, stationary biking, water aerobics, swimming laps with a kick board, recumbent bike or  recumbent steppers are some of my favorite means of obtaining aerobic exercise. Also programs such as Sit and Be Fit. http://www.sitandbefit.org/   Any is exercise is better than no exercise. If exercise is done in a group or a class you also get the additional benefits of socialization. As we age socialization is vital. The more socially isolated a person becomes the worse the predictors for health. I found over the years many adhered to light continuous aerobic exercise because of the socialization of the classes more than the physical benefits of the exercise. New interns would come aboard and roll their eyes when they noted the workloads of many of the elderly, then I would point out the ages of many of my clients being in upper 80′s to mid 90′s and regularly attending classes 2-3 times per week, aerobically exercising, resistance training, stretching and socializing.

Resistance training is very important as we age as well as I am frequently promoting the following:

Your Strength is your Independence

This is what allows you to live in your own home, to care for yourself, to get up off the floor if you fall, to carry in the groceries.  It is your ability to cope with emergencies, to interact with the grandkids by walking up the bleachers, or across the soccer field, to lift up the two-year old, to get to their musicals across a long parking lot, to walk the hills at the nature center etc.

Here are a few simple strengthening exercise that most can perform. Wall squat

Wall Squats

With feet 8-12 inches apart and approximately 6 inches from the wall, slide down the wall a few inches. Hold this position as long as able. Push back up to standing. Repeat as many times as possible. Don’t go down to far, and if you fear not being able to stand all the way back up, keep a chair next to you for assistance. Breath out as you push back  up.

Toe Raises

This exercise is surprisingly hard for many of the elderly to perform. Go up on tip toes and back down as many times as possible. To make harder try on a stair step or try doing on only one leg.

Wall push ups

Just like the old-fashioned push up but do against a wall. Breath out as you are pushing yourself back from the wall. Exhale on Exertion! I say this because many hold their breath which is hard on the heart and blood pressure.

Lateral leg exercises

These are really important for maintaining a good gait when we walk as we get older. Lying on side – do in bed – as easier than getting up from the floor. Lift leg out and back down. Do as many as possible.

Be a mentor, assist to make it happen

As most blog readers tend to be younger, pass this advice on to your elders, work out with them, purchase and arrange for transportation to fitness classes, make a big deal out of wanting them to stay fit and healthy to participate in life with you. We all need encouragement at times. Don’t assume being old means sitting in the recliner all day. Keep those in your live vital through physical activity. And have a great day!

Share this:

• Press This

Childhood Obesity

http://pinterest.com/pin/35677022019546160/

Urgent need for Physical Activity

The chief cause of obesity is physical inactivity, which is rapidly spreading from North America to the rest of the world. About 31% of the world’s adults, or about 1.5 billion people, are almost completely sedentary, meaning that they do not meet the minimum recommendation of 150 minutes of walking or other moderate activity per week, or about 20 minutes a day.

Teenagers are faring even worse. More than 80 percent of young people ages 13 to 15 worldwide are not getting the hour a day of vigorous exercise recommended for their age group.

Unsurprisingly, North America leads the world in not exercising, with 43.3 percent of Americans not reaching the low recommended threshold. But the world is catching up or, rather, joining us in sitting down. More than 34 percent of Europeans are inactive, 30 percent of Russians, ditto in the Middle East, and about 27 percent of Africans are sedentary.

Those of us that want to exercise regularly must realize that we are working against cultural forces. Stay focused on the best way to live for yourself.

How balanced is your life?

 No one expects you to be perfect other than yourself. As often heard we are our own worse critic. However when you reflect on your family think about the wellness wheel. If you were to assess your family how much do you give to each of these domains. For many their wheel isn't round as they devote more time and energy to certain areas such as work, then tend to neglect things like the physical and emotional health. How balanced is your wheel?

Does your family devote time to physical exercise? Do you address the emotional components? A great time to do this is at a family meal. Discuss the struggles, the challenges incurred during the day.

 "Wellness is first and foremost a choice to assume responsibility for the quality of your life. It begins with a conscious decision to shape a healthy lifestyle. Wellness is a mindset, a predisposition to adopt a series of key principles in varied life areas that lead to high levels of well-being and life satisfaction.

A consequence of this focus is that a wellness mindset will protect you against temptations to blame someone else, make excuses, shirk accountability, or collapse in the face of adversity.

Pushing Yourself and Family

The principle is called Overload

To improve fitness one has to push beyond the normal activity in order to improve Vigorous activity even in small amounts improves overall health. Now for  sedentary people some doing anything will be of benefit, becomes something is better than nothing. For others who are active to improve physical fitness you have to push to the edge of the comfort zone. Important the no pain no gain rule does not apply! 

 Here are a few tips from the CDC on how to measure intensity. 

How do I know if my child's aerobic activity is moderate- or vigorous-intensity?

Here are two ways to think about moderate- and vigorous-intensity:

Want examples?
Check out Aerobic, muscle- and bone-strengthening: what counts?

1. As a rule of thumb, on a scale of 0 to 10, where sitting is a 0 and the highest level of activity is a 10, moderate-intensity activity is a 5 or 6. When your son does moderate-intensity activity, his heart will beat faster than normal and he will breathe harder than normal. Vigorous-intensity activity is a level 7 or 8. When your son does vigorous-intensity activity, his heart will beat much faster than normal and he will breathe much harder than normal.
2. Another way to judge intensity is to think about the activity your child is doing and compare it to the average child. What amount of intensity would the average child use? For example, when your daughter walks to school with friends each morning, she's probably doing moderate-intensity aerobic activity. But while she is at school, when she runs, or chases others by playing tag during recess, she's probably doing vigorous-intensity activity. 

Measuring Physical Activity Intensity

For more help with what counts as aerobic activity,watch this video:Windows Media Player, 4:48
More videos

Here are some ways to understand and measure the intensity of aerobic activity: relative intensity and absolute intensity.

Relative Intensity

The level of effort required by a person to do an activity. When using relative intensity, people pay attention to how physical activity affects their heart rate and breathing.

The talk test is a simple way to measure relative intensity. As a rule of thumb, if you're doing moderate-intensity activity you can talk, but not sing, during the activity. If you're doing vigorous-intensity activity, you will not be able to say more than a few words without pausing for a breath.

Absolute Intensity

The amount of energy used by the body per minute of activity. The table below lists examples of activities classified as moderate-intensity or vigorous-intensity based upon the amount of energy used by the body while doing the activity.

Moderate Intensity

• Walking briskly (3 miles per hour or faster, but not race-walking)
• Water aerobics
• Bicycling slower than 10 miles per hour
• Tennis (doubles)
• Ballroom dancing
• General gardening

Vigorous Intensity

• Race walking, jogging, or running
• Swimming laps
• Tennis (singles)
• Aerobic dancing
• Bicycling 10 miles per hour or faster
• Jumping rope
• Heavy gardening (continuous digging or hoeing)
• Hiking uphill or with a heavy backpack

How does your family strength train?

What does your family do to Strength Train?

Many don't incorporate strength training into their fitness routine. Children may be physical with playing soccer, basketball etc.but may not get strength training. By building muscle strength you improve the metabolism, making you less likely to gain excess weight, strengthens the bones, makes you less prone to injury.

When children are very young working with heavy weights in the past was discouraged. The thought on this is that is could hurt the growth plates of the bones, and stunt growth therefore working with heavy weights was discouraged.Research however has disproved this, and it is now recommended everyone participate in some form of strength training.

Most people think of strength training as working with weights.

In fact, the ideal weight-training program for many children need not involve weights at all. “The body doesn’t know the difference between a weight machine, a medicine ball, an elastic band and your own body weight,”   Tree climbing is a favorite in our home, as is a great arm workout. 

 Plank, lunges, push ups, chair arm dips, yoga poses such as powerful pose, boat pose, are ways of building strength without weights. If you do choose weights, start light get 3,5,7,10 lb. weights. Focus on learning technique and endurance, then gradually increase the load.
 

Don't confuse strength training with weightlifting, bodybuilding or powerlifting. These activities are largely driven by competition, with participants vying to lift heavier weights or build bigger muscles than those of other athletes. This can put too much strain on young muscles, tendons and areas of cartilage that haven't yet turned to bone (growth plates) — especially when proper technique is sacrificed in favor of lifting larger amounts of weight.

Get more out of your Walk

 Walking, seems like a no brainer right? We don’t really think about it we just do it as it is natural. There are things you can do  to get improve benefits of walking. By focusing on style and posture you can improve muscle strength and tone, improve balance, correct postural issues and burn more calories.

Engage your arms!

Make a loose fist, consciously swing your arms, bringing your fist up to the approximate level of your breast bone, and then back to the outside of the hip. Pretend you are trying to move your arms against a force to engage the muscles even more when you walk.

Notice the posture of President Bush  - Shoulders back, arms active, stomach in,  head forward. Now compare to the gentleman next to him. Who do you think is getting more from their walk?

 Forward head, not engaging arms or stomach, rounded shoulders.

I show this to make you think about your posture while on a treadmill. Fast walkers on a treadmill who hang on to the bar often have a sway back posture. Slow walkers often lean way forward – I call it the pushing the lawnmower posture. While on the treadmill, try to either not hold on and swing your arms, or hold on with only one arm.  This will help you to have a better posture. When you hold on to the rails the entire time, your upper body is stiff and doesn’t move naturally as it does with your regular walking.

Also don’t look down the whole time this leads to forward head or thoracic kyphosis postures. Try to look 15-20 feet ahead of you. Hold your head high. Try to keep your chin parallel to the floor.  Squeeze those shoulder blades together and down…this is the military posture or the busty look, tall and proud.

Some people are so stiff with walking, add a little wiggle to your walk allow your shoulders and hips to move naturally, this is very good for your spine. Being stiff and rigid isn’t helpful. Often after open heart surgery people are very stiff in the shoulders and neck. Again swinging the arms helps this.

Tighten your stomach muscles. These support your back, they provide you with core strength. If the belly sags forward it places more stress on your lumbar spine. Tuck your pelvis under your torso.

If your have back issues or balance issues I recommend walking with ski poles. They help you to stand taller, force you to engage your arms with the walk, and you burn more calories on your walk.

Compared to regular walking, ski walking  involves applying force to the poles with each stride. Walking with ski poles uses more of their entire body (with greater intensity) and receive fitness building stimulation not present in normal walking for the chest, lats, triceps, biceps, shoulder, abdominals, spinal and other core muscles. This can produce up to a 46% increase in energy consumption compared to walking without poles. It also has been demonstrated to increase upper body muscle endurance by 38% in just twelve weeks.

This extra muscle involvement may lead to enhancements over ordinary walking at equal paces such as:

• increased overall strength and endurance in the core muscles and the entire upper body
• significant increases in heart rate at a given pace
• increasing vascular pathways and oxygen delivery efficiency
• greater ease in climbing hills
• burning more calories than in plain walking
• improved balance and stability with use of the poles
• significant un-weighting of hip, knee and ankle joints
• provides density preserving stress to bones

What about walking with weights? 

If you want to walk with weights don’t use more than 1-2 lbs in your hands. Heavier weights tend to stress the neck and spine and are not recommended. Again don’t just hold the weights pump those arms, swing up to breast bone and back to hip. You engage the arms, you burn more calories.

Walking for health

 Walking is a great family health activity. 

If you feel your family isn't active enough try to add in a walk each day. A great time to do it is after the evening meal. Gather the family, don't forget to include the grandparents. Stroll around the block or a local path, don't make it hard, just make it enjoyable. This is a time to talk, the relax, to stretch your legs, to enjoy the sights. Exercise doesn't have to always be high intensity either. Make a goal to get your family to walk 3-5 times a week. 

Be patient

If your children are young, you may be tempted to just push them in the stroller, but if they can walk get them out and let them walk part of it. When my daughter was young a normal 15-20 minute walk for me could take 45 minutes or more for her to dawdle, explore and partake in the walk. I found if I pushed her in the stroller she slept, and then I didn't get the down time necessary, but if I moved her then she would sleep on return...bonus!

As the children get older it becomes a time to chat about the days events, about concerns, strengths and challenges. It is hard to get teens out, but if you make it into a regular activity they just might surprise you and engage in it regularly. Try not to put too much pressure on them. If they don't then it is time for you and your spouse to reconnect and enjoy each others company.

Include family and friends in the walking activity

Bring the grandparents along, or a neighbour. Again adjust the pace and route according to their abilities. Keep it fun and light, don't start in to politics or issues that are stressful. Take time to watch the wildlife, enjoy nature, watch the sun set, view the clouds, smell the air, and relax. 

By establishing routine exercise in the family studies show children more likely to be more physically active in adulthood.

Start your family off with healthy lifestyle sooner rather than later. Your family will likely maintain healthy lifestyles throughout their lives. Be the role model!

Sedentary life causes weight gain: How to avoid it in your family

We can all work to limit the screen habits, not just TV but video games, Ipods, computers. It is hard as our children are growing up in a world we cannot fully understand where everything is linked to a screen. Some of it is great, but it is making us sedentary which then contributes to weight issues and chronic diseases. We must be creative to get families active. One way my family stays active is we challenge ourselves to do a certain number of hike, cross country ski, swims, kayaks per year. The goal may be ten of each. One year we made a goal of walking every trail in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park. This was 33 hikes, and it took us a year to accomplish this feat. But what memories!

Reblogged from BBC News   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18829131 

TV habits 'can predict kids' waist size and fitness'

COMMENTS (191)

Experts say children should not watch more than two hours of TV a day

Continue reading the main story

Related Stories

• Viewpoint: Childhood obesity and passive parenting
• Children's screen habits revealed
• Making playgrounds for bigger childrenWatch

Children who increase the number of hours of weekly television they watch between the ages of two and four years old risk larger waistlines by age 10.

A Canadian study found that every extra weekly hour watched could add half a millimetre to their waist circumference and reduce muscle fitness.

The study, in a BioMed Central journal, tracked the TV habits of 1,314 children.

Experts say children should not watch more than two hours of TV a day.

Researchers found that the average amount of television watched by the children at the start of the study was 8.8 hours a week.

This increased on average by six hours over the next two years to reach 14.8 hours a week by the age of four-and-a-half.

Fifteen per cent of the children in the study were watching more than 18 hours per week by that age, according to their parents.

The study said the effect of 18 hours of television at 4.5 years of age would by the age of 10 result in an extra 7.6mm of waist because of the child's TV habit.

Continue reading the main story

Calculate your BMI

Age

Gender

MaleFemale

Height

Select: Metres | Feet

Weight

Select: Kilograms | Pounds | Stone

Country

GO

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

Watching more television displaces other forms of educational and active leisurely pursuits”

Dr Linda PaganiUniversity of Montreal

'Bottom line'

As well as measuring waist circumference, the researchers also carried out a standing long jump test to measure each child's muscular fitness and athletic ability.

An extra weekly hour of TV can decrease the distance a child is able to jump from standing by 0.36cm, the study said.

The researchers said that further research was needed to work out whether television watching is directly responsible for the health issues they observed.

Dr Linda Pagani, study co-author from the University of Montreal, said it was a warning about the factors which could lead to childhood obesity.

"The bottom line is that watching too much television - beyond the recommended amounts - is not good," Dr Pagani said.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children aged over two should not watch more than two hours of television per day.

Dr Pagani added: "Across the occidental world, there have been dramatic increases in unhealthy weight for both children and adults in recent decades.

"Our standard of living has also changed in favour of more easily prepared, calorie-dense foods and sedentary practices.

"Watching more television not only displaces other forms of educational and active leisurely pursuits but also places them at risk of learning inaccurate information about proper eating."

The study said that habits and behaviours became entrenched during childhood and these habits might affect attitudes to sporting activities in adulthood.

Mentoring families in physical activity

 

Families should work together to mentor one another in healthy lifestyles.

 We can all learn from one another. Today the goal was to get the teens outdoors more. The plan to get them outdoors involved watching their mother attempt to balance on a slack line. With wobbly and I do mean wobbly legs, a few shrieks from fear while falling, they were suddenly off the computer and the Wii and engaged, proving how much more adept they could be on the slack line. This lasted for a while but then they were lured back in by their media sources. Next plan water skiing. Once again they can't let mom show them up, so after taking turns we all got skiing in.


It worked that way with getting them involved in running too. I was planning to run a 5k when they wanted to know what all the fuss was about, next thing I knew I had them registered at ages 5 and 7 for their first 5k. Now I had been planning for a personal best time, and ended up with a personal worse time, but I sparked a passion for them.

It doesn't have to be a competition, maybe an evening walk, a swim, a game of badminton, a yoga pose. If you make it seem fun, a contest, or be silly with it, they are likely to try it. If you promote physical activity as a chore, a burden or an all consuming necessity, I guarantee your kids won't participate. Entice the family by setting up the activity, or playing with your spouse first, then others will want to join in. Keep it light and fun. Enjoy!!!

Family Health

Health care tends to focus only on the individual and not the family units. When prevention is discussed it is usually in the context of secondary prevention, meaning that the main health event has already occurred and the goal is to prevent a secondary health issue. It is kind of a day late and a dollar short approach. When a health care professional counsels one on health and wellness, it should encompass the whole family.

We are all responsible to work towards not only our own health, but that of those around us. It starts with personal health goals, then progresses to family health goals, including parents mentoring kids, kids mentoring parents. Grandparents too play a role, the idea of the grandparent spoiling the children can be detrimental to the future of the child if the spoiling occurs through inviting and encouraging unhealthy behaviours.

Family health and wellness should include:

• Healthy Eating
• Exercise
• Healthy responses to stress
• Emotional support
• Social support
• Sharing of information of family risks, health issues, histories

This is the inaugural blog in which I hope to share my knowledge and experience with you. Topics I plan to discuss include:

• Keeping your family moving
• Eating healthy on the run
• Teenagers nutritional issues
• Mentoring 
• Leading health issues such as cholesterol, blood pressure, weight, smoking, risk factor reduction

A little about me though. I have worked in healthcare in the fields of emergency medicine, sports medicine, cardiac rehabilitation and exercise physiology for over twenty years. I too am raising teenagers. I strive to be as active as possible but profess am not a master of any particular sports. My activities include jogging, biking, cross country skiing, down hill skiing, kayaking, hiking, swimming, stand up paddle boarding, yoga and probably a few others I forgot to mention. I strive to teach healthy eating to my family and friends. I am proud to say my two teens eat quite healthy, but of course like any person have a few foods they just won't do...yet
.

I look forward to meeting and sharing information with you! For reference I have another blog entirely on recovering from heart disease http://rehabilitateyourheart.wordpress.com/