Sunday, September 25, 2011

Staying Active and Two Anniversaries Tonight #42

Some readers and followers of this blog are not recovering heart patients.  Many, or maybe I should say some I know of,  are people who for various reasons are at the age where they are just beginning retirement or for whatever reasons are no longer working, and have free time.  Many of the things we discuss concerning recovery would also apply to avoiding heart problems.  Speaking for myself, you know if I had eaten healthy, exercised on a regular basis and gotten my weight under control, I surely would have reduced the likelihood of a heart attack.  There are several guys at my fitness center who I know that are recent retirees, and working out is now a regular part of their daily routine.   I'm thinking exercise becomes part of a daily routine and fills out some of their free time.  It is one way to stay active and maintain health fitness.   When I was working, not only did I have a strict self imposed  schedule I followed, I enjoyed working and looked forward to it daily.  Being around and interacting with people. Your responsibilities, it all gives you something away from your normal family life, meaning work and those surroundings become as much a part of your life from 8 till 5 daily as family is.  And when that goes away, you have a large void to fill in several ways.  The part that can effect your health is staying active. When I first stopped working daily, I stayed active, not by exercising and working out, but by doing things around the house, yard duty summer and winter, and always trying to have a project going on.   I put in a lot of effort staying away from the TV, computer, couch, and kitchen table from 8 till 5.   But it didn't save me from the heart attack.  A lifetime of unhealthy eating, and lack of regular exercise were my undoing.  So there is a lot we have discussed since the beginning of this blog that would be very helpful to some people out there in how to reduce the factors that can cause heart attacks.

I'm not writing as often right now because of some ongoing computer problems I am having.  At this moment I am sitting at Cindy's desk using hers.  Neither of us enjoy sharing our computers with the other.  For the next several days if any little setting, or pop up, or glitch comes about on hers, it will be my fault.  And the thing is what little she knows about computers makes her an I.T. expert.   Not at all like her doctoring, and pharmaceutical expertise, she knows what she is doing there. But computers, well let's just say take away facebook, email, google, and photoshop and it is a done deal.   Can't let her see this or she will revoke my using her system privileges.

Today is our 44th wedding anniversary.  And two years ago today I had heart surgery.  We will be going to Houston's restaurant tonight.  It has been one of our favorite places to go for dinner, especially to celebrate special occasions. For at least 25 years we have been going there for birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, you name it, we have celebrated it there.  One of my favorite memories of there is several years ago on Christmas Eve, when our children had first reached age to go their own ways. I think I had worked that day and rather than us coming home late to an empty house on Christmas Eve, we went to Houston's for dinner.  I think maybe one or two of our children met us there.  Of course, in the past we went to Houston's for the prime rib, NY strip, filet mignon.  None of that will be on our menu tonight, we will have a great salad and plain bake potato. 

That is enough of thinking about the old days, we've gotta get healthy and get on down the road for more anniversaries and birthdays to come.......
Good health and exercise next time.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Nitrates, Nitrites....No Way #41

I am going all the way back to my first two posts. For at least 2 years prior to that, I had been considering changing my eating habits.  Based on some reading and personal thoughts, I wasn't convinced our physical make up was such that we were  meant to consume meat.  I  believe we were natural vegetarians in the sense we ate what nature provided us. Be it fruits, vegetation, wild vegetables, nuts, and over time we evolved ourselves into becoming meat eaters.  I knew I was eating too much meat.  Processed meats, chicken, beef, pork, I really was out of control when it came to eating meat.  And then for some sudden reason, unknown to me,  I lost my desire to eat meat. I found that  eating meat had become more of an addiction and stopping was not going to be easy.  I think what pushed me to the point of making the change was I knew the chemicals in meat, in particular processed meat, were not good for me.  You can argue how wrong I am in my thinking our digestive system was not meant for us to consume meat.  I could be wrong there.  But I do know I am not wrong about the chemicals we take in from our eating meat. We might as well sit down and munch on a bag of fertilizer at Home Depot as to eat  hot dogs, bologna, bacon, and so forth.  And I am not criticizing anyone for eating what they want to eat.  I still to this day would like a couple of hot dogs, and a ham sandwich stacked 3 inches high garnished with bacon.  But I can't do it.  Why am I going over this, because I read an article about nitrates.

Sodium nitrate and sodium nitrites.  Each is used as a meat preservative, and in the making of processed meats.  They are closely related and used in curing or preserving meats.  Nitrates are used in bologna, bacon, hot dogs, sausages, as examples, to preserve the color.  Pink or red rather than gray. They inhibit botulism, and retard the development of rancidity.  They are thought to cause certain cancers, and damage your blood vessels, making them more likely to harden.  Anybody for a little ammonia nitrate sprinkled over those spam and vienna sausage appetizers?

Very briefly, doing some research on this I came across "Aspartame."  It is a chemical used in artificial sweeteners brands such as Equal, and NutraSweet. It is used in over 6,000 consumer foods and diet sodas.  There is a lot of conflicting medical research and dangers associated with it's use.  If interested, I suggest you look it up on the internet.  Also in fairness, go to aspartame.net to get their side of it.

I continue to look forward to and exercise 5 or 6 days per week.  I have made a couple of minor changes to my workout routine.  I found a book with 100 different workouts with detailed instructions, and illustrations.  Something else I like about it is that each exercise describes what muscles or muscle groups your working on.  And if it involves a strength machine you're not familiar with, you now feel more comfortable about using it the first time.

Next post we will talk more about staying active and exercising.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

More on Food Health and Exercise #40

Determining which fats are healthy or unhealthy can be confusing and demands much reading to make a decision for yourself.  I hope you have been researching the new USDA healthy food guidelines.   Fats, saturated and unsaturated, health factors, seem to be a matter of disagreement among some nutritionists.  Saturated fats, being mostly those derived from animal products, meat, dairy, and eggs as example.  Coconut and palm oil is also a saturated fat. Most saturated fats are thought to raise your total and LDL cholesterol levels.   Unsaturated fats are from plant, vegetable, and fish products. Most reduce total and LDL cholesterol and lower the risk of coronary heart disease.  Okay this is in general categories, specific fats in specific foods can do more or less than others.  An unsaturated fat example would be omega 3 fatty acids which come from walnuts, cold water fish, and soy.  This essential fatty acid is critical for your health and cannot be produced by your body.  The point, that should relate to you and me as far as federal guidelines interpreting health for us, is that there are good fats and bad fats.  According to the program of Cardiovascular Epidemiology at Harvard "total fat content of a given food or diet is a useless metric" "because there are healthy and unhealthy fats".  So as a heart patient desiring to not eat foods bad for my cardiovascular system, I need to avoid unsaturated fats, and not be as concerned about total fat content if it is fat from good natural plant, vegetable, or fish.  Dr. Mozaffarian of Harvard also says concerning fatty acids, "eat more whole foods, and avoid processed ones."  Dr. Mozaffarian is among those who do not entirely support the new health guidelines, thinking they are overly fussy and based on outdated science.  So I think these new federal standards speak for themselves, and from this point on I will go back to focusing on what we determine works best for us.  As heart patients, the best gauge of success of our efforts to become healthy, will be measured by our cardiologist examinations and test results.

Some things I want to reference from Experience Life Magazine for the benefit of those who have not been following us from the beginning, or in the early stages of heart patient rehab and  recovery. "Avoid trans fats, and excess sugars."  "Avoid over salted processed snacks and fast foods. Don't assume low-sodium foods are healthy".

Some of you realize I am spending  time covering some issues we discussed quite a while back.  The reason I am doing this is we have some readers who have not been with us since the beginning.  Exercising is a critical part of a successful recovery.  Being in a formal exercise program, or routine, is very beneficial, in my opinion.  Another benefit,  is exposure to people like yourself.  Maybe not heart patients, but most all are exercising for health reasons, young and old.  Now, if your are recovering from heart attack and heart surgery, you are probably not around a lot of people.  Being with people when exercising helped my morale when I began going to a fitness center.  You know in the first few weeks home from the hospital, it can be discouraging or depressing.  It's was good for me being around other people when I started working out.

Remember exercise, eating healthy, and weight control, are all critical in successful recovery from heart attack, and heart surgery.

I will attempt to spend more time talking about exercising in the next post.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Circulation Exercise, Nutritution News, MyPlate #39

The new USDA dietary guidelines have been released by the federal government.  The once well known and accepted food pyramid has been replaced with the MyPlate symbol.  Yes, the federal government has decided the food pyramid wasn't that healthy for us.  The new symbol represents a dinner plate divided into four sections.  Fruits, grains, vegetables, and protein.   There is also a side dish of dairy. These are the new federal nutrition policies.  As example, the federal government "will dictate what food is made available to school children through the National School Lunch  Program."   This also will go further including programs as Women, Infants, and Child and Adult Federal Food Care Programs.   Obviously, there is much disagreement among nutritionist concerning what has now been determined to be unhealthy for you, or what was considered unhealthy 3 months ago is now healthy to eat.  There is an excellent article in Experience Life magazine, September issue, or on line at experiencelife.com. One of my concerns with this is a committee of well renowned nutritionist was formed to make these determinations.  The problem I have is, they were selected to support the vocal views of a select few in the administration.   My conclusion is that I will continue to research as much as possible and eat what I consider to be good heart health foods, regardless of federal guidelines.  You know, if I were a lot younger, I believe I would pursue an education and career in nutrition and good health as it relates to heart patients and exercise.   If you have had heart disease, or concerned about your cardiovascular health, you really should begin reading more about it to form your own ideas about maintaining your health.

For those of you beginning to exercise, or looking for something good for your cardiovascular system, here is something I did when I first started rehabbing.  In addition to my treadmill and other workout routine, I walked one mile holding a 5 pound exercise ball in one hand with my arm fully extended over my head.  I would shift it between left and right as needed.  It is important to keep your arm held high over your head holding the ball.  The other arm can obviously be relaxed and rested at your side or as you wish.  This was done at an early stage in beginning my recovery and with apporval of my cardiologist.  It strengthens and exercises your circulation.  If you're concerned about how you will look walking around holding a ball over your head, don't be.  I was the only person doing it at my fitness center. After around 3 weeks there were at least a dozen more who picked up on the same routine.  When I felt stronger I moved up to a 8 pound ball.  Well it could have been 10 pound, I'm not sure now.  That doesn't sound like much weight, but when you're rehabbing from heart problems it feels like a lot more.  Depending on your situation you probably should refer to your cardiologist for approval before you begin this routine.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Honey, Sorghum, Christmas #38

Since I presented agave as an alternative sweetener to table sugars, I should go over the health benefits of honey.   I wrote that I did not care for the taste of agave.  Honey was my taste preference.

Honey possesses many photonutrients produced by bees during the natural process of making honey from the nectar of flowers.  According to Worlds Healthiest Foods, some honey nutrients are known to have cancer preventing and anti tumor properties.  Many of the benefits of these nutrients are lost when honey is heated to high temperatures during processing.  Honey contains 10 different friendly bacteria, and properties to help lower bad cholesterol.   It is high in calories, 1 oz. having 128.
Honey is probably a lifetime favorite of most of us. I certainly like and plan to continue to eat it.  Then there is also sorghum molasses, which is also a natural sweetener similar to honey in health benefits and a little bit higher in calories.  One tablespoon being 61 calories.  I really like the taste of sorghum, especially over pancakes or biscuits.

We have a family holiday tradition at our home each Christmas morning. We all gather for a once a year holiday breakfast.  We have ham, country ham, red eye gravy, milk gravy, sausage, eggs, biscuits, and loads of crispy bacon.  Michelle and Brent have a contest on who can eat the most bacon before Cindy can get it to the table.   My personal favorite use to be sorghum molasses poured over a biscuit with butter.  2 or 3 of those.  Throw in some country ham smothered in gravy and you would have to walk 2 days on a treadmill to get rid of those calories. There is more meat eaten in our home that day than the combined year. Our son's eating habits are a lot like the previous me, he enjoys eating, especially red meat. Our daughter Ann eats a healthy diet.  Her husband is like Brent when it comes to food, he enjoys eating.  Michelle and her husband also eat a very healthy diet.  Since Michelle and her husband begin working out and training seriously for triathlon competition earlier this  year they have really become slim and fit.  I've been wondering how much weight she has lost, but Cindy told me you never ever ask a woman that question.......I mean like what's the deal, when I lost all that weight, I would try to maneuver the conversation to where somebody would have to ask me how much I had lost......I don't think I would even be tempted by the Christmas ham, bacon, or gravy.  You know a couple of those biscuits and molasses might be worth the extra treadmill work....

My workouts are not boring, but they are basically the same repetitive daily exercises.  I not bored with them and do not dread working out daily.  However, I am concerned that because I am not writing daily about exercising I am not reaching out to everyone.   My wife and two daughters encouraged me to begin writing this, I think, mostly because they were glad for me that I overcame the set backs of a heart attack. But also because I should let others know how I did it.  Well I'm just letting you know if you are not exercising, or working out, you are not truly going to recover to the extent you are probably capable of achieving.

Michelle and her husband competed  this weekend in a triathlon in Nashville.  She finished 2nd and he finished 1st in their groups.  I am really proud of them and for them in their competing at such a high level.  I think being passed by an old codger (her words, not mine) a couple of weeks ago motivated Michelle to take it to another level.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Fooducate App, Exercises, Churrasco #37

There is a new app out for your smart phones. Cindy has a droid and she found an app that she has used and I think is great.  If you have not heard about it the name of the app is Fooducate.  It allows you to take your smart phone and scan the bar code on food products and it will then provide you with information to let you decide if this product is or is not a healthy food item for you.  Depending on the food item you will get information on that specific product and brand.  So when grocery shopping you take your phone and scan the package and you will get calories, yes or no 100% grain, contains any undesirable additives, sugar contents.  It will apply a health rating based on a system of D being low, through A being high.  If you're not using it, you might want to check it out, if it is available to you.

Worked out this morning and I am beginning to feel really good after doing some of those exercises.  The pull ups I do are my favorite.  Meaning I feel strong after doing those and it really works well on my posture and helps my lower back.  A guy who is a member of the Memphis Grizzlies radio broadcast team does the same exercise using the equipment next to mine.  He is an former Memphis State basketball player and is 6' 9".  I guess guys that tall, when they begin to get older and aren't as active, are also subject to back and posture problems.  Anyway, I do enjoy doing that particular exercise and doing abdominal crunches on the AB-X.  I have not used the elliptical in a while.  I just could not get use to the elliptical and decided I would rather take the time spent on the elliptical and add it to my treadmill.  I think I may add some more weight lift exercises.  I really like using the weights and think they are good for improving your circulation.

What I should do is find a book on different free weight exercises and techniques.  When weight lifting, you can really be specific to certain muscles, depending on the exercise.  Another advantage to lifting weights is you can do a lot of exercises that do not require the use of strength training machines.  Sometimes when the center is busy, some of the equipment you want to use may not be available.   Knowing more about weight lifting exercises could free me from depending on certain equipment.

My daughter Ann and her husband just returned from Brazil.  He was down there for a couple of weeks on business.  Ann went down for vacation time.  She is a healthy eater, enjoys food, travel, and dining.  She thought the fruit in Brazil was varied, fresh, and very good as was the seafood. I don't think she cares much for the Churrascaria style restaurants.  Beef, chicken, sausage, and pork is popular in Brazil cooked in the churrasco style which is much the same as roasted or barbecued.  I'm not sure she likes how it is served, brought to the table on skewers and sliced off.  Anyway, they enjoyed  the Brazilian food, people, and scenery. They said the beaches and ocean were great and the people were very friendly. There is a Brazilian churrascaria style restaurant in Memphis which also has a huge varied salad bar, and it is delicious. Full of fruits, and vegetables for those more apt to lean  to eating salads than the meats.  Ann is much like Cindy, thinking when meat is brought, sliced and served that style at your table it is not appetising. I have eaten once at the restaurant in Memphis and the salad bar was all I needed to eat.  There was so much selection in vegetables, salad fixings, fruit and such, eating meat was not necessary.

I think I'll put on my sunglasses, lean back, listen to "Girl from Ipanema," and dream of being on a beach in Brazil.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

For Those Just Starting To Rehab #36

How many out there are just beginning recovery from a heart attack and surgery?  Wondering how you're going to get back to where ever it is you want to get to.  It all starts with your first few steps, and you just build from there.  A lot of us have been there and are continuing to build on and take more steps every day.  You've got 3 basic challenges you have to meet.  Diet, weight control, exercise.  Diet, not in the  common sense of eating more of some foods and less of others in order to lose weight. No, we are talking about in the sense of diet being the kinds of food you eat and what they do for your health.  That's the way the new you has to think now.  You can't stay with the old eating habits just because doctors cleared out those arteries, or went around them with some good strong clean new ones. You can't go on from here business as usual.  Nope that won't work.  You've just got lucky and beat the odds of surviving what most don't.  Surely you do not want to risk going through that again? Or worse putting your family through it again, or maybe you won't be as lucky next time.  Well, let's don't dwell on that any further, let's get on with the new you.

Your cardiologist will offer, or steer you in the right direction when you talk to him about diet, lowering your cholesterol, and exercising to get stronger.  That's part of his responsibility to you.  Now he is not going to do all the homework for you, but he will give you enough information to get you started. That is now your responsibility. From here on, where your health goes is in your hands, no one else.  Others can guide, but you're in control.  That's what this blog is about, sharing how to get and stay healthy.  Most of us are at an age where it is a challenge to do the healthy things we must do.  Look at Bill Clinton.  He had to change life style and deal with the same three challenges you must, to become and remain healthy.

You know, I heard from a business friend recently, and talking to him, I remembered a trade show he and I attended in Las Vegas a few years ago.  We had a dinner together in the Steakhouse dining room of the Las Vegas Hilton, which was the best steak dinner I have ever eaten.  I feel certain my friend would agree it was also one of his best.  I say this because as great as the food was, it is not something I am willing to go back to.   I feel too good about myself and my recovery.  You will feel the same way.  Most of us, like you, had a pretty good amount of weight to lose and we were not exercise and workout people. We lost the weight over time.  Consistently losing a little bit at a time, and you can too.  Eat the right foods, and begin a smart exercise program. Something as simple as walking, or maybe something your cardiologist knows of.  You'll be surprised at how quickly as weight goes down and exercise continues to grow, you will see benefits in lower blood pressure, cholesterol improving, and feeling a little stronger.  Working out and exercising has helped lower my blood pressure.   

Next time we will talk some more about exercise.  If there are any questions about my rehab and recovery, e-mail me and I will post something regarding your question.