What are your healthy lifestyle habits?

[PoeticSilence]

Having become recently disabled (lymphedema, fibromyalgia, anxiety, depression) I've had to learn some new things. The main things I have to be careful of is knowing my limits, not being able to walk further than ten to fifteen feet (assisted, i.e. with a walker or cane) and unable to stand in place for more than five minutes.

I do a lot of exercises in bed since I'm in bed a lot of the time during the day.

I have a shower chair (backless) that I can sit on and do all of my stretching, which I do three times a day.

The wife cooks for me and I'm not a big eater. My snacks are the problem, I will eat a whole can of wasabi flavoured pistachios, or a whole can of mixed nuts, etc. She has to limit my snacks (not too hard, just put them where I can't get them) She also buys weight watchers ice cream bars for snacks.

I used to have a fluid issue regarding my intake of fluids, I haven't had that trouble in a few years, but for a long time I was drinking double what most people did and would still be thirsty. Nope..NOT diabetic.

I gave up smoking, not even an issue. I have oxygen added to my bipap machine that is supposed to help with healing in my legs, seems to help me with alertness.

I don't meditate per se, but I do practice thoughtfulness. I pick a few subjects and I give them a lot of thought. If it's pain, then that's what I think about, different ways to approach it, how it affects me, how it makes me feel, how I let it affect me outwardly, etc.

I don't plan to have this forever. I know it's spreading, and it is incurable, and it never "goes away" but I wasn't expecting it, and it doesn't fit into my future plans, so I'm not planning on having this illness forever.

[Rockinonahigh]

I just watch waht I eat,drink as much water as I want wich is probly not enough but I also drink unsweet tea.I use to drink a 12 pack of coke a day so I cut it down to a couple wich often I end up caping the bottle for the next day.Veggies are the mainstay of my food plan,yougurt is something I like and often eat insted of a meal or with fruit or cottage cheese with som kind of fruit.I have bran flakes or captain crunch with enough milk to wet it down with.I cut my red meat consumption way down and now eat fish or chicken.I have a nasty sweet tooth so I need to be careful about it so far I do pretty well staying away fron them,now with halloween comeing then the hollidays it will become a battle to not fall off the wagon cause I like to cook the favorites of the season so I use a diabetic cook book so I can keep it as real as I can.My down fall is usely sweet potato pie or pecan pie,when I eat sweets I drink lots of water to flush it out as quick as possable.I have lost 80 pounds over the last couple of years,even tho i'm down to 250 I still want to get to my goal wight of 200.The doc says It's still not enough I will stick to that goal,if I get past that great if not i'm ok with it.My doc is skinny as a broom stick and really beleaves everyone should be...I do not think that way so as long as some weigh is fallin off I am ok with how things are going.I also workout 3 to4 days a week enough for the workout to be a shade more than moderate amount.I tryed to do harder workouts but it caused to many problems with my pain leval or pops something out wich isn't cool either.

[Kelt]

There are so many ways the sleep is critical for all of us. A few years ago I spent several months changing my sleep habits away from what had become 6 hours a night, and revamped it to 7.5 regularly. It has made an enormous difference in my health both physically and mentally.

This article is a good refresher course on the basics.

Hacking sleep: Engineering a high quality, restful night

In case you haven’t heard, sleep is absolutely crucial to your health. With a few simple strategies, you can get the high-quality, restful sleep your body and your mind deserves.

Introduction;
Sleep is just as important as nutrition and exercise when it comes to improving your health, performance, and body composition.

Good sleep helps our bodies and minds recover, keeping us lean, happy, mentally focused, and healthy.

But chronically bad sleep slathers on body fat, screws up our hormones, ages us faster, increases chronic illnesses, and drains our IQ and mojo.

Fortunately, research also shows that returning to adequate sleep can quickly reduce these risks.

So how do we go about getting that replenishing shut-eye?

Read the rest of this article....

[Kelt]

Mental health is my current personal project and honestly I know very little about it. I have been talking to some friends lately and we seem to be experiencing sort of a common thread; age making things seem closer to the surface. I thought it might be man-o-pause (thanks Dak for the term!), but a lot of my friends are men, so out with that idea.

I am putting the first and a middle paragraph here and a link to the whole article at the bottom.

Trapped in negative emotions?

Why don’t we apply the same standards and value for filtering out unhealthy thoughts, as we do for filtering out unhealthy foods? I find many people logically understand that if they eat something unhealthy they get that it will make them feel awful, and therefore avoid eating foods with undesirable consequences. Yet, this same logic is not equally applied to filtering out unhealthy thoughts which make an individual feel awful. If you wouldn’t eat stress inducing foods all day long, than why would you allow yourself to sip on the “I’m not good enough, “or “I am bitter and angry, it’s not fair” Stress-Slurpee all day long?

********

To understand why these Achilles Heel emotional and mental triggers are so powerful picture a large reservoir of water in your mind say the Hoover Damn. Behind the dam is an amazing amount of pressure. The reservoir took time to fill up, but overtime the pressure began to build and once full the force behind the dam grew to be enormous. Achilles Heel triggers are like a dam, they have an accumulation of trapped emotional kinetic energy behind them, and once triggered an overwhelming amount of emotions and strewing mental tangents gets released inside an individual – temporarily overtaking an individual’s logical, reasoning mind.

Link to full article.

[Kelt]

This has me pretty wound up today. Driving along listening to the radio when I hear that there are new guidelines around proscribing statins for cholesterol lowering and that now it will include people who do not have high LDL levels, but also for a number of other reasons.

I still have homework to do on this BUT, now about 25% of the population is on these meds and the changes could raise this to 50%. Not a fan of statins to begin with, or the pharmaceutical industry in some instances, I'm giving this the hairy one-eyeball.

What about you? Are you taking statins already?

Do you see this changing as a result of the new parameters?

I am also wondering if we can find ourselves being labeled as 'uncooperative' patients if we opt to not take them under the new guidelines or as part of the new rules of healthcare in the USA?

Here are a couple of early articles for the public with different opinions about the way the numbers will play out. Both mainstream press.

Forbes: When Should You Take A Statin? The Answer Just Changed.

NPR: Shift In Cholesterol Advice Could Double Statin Use

Time to buy shares in Crestor?

One more item, here is a link to the American Heart Association risk calculator

*At this moment it is overwhelmed, may have to try later*

[silkepus]

Originally Posted by Kelt

Trapped in negative emotions?

Why don’t we apply the same standards and value for filtering out unhealthy thoughts, as we do for filtering out unhealthy foods? I find many people logically understand that if they eat something unhealthy they get that it will make them feel awful, and therefore avoid eating foods with undesirable consequences. Yet, this same logic is not equally applied to filtering out unhealthy thoughts which make an individual feel awful. If you wouldn’t eat stress inducing foods all day long, than why would you allow yourself to sip on the “I’m not good enough, “or “I am bitter and angry, it’s not fair” Stress-Slurpee all day long?


Link to full article.

That is such a sensible thing. Mental health should be seen as just as important as physical health I think. And I have noticed I’m always physically healthier when I am mentally healthier too. If I get enough sleep and have a positive outlook being healthy is just easier.

But overall I don’t think I do much to be healthy. I don’t go to the gym and I haven’t stopped eating sugar and carbs like many of my friends have. My sister eats wheat grass mixed with water for breakfast- that’s taking it a bit too far for me.

I think the healthiest thing I do, is not owning a car. I know that’s not possible for everyone. But it makes me walk or cycle a lot if I want to or not. And I am lucky enough to live next to not only the sea, where it’s lovely to walk and swim (when it’s not too cold), but also several mountains and forests where I try to go for long walks or ride my bicycle at least three times a week. I love walking up one of the smaller mountains and see the sun set in the sea. It’s really lovely.

[Happy_Go_Lucky]

Healthy lifestyle habits include seeing humor in everything!

Laughing will cure most anything and prevent many chronic conditions. Perhaps the scientist amongst us may debate this, however I am speaking from an anecdotal observation.

As well as eating anything you want. (in moderation)

Drinking anything you want. (in moderation)

Having a fur-friend around can keep you healthier as well.

[fatallyblonde]

I have to be very careful with things like this as it risks triggering my eating disorder. In fact I ended up having to skip reading most of this stuff as I started to feel anxious. In pursuit of a fictional state of 'utopian health' I really put my body and mind through the ringer with crazy, obsessive habits and unrealistic goals. Then, for a whole mix of reasons including this unhealthy behaviour and an abusive rship, I had a nervous breakdown and ended up bingeing my way to a body I cannot be at peace with. Not that I was at peace with my skinny body *eyeroll* but at least I fit into my clothes!
These days I try and take a balanced and gentler approach and not try to be so 'perfect'... so deprivation diets are right out...
mainly:

- 2 litres of water a day
- try to get early bed and earlyish rise... a good 8 hours of sleep, always
- lay off the booze and barbiturates
- multi-v every day (I used to be supplement crazy... ugh)
- try and move my body a lot through a variety of gentle exercise (I damaged my knees and ankles through lots of high impact cardio) that is still challenging but also fun
- lots of fruit and veggies
- avoid stressful people and situations
- creative outlets I can enjoy
- breaking down housework into small tasks divided into different days
- laughing a lot!!! always looking for funny things to enjoy