Of course you might not want to know the answer to that. Or, having worked diligently on healthful eating and regular exercise, you may want to know if it will all pay off. Now, in a joint project between Swedish statisticians and a half million (!) volunteers in the UK, there’s a simple questionnaire that […]
Tag: exercise
The WholeHealth Chicago Wellness Exam
The WholeHealth Chicago Wellness Exam Patients new to WholeHealth Chicago, along with patients I’ve not seen for a while because they’ve felt good and sensibly wanted to avoid the health care system, often ask for a wellness check-up when they schedule an appointment. You’ve probably had variations of these exams throughout your life: kicking and […]
A Nutritional Supplement For Memory That Actually Works
You walk into a room, pause, stare blankly ahead, and ask yourself, “What did I come in here for?” Seeing a familiar face in the theatre lobby, you exchange socially acceptable kindnesses and now the first act is ruined as you wrack your brain trying to remember the person’s name so you don’t embarrass yourself […]
Will You Live Another Five Years?
Of course you might not want to know the answer to that. Or, having worked diligently on healthful eating and regular exercise, you may want to know if it will all pay off. Now, in a joint project between Swedish statisticians and a half million (!) volunteers in the UK, there’s a simple questionnaire that […]
Are Lifestyle Changes Impossible?
Many years ago, I became exhausted dealing with a friend who ignored my advice on living a healthy lifestyle. His attitude toward exercise was similar to Oscar Wilde’s “I often take exercise. Why only yesterday I had breakfast in bed.” His attitude toward food, especially restaurant food, seemed too often that he didn’t care if […]
For A Longer Life…Stand Up Now!
By far the most common answer to my question, “Exercising these days?” is “Not enough.” This is usually accompanied by the briefest flicker of melancholy regret, as if by such a confession my patient has permanently abandoned the hopes and dreams of both a svelte body and enviable longevity. “Don’t worry,” I say, “It’s just […]
Fruitcake, Genes, and Exercise: A Spooky Holiday Story
Starting around Thanksgiving and generally ending on January 2, we’re surrounded by too much food. Many of us who spent 2013 really (really!) trying to lose weight and eat healthfully dread the havoc these dark December days can wreak on our bodies. It’s agonizingly easy to add some pounds. Then, come January, we despair at […]
How I Exercise
With a title like that, I fully understand if you have an urge to hit the delete key. You endured a health tip a few weeks ago about my colonic, and I do applaud your strength for that. But now, having read in this week’s American Medical News that the US is the unhealthiest among […]
For Better Brain + Memory, Remember This
When our patients make a wish list of what they’d like most for their health, maintaining an active, creative, and well-functioning brain always scores near the top. By the time we hit our 30s, we accept that we may not be the smartest people on the planet. There will always be someone else who grasps […]
Belly Fat! New Research Reveals…
Between the print and TV ads and the pop-ups scuttling like mice from the four borders of your computer screen, belly fat seems to have surpassed global warming as our next great anxiety.
It’s clear these ads are aimed at women, some of whom fall for the hucksterism of what is for many little more than an annoying physiologic change occurring during a perfect storm of dietary indiscretion, genetic predisposition, and stress. As one patient laconically remarked, “My divorce from hell took a solid year. I finally got rid of him, but in the process…” (patting her tummy with both hands) “I got myself…this!”
How Much Exercise?
I owe the details of this health tip to Dr. Joseph S. Alpert, the physician-editor of the American Journal of Medicine. Since a subscription to this highly respectable journal is, for non-physicians, $166 a year, I’ll assume it’s not regularly thrust through your mail slot and share his article with you.
Will Alzheimer’s Skyrocket?
In 2006, the very dark comedy Idiocracy played local theatres for what seemed like a few hours before disappearing into DVD bins and obscure cable channels. Its Rip van Winkle story involves a not particularly bright Army librarian, recruited into a Pentagon hibernation program, awakening centuries into the future and finding himself the most intelligent person in America.
You! Off Your Duff and On Your Bike!
Yes, I mean you. You were the one complaining about your weight, right? Yeah, I thought it was you.
Exercise and Weight Loss
The Time Magazine article that ran last week was food for thought for people who exercise regularly. Let’s face it, many of us who work out aren’t doing so to boost mood, enhance mental skills, prevent Alzheimer’s disease, or reduce heart attack risk–all of which exercise does–but rather to lose weight.
Where Did This Tummy Fat Come From?
Click here for the Health Tip link. Now that the swine flu appears to be playing itself out, we can take up a health concern that I am asked about at least ten times a week, always by women and always with various degrees of desperation in their voices. “I never had this before!,” she’ll […]
Antioxidants and Exercise
Click here for the original post. If you study nutritional medicine long enough, some concepts make good intuitive sense, but then you find nobody has done a study to verify the assumptions. It’s always struck me that if you did aerobic exercise–you know, the huff-puff of jumping jacks or other high-intensity activity–you’d get a greater […]
Where You Live Matters
Regular readers know that I’m fond of studies that confirm what seems to be obvious, intellectually or intuitively. Here’s one to get you walking.
Researchers writing in the American Journal of Health Promotion found that people who live in the most pedestrian-friendly sections of New York City have less body fat, as reflected in a lower body mass index.
Summertime’s Natural Serotonin Boosters
Summer’s an excellent time to take advantage of three steps that naturally help your brain make more feel-good serotonin, which protects you from the damaging effects of stress: