WE’VE MOVED!

Dear Readers,

My blog has moved to a new site: alanfitness.com/blog

This new location has the same posts you are familiar with as well as NEW ones (posted weekly). My new blog site is part of my new and improved website.

Enjoy your read!

-Alan

Not Something to Ignore

On a recent visit to the United States, all of the news outlets were discussing how to prevent the next terror attack. The law enforcement community has been very adamant in using a phrase for the public; “If you see something, say something”.  Good advice.  And when it comes to our health, there are times when you have to implement a similar policy.  If I see something, or feel something, and it is abnormal, I have to do something about it quickly.

I have been helping people prevent health problems for a long time.  I also have clients that have existing health issues and through lifestyle changes including proper eating, activity and exercise, they are able to reverse their disease or illness.  But there is such a thing as an emergency that needs to be tended to immediately.  I am not the kind of person who thinks that we should run into the doctor’s office for every little thing, but sometimes, episodes are not little and need attention. 

What brings me to this article was something that happened to an acquaintance of mine.  This person noticed a pain and overall discomfort in his foot and he even noticed some discoloration and swelling.  He, like many, many people just hoped and figured it would go away.  But it turned out he had an infection and it wasn’t treated in any way.  The end result was a cellulitis-as defined by the Mayo Clinic, Cellulitis is a common, potentially serious bacterial skin infection. Cellulitis appears as a swollen, red area of skin that feels hot and tender. It can spread rapidly to other parts of the body.  But in the end, this person spent a week in the hospital in order to get the proper treatment for what was now a serious condition.  You never know for sure, but it is possible this could have been solved before it got out of hand with some oral antibiotic and soaking.

Heart Attack

We should all be educated enough to recognize signs and symptoms of a serious medical emergency and we should know what to do.  The most common emergency in adults is a heart attack.  How do I know if I am having one and what is the procedure for immediate help?

These are the common signs of a possible heart attack:

• Pressure, tightness, pain, or a squeezing or aching sensation in your chest or arms that may spread to your neck, jaw or back.
• Nausea, indigestion, heartburn or abdominal pain.
• Shortness of breath.
• Cold sweat.
• Fatigue
• Lightheadedness or sudden dizziness.

This doesn’t mean that if you have one or more of these symptoms you are definitely having a heart attack, but caution must be taken.  If you think you might be having a heart attack, do the following: Act immediately. Some people wait too long because they don’t recognize the important signs and symptoms. Take these steps:

• Call for emergency medical help. If you suspect you’re having a heart attack, don’t hesitate. Immediately call your local emergency number. If you don’t have access to emergency medical services, have someone drive you to the nearest hospital.
• Drive yourself only if there are no other options. Because your condition can worsen, driving yourself puts you and others at risk.
• Take nitroglycerin, if prescribed to you by a doctor. Take it as instructed while awaiting emergency help.
• Take aspirin, if recommended. Taking aspirin during a heart attack could reduce heart damage by helping to keep your blood from clotting. Aspirin can interact with other medications, however, so don’t take an aspirin unless your doctor or emergency medical personnel recommend it. Don’t delay calling your emergency number to take an aspirin. Call for emergency help first.

If you witness someone having a heart attack, call for help immediately before anything else.  If the person is conscious, stay with them and keep them as calm and reassured as possible.  Tell them help is on the way.  If the person loses consciousness, call for help first before anything else.  If the person is NOT breathing, begin CPR—for laymen now, the protocols are simple.  Do chest compressions at the rate of about 100 per minute.  Only if you are trained in CPR should you be executing rescue breaths as well.  Help should arrive quickly.  If you are not trained in CPR, it is a good idea to take a course in proper rescue and first aid.

Stroke

Another common emergency is that of having a stroke.  Beware of the symptoms:

• Sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm or leg, especially on one side of the body
• Sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding
• Sudden trouble seeing or blurred vision in one or both eyes
• Sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination
• Sudden severe headache with no known cause

Every moment counts.  If you have any of these symptoms or are with someone who does, the sooner they get help, the less severe the aftermath of the stroke can be.  Summon help at once through your local emergency number.

Bleeding

In most cases, bleeding is not a serious emergency, however, bleeding from an artery or major vein can lead to hypovolemic shock and death.  If you see someone bleeding, put pressure, preferably with a clean dressing, immediately and hold it there.  Don’t take it off.  In the vast majority of cases, this will stop bleeding.  If it is from a deep cut, then stitches or glue may be called for.  If you are in a situation where you see someone bleeding out, do the following:

• Remove any obvious dirt or debris from the wound. Don’t remove large or deeply embedded objects. Don’t probe the wound or attempt to clean it yet. Your first job is to stop the bleeding. Wear disposable protective gloves if available.
• Stop the bleeding. Place a sterile bandage or clean cloth on the wound. Press the bandage firmly with your palm to control bleeding. Maintain pressure by binding the wound tightly with a bandage or a piece of clean cloth. Secure with adhesive tape. Use your hands if nothing else is available. Raise the injured part above the level of the heart.
• Don’t put direct pressure on an eye injury or embedded object.
• Don’t reposition or put pressure on displaced organs. Cover the wound with a clean dressing.
• Help the injured person lie down, preferably on a rug or blanket to prevent loss of body heat. If possible, elevate the legs.
• Don’t remove the gauze or bandage. If the bleeding seeps through the gauze or other cloth on the wound, add another bandage on top of it. And keep pressing firmly on the area.
• A tourniquet is effective in controlling life-threatening bleeding from a limb. Apply a tourniquet ONLY if you’re trained in how to do so. When emergency help arrives, explain how long the tourniquet has been in place.
• Immobilize the injured body part once the bleeding has stopped. Leave the bandages in place and get the injured person to the emergency room as soon as possible.

After you control the bleeding, call your local emergency number if the bleeding is the result of major trauma or injury. Also call for emergency help if you suspect internal bleeding.

(All first aid recommendations for all of the above emergencies are based on the protocols published by the Mayo Clinic)

Of course, it is best when we take care of ourselves in every way possible to reduce the chances of ever having an emergency medical incident.  Exercising and eating right, as well as basic safety measures like wearing a seat belt in your car and a helmet, when you bike can go a long way to helping disease and illness prevention and trauma from accidents.  But in the event a medical emergency is suspected, don’t say “It will go away!”  It might–but it might not.  This is not something we want to take a chance with

Knowing the signs and symptoms of a possible medical emergency will “add hours to your day, days to your year and years to your life.” 

Ready, Set…Change!

It’s hard to describe the feeling immediately after Yom Kippur!  Maybe the word is “cleansed”.  We have just poured our hearts out to G-d to forgive us both as individuals and collectively.  We have fasted for 25 hours and ended with one more blast from the Shofar.  There is a sense of joy that we don’t feel at any other time of the year.  Even though somewhat weakened by the fasting, we all feel accomplished and ready to really start the New Year.  Succot is right around the corner and what better way to celebrate our new found status than a Yom Tov full of joy.  We have prayed for good health and for the whole nation, but are we ready to make an effort to improve our health, fitness and general well-being?  As much as we need to pray to the One above for good health, and as much as our doctors can try to help us if we are sick, ultimately, there is a certain amount of effort that we ourselves must do to maintain good health and functionality.  Without that, we can’t maintain great health and well-being.  Remember the letters TLC.

My office staff and I get great satisfaction when we see our clients succeed in changing their health, and life around for the better.  Two of our recent clients chose to try our path in helping to lower their blood pressure and lowering their risk of potentially debilitating diseases.  Within three weeks of changing some unhealthy behaviors, they have already succeeded in lowering their blood pressure to below average!  Someone came into us with terrible, even unbearable lower back pain last week.  As of yesterday, his pain had diminished by about 80% and for the first time in a month, he is totally functional.  Several individuals who completed our 10 Weeks to Health program are seeing great results which are helping multiple health issues they have in addition to just helping them feel better.  What is the common denominator between all of these success stories?  They are all accomplishing their goals with hard work and without medications.  They are using TLC!

TLC—when I was growing up that meant tender loving care.  In today’s world the initials TLC also stand for Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes.  This TLC is the latest term to describe medically based, structured, supportive programs to help people lower their risk and to reverse life-threatening conditions such as hypertension, stroke, diabetes and heart disease. The purpose of this program is to help people improve eating habits, exercise, manage stress, quit smoking, and learn how to lead an active life style.  Unfortunately, due to being inundated with patients and lack of time, the medical profession often ignores TLC.  That is something that is very costly to both the patient and to the economy as a whole.  It is much cheaper to improve your health without drugs or surgery. 

Dr. Neil Gordon, M.D., PhD, who is a preventive cardiologist, headed a study published in 2004 in the Journal of Cardiology, reported the effectiveness of a 12-week community- based lifestyle management program.  This particular program was geared toward people with hypertension, abnormal cholesterol, and diabetes.  Dr. Gordon and his team found that many of the patients achieved their goals–without medication.  Specifically:

• 67% of people lowered their blood pressure to their stated goals
• 39% of people lowered their blood sugar to acceptable levels
• 21% of people lowered the LDL Cholesterol to their goal level

It is important when beginning a TLC program that you are first evaluated to access your current health status and to see what your risk of disease is.  Then you need to state your outcome goals for the program.  Do you want to lower cholesterol, blood pressure or blood sugar?  Do you need to quit smoking?  And now how are you going to reach those goals?  You may choose a combination of dietary change along with a well-rounded exercise program.  You may also need to add some behavioral coaching or therapy into the equation.  Each program needs to be set up individually, keeping in mind the patient’s abilities to exercise, their daily schedule, and their capacity to stick to a program.

It may be easier to prescribe drug therapy for a patient.  If the root cause can be treated and preventative measures can be taken, than TLC should be the first step.  Even if one needs to take medication, those medicines will likely work much better in conjunction with TLC.  TLC doesn’t just treat the symptoms; it treats the underlying problems and works to prevent you from getting unhealthy.  TLC is so effective that 54% of US Corporations have incorporated it into their work place.  The results are more productivity in the workplace as workers take less sick-days, and workers get more tasks accomplished each day.

Using prescription drugs is also expensive. Overall prescription spending rose to $773 per capita for the year 2010— 2011. Prescriptions made up 17.0% of total per capita spending in 2011 and 25.4% of out-of-pocket per capita spending. For 2011, average price for a brand prescription rose by 17.7%.  In 2014, Americans averaged $1,000 per year in both prescription and over the counter drugs.  TLC?  Maybe there is some initial investment, but in the long term, it will end up much, much cheaper.  Imagine if you could save $300, $500, or $800 per month!

There is no doubt that there are times when drug therapy is the only recourse.  But always ask you doctor if you can try TLC first.  Go and see a wellness coach or personal trainer and try it first.  Be in contact with the American Heart Association and Medline Plus for some help and guidance.  Even if it doesn’t work completely, it can lower your drug dosages substantially.  Take a moment and think of the savings in both not suffering the side effects of most of these drugs and the financial savings of reducing or eliminating the need for them.  Even if you are perfectly healthy, TLC is the best preventative medicine around.

At this time during the Jewish year, we are often reflecting on our lives and certainly on our lifestyle.  As we start a new year, we can take upon ourselves a few changes that will make the year more productive in every single way. And when better than a time of joy—after Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, and as Succot comes to a close– to take something new upon us! Write down a couple of TLC changes that you feel  you can start with.   Using Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes is great way to “add hours to your day, days to your year, and years to your life.”

I’ll Drink to That!

Sam, in his mid-40s, came into my office a few months ago with some pretty standard complaints that we see these days. He just has no get up and go—he has general fatigue.   He works a long day, 6 days a week.  But in spite of that, he tries to eat healthy food, eats 3 meals a day with a morning snack and generally doesn’t eat late at night.  Although his exercise is less than the recommended weekly requirements, he still does brisk walking 4 days a week for 35 minutes.  But he can begin dosing off later in the day and needs to go to sleep earlier at night than he used to.  We took a good look at what Sam was eating and drinking.  We found that his consumption of fluid, particularly water, was lacking.  He started his day with a cup of coffee and had a second cup late morning.  His first cup of water was only with lunch and a second cup during the afternoon.  Upon arriving home there was another cup of water and then one more coffee after supper.  This was the extent of his fluid intake on an average day.

We’ve spoken about the importance of drinking water before.  But two new studies have shed light on just how important the consumption of water is to our health.  Let’s first review what we have known until now.  Water is one of the 6 classes of nutrients that we must ingest on a daily basis.  60 to 70% of our body is composed of water.  Without it, the constant and necessary chemical reactions that occur all the time in the body can’t take place.  Constant consumption is essential, as we cannot conserve or store water in our body. Yet, most of us probably get about 1/3 of the valuable hydration benefits we need.

Water comprises over 70% of solid body tissue and helps regulate body temperature, carry nutrients and oxygen to cells, remove waste, cushion joints, and protect organs and tissues. Insufficient water consumption leads to headaches, grogginess and dry, itchy skin. Severe dehydration affects blood pressure, circulation, digestion, kidney function, and nearly all body processes. A healthy body maintains proper hydration by balancing fluid intake and output. You normally lose about 2 ½ quarts (10 cups) of fluid daily through perspiration, urination, respiration and bowel movements. This amount needs to be replenished daily.

Now, two new studies show just how imperative it is to our health to be hydrated properly. The first study shows a link between dehydration and cardiovascular health.  Mild dehydration can impair vascular function nearly as much as smoking a cigarette, according to new research in the European Journal of Nutrition. Though the study sample was small (just 10 subjects), results indicate that hydration levels—even mild dehydration in healthy, young males—play a role in the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Stavros Kavouras, PhD, FACSM, associate professor and coordinator of the exercise science program at the University of Arkansas, led the international team that published the study, which found a connection between minor dehydration and negative endothelial function (the inner lining of your arteries) with impaired cardiovascular health in humans. The endothelium is the inner lining of blood vessels. It plays a critical role in cardiovascular health. Atherosclerosis is the loss of flexibility in the blood vessels that leads to hardening of the arteries, a known contributor to cardiovascular disease.

“You could be mildly dehydrated without knowing it while you have endothelial impairment similar to smoking a cigarette,” Kavouras said. “The degree of dehydration when these changes occur is at less than 2% dehydration, which is around the threshold when people start feeling thirsty.”  In other words, not drinking enough can up your chances of heart attack and stroke.  In older research done many years ago, Dr. Michael Mogodam of the George Washington University School of Medicine and Associate Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University Medical School, found that people who drink more than 5 glasses of water each day decreased their chance of a fatal heart attack by 51% and men and women who had more than 5 glasses per day had a 44% lower risk of fatal strokes.  Among the reasons he found are that water dilutes blood enough so clotting is less likely and that a hydrated person passes a lot of urine, which also makes blood less prone to clotting.

A second study, also recently released shows that plain water boosts dietary benefit. Drinking just 1–3 more cups of plain tap water per day can help people control their weight by reducing their intake of sugar, sodium and saturated fat, reports a study in the February issue of Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics.

Whether the 18,311 U.S. adults studied in the NHANES cohort consumed plain tap water or drank from a cooler, drinking fountain or bottle, the majority of those who increased their water intake by just 1% also reduced their total daily calorie intake and consumed less saturated fat, sugar, sodium and cholesterol.

Those who increased their daily water consumption by 1, 2 or 3 cups decreased their total daily energy intake by 68–205 calories and lowered their sodium intake by 78–235 grams, according to study authors Ruopeng An, PhD, and Jennifer McCaffery. Subjects also consumed 5 to nearly 18 grams less sugar and decreased daily cholesterol consumption by 7–21 grams.

“The impact of plain water intake on diet was similar across race/ethnicity, education and income levels and body weight status,” said An, University of Illinois kinesiology and community health professor. “This finding indicates that it might be sufficient to design and deliver universal nutrition interventions and education campaigns that promote plain water consumption.”

Although we did have to make a few revisions to Sam’s diet and exercise routines, the biggest change we made was getting him to drink enough water.  We got him to start following standard protocols for consuming enough water.  We asked him to consume a minimum of 8-10 cups of fluid per day.  This was in addition to the water he got through eating solid foods.  For example, a baked potato with skin is about 70% water.  Eating fruits and soups is another way to ensure that you are staying hydrated.  Water is certainly the best way to achieve this goal.  Milk and juice are about 90% water, and also are good sources of fluid. However, be extra careful as juice is often sugared and even natural juices are high in calories. It is important to note that caffeinated beverages not only don’t meet your fluid requirements, but because they act as a diuretic and expel fluid from the body, they can be harmful in terms of staying properly hydrated. 

We also explained to Sam that when exercising, he should follow the guidelines issued by the American Council on Exercise. One should drink 2 cups of water within an hour before exercising, consume 4-8 ounces of fluid every 10-15 minutes during the workout, and consume 2 cups of fluid for every .5 kilogram lost during exercise at the conclusion of the workout.  One should never lose more than 2% of his body weight due to dehydration.  This is dangerous and can affect your performance.  Also, remember that in hot and sometimes very dry climates, one must be extremely careful to drink enough, especially in the summer months.

Most of all, do not rely on your thirst reflex to tell you when to drink. If you are thirsty, you’ve already waited too long before drinking. Urine that is a dark, gold color indicates that you are not drinking nearly enough.

Here’s a good tip for being sure to get enough water in your system daily:  Upon awakening, drink two cups of water.  Add another two cups before each meal and one cup with each of your daily snacks.  That alone will give you 10 cups per day.  And drinking prior to a meal will also help you eat a little less by filling you up.  Many times we mistake thirst for hunger and eat unnecessary calories.  By keeping you full and by helping to keep your metabolism running higher, water is a big help in weight loss as well.

Sam came for a follow up visit one month later and felt like a new person—just from drinking more water.  Staying hydrated will “add hours to your day, days to your year and years to your life.”

Hot or Cold

It was week 4 of Donny’s weight loss program.  He started out great! He had made enough changes in his eating to already make a big difference. His biggest challenge in terms of over eating was Shabbos, and he had finally conquered that challenge.  For the first time in his adult life, he was exercising and not only was his weight dropping, but he felt good and had more energy, too.   Yet when he walked into my office last time, I noticed right away that he had a noticeable limp and was in pain.  He sat down and told me that he hopes the scale still went down this week because he hadn’t exercised for the last 3 days.  I asked him what happened and he told me that at the end of his walk that Monday morning, he wasn’t paying attention and didn’t see a pot hole on the sidewalk.  He hit the side of the hole and his ankle bent to the side.  It was still somewhat swollen although he did tell me that the pain was much less four days later.  I asked Donny what he had done to treat his injury and he just shrugged his shoulders and told me he is just living with it, limping along and not doing his exercise assignment.  He also mentioned he had put a heating pad on it the second day for about 10 minutes.

Here are Donny’s mistakes.  He started off great and now he is letting an injury interfere with his successes more than is necessary. His first mistake was not getting in contact with me immediately after he twisted and sprained his ankle. Was applying heat to the injury the right way to go?

Injuries are almost inevitable if you have been an exerciser for a long time.  Mostly, they are minor soft tissue injuries or overuse injuries in your joints.  Although annoying and something that can put you out of action for a short time, most of the time they can be treated easily without pronounced medical intervention.  Obviously if you have reason to believe your injury is serious, you should seek medical care.

When one gets an injury, the first thing to do is to implement the RICE protocol.  RICE stands for Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation. RICE can relieve pain, limit swelling and protect injured tissue – all of which help speed the healing process. Healing occurs as damaged tissue is replaced by collagen, known as scar tissue. When scar tissue completes its repair to the injured area, one can go back to a full workout. Let’s take a closer look at how to implement the RICE procedure.

Rest:  Rest is an integral part of the injury rehabilitation process for two reasons. First, rest protects the injured muscle, tendon, ligament or other soft tissue from further injury. Second, a rested limb has the energy necessary to heal itself most effectively.

Ice:  Use ice packs, bags of ice, or bags of frozen vegetables wrapped in a thin towel. Make sure the towel isn’t too thick so the treatment will be the more effective. Cold brings short-term pain relief and reduces swelling by constricting the blood vessels and in turn, blood-flow into the area. NEVER LEAVE ICE ON AN INJURY FOR MORE THAN 20 MINUTES. Long-term exposure to cold can cause damage to your skin. The best rule is to ice 15 minutes, remove for 15-20 minutes, and then repeat the treatment. Following treatment, vasodilatation occurs – meaning, the blood vessels expand and bring much-needed nutrients to the area.

Compression:  Compression is another way to curb swelling. This is important, as swelling impedes the healing process. Compression also reduces pain in some cases. The best way to compress an injury is to wrap it with an ace bandage. I advise wrapping an ice pack under the bandage when the injury first occurs. If you feel throbbing, re-wrap the area with slightly less tension on the ace bandage.

Elevation: Elevating the injury is an additional way to bring down swelling. Keep the elevation at the same level as your heart.

After 48 hours, you should feel relief from your injury, and both the swelling and pain should be reduced.  In other words, the healing process has begun.  If not, see your physician or even go to the emergency room if you deem it necessary.  Once the swelling has subsided, try to gently stretch the area and slowly work the range of motion in the joint.

The Heat or Ice Debate

Both using heat and ice to treat an injury or muscle soreness can have positive effects, and is always better than no treatment at all.  What does each treatment do and which of them should we use when?  20 minutes of cold therapy immediately after an injury is what is recommended.  It signals the skin receptors to activate the sympathetic nervous system to constrict blood vessels.  That in turn will reduce swelling and inflammation.  You can use ice packs or immersion in cold water.  The cooling effect also helps to minimize muscle spasms and pain.

If one places a hot pack on the injury, it increases the temperature of the soft tissue around the injury and therefore boosts blood flow, dilates the local blood vessels, and keeps those muscles more elastic, which will also reduce muscle spasm.  By increasing blood flow in this manner, you help clear metabolic waste products like carbon dioxide from the area, helping to speed up healing.

But there is a third alternative and that is alternating heat and ice.  Research says this method reduces injury in the first acute stages.  It causes your blood vessels to expand (dilate) and then with the ice constrict them.  This stimulates blood flow throughout the area.  It seems to activate multiple recuperative and physiological mechanisms that enhance recovery (Cochrane 2004).  When doing the alternating between the two, use heat first and ice second.  You should use the heat for 4 minutes and one minute of ice and do that for 20-25 minutes.

Doing Nothing is Not an Option

Unfortunately, many times when someone sustains an injury, they opt out of exercise altogether. Sometimes, my clients call me and tell me their doctor said “no exercise for a week or so”.  But ask yourself — if you twist an ankle or injure a hand or wrist, why punish your heart and lungs by not doing an aerobic exercise?  Be creative and try a bike or elliptical or swimming until the injury fully heals.  Many years ago, I severely sprained my foot and ankle and could barely walk let alone do the running I was used to at that time.  But I still lifted weights, worked my abs and used and exercise bike instead.  There is almost always a work around when it comes to doing exercise. 

Injuries come with the territory, but Donny managed to find alternatives until his ankle injury healed.  His weight loss is continuing even though it is at a slightly slower pace. He now knows that being proactive and using ice and heat can help repair an injury faster.  In addition, next week he will be able to start some basic strengthening for that area and we hope it is only another few days until he is back on his feet.  Treating an injury properly and finding ways to exercise creatively will “add hours to your day, days to your year, and years to your life.”

 

Let’s Get Practical

People like myself, in the field of bettering health, are constantly reading up on the latest findings in areas of diet, exercise and mental wellness and trying to implement them.  Once in a while, we have clients who are already on a good path to health and wellness but they want to refine what they are doing to get it better.  For them we can fine tune what they are doing and move to a higher level of healthy habits.  However, most of the people need a lot of educating and need good techniques for implementation.  If there is one thing I have learned in all my years, it’s that it doesn’t take massive changes to start seeing good results.  Even when people have a lot of weight to lose or have multiple risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar, and terrible inactivity, small changes one by one improve a person’s health and quality of life enormously.  That was the case with my client Levy.

Levy fell into this precise category and was ready to give up on himself.  He was on multiple medications and just never felt well.  He felt sluggish all the time and lacked energy even for regular daily tasks.  When I met him and we discussed his long term goals, he was clearly overwhelmed.  I asked him to have patience and that every small bit of progress was a cause for celebration.  Every kilo of weight lost will be a kilo of health gained. Even if it takes years to reach his weight loss goal, all of his other problems would begin to improve and his quality of life would be enhanced long before he gets there.  Just like everyone, we began working on the essentials, one by one.  Even if you aren’t in as bad shape as Levy was, here are the areas in which to seek improvement in order to better your health and quality of life—but don’t bite off more than you can chew—take it one or two changes at a time.  When those feel like something you can keep doing, take on the next one.

1. Get more sleep. Surprise! This is my top choice. Without the proper amount of sleep, most everything else won’t be able to happen like it is supposed to. In today’s world of one big global economy, more and more people are working jobs that require second and third shifts; they are working out of their time zone.  Many are communicating electronically with relatives and friends till the wee hours of the night.  Worries and daily problems keep us from sleeping enough hours or from sleeping soundly. Lack of sleep will disrupt your metabolism and cause you to secrete more of the hormone cortisol.  This increases your appetite and causes you to crave fatty foods, prolongs reaction time and slows cognitive function.  It also may make you irritable.

2. Be active. Before we get to formal exercise, there is so much you can do to enhance your basic levels of fitness and health within the routine of your average day. Just a few changes in activity can also help you lose up to 5-6 kilo a year.  Park the car a few blocks away from your destination.  Get off the bus or train a stop or two early. Use stairs instead of elevators. Try to walk instead of driving wherever possible. A recent study in Japan showed a marked decrease in blood pressures of those who walked back and forth to work (as little as 10 minutes each way) as opposed to those who drove.  It will help you control weight, improve your mood and contributes to your cardio-respiratory health.

3. Eat small meals more often. By scheduling 3 meals with 2 or 3 snacks, and keeping your portions under control, you are less likely to overeat.  Just as important, this will regulate the way insulin is released in your body and keep you from becoming a type 2 diabetic.  And every time you eat, your metabolism elevates, and all of us want our metabolism to be faster and not slower. Make sure you include enough healthy fats also!

4. Water. Water is one of the 6 classes of nutrients that we must ingest on a daily basis.  60 to 70 percent of our body is composed of water.  Without it, chemical reactions that occur all the time in the body cannot take place.  Drinking is essential, as we cannot conserve or store water in our body. Yet, most of us are probably only getting about a third of the valuable hydration benefits we need. And just like with eating regularly, it keeps your metabolism on the high side.

5. Exercise! Lack of cardio-respiratory fitness (your ability to walk fast, climb the hills and get up those stairs) is the leading risk factor of all-cause mortality.  So make sure to do aerobic exercise regularly and include muscle building as well.  It is essential for day to day functioning such as holding your children, your grandchildren and picking up your own suitcase without asking for help.  Try to schedule that 35 minutes of walking 5 days a week and 2 days a week of muscle building exercise.  You don’t have to go to the gym everyday for an hour-long heavy work out to get benefit.  See a trainer to help you get a good routine started.

6. Limit the processed foods and junk. If it is processed (most of what you buy ready-to-eat off the supermarket shelves), try to stay away.  In 2010, a Harvard study showed a pronounced difference in eating unprocessed versus processed meats. Eating processed meats, such as deli, was associated with a 42% higher risk of heart disease and a 19% higher risk of type 2 diabetes.  We now know for certain that processed meat cause cancer!  Most of those pop-in-the-toaster items are also highly processed, full of sodium and devoid of nutritional value—no matter what the front of the package says.  Eating whole foods gives you your daily nutrition and fills you up to keep you from being hungry. Keep your sugar to minimal amounts. Sugar includes the white processed stuff, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, glucose and stay away from artificial sweeteners too.  All processed and canned foods are very high in salt/sodium.

7. Reduce and manage your stress. It is difficult for me to convey just how damaging stress is to your health.  Chronic stressors are thought to be the real villains associated with many health and disease problems.  Chronic anxiety and depression, an overabundance of life changing-events, and a repressed feeling of loss, bereavement, emotional distress, and hostility have been linked to increased risk of heart disease, cancer, infection, suppressed immunity, asthma attacks, back pain, chronic fatigue, gastrointestinal disease, headaches, and insomnia.  A well-rounded exercise program, cognitive behavioral therapy or coaching, and some good problem solving techniques can go a long way in solving stress issues.

8. Stop eating by 8:00-8:30 in the evening. When you eat earlier, you use the calories through daily activity, when you eat late, you just go to sleep soon after and the calories don’t get used up.  You will also sleep better when you eat earlier.  In a study with two control groups, one group ate their daily allotted calories in the early afternoon and the other in the evening.  Group one lost weight and group two gained weight even though they ate identical calories each day.  Best not to eat at all from 2.5 hours before bedtime. So, set yourself a curfew.

These 8 areas are exactly what Levy, myself, and my dieticians worked on together.  After three months of work, his doctor was even able to reduce one medication for high blood pressure, lower his dosage of cholesterol medicine and he avoided having to taking insulin for his diabetes.  He is losing weight and on track, so we expect even better results and even less medication over the next 3 months. Pick one or two of the 8 and get started. Try to add one every week.  You don’t have to wait, today is a perfect day to start to better your quality of life.  Working on these 8 areas will bring you to good health and “add hours to your day, days to your year, and years to your life.”

Another Nachas Tour

Every year in the United States, there is something called The Conference Board Job Satisfaction survey.  Using a series of questions about the workplace, they determine something called job satisfaction.  In plain English, do you like your job?  Roughly half of Americans like going to work each day, but the other side of this is that 50% of people don’t really look forward to getting up in the morning and going to work.  It would be ideal if we could somehow spend our days doing volunteer work, fun hobbies and spend time socializing with family and friends.  However, this isn’t the way our world works and we have to be able to pay for our basic needs in order to sustain ourselves.  But that being said, if we have to go to work, why not be happy and productive in what we are doing?  I do what I do to make a living, but the satisfaction comes from clients who work hard, succeed and reach their goals. Permit me to share some Nachas with you.

AJ just finished our 10 week program.  He lives in London and did the entire program via Skype sessions.  AJ is a lawyer and works in a high pressure law firm.  He works a 6 day work week and many Fridays he can work until an hour or two before Shabbos begins.  The stress of his work created a situation where he neglected his health. A former exerciser, he was barely doing any exercise and with his eating had lost all control.  At a 170 cm, and a weight of 93 kilo, he had become obese with a BMI of slightly over 32.  He had gout as well. But AJ was serious about regaining control over his life right from our first session together.  By the time we got to our 10^th week together, he had lost more than 14 kilos, was exercising 5 times a week, trying to be more active with his walking from place to place, and his stress was now far more controlled and managed.  Not only does he look much, much better, you can see how the stress has melted away.

ZA has been battling high blood pressure for years.  His doctor has had him on medications for a long time but somehow, he hasn’t been able to get his blood pressure down into a normal range. But his doctor also is an open-minded person and told him he might do well in our program.   ZA was not very overweight at all.  He really needed to shed about 2 kilo to be at a decent weight.  He exercised everyday already.  So we started looking carefully at what might have been contributing factors.  Our dietician reshaped his eating in terms of what he ate and when he ate.  We worked on taking his exercise time and making it more balanced and productive.  ZA is a very focused person and he was all in as our partner in this project.  When I checked his blood pressure on week 7, and I took it three times to make sure, for the first time in years, he was in a normal range that would not need medication.  ZA was very overcome with emotion having finally conquered this long-time issue and actually shed some tears.  But it was his ability to focus and believe that this could be done via natural means that led to his success.

RS really is the ultimate success story.  A mother of 6 children, who held down a job to help support her family, RS’s weight had gone out of control and it was really inhibiting her daily function and energy.  She had done diets before but now she just couldn’t get the weight to come off.  After speaking to some others who had done our program, she decided she would also try it too, but was skeptical as our “not dieting” weight loss program seemed different if not strange to her.  After all, how can a program where you aren’t hungry help you lose weight?  RS gave it her all.  After 10 weeks, with a three week break in the middle to travel to America for a family wedding, she lost about 9 kilos.  RS couldn’t afford to stay with us for continuing work, which she really still needed.  But in a recent conversation, she told me that she has lost even more weight and over Pesach, she only gained 1 kilo which is long gone.  When I see people long after they finish with us who are able to maintain their weight loss or lose more, it means that all the work on behavioral change has paid off.  She keeps telling people, “It’s NOT just a diet.”

MS is a man with overwhelming responsibilities.   Over the past few years he was in charge of all the education institutions within his Chasidic sect as well as looking after all administrative responsibilities connected with the Chassidim and their Rebbe.  Under the type of stress he endured for so long, you can expect health issues and weight gain, and he had all of that.  When he came to us the first time, his triglycerides and cholesterol were high as well as his blood pressure and his weight was on the border between Class 1 and Class 2 obesity.  He had just been put on medication to lower his blood pressure.  He was determined to get off that medication as soon as possible.  MS wasted no time and started following his new food plan and started daily walks as well.  As the weeks went by we gave him some muscle building exercises to do and he learned about eating on Shabbos.  He just finished his first 10 weeks with us.  He is about to go off his medication, his triglyceride and cholesterol levels are now perfectly normal and he is down 8.5 kilo.  He feels much better and looks great!  When people ask him if he had weight loss surgery he responds, “Yes, it’s a new kind where they don’t use a knife.”

Eliyahu and his mother came to look into our program 4 months ago.  I generally don’t take anyone under 15 in my programs, but his mother convinced me that he was a very “grown up” 11.  She was right.  To date, he has dropped 7 kilo since he started and that is while growing a few centimeters in height.  At a recent Shabbos gathering, a lot of people who haven’t seen him in the last few months couldn’t believe what they saw.  And he isn’t hungry or feeling deprived.

I end with a story that brings everyone involved great satisfaction.  I was contacted by Dan’s sister in January of this year.  She came and met me to talk to me about her brother.  He was coming to Israel for a family simcha and she talked him in to staying an extra 10 weeks in order to come to join our weight loss program as well as personal training.  Dan has been very obese almost his entire adult life and was never really motivated to take care of the problem.  It has effected every aspect of his physical health, including blood pressure, cholesterol, blood pressure, skin issues, and his ability to function on a daily basis.  Simply walking from place to place has its challenges.  It also causes social awkwardness.

Not only is Dan losing a lot of weight, the exercise has helped him stand straighter, walk quicker, and look a lot better.  Dan and I have a lot of work left to do, probably more than a year’s worth.  But we are going to continue our work together even when he returns home.  He will still have regular visits with our dietician and I have already contacted a trainer in his locality.  We will continue weekly coaching sessions via Skype.  When someone is 57 years old and decides to take charge of his life for the first time and succeeds, is there greater Nachas than that?  

I love what I do to make a living and I hope you enjoy your work and professions, too. Thank you for letting me share these Nachas stories with you!  Getting Nachas from your daily work can also “add hours to your day, days to your year and years to your life.”

The Hidden Tricks to Lose Weight

I hope the title of his article doesn’t have you thinking that I have found some great shortcut to weight loss.  There isn’t one.  We still don’t have a proven and safe medication, nor do we even have a surgical procedure that we are absolutely sure is safe or even effective in the long-term.  As much as my clients would love it if I pulled some magic wand out of my desk drawer and waved it over their head a few times and over the next few days they lost 15 kilograms, it just won’t happen.  As a matter of fact, weight loss is exactly the opposite.  It takes hard work, along with awareness and mindfulness, good planning and investing time into proper eating and exercise.  But, what if there was a way to change your focus to make it easier for you to lose weight? 

Brian Wansink Ph.D has been researching food-related behaviors for 25 years.  His research is fascinating to say the least.  He has concluded that it is easier to change the eating environment than to change your mind.  He points out that most of us eat mindlessly and that many of the solutions for that problem go undiscovered because as he says, “we just don’t look for them.”  Wansink says we get too focused on eating less of certain foods and more of others or on trying some new-fangled diet we hear about from a friend or read in the newspaper, than on taking a close look at environment around us.

Let’s remember that behavioral change, which is what eating and exercising differently is really all about, has two main components.  What is my motivation (is it worth it?) levels to change and how is my ability (can I do it?) to change?  If you want to throw willpower into the equation you can, but that rarely brings on permanent and sustainable change.  It can be a valuable tool for a while, but ultimately, your willpower will just plain run out.  However, not everyone is ready to work on changing their habits full throttle.  And one good way to get started is to look at areas other than my food consumption and exercise.  So what factors should I look at in order to find success?  Dr. Wansink says the solution is to tweak our homes, workplaces, schools, restaurant dining and grocery shopping so that we mindlessly eat less instead of more.

What are some of these tricks?  Here’s the first one—always use plates that are NOT the same color as your food.  In an experiment at Cornell University, people that put white pasta on a white plate or pasta in red marinara sauce on a red plate ate 18% more than those who did the opposite and put contrasting plates and foods together.  So in your home, don’t use plates that are the same color as the food you put on them.

In another piece of research known as the Syracuse study, Researchers visited 230 homes in Syracuse, NY and took pictures of all the food that was left on their kitchen counters and they weighed the occupants of these homes.  The first thing is that the size of the kitchen itself made very little difference, but what food was left out on the counters made a big difference.  The average woman who left potato chips on her counter as opposed to having them put away in a food pantry weighed 8 pound more.  But the most dangerous food to keep out are breakfast cereals.  Women who kept the cereal out on the counter, even one box, had an average weight of 21 pounds more than those that didn’t.

One of the reasons this is a big culprit is because the boxes say things like “Contains only whole grains” or 11 Essential Vitamins and Minerals.  We figure it must be health so we don’t think twice about taking a little extra and then even a little more extra.  As Wansink says “In sight, in stomach.”

How do you serve your food?  If you serve family-style, that is, that you put your food in serving bowls and bring those bowls to the table, you are eating 19% more than if you bring a plate with the proper portions on it from the kitchen to the dining room.  One is much more likely to take seconds or thirds if the food is on the table than to get up and walk a few meters over to the kitchen to take seconds.  If you do need to serve family style, bowls with lids are helpful.

Wansink’s research has come up with 150 proven ways to help you lose weight.  100 of them are home-related.  Although we can’t enumerate all of these in this article, here are 10 tips that will help you keep your weight down that are related to your home environment:

1. Serve salad and vegetables first before the entrée and starches are brought to the table.
2. The main dish is pre-plated and served from the stove or counter.
3. Your dinner plates are 9-10 inches wide (not larger).
4. You eat sitting at a table without distractions (like your tablet or laptop computer)
5. There are two or fewer cans of soft drinks in your refrigerator at any one time.
6. Your kitchen counters are organized and not messy.
7. Pre-cut fruits and veggies are now on your middle refrigerator shelf
8. At least 6 single servings of protein are in your fridge—eggs, yogurt, string cheese or tofu are some common choices
9. Your snacks are kept in one INCONVENIENT place.
10. The only food on your kitchen counter is a fruit bowl

In today’s busy world where all of us are over-scheduled, not everyone will be able to engage in weight loss through the standard, and even successful ways.  But if we can take some time once, and reorganize our kitchen and institute a few rules about how we serve our food, we can all begin the weight loss process without totally overhauling our lives.  Making any or all of these small changes just may help you to lose weight and “add hours to your day, days to your year and years to your life.”

Here We Go Again!

Spring is in full force.  All of the things that you have been putting off until now are staring you square in the face.  And for many of you, taking positive steps towards better health is probably on the list as it should be!  Weight loss may be at the forefront of your goals to achieve better health, among other areas we wish to focus on as we take steps to improve our health and well-being.

What have we hopefully left behind from the winter?  Overeating and inactivity.  Although the incentive might be there to start taking better care of our health and to lose weight (your clothes may be tight), it is very difficult to get back to good healthy habits once we have gone off of our eating and exercise programs. But now is the time to get back to healthy habits.  If you have been neglectful of your health for a long time, now is the time to make a plan you can implement and maintain.  The weather is warming up, getting outdoors will be easier and the extra bit of appetite from the cold winter won’t be a factor. So, let’s take a look at how we can accomplish this.

The first things first: Don’t go on a fad diet.  The statistics speak for themselves.  DIETS ARE FAILURES! About 95% of people that diet gain it all back or more within a few years.  (For more on the topic of why diets don’t work: Getting Back on Track—It’s After the Chagim, Don’t Make Weight Loss Mistakes.)So if not a diet, what should I do?  Get a food plan made for you by a registered dietician and make sure it is truly YOUR food plan.  That means it is doable, you won’t feel deprived and you won’t get hungry—but you will lose weight slowly and steadily.

Second, the temptation to go all-in and change your life around may be great, but research has shown beyond a doubt that small changes one at a time is the way to go.  A good idea might be to make one change to correct a bad eating habit (eating too late, snacking all day, not sitting down when you eat, or drinking 10 glasses of water throughout the day) and work on that.  At the same time take on something in the realm of activity and exercise that you aren’t currently doing (start using the stairs instead of the elevator, walking 30 minutes briskly every day, doing 15 push-ups twice a day before I eat breakfast and supper).  But only take one in each area.  Only when that becomes a firm and anchored behavior, should you move on to the next change.  As we mentioned, the weather is now ideal for outdoor workouts and activity!

Good for Walking

Scientists have already concluded in countless studies, that, exercise is essential for good health and disease prevention. The simple act of walking, if done properly and regularly, can be beneficial in many ways.  Brisk walking can help to prevent heart disease, stroke, diabetes, osteoporosis, arthritis, cancer and depression. It is important for both weight control and weight loss.

How often should you walk and at what pace?  The answer to this question depends upon your personal goal.  For instance, if weight loss is your goal, then you should count on walking every day.  If cardio-vascular fitness is what you are looking for, then every other day (4 times a week) may be enough for you.  Obviously, the longer and faster you can go, the more beneficial it will be, but, be careful that you don’t overdo it!  People that have been sedentary must start slowly and build up gradually.  It is essential that before you begin a walking program, you visit your doctor first for a complete medical evaluation.

Start at a comfortable pace; walk as though you are slightly late for an appointment.  Use the “talk test.”  If you can’t say your name three times in a row, you are pushing too hard.  You should aim for a minimum of 3.5 miles per hour.  For those of you who may want to work up to a power walk, you will want to eventually reach 4.5 mph or more.  The recommended minimum time for walking is 30-40 minutes, however if you are a beginner, start off slowly and build up to that amount.

Maintain good posture while you are walking and look straight ahead.  Swinging your arms will increase your caloric burn greatly, but make sure your arms are going in a forward direction and not crossing in front of you.  A good sturdy pair of proper walking shoes is essential and they need to be replaced about every 600-750 kilometers of walking.  If you don’t have proper shoes or your shoes are worn out, you probably will suffer some type of injury in the lower extremities.

Vitamin D Benefits

One of the great benefits of outdoor exercising in the summer is that sunshine is the primary source of Vitamin D.  Even in the more northern latitudes, where in the winter vitamin D is impossible to get from the sun, in the summer, it is abundant.  In recent years, numerous studies have shown that having adequate amounts of Vitamin D in our bodies prevents many cancers, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, hypertension, asthma in children and diabetes. Later research seems to connect low levels of Vitamin D with a higher risk of developing multiple sclerosis.

Just this past month another new and extensive study proved the Vitamin D helps your overall heart function and efficiency.  In addition to heart disease, many cancers and immune system diseases like MS; it seems to help prevent rheumatoid arthritis, infectious diseases such as the flu and perhaps mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and depression. So it seems that a little sunshine can go a long, long way.  20 minutes per day without sunscreen 4 days a week from 9:30 in the morning until 4:30 in the afternoon should do the trick.

Here is perhaps the best reason of all to exercise outdoors:  A February 2011 study found that outdoor workouts showed an improvement in mental well-being, compared with exercising indoors. Exercising in natural environments was associated with greater feelings of revitalization, increased energy and positive engagement, together with decreases in tension, confusion, anger and depression. Participants also reported greater enjoyment and satisfaction with outdoor activity and stated that they were more likely to repeat the activity at a later date.

Caution in the Sun

Because the weather is now warmer, take caution to start early in the day or do your walking or jogging toward the evening hours.  Drink plenty of water before, after and during your walk. Once you’ve had your daily dose of sun, wear clothing that is lose-fitting, but covers much of your body on sunny days and wear a hat or cap to protect yourself from the sun and also to retain water.  Most water escapes through the head.

Although there are many other aspects to exercise that should be included in your overall program, working out in the outdoors is a great way to get started and this is the ideal time of the year for it.

If you want to make this season different from the previous ones, work on changing one habit or behavior at a time, stay away from those fad diets that ALWAYS fail and use the outdoors for your exercise.  Putting that all together will “add hours to your day, days to your year, and years to your life.”

From a Position of Strength

It’s almost natural.  Most people seem to focus in on people’s weaknesses and negative behaviors.  Even traditional (and perhaps outdated) psychology is centered on what’s wrong and then how to correct it.  What if we took a different approach and tried to find a person’s strengths, no matter how many negatives there might be?  Perhaps this is what our Rabbis had in mind in Ethics of the Fathers (1:6) when they instructed us to always judge our fellow man favorably.  It seems that we need to be told this because we have a tendency to see things negatively.  If we find someone’s strengths despite what might be many negative attributes, we can focus on that and encourage a person to use those strong areas in order to better themselves and their well-being.

Helen was an overweight client in her late 40’s who tried to lose weight many times.  As she put it, “every time I lose 6 kilo out of the 15 I need to lose to be healthy and feel well, I get stuck and I give up.”  When questioned about why she thought that was, she answered with phrases such as “I just can’t succeed in anything”, “I’m a loser”, and “I define the word failure”.   After that answer, we explored other areas of success in her life.  It turns out that there were more than just a few and the more we spoke, the more it became clear that she had more successes than failures in her life. Now the challenge was to take her strengths and use them to succeed in her weight loss.

According to Life Coach and Therapist Billie Francis, there are 5 probing questions to ask yourself in order to find your strengths:

• What worked in the past that can help you now?
• What did you learn about in that previous circumstance that could save you time now?
• How did you successfully handle a similar situation?
• What do you know about yourself that could help you stay on track?
• How could remembering past successes help you in your current situation?

You might not find a good answer to every question but one should find enough answers to help them reach their goals.  In Helen’s case, we found what helped her lose the 6 kilos each time, and modified it to help her break through.  She also shared with me some successes she had in repairing a relationship in the family and we applied those techniques to her relationship with both food and exercise.  We also found that she felt very good about her previous successes in weight loss and we discussed how good it would feel to be successful on an even grander scale—she found this very motivating.  Perhaps the toughest thing to deal with was getting her to figure out how she could stay on track even when she had a setback.  She had realized than in her daily job as a logistics coordinator, when things go wrong, she is the one who find solutions and fixes ongoing problems. She then realized that she can approach her weight loss issues in the same way.

Staying positive and focusing on strengths is integral not only to success but it also contributes to health and well-being.  The father of Positive Psychology is Dr. Martin Seligman.  In his latest book he brings several pieces of research that absolutely confirm this.

Among the studies he mentions is one from the mid-1980s, where 120 men from San Francisco who had their first heart attacks were studied as to the relationship between type A (aggressive, time urgent, and hostile) and B (easygoing) personalities. This study disappointed many psychologists and cardiologists by ultimately finding no effect on CVD (Cardiovascular disease) by training to change these men’s personalities.  However, Gregory Buchanan, then a graduate student at Penn, studied their first heart attacks: extent of damage to the heart, blood pressure, cholesterol, body mass, and lifestyle—all the traditional risk factors for cardiovascular disease. In addition, the men were all interviewed about their lives: family, job, and hobbies. Every single statement they made in regard to optimism and pessimism was taken.  Within eight and a half years, half the men had died of a second heart attack.  None of the usual risk factors predicted death: not blood pressure, not cholesterol, not even how extensive the damage from the first heart attack was. Only optimism, eight and a half years earlier, predicted a second heart attack: of the sixteen most pessimistic men, fifteen died. Of the sixteen most optimistic men, only five died.   This finding has been repeatedly confirmed in larger studies of cardiovascular disease, using varied measures of optimism.

Veterans Affairs Normative Aging Study done in 1986, tracked 1,306 veterans for ten years. During that time, 162 cases of cardiovascular disease occurred. Smoking, alcohol use, blood pressure, cholesterol, body mass, family history of CVD, and education were measured, as was anxiety, depression, and hostility.  Men with the most optimistic style had 25 percent less CVD than average, and men with the least optimism had 25 percent more CVD than average. This trend was strong and continuous, indicating that greater optimism protected the men, whereas less optimism weakened them.

In the European Prospective Investigation, more than 20,000 healthy British adults were followed from 1996-2002 during which 994 of them died, 365 of them from Cardiovascular Disease (CVD). Death from cardiovascular disease was strongly influenced by a sense of control, halting smoking, social class, and the other psychological variables that were constants. People high in control had 20 percent fewer CVD deaths than those with an average sense of mastery, and people high in a sense of helplessness had 20 percent more CVD deaths than average. This was also true of deaths due to all causes.

Can we really change our attitude from negative to positive and even achieve a greater degree of happiness?  According to happiness researcher Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky of the University of California, 40% of our happiness is within our power to change through our actions and thoughts.  Another 50% can be attributed to genes.  Surprisingly (although perhaps not surprisingly in the Torah world), only 10% of our happiness is associated with life circumstances, such as money, health, marriage, appearance, etc.  So keep in mind, as Dr. Avraham Twersky has told us many times, when it comes to happiness, there is nothing to pursue.  The pursuit of happiness is a false trail.  We already have the happiness within us, we just have to dig deep and find it.

Helen not only plowed through a previous weight loss plateau, she became a more positive person who gained self-confidence and self-esteem.  She realized that her inner strengths could carry her through life and even her friends and acquaintances noticed that much of her negativity had disappeared.  The result was that others now viewed her more positively.  And as is true for everyone—her positivity has also brought her better health and well-being.

As we have seen, the benefits of positivity and happiness are great.  Look for the good in other people and look for the positive attributes in yourself.  It will help you succeed in reaching your goals in life and will keep your health in check.  It will “add hours to your day, days to your year and years to your life.”