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Five Duties in Endemic Times
Sponsored information by Easton Bryant
Owner of North Century Pharmacy
March 16, 2020 was the day the pandemic forced us to shut down our lobby and service our patients strictly via our drive-thru windows or our delivery service. Lots of loved ones have gone on since then, but you and I were fortunate enough to make it through these past two years. Now what? What have we learned?
We saw that living a proactively healthy lifestyle provides us resiliency, but will we continue to fuel ourselves with super-processed sugary and floury excuses for food, lead sedentary lifestyles, and voluntarily subject ourselves to carcinogens?
We have duties in these endemic times. Here are my perspectives on five of them.
- Audit Calories
- The average American consumes 3-5 pounds of additives (like preservatives & dyes) yearly. The big kicker? We consume 152 POUNDS of sugar annually! (This number would've been 1 pound 100-200 years ago.) We're fueled by flour and sugar.
- When our breakfast is a honeybun and a soft drink, our insulin spikes and we use all those sugars as energy. Then we store the excess calories as fat. As we routinely eat this way, we never use up our stored energy (body fat).
- Calories are a measure of energy. Our attraction to sugar and ability to store fat were survival mechanisms for our hunter & gatherer ancestors. They're now wrecking our health. We must be aware of this.
- Don't count calories, rather evaluate the quality of your calories. What is the nutrient density of your typical caloric intake? How many nutrients per calorie?
- Don't drink your calories. Think about the healthiest and leanest people you know. They don't waste their calories on liquids.
- Maybe water doesn't taste as good to you as your go-to soft drink, but you simply can't say water tastes bad. Shoot for 64 ounces daily and drop the toxic soft drink habit.
- Move
- Our species was made to move, but as our world has industrialized in very recent history we have become sedentary creatures plagued by debilitating chronic diseases.
- It's being said that office jobs are the new smoking. Many of us sleep eight hours, sit at a computer eight hours, then go home to only sit in front of our televisions. We weren't designed for this.
- Excuses for not being active come too easy, but consider this: There is always someone doing more than you with less time.
- Do what fits your life. A gym membership isn't required to move. While a gym community or workout partner can yield phenomenal changes, you are capable of building this habit alone.
- This isn't about six-pack abs or bodybuilding goals - it's about building a strong foundation to avoid the nursing home. The trek from walking to cane to walker to wheelchair to being bedridden can be a short one if you don't invest in your physical health.
- You can do more in 30 minutes than lots of people who spend 90 minutes in a gym setting. Find a duration that works for you, set a timer and get moving.
- Morning exercise habit > Evening exercise habit
- Movement is medicine. Make daily movement a non-negotiable.
- Get Sun
- It's become trendy over the past several years to use SPF daily and seek shade when you're outdoors. Overexposure is obviously dangerous, but we should be careful not to shun the sun completely.
- Pale seems to be the new tan. While we should steer clear of baking in tanning beds, we need sunlight in our lives.
- Vitamin D is likely the first reason that comes to mind for everyone - and for good reason.
- It's not found in many foods naturally and helps combat certain cancers, high blood pressure, diabetes, depression, bone loss and fatigue.
- For these reasons, it's wise to supplement with D3 in the fall and winter months.
- What's also a big deal is the sunlight's ability to increase serotonin, the basis of the incredibly popular antidepressant drug class. In certain cases, a healthy dose of routine sunlight could do as much good.
- Bonus: Serotonin is a precursor to melatonin and we all know that quality sleep is extremely important in overall wellness.
- Play the Long Game
- We are living longer than ever, yet we are more unhealthy than ever.
- We are led to believe our destiny is to get fatter, softer, weaker and less mobile as time goes on. This doesn't have to be the narrative. You can reach your wellness pinnacle in your 50s - this isn't uncommon.
- Adding 2-4 pounds of unhealthy weight in a year doesn't sound so bad until you do that consistently for 10-15 years.
- Sarcopenia (age-related muscle loss) is a fact of life, but you can be proactive and decline slower.
- Be a crockpot in a microwave world. Do things today that others won't do and you can do things tomorrow that others can't.
- Young men who resort to steroids for vanity-driven instant results often don't play the long game, pack on unhealthy weight, then seek out more microwave results with testosterone therapy at young ages as they try to "get back in the gym."
- Excess adipose tissue converts testosterone to estrogens (undesirably in both men and women), so making poor decisions over an extended period has more consequences than the physical.
- Sure, it's hard to consistently make healthy decisions over years and years. It's also hard to carry around a load of excess of dead weight and steadily become less mobile in your daily life. Choose your hard.
- Aim For 80/20
- Going 100% all in (especially all at once) isn't sustainable.
- Shoot for an 80/20 balance, making smart decisions the vast majority of the time, but still allowing yourself to enjoy life.
- Don't sit in the corner and nibble on almonds when your family and friends get together to celebrate life.
- A rewarding, well-rounded life requires intentionality. Consistently keep your mental and physical wellness in mind so you can always make room for enjoyment without feeling guilty.
Thanks for reading. While I love what I do as a pharmacist, I strongly acknowledge that food and movement are medicine, too. Looking at the 1000 foot view, I fear our modern "conveniences" are ironically making our lives incredibly difficult. I hope you found at least one of these bits of info to be motivating.
If you're interested in switching up your narrative and being more proactive when it comes to your wellness, I have a great jumpstart for you here: northcenturypharmacy.com. Detoxifying aside, it's amazing what even a short-term commitment to extremely clean eating can do for you.
This story was posted on 2022-04-06 11:11:39
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