Prevention is a key component in reducing health-care costs and lowering your risks for chronic illness. Even more importantly, by preventing illness and avoiding chronic diseases, you can maintain a healthy lifestyle and spend more time doing the things you love with family and friends.
We all know the basics of prevention: Lose weight, stop smoking, get your screenings, know your numbers and eat a balanced diet. The trick is to absorb the basics into your daily life — and to start acting on them by taking small steps now.
The first step is easy. When you tackle a complex problem, you usually call in the pros. In the case of prevention, your primary-care provider is your best source for understanding your current health status, setting goals and finding healthy, smart ways to move forward.
In tracking your health history, your doctor might conduct a physical exam and order some lab work or screening tests. By working with your doctor, you can learn your numbers, such as blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar — and what they indicate for you. Ask your provider to help you design a preventive health plan with incremental goals and realistic steps.
The second step involves regularly visiting your doctor. In part, prevention means detecting issues early so they can be treated before they become full-blown crises. Regular visits help your provider track your progress, notice changes, update your treatment plan, apply the latest medical advances and listen to your concerns. You also will stay on track with screenings for diabetes, cancers and other concerns.
The third step includes taking small, healthy steps on your own initiative. Here are some easy diet and exercise tips to get you started.
Superfoods
Feel like eating right takes too much time? Focus on some “superfoods.”
Blueberries are packed with potassium, vitamin C, antioxidants and phytoflavinoids; these small, blue gems can lower your chances of cancer and heart disease. They also fight inflammation, a key component of many chronic diseases.
Eat them by the handful, or toss them on vanilla yogurt or whole-grain cereal.
Walnuts are a great source of omega-3 fatty acids. They help reduce bone loss and protect your brain from Alzheimer’s disease.
Chop up a small bowl of these nuts, and have them ready to add to salads, cereals or apple sauce.
Research has linked broccoli to a reduction in colon cancer, and it also helps build bones.
Choose fresh, firm broccoli, and steam it until it still has a little crunch. Or look for broccoli salads in the deli aisle.
Exercise
Can’t quite fit three 60-minute sessions of heart-pounding exercise into your week? Ease up on yourself! The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive & Kidney Disease recommends two and half hours a week of exercise, which averages out to about 20 minutes per day.
For starters, you can pick up the pace on daily activities, such as gardening, walking the hills in your neighborhood or getting off the bus two stops early. Once you get started, consider adding more minutes.
The American Heart Association promotes 30 minutes of aerobic exercise a day. To help you stick with it, make exercise social. Check out the great variety of today’s fitness classes: tai chi, water aerobics, ballet barre workouts, swing dance and indoor biking, to name a few. Or take your exercise outdoors: Walk at Discovery Park, ride your bike on the Burke-Gilman Trail or paddle on Lake Union.
You can find people who share your interest on www.MeetUp.com. It is easier to stick to a routine if you have others to do activities with.
On the cheap
Think being fit is expensive? You could empty your wallet on a fancy gym membership and jazzy exercise duds. But that’s missing the point of exercise as a path to good health.
Instead, look into your local community center or senior center for free dance demonstrations, table tennis or pick-up basketball. Wash your car the old-fashioned way, or clean your windows. It all counts!
Be on the lookout for free “fun runs,” or explore some of Seattle’s public stairways with a walking buddy.
Finally, always remember to consult your doctor before beginning a new health initiative. Your primary-care physicians want to help you live your best, healthy life, so give them a call today.
JODY RHOADES is a board-certified Internist at Pacific Medical Centers (www.PacMed.org), which has locations in Beacon Hill, First Hill and Northgate. To comment on this column, write to QAMagNews@nwlink.com.
[[In-content Ad]]