Welcome to Straight Talk on Health. I’m your host Dr. Chet Zelasko. Straight Talk on Health is a joint production with WGVU in Grand Rapids MI. I examine the practical application of health information. Nutrition. Exercise. Diet. Supplementation. I look at the science behind them, and let you know whether it’s something to consider or not. You can check out other things that I do on my website Drchet.com and sign up for my free emails.
Ahh, spring in MI. Everyone probably says something about the inconsistent weather where they live and we certainly do here. So far, I’ve been in a t-shirt and shorts and then bundled up for 25 degrees with sleet and 40 mph gusts—all in the same week! I hope we remember that when we hit a streak of 90 degrees for 10 days!
We like consistency but it’s something we don’t practice very well when it comes to changing our health habits, especially those that involve our eating and activity levels. I thought this would be a good time to spring some different approaches to help you get to a normal body weight for your heights and get you fitter as well.
First, how have I been getting on? Not as well as I would like. As I mentioned in a prior episode, I decided to stop putting sugar in my coffee. That has continued with no issues but probably had one positive effect. I stop drinking coffee as late as I used to. That often results in getting up less frequently during the night to go to the bathroom. As I’ve said many times over the years, coffee is not a diuretic but it will make you urinate more often.
I also decided to begin to lift weights again. That has been challenging—more challenging than I thought it would. It’s amazing how much strength I’ve lost in a subtle way over the years. While the data is incomplete as it elates to whether you can gain back muscle mass while you age, you can certainly gain strength and stamina. The difference?
Strength is the most amount of weight you lift for any movement, whether it’s the squat, the bench press, or the overhead press. Stamina is how long you can continue to sustain muscle movement like push-ups, pull-ups, or squat thrusts. Monitoring strength is fairly simple—how much can you lift? I’ve chosen a simpler form to assess stamina: how long can I hang onto a bar with just my body weight. Think about it. How long could you hang onto a window frame on a third floor or higher burning building? I don’t care if I can do 100 consecutive push-ups but I would like to hang onto that window frame in a burning building for at least 5, preferably 10 minutes. I began with just 15 seconds to see if my arms wouldn’t pull out of their sockets. Did it. I began at 30 seconds and will keep adding time until I get to 5 minutes.
The overall impact has been challenging. Squats have really shown me that I need weight bearing movement to stress my legs. I’ve added walking intervals and the elliptical trainer to the recumbent bike rotation.
As it relates to reducing body weight, I have reduced 1.5% of the weight I need to lose to get to a normal body weight. It’s been challenging so I’m using the addition approach instead of a subtraction one. I’ve added one cruciferous vegetable serving to my diet every day, preferably with an allium vegetable like leeks or onions. I’ve also added one serving of berries, cherries, or grapes every day. Why these? To get the most phytonutrients into my diet. It doesn’t mean I never ate those or other plant-based foods; I’m just making sure I do it every day. That may help reduce other less nutritious foods from my diet. We’ll see.
I’ve got some ideas on changing approaches for you because this is really about you the listener. I’m just trying to lead by example as we have plenty of talking heads out there who don’t. I’m going to begin with something I threw in at the end of the last episode. Within 5 minutes of finishing the recording, I got a completely different approach to changing to a healthier lifestyle. Give a listen.
“I’ll Have What She’s Having” Remember that line from the movie When Harry Met Sally? That movie was released 35 years ago. It’s a line my wife gave to the first approach to losing weight. My philosophy of getting to a normal weight and staying there is to find out what works best for you by trial and error. When you find something that works, stick with it. I’m going to relay the conversations I had with two people within 24 hours and how they each approached weight reduction.
I recently saw a physician I hadn’t seen in three or four months, and I noticed he appeared to have lost some weight. I commented that he looked leaner than the last time I saw him. Many people ask how a person lost the weight, but I think that’s a personal thing; if someone wants to share it, great. Evidently he decided he’d share it.
He knew that he was way over his weight for height based on BMI; he also relayed the fact that he didn’t want to track his calories. Just hated doing that kind of thing. What he decided to do was to eat the way his wife ate. She’s about 5’ 1” tall and weighs a buck-ten. For those of you who are not familiar with that type of expression, it means 110 pounds; she’s always maintained that weight with no effort. He decided to eat the food that she ate in the serving size that she ate. She just naturally ate healthy so eating what she ate seemed to be a winner.
In all my years in this field, I’d never heard that from anyone before, and I thought it was brilliant. The result of following that pattern over a number of months was that he had lost 45 pounds and still had about 15 pounds to go to get to his normal weight for height.
When a couple do things together, it can make things so much easier, but it doesn’t have to be a couple. If you observe people who appear to be lean and a normal body weight, just watch the amount of food they eat as well as the types of food they eat. It always comes down to eat less, eat better, move more. We just have to figure out how to do that for ourselves to find out what works best.
While the strategy for eating less used no type of tracking, this next approach is going to be different. I ran into a another person who has spent a couple of years focused on getting to a normal body weight. A couple of injuries playing sports set him back a little but as we talked and I relayed the story from the day before, he said he was just the opposite. He tracks everything -- on his watch.
He records every meal—including the fast food breakfast sandwich he was eating. A client had brought it in and he felt he needed to explain his food choice to me. Remember, every food is acceptable as long as you track the frequency and amount. He continued that he tracks every workout. Two days running, two days swimming, a spinning class, and tries to run over the weekend. He can chart just about everything to monitor progress. He’s reached his weight for height goal and intends to keep up the lifestyle—because now—it is his lifestyle. Two different people. Two different approaches. Both worked.
The thing is is that there is no single way to eat less or move more. What I’ve observed is what we might call the Biggest Loser guru. I don’t even know if the show is still on in some form but one of the things that people who won the show or even just did very well was that they were all going to become personal trainers or other associated healthcare profession to help others do the same things they did. I know a couple succeeded but most did not. The same applies to people who have overcame a serious disease. They know what worked for them and they try to apply it to others. With Tik-Tok and all the rest of the of the media platforms, everyone and anyone is giving health advice.
The two problems are this: First, they don’t have the background to know the basis of nutrition or exercise on a scientific level for the most part. Second, they don’t understand that there is no single correct way to do anything. Some people will get up an hour earlier to workout but others will never do that. Same goes with eating patterns. I rarely eat within 3-4 hours of getting up. I would never do the 6 small meals approach but others find it a great way to control intake. Without some training and experience, you only know the way you did it—and that works for one person: you. Everyone else can’t duplicate you because they are not you. Find the way that works for you and stick to it.
But that’s all the time I have for this episode. If you like this podcast, please hit the like button and tell your friends and colleagues about it. Until next time, this is Dr. Chet Zelasko saying health is a choice. Choose wisely today and every day.
