2.      Read Menus Carefully—the terms used on menus can clue you in on the fat and calorie content.  Terms that mean higher fat and calories: batter-fried, pan-fried, buttered, creamed, crispy, breaded.  Less fat and calories: braised, baked, broiled, grilled, poached, roasted, steamed.

3.      Watch Portion Sizes—Order the regular or child-size portion.  The supersized order is probably more than you need.  Appetizers can be just as filling as a main course and the portions are usually smaller.

4.      Make Simple Requests and Substitutions — Order a baked potato or side salad instead of French fries. Hold the mayonnaise or bacon on your sandwich.  Request the sauce be served on the side.  All of these requests will help eliminate extra calories.

5.      Enhance the Nutrition of Your Meal— Veggies are full of healthy vitamins and fiber.  Add tomato, lettuce, or other vegetables to your sandwich and choose lean beef, ham, turkey, or chicken on whole grain bread.   Top your pizza with veggies and lean meats.  Choosing a baked potato or side salad over French fries provides you with more fiber. 

6.      Share Your Order— Split large portions with a friend or take half of the dish home for later. If you are craving dessert, order one and share with everyone at the table.

7.      Wash it Down with Water— Avoid adding sugary, calorie –rich drinks (soda, milkshakes, coffee drinks, alcohol) to your meal.  Water is available everywhere and will help you feel full earlier.

8.      Come Prepared—Keep healthy, portable goods on hand for a snack if you know you’ll be on the run.  Grab one of these snacks when you’re hungry and you’ll be less tempted by the drive-thru.  Snack ideas include: fruit, granola bars, and single serving packages of crackers or cereal.

9.      Fill Up on Low—Calorie Food First— Broth based soups or a garden salad are both good choices prior to a light main course.

10. Remember the Big Picture— Moderation is key, but planning ahead can help you maintain a healthy diet.  If you are planning on dining out, choose healthier options for your other meals that day.  Remember to eat mindfully, savor every bite, and listen to your body when it is full. 

Source: www.eatright.org

·

· Au Bon Pain: Serves up sandwiches, soups, salads, and hot entrées made with whole grains, veggies, and hormone-free chicken.

· Chipotle: Buffet-style gives you complete control over your burrito, taco, or salad. Choose from fresh, local ingredients.  But go easy on cheese and sour cream!

· Panera Bread: Half-size soups, salads, and sandwiches make it easy to control portion sizes.

· Noodles & Co: Offers smaller portions, whole-grain pasta, and lean protein.

· McDonald’s: The Grilled Chicken Classic sandwich and wraps are healthy choices (just skip the mayo or sauce). A variety of salads are available with low fat dressings. Nutritional info is available right on the tray liners.

 Source: www.eatright.org

If you think you may be at risk for developing a specific disease you should talk with your doctor.  Your level of risk depends on your family history, lifestyle, and current health condition.

 Heart and Vascular Disease

 Blood Pressure Screening: All men and women—Ages 50 and over, at least every 2 years

 Cholesterol Screening: All men and women—Ages 50 and over, every 1—2 years.  If you have been diagnosed with high cholesterol, you should have   this checked yearly.

· Diabetes Screening: Men and women—Ages 50 and over with high blood pressure.

Cancer

· Breast Cancer Screening: All women, ages 50 and over, every 1—2 years.

· Cervical Cancer Screening (Pap Test): All women, ages 50—65, at least every 3 years.

· Colorectal Cancer Screening: All men and women, ages 50 and older.

Bone Disease

· Osteoporosis Screening: Women at risk—Ages 60 to 65, All Women– Ages 65 and older. 

Mental Health

· Depression Screening: All men and women—Ages 50 and over.

Immunization

· Flu Vaccine: All men and women—Ages 50 and older, annually.

Aspirin

Some doctors prescribe to at risk men and women—Ages 50 and over, to prevent heart attack or stroke.

Eat healthy

Consume a healthy diet consisting of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat dairy, fish, poultry, lean meats, eggs, and beans.  Limit your cholesterol, trans fat, saturated fat, and sugar intake.  Trans fats are found in fried food, cookies, and stick margarine.  Saturated fats come from animal products like cheese, fatty meats, whole milk, and butter.  Not only will a healthy diet keep you strong and active, but it can also protect you from heart disease, bone loss, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and some cancers.

Keep your mind and body active

Performing regular physical activity, like gardening, walking the dog, or taking the stairs instead of the elevator, can help you continue to do things you enjoy and stay independent.  Studies have shown that individuals who are involved in hobbies and social and leisure activities live longer, healthier, and happier lives.   

Get regular check ups

Even if you feel perfectly healthy, you should still see your doctor every year if you are over 65.  This will help you stay on top of important health screenings, like blood pressure and cholesterol checks.  Talk with your doctor if you are having any problems with your medications or any other concerns you may have.

Take steps to prevent accidents

Falls are a major cause of injury for older adults.  You can help reduce your risk of falling by exercising to improve your balance and leg strength.  Get your vision checked regularly and make sure your home is free from any hazards that may cause a fall.  If you are taking a medication that makes you feel dizzy, talk to your doctor about other options. 

Watch your weight

As you age, your body composition and location of fat on your body becomes increasingly important.  Excess fat around the waist can increase your risk for heart disease and possibly breast cancer.  Talk with your doctor about your weight or if you noticed any sudden, unexplained weight changes.

Practicing relaxation techniques are an important part of your quest for stress management.  If your stress is spinning out of control or if you’ve got it under control, you can benefit from learning and using relaxation techniques. 

Visualization: Form mental images to take a visual journey to a peaceful, calming place or situation.

Yoga or Tai Chi: Quiet, precise movements draw focus away from your busy, chaotic day and toward calmness.

Exercise: You will likely find that you’ve forgotten the day’s dilemmas and irritations and concentrate only on your body’s movement

Massage: Helps relax the mind, body and spirit by providing time and space for self.  

Some stroke risk factors are hereditary, some are a function of a natural process and others may result from a person’s lifestyle.  You are not able to change those risk factors that are associated to hereditary or natural processes, but those that result from lifestyle or environment can be modified.

What are the risk factors that cannot be changed?

¨ Age—After the age of 55 the chance of having a stroke doubles for each decade of life.

¨ Hereditary and race—Your risk is going to be higher if a parent, grandparent, sister or brother has experienced a stroke.  African Americans also have a much higher risk.

¨ Gender—Stroke is more common in men than in women.

¨ Prior stroke or heart attack— For someone that has already had a stroke, the risk of having another becomes 10 times more likely.

What are the risk factors that can be changed, treated or controlled?

¨ High blood pressure—This risk factor is the leading cause of stoke but it is also the most important controllable risk factor of a stroke.

¨ Cigarette smoking—The nicotine and carbon monoxide is cigarette smoke damages the cardiovascular system increasing the risk of a stroke.

¨ Diabetes mellitus—Many people with diabetes also have high blood pressure, high cholesterol and are overweight, increasing their risk of stroke.

¨ Carotid or other artery disease

¨ Atrial fibrillation

¨ High blood cholesterol

¨ Poor diet—Diets high in saturated fats, trans fat and cholesterol can raise the blood cholesterol levels.  Also, diets high in sodium can increase blood pressure, elevating the risk.

¨ Physical inactivity and obesity—Being inactive can increase your risk of high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.

Source: www.strokeassociation.org

Do you need to eat less at night?  The simple answer is no, you do not.  Just make sure that if you are eating at night that you are not overeating.  Over consuming any food late in the day is likely to cause weight gain related to nighttime eating.

Your metabolism does drop when you are sleeping, but that simply lowers your daily energy expenditure and it is your 24 hour energy balance that really matters for weight gain and weight loss. 

Studies have shown that there is no real difference in successful weight loss when eating three square meals or eating more often.  The catch is that total energy intake must remain the same whether you have 3 or 6 meals throughout the day.  The benefit of eating 5 to 6 smaller meals instead of 3 larger meals throughout the day is that the smaller meals may assist in appetite management.  This means that you will be less likely to overeat at meals.

The choice of how much to eat at night all depends on what you have eaten up until that time.  If you are below the recommended calorie intake for that day, you can afford to be more flexible and eat more at night.  If you have consumed over the amount of calories you need in one day from your morning and afternoon meals, eating at night will need to be limited.

Guidelines to follow when eating at night to prevent overeating are:

¨ Focus on planning your meals during the day so you feel less hungry at night.

¨ Break social pressure of going out for late night drinks and snacks.

¨ Break negative eating habits, such as emotional eating as an escape from a stressful day.

Source: www.ptonthenet.com

When it comes to weight loss, it is a balancing act, and calories are the main contender.  Fad diets, weight loss pills, or eating mountains of grapefruit may promise that they will drop the pounds; but when it really comes down to weight loss, it is the calories that count.  Burning more calories than what you bring in results in weight loss.  It can be easy to do by reducing extra calories from food and beverages and increasing calories burned through exercise.

Once the equation of calories in versus calories out is understood, you are ready to set your weight loss goal and make a plan for reaching them.  So, how do you lose weight?  Through diet and exercise.  You may be thinking you do not like those words - diet and exercise, but try not to get too hung up on them.  Think of diet as just eating healthy, lower calorie meals, and exercising meaning being more active.  Cleaning, yard work, laundry and shopping are all forms of physical activity and they all burn extra calories.  Whatever you choose for your activity, make sure to do it regularly.  Shoot for 30 to 60 minutes of moderate intense physical activity most days of the week.

Your body constantly needs energy for functioning and it uses the calories from food to do this.  Carbohydrates, fats and proteins that make up food contain calories, and each of these nutrients contain different calorie amounts per gram.  Carbohydrates and proteins have about 4 calories per gram.  Fats have about 9 calories per gram, and alcohol, which is also a source of calories, contains about 7 calories per gram.

No matter where the calories come from, they are either converted and used for physical activity or stored within your body as fat.  These stored calories will remain in your body as fat unless you use them up.  This can be done by either reducing calorie intake so that your body must use the reserves for energy, or by increasing your physical activity so that you burn more calories.

To lose weight your body needs to burn more calories than it would typically take in.  Because 3,500 calories equals 1 pound of fat, you need to burn an extra 3,500 calories to lose 1 pound.  The most manageable way to do this would be to cut 500 calories from your typical diet each day.  Here are some helpful hits to cut calories:

• Skip one high-calorie indulgence a day
• Swap high calorie foods for lower calorie options
• Reduce portion sizes
• Replace evening dessert with a piece of fruit

What happens when the scale is not changing anymore?  You have been working hard to improve your diet and exercise habits, and you are seeing the weight beginning to drop.  After an amount of time the weight loss may start to slow down and may even come to a halt.  You have most likely hit a weight-loss plateau.

Hitting a weight loss plateau eventually happens to everyone.  During the first few weeks of losing weight, there may be a rapid drop of pounds.  Because calories from food are reduced, the body is getting the needed energy from stores of glycogen, which is type of carbohydrate that is found in the muscles and liver.  Because glycogen holds onto water, when it is burned it also releases that water, which is about 4 grams of water for every gram of glycogen.  This results in a substantial weight loss at first that is mostly due to the release of water.

When you lose weight you lose both fat and lean tissue.  Because of the decreased lean tissue within the body after weight loss, the  process of burning calories for energy slows.  This means that in order for you to lose more weight, you must increase activity or decrease the calories you eat even more.  If you use the same approach as before that helped you see weight loss, you will only be maintaining that current weight.

To overcome a weight-loss plateau you need to reassess you weight loss program.  Here are some tips for getting past the plateau:

• Reassess your habits
• Cut more calories
• Rev up your workouts
• Pack more activity into your day

Weight loss is work and takes constant change and reassessing to see the results that you want.  Make sure not to forget the bottom line, that the key to successful weight loss is a life long commitment of making permanent changes in your diet and exercise habits.

source: www.mayoclinic.com