When I was about 8, I remember trying to listen to make sure my mom was still breathing. I wanted to make sure she hadn’t somehow died during her noon nap. Having heard her breathing (and or snoring), I’d go out and play.

Paranoia? Well, it’s a possibility. Then again, I had a few reasons to be worried about my mom--reasons such as stroke, high blood pressure, arrhythmias, type 2diabetes, congestive heart failure, end stage kidney failure, kidney stones and duodenal ulcers, just to name a few. As you can imagine, a body can't stand up to so many diseases for without breaking down. It was the eve of her 70th birthday when her body finally gave up. It was just a day before we had been planning to celebrate her life and there we were bemoaning her death.

In a time when a woman’s average life expectancy is about eighty, this was too short a life. Sometimes I find myself wishing I could hop into a time-travelling DeLorean, rev up to 88mph and, with a trail of flames, take my knowledge of the human body back 15 years ago when it could have helped my mom.

That won’t happen, of course, so I seek recourse in reality, helping my patients in a way I can’t help my mom. These patients are 70, 80, 90, 100 years old, ill and debilitated in very complex ways. There are limits to what I can do, but contrary to what Depeche Mode used to say, everything counts even in SMALL amounts.

Still, as the faces and fragile bodies of my patients remind me of my mom, I see the power of well-timed prevention efforts. Yeah sometimes I can fix bodies, but why should they be broken? The saying goes that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. That’s true enough but I think the analogy is an order of magnitude off. An ounce of prevention isn’t worth a pound of cure, it’s worth a TON of cure.

At work, I see people dying almost on a daily basis. What went wrong and when? My question often leads (literally) to a trail of crumbs. Cake crumbs, chip crumbs, pastry crumbs…it’s usually a lifetime of poor food choices and an inactive lifestyle. Sadly, this usually starts early. In fact, one study found that the fatty plaques that clog your arteries are evident as early as grade school!

That’s a reason to worry, no doubt. But it’s not a reason to give up. In the world of birds, the dumb Dodo birds gave up. The wise old Owls learned to adapt. There’s plenty of very basic things you and I can do to keep what happened to my mom from happening to ourselves, our children or family and friends.

It’s a simple as this: we NEED to exercise and eat right. It’s not an option. All the money ever printed won’t do a dot of good if you’re too tired, depressed, sick or dead to enjoy it. That’s why I’m doing everything I can to live healthfully and get the word out to all of you. It’s never late to make things better. And it’s never too early either.

1.Eat all the time. Have you ever seen a fat hummingbird? Chances are, the answer is “no” unless it has some kind of metabolic disorder. The vast majority of hummingbirds are three things: slim, constantly moving, and constantly eating. We can certainly learn from these tiny, frenetic animals. Eating (small snacks) 5-6 times a day instead of gorging on three big meals actually puts the body into hyper-drive. Metabolism revs up and calories get burned. The opposite: long periods of fasting (as in "3 square meals") makes the body into an energy miser. It goes into starvation/conservation mode and begins to store fat. That’s the body’s natural answer to the question “hmm, I wonder when my next meal will be?”
TIP: Eat small meals (e.g. an apple and some string cheese) every 3 hours until about 7PM.

2.Turn on and tune up your mitochondria. At the cellular level, energy comes from power-packed mitochondria. They’re mostly located in muscle tissue and their main role is providing energy for lifting a dumbbell and/or that triple decker whopper you’re eating. As we get older, we begin to lose mitochondria and, thus, the ability to make food into energy. The unfortunate result is that the body stores up that unused food as fat. TIP: Exercise to increase mitochondria. You’ll have more energy and less fat.

3.Don’t stress out, workout. There are about 100 ways to gain weight and stressing out is one of the top ten. Don't stress out about it, though, because turning this around is simple. Instead of stressing out do some physical activity. You'll gain muscle which helps you to burn calories. This is especially important because as we age, muscle begins to shrink (a condition known as sarcopenia). So if you’re over 40 exercise is doubly important. While you're combatting the muscle wasting, the exercise also helps you to feel better and decrease stress hormones that can lead to weight gain. TIP: Workout to look and feel better

In summary, follow the way of the hummingbird, nature’s marvelous athlete. Eat (nutritious food) constantly and don’t stop moving.

1. Because 2008 was soooo 1999. All those things that weren’t good for you in the previous year should go out of fashion like Aqua-net plastered bangs. Just apply the rule for handling clutter: if you don’t need it, don’t want it and can’t use it, throw it away! That goes for bad habits too.

2. Because Jack Lalanne (the Juiceman) said: “if a man made it don’t eat it” and “if it tastes good, spit it out.” Now I wouldn’t be so extreme. Even Jack Lalanne can’t put down a good hummus dip, a slice of watermelon, or a nice juicy buffalo burger. Point is, though, most people can change their eating habits and the new year is a natural time to do it.

3. Because you are what you eat. Okay, this is very much like point number two but it’s THAT important. The new year is time to feel clean and lean. You’re going for the trim polished look of a celery stick. You don’t want to look deep fried and oily and you wouldn’t want Jack Lalanne to spit you out.

4. Because when the boogie man goes to sleep he checks the closet for Chuck Norris. And Chuck Norris WILL get on your case if you don’t start some kind of exercise program.

5. Because, at the age of 70, while shackled and restrained, Jack Lalanne propelled himself using his own two hands and two feet for 1.5 miles through the ocean while pulling 70 boats with 70 people in them. Alright, if you’re under 70 you just can’t let Jack show you up like that.

By the way, the pic at top right isn't me, it's Jack Lalanne. I'm personally not too fond of one piece jumpsuits, even the glorified yellow jammies Bruce Lee used to wear.

If you're female, postmenopausal and sedentary, you have three reasons to keep reading.Here's why: you're at increased risk for osteoporosis. Luckily, there's a few things you can do about it.

1. Gain weight: Yes, it's true. Tipping the scales will increase the load that your bones have to bear. In the world of bone making, load = growth. That said, I'm not advocating a bacchanal and binge fest. Being underweight, small-framed and light footed increases your risk for developing brittle bones. However, getting fat is not the best solution, considering the side effects (heart attack, stroke, diabetes...)So I repeat, although gaining weight will help with bone density, I do NOT recommend it. For the love of your body, don't pull out the kettle corn and start watching a Twilight Zone marathon.

2. Exercise: This, is by far, a better choice than trying to gain so much weight you can file for disability (a la Homer Simpson). Unlike obesity, exercise can stimulate bone growth without causing 50 adverse side effects. All exercise is not created equal, though. You need to make sure it's "weight-bearing." Examples include running, walking and weight-lifting, all of which put stress on your bones and lead to increased growth.

3. Eat right: Milk, cheese, yogurt, green leafy vegetables (marijuana is not a green leafy vegetable), nuts and various beans contain calcium, essential for bone formation and maintenance. If you're part cow and like to graze, you're already set up to succeed. Just go for the kale, collards and spinach. If you're not into the greens try dairy but make sure you stay away from the frozen, creamy stuff (putting it on top of a split banana doesn't make it less fattening). If your diet doesn't take you far enough, make sure to add a calcium supplement, especially if you're pregnant or over 50.

Check out these resources for more information on osteoporosis and bone health:

NIH Site
Osteoporosis in Men

Okay. The delay is over. Here I am and so are you, so let’s get started on how exercising can change your life. My first feature post here will focus on diabetes because I consider it the gateway disease—invite diabetes and you’ll have a bunch of unwelcome guests crashing your party.

I’m all for scare tactics so allow me to use one now. According to the American Diabetes Association (ADA), the prevalence of the disease went up by 14% in the 2 years between 2005 and 2007. That’s a couple of million new cases!

In total, 24 million of your family members, friends, and neighbors throughout the U.S. now suffer from diabetes. Believe me, this is one club you don’t want to join. And if you already joined, now’s the time to opt out.

Let me tell you why in just three words: steep membership dues. There’s a number of very nasty fees you’ll end up paying. These range from the 2 to 4 times increased risk of developing heart disease and stroke to the almost certain dues in high blood pressure and nerve damage. As if that wasn’t enough, some of the taxes levied against you may include blindness (24,000 cases), kidney disease (44% of members), and amputations (over 70,000/year).

So there’s the nasty news. Want to hear the good news? It doesn’t matter if you have diabetes or you’re at increased risk because everyone in your gene pool has or had it, you can do things to help yourself. Two of those things are a good diet and exercise. For more information on diet, you can check out THIS. Here I’ll focus on a few benefits of exercise for diabetes.

First, a little diabetes 101:
Too little, ineffective or non-existent insulin levels allow glucose (sugar) to stay in the bloodstream. This starves your cells of the energy they need and allows the freely floating glucose to wreak havoc on all of the body’s systems. This, in a nutshell is what diabetes does. Exercise can help to turn this around:

1. Exercise helps directly to lower glucose levels
2. Exercise also increases lean muscle which helps to pull the glucose out of your bloodstream and into your cells
3. Lastly, exercise ensures a healthy heart, mind and body. This helps to ward off the uninvited dinner guests that diabetes likes to bring with it.

So there you have it; another reason to exercise regularly. This is something all of the Beachbody programs help you to do, But if you or someone you know needs something more, you can check out Beachbody’s “Project You 2” It's a fitness AND diet program developed with and approved by Beachbody, a team of doctors and educators and the American Diabetes Association.

I'm touching in briefly to let you know that moving (and everything that entails) has put me into a state of suspended animation--no internet, no email, and no blog. I've also been off of WOWY which hasn't been easy to live without. It's almost like getting shunted back to the dark ages of working out solo--no accountability and no online community. It's weird how a seemingly insignificant piece of electronic connectivity can make that much of a difference.

Even now, over a week after my move, I feel like I'm still holding my breath. My family and I are still living in the eye of a hurricane, discovering socks in our utensil drawers and dishes in the clothes hampers. It's a great exercise in serendipity. It's also reminded me that moving isn't a one day event. It's a many day process.

That's the same way I've come to think of health and lifestyle changes. My experience tells me that big decisions--fitness or otherwise--fall into the same category of process. No magic bullet/pill/panacea. No one size fits all, cures-all, ends-all solution. Life is an endless string of mini-transformations. Sometimes you hit a u-turn, a hiccup here and a reversal there. But the overarching goal is that you continue in the trajectory that leads you to your goals.

For me right now, the goal is to keep up with my workouts and to find that missing drawer that contains my clean boxers. Chances are that's where I stashed the steak knives...