To Your Health! A SPECIAL SECTION OF THE RECORD-REVIEW
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OCTOBER 4, 2013
BALANCE THE KEY TO GOOD HEALTH By JENNIFER EPEL MuLLER
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ow do you know if you’re healthy? With health fads all around us and the cultural message that thinness is everything obscuring our view of health, it’s easy to get confused about what it actually means to get healthy. Should you drink kale juice? Go gluten-free? Eliminate all high fructose corn syrup from your diet? How do you find time to exercise and how do you deal with the stress of finding time to exercise? Two Westchester nutritionists think of health in terms of how you feel. “There’s a medical way of defining health, which would be having a normal blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides, blood sugar,” said Karen Dolins, a White Plains-based nutrition consultant and exercise physiologist. “But there’s also a sense of well-being that goes along with health. People are likely to come to me because they feel fatigued, they don’t feel energetic, they don’t feel the way they want to feel. I think the most common thing I hear from people is that they want to have more energy.” Balance is the key, said Erica Leon, a registered dietitian and nutritionist who practices in Ardsley and White Plains. “One has to assume responsibility for the quality of one’s life, to shape a healthy lifestyle,” she said. “It’s finding a balance between healthy eating, getting adequate exercise, sleep and managing stress. It’s important to have pleasurable activity and companionship. I work with people whose lives are out of balance in many ways.” One important way to get more of a healthy balance into your diet is to make sure you’re eating the right amount of food at the right time of day. “Lots of the time, people will eat more energy than their body needs at one time of day, and less at another time of day, and that’ll cause them to gain weight and feel sluggish,” Dolins said. “People think of calories as bad things, but calories can be thought of as how much gas is in your gas tank. Clearly people aren’t going to go around adding up their calories all day long, but if they’re eating most of their calories at the end of the day, they should be aware of it. Roughly, you should be eating similar amounts in the morning, afternoon and evening. We do best if we have something to eat approximately every three or four hours.”
This kind of balance can help ward off the 4 p.m. slump that many people experience. Another type of dietary balance is in your effort to make healthier choices, to make sure you aren’t too rigid and leave room for the variety of food situations that life throws at you. Leon said, “There has to be room in people’s diets and lifestyles to enjoy food, because it’s a source of pleasure and family and companionship, and know our body makes mistakes. I tell people to keep a food record — it’s not about judging yourself, it’s about getting information and seeing the type and quantity of food they eat. You can look and see how many calories you’re supposed to eat, but that can be dangerous. I don’t like people to get obsessed with it.” On that note, it’s definitely possible to be overweight and healthy, Leon said: “I think it’s very important to respect your body’s genetic makeup. People come in many sizes and shapes. Someone may have a higher BMI [body mass index], but are eating in a way that feels good for them, with lots of fruits, vegetables and whole grains, and are getting plenty of exercise. Some overweight people run marathons. Who’s to say they’re not healthy? Let’s look at other components of your life.” Eating minimally processed food is an important component of a healthy diet, both nutritionists agree. How do you know how processed a food is? “The closer a food is to its natural form, the less processed it’s going to be,” Dolins said. “A baked potato is clearly a potato, for example. French fries are less recognizable as a potato. You can also look at how many ingredients have been added to it. If you buy applesauce that has a lot of sugar added to it, it’s more processed.” But don’t just assume that if it’s “natural,” it’s healthy, Dolins said. “Sugar and salt are natural. It’s not the fact that they’re natural that makes foods healthy. I mean ‘natural’ in terms of less processed.” But it isn’t as simple as cutting out high fructose corn syrup — or cutting down on sugar. “There’s a lot of debate about the role of high fructose corn syrup,” Dolins said. “I can’t say the science strongly shows it’s responsible for health problems. The problem seems more to be that it’s so cheap to Continued on page 6a
Getting the skinny on By EVE MARX
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or many people, the first time they saw an electronic cigarette or “e-cig” was during an episode of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” two seasons ago when psychic to the stars Allison DuBois “fired one up.” The message boards online went viral as people virtually went crazy talking about it. E-cigarette devices were still very new to the market, and watching an attractive woman smoke one was still quite a shock. Since then, thousands of longtime nicotine users have made the electronic switch — and endorsements are being made by actor Stephen Dorff and actress Jenny McCarthy — even as young people who never smoked before are giving the fashionable no-smoke smokes a test as e-cigarette companies are now marketing their products directly to kids by offering flavors like cherry, strawberry and cookie cream. So what’s the skinny on e-cigs? Are they a boon to people who wish to quit cigarettes altogether or are they just the newest way to get hooked?
electronic cigarettes in another form. “The smoke is produced by inhaling vaporized polyethylene glycol or a similar substance, which is similar to antifreeze,” he said. “They were originally conceived to be a tool to help people withdraw from tobacco, but now they’re just another addictive substance.” A Katonah mother and lifelong smoker who grew up in a state that raises tobacco said she switched from regular cigarettes to e-cigarettes about a year ago. “I thought using them would get me off the real ones,” she said. She’s been trying, unsuccessfully, to quit for years. “In terms of how they satisfy my craving for nicotine, they are satisfying to smoke, although not in the same way as real ones,” she said. The good news is that electronic cigarettes have reduced her regular cigarette smoking “at least in half.” E-cigarettes, she maintained, also have a financial benefit. “They’re definitely cheaper than real cigarettes, especially if you mix your own liquids and use your own equipment, not buying the disposables,” she said. “They are about half the price of real smokes.”
Last week, Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, released a statement to The Washington Post stating: “The increased use of e-cigarettes by teens is deeply troubling. Nicotine is a highly addictive drug.” It’s been determined that nearly 2 million teens have reported experimenting with the devices (there are numerous brands) which use water vapor to deliver nicotine to the lungs and bloodstream. While makers of the electronic cigarettes contend their products are safer than traditional cigarettes because they don’t burn tobacco and don’t produce tar or carbon monoxide, e-cigarettes still hook users on nicotine and may even encourage them to try traditional cigarettes down the line. Dr. Ira Sutton of Scarsdale Family Doctors in Scarsdale said that electronic cigarettes are just as addictive as tobacco. “They may be worse,” Dr. Sutton said. “They are totally unregulated by the FDA at this time.” Sutton said he is under the assumption that the nicotine used in an electronic cigarette comes from the same producers of regular cigarettes, just
Another woman, who is in her 40s and has smoked since she was a teen, said it isn’t as though she hasn’t tried to quit: she’s tried willpower, hypnosis, the patch, even nicotine gum. “Nicotine gum gave me TMJ,” she said. “Willpower? I have none where cigarettes are concerned. I tried hypnosis, but I can’t be hypnotized. I tried Chantix, but I have a panic disorder and that drug made it worse. I’m afraid to try the patch for the same reason. Lozenges to stop smoking are disgusting. So I’m trying the e-cigarettes.” She said she’s been using them now for about eight months: “They’re not a totally satisfactory substitute for real cigarettes, but they’re doing the job of keeping me from really smoking, and I’ll settle for that.” Yet another person, a 44-year-old man, is a committed e-cigarette smoker who says he likes the device very much. “It tastes like a cigarette, there is good tobacco flavor and it stops my cravings,” he said. Does he think electronic cigarettes are safer than regular smokes? “I’m not so sure about that,” Continued on page 6a
EXPERTS WEIGH IN
The best fitness advice… in 50 words or less INSIDE HEALTH... Living in a gluten-free world .......... 2A The better to hear you with: Procedures, for adult hearing loss . 3A Shingles vaccine ............................ 4A Counteracting chronic pain ............ 5A Health news and notes ....................7A Partners in Lyme: Other tick-borne diseases pose local threat .............. 8A A daughter’s perspective: Life with advanced breast cancer.......... 8A
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he best way to stick to your fitness plan is to schedule workouts in advance. Be specific with goals and how to achieve them. We build from our habits, so make fitness part of your regular routine. Find a workout you love to do and it’ll never feel like work. Tanya Becker, Physique 57, Scarsdale
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n integrative approach to wellness is optimal. Severely reduce sugar intake. Meditate 20 minutes a day. Do a few yoga poses daily. Susan Kullman Intentional Wellness & Yoga, Katonah
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hen it comes to transitioning into a healthy lifestyle we make it more difficult than it should b e. Getting off your couch and in the gym seven days a week and eating only grilled/boiled/steamed foods may be too extreme too soon. This may prepare you to fail. Take it slow. Vito DiMatteo, Will2Lose Weight Loss Fitness Club, Scarsdale
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s a runner, I discovered that indoor cycling was a great high intensity, low impact cross training option for me. When your bike is set up specifically for you, using correct form and having the right resistance for sitting, standing, sprinting and jumping collectively will ensure a great, safe workout. Patricia Straub, Spincredible Indoor Cycling, Ardsley Continued on page 6a