Looking for Best Practices....

In the last year I have gotten a lot of positive feedback about the weight I lost and how healthy I look. Quite a few people wanted to know what I all had to do. So I put together an email that I sent out to a few people. I am posting this email here not because I think my advice is so wonderful but because these are my best practices and I am wondering if the folks still reading my blog might have a few suggestions on what else I could do or how I could improve on what I am already doing.

Here is my email (let me know what you think).... What I did to get healthier:

#1 - Taking responsibility I took control of my health after a misdiagnosis that my doctor was unwilling to acknowledge. I should have never turned complete control of my health over to someone else and I should have never been so passive as to let him dismiss my concerns the way he did.

#2 - Changing focus Previously my goals had always been to lose weight. Now my goal was to get healthy. This change in focus had a dramatic effect on what I did. My new focus forced me to learn what makes a person healthy and how a person should go about getting healthier and this knowledge is now paying off big time because, instead of just doing something temporary (like lose weight), I am doing things that will have a long term positive effect and the lifestyle changes I have made will allow me to maintain what I have gained. Plus, I feel empowered by this knowledge.

# 3 - Knowing my numbers Knowing what my numbers were and what that meant gave me the necessary motivation to be persistent even when I fell off the wagon or was not making progress. Knowing how my numbers have changed and what they should or could be gives me inspiration to try harder.

#4 - Keeping a food diary Keep a food diary forced me to think about what I was going to eat and and honestly the guilt I felt when I thought about eating something unhealthy made it easier for me not to eat those things. Also, documenting how I felt before and after meals helped me analyze my eating habits and figure out what I was doing wrong and what I could do to fix it. Also, I tracked my daily goals in my food diary and having goals that could be accomplished in a single day made it possible for me to gradually and easily improve my health overtime. It would have been overwhelming if I had attempted to accomplish too much too quickly.

# 5 - Monitoring my progress Fortunately for me, my Company has provided employees with a Wellness Center where I was able to go to get my blood pressure and blood sugar tested on a regular basis and that monitoring combined with my food diary made it possible for to figure out what foods caused my blood pressure or blood sugar to spike. I also get blood work done on a quarterly basis and track my progress by keeping a copies of the results.

# 6 - Losing weight slowly - at most 1 to 2 pounds a week This was actually difficult for me to do at the beginning because I was impatient and have always been able to lost weight quickly but losing weight slowly allowed my body to recover plus losing weight too quickly results in muscle loss which you want to avoid. Giving your body time to rebound becomes increasingly important the older you get.

# 7 - Exercising on a regular basis I started off slowly and gradually increased. I listened to my body. What works best for me is to do things I enjoy and to keep to a schedule. In other words, I blocked the same time every week for exercise. I also made goals. I try to have at least one goal that can be attained fairly quickly and a stretch goal that takes time. For instance, my first goal was to climb a single flight of stairs without getting out of breath and my first stretch goal was to be able to walk for a half hour without having to rest. For most people, walking half an hour 5 times a week is a good place to start.

# 8 - Using the Internet to get information on foods that are good for you and what makes one healthier What makes a person healthier varies from person to person so it's important to combine monitoring with whatever you do.

Here are some of the things I do almost on a daily basis to get healthier:

- Read food labels to avoid trans fat
- Never skip breakfast
- Use sun crystals instead of sugar or sugar substitutes like splenda
- No junk, processed or fried foods
- No salting food and avoid salty foods
- Eat a handful of walnuts or almonds
- Eat lots more vegetables and fruits and less meat. I still eat too much meat but I try to make my dinner plate about a third vegetables, a third carbs and a third meat. Recommended portions are 1/2 vegetables, 1/4 grains, 1/4 meat and some dairy (for instance, a glass of milk or serving of yogurt).
- Eat lean meats
- Eat fish at least twice a week especially fish high in omega-3 like salmon
- Drink water before meals to cut down on my hunger (I no longer do this because I don't let myself get too hungry before I eat)
- 64 ounces of water each day to flush out the system
- a piece of dark chocolate (76 percent or greater cocoa)
- potassium in the form of apples, pears, oranges, avocados, sweet potatoes or carrots
- do some form of exercise almost every day
- 1-2 tablespoons of flaxseed
- oatmeal
- cinnamon
- blueberries
- cranberry juice
- 8 hours sleep
- do aerobics and weight train because the combination is better than doing just aerobics or just weight lifting
- curtail restaurant food (restaurants often serve food high in calories for the taste factor to keep patrons coming back)
- when we go out to eat, I eat 1/2 if the order is too big and I try to find items on the menu that are baked or grilled instead of fried.
- I eat only until I am satisfied and not until I am full like I use to
- I eat every four hours or so because by eating more frequently I never get so hungry that I end up overeating
- I always eat a protein with carbs so my sugar doesn't spike
- I take supplements
- I limit my coffee intake because some studies show coffee is good while other studies showed just the opposite
- I eat healthy fats like the fat in nuts
- I drink a glass of red wine
- I avoid foods labeled non-fat or low fat except non-fat greek yogurt because of the way it is processed

So OK...does anyone have any suggestions on what more I could do?

Regards,
Philip