Maintaining Your Health Through Busy Holidays

Maintaining Your Health Through Busy Holidays

What needs to make more headlines is that the leading causes of death in the United States can be prevented. Your risks for both heart disease (#1) and cancer (#2) can be significantly reduced by choosing to increase certain foods and decreasing others. This is the power of nutrition. By understanding and using this power, you can masterfully influence your health in so many ways.

This month’s blog covers four key nutrition strategies that can help you stay healthy and reduce your risk of failing your Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Medical Exam. The foods (and drinks) you consume can play a big role in your overall health and I want to share some of the research with you.

Imagine having the power to wield an enormous impact on your future and your overall health. In fact, you absolutely do have this power and this article is going to show you how to use it.

To maintain your overall health and even prevent some serious illnesses, you can influence any number of your day-to-day lifestyle practices, including nutrition. There are several choices you can make to exert a big difference to your health.

According to the World Cancer Research Fund International, these are the top cancer prevention recommendations related to diet, nutrition, and physical activity:

• Enjoy a nutritious diet
• Limit “fast foods”
• Reduce high fat meats and processed meats
• Replace sugary drinks with water
• Be physically active
• Limit alcohol consumption
• Avoid smoking and other exposure to tobacco

In this blog, you’re going to learn more about some of these diet and nutrition-related recommendations so that you can maintain your health throughout the upcoming holidays. You’ll also get some goals, tips, and strategies to make them work for you.

Fun fact: The healthy nutrition strategies in this article can help reduce your risk for developing heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and improve your overall health.

Note that when you hear phrases like “limit” and “cut down” they don’t necessarily suggest that you completely remove all traces of these foods from your diet. It simply prompts you to consider enjoying them in smaller portions as part of an overall nutritious and well-balanced diet.

How to enjoy a better nutrition to maintain your health during busy holidays

What exactly is “better” nutrition? It’s choosing more fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and legumes like beans and lentils. These foods are full of essential nutrients like vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Many fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes also contain other health-promoting compounds called antioxidants. Plus, these foods can help protect your FAA Medical Certificate because they can help you with hydration, blood pressure and avoiding type 2 diabetes.

Fun fact: Fiber is a zero calorie health-promoting carbohydrate found in plant foods. It’s unique because it’s one that our gut can’t break down to digest. This has many health benefits for your digestive system. For one thing, fiber can help you feel fuller and help your digestive system keep things moving and promote regularity. If you’ve ever been constipated on a work trip…you know what I’m talking about! Fiber also supports a healthy gut microbiome by feeding your friendly gut bacteria and increasing your immune system function. Getting your fiber from foods is recommended over fiber supplements whenever possible.

Fiber-rich foods like fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and legumes also contain antioxidants and protein. These foods are known to help protect against many cancers, including colorectal cancer. Non-starchy fruits and vegetables also protect against several cancers, including cancers located in the mouth and throat.  The word antioxidant means “anti” = avoid and “oxidant”  = broken cells.  Fruits and vegetables help to clean up all that inflammation caused from stress, lifestyle and radiation.

A recommended goal is to eat at least five half cup servings of non-starchy fruits and vegetables and at least 30 grams of fiber each day. You can do this by including non-starchy fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and legumes in every meal and enjoying them as snacks. Examples of these foods are:

• a variety of colors of fruits and vegetables like tomatoes, carrots, pineapple, broccoli, bell peppers, leafy greens, and blueberries
• whole grains like rice, wheat, and oats
• legumes include black beans, chickpeas (garbanzo beans), and lentils

Reduce your fast food intake to maintain your health

“Fast foods” are convenient foods that are often very processed. “Processed” means they’re heavily manufactured and don’t resemble their natural state. (Think of an apple picked from a tree and how much it goes through to become part of an apple pie). Examples of fast foods include burgers, fried chicken, potato chips, fries, cakes, pastries, candies, and candy bars.

Many fast foods are engineered to be very tasty (“highly palatable”) and are prone to be enjoyed often and in large quantities. Fast foods are almost always high in fat, and starches or sugars. They also usually have a long shelf-life so they can be stored for a long time (e.g., they’re not “fresh” foods that can wilt or go bad quickly). Eating too many fast and highly processed foods is linked to increased weight, insulin, blood sugar, and blood pressure.

The goal to improve your overall health is to limit how often and how much fast food is eaten.  Of course, due to your busy schedule and career you must rely on fast food from time to time. I want to challenge you over the next 3 months to pull out your phone and start reading menus.  Recently, I was reviewing the following restaurants:  Subway, Starbucks and Chipotle.  I was SHOCKED at the carbohydrate counts in meals and drinks at these restaurants. No wonder in the month of August I received FIVE airline transport pilots with type 2 diabetes.  Overconsumption of carbohydrates will lead to type 2 diabetes, otherwise known as insulin resistance.

If you want to know IF you might be pre-diabetic or type 2 diabetic, email me for information on at home lab testing I now offer for A1c testing. I urge you, if you’ve not been tested in the last year, this is very important to keep your FAA Medical certificate intact. 

Limit high fat and processed meat

Meat can be a good source of protein, iron, zinc, and Vitamin B12. However, eating too much high fat and processed meat is linked to many cancers, with the strongest link being to colorectal cancer.

High fat meat includes beef ribeye steak, pork sausage, bbq brisket, ground beef with 80% or more fat and the list goes on!  Processed meat is meat that has been salted, smoked, cured, or fermented. These processes are done to enhance the flavor of the meat and also to preserve it and increase its shelf life. Examples of processed meats are hot dogs, bacon, salami, sausages, and deli meats like ham.

High fat and processed meats can contribute to cancer risk because they may contain or create cancer-causing substances when they’re processed and cooked (charred). They can also contribute to excess weight, which is a risk factor for many cancers.

The goal is to enjoy high fat meat at very special occasions less than once per week and have even less processed meat. When you do eat high fat meat, you can choose to trim the fat before cooking.

Watch out for sugary drinks

Sugar-sweetened drinks include sodas and energy drinks, as well as sugar added to other beverages like tea and coffee. There is strong evidence that high intakes of sugary drinks contributes to high blood pressure and high blood sugar.

Fun fact: Drinking coffee may protect against liver, endometrial, mouth, and throat cancers. Drinking tea (but not maté tea) is linked to a reduced risk of bladder cancer. (Consider enjoying them with a bit less sugar.)

Pro tip: Did you know most coffee shops will happily make their signature drinks with half of the sugar/syrup? Simply ask for your drink to be “half sweet” and see if they can accommodate your goal toward better health.

Try to reduce your intake of sugary drinks by having them less often and in smaller amounts. When it comes to the benefits of substituting sugar-sweetened drinks with low-calorie artificially-sweetened drinks, the science is not clear. That’s why the recommendation is to enjoy water and unsweetened drinks. 

Nutrition is key, even over the busy holidays, and you absolutely have the ability to influence your health and future with nutrition. The foods (and drinks) you consume contribute to your healthy lifestyle to reduce your risk of cancer. And the great news is that these strategies can also reduce your risk of other chronic diseases at the same time.

By choosing more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes, and choosing fewer fast foods, red and processed meats, and sugary drinks, you can exert a big impact on your health. You don’t need to overhaul everything right away because small, sustainable changes to your day-to-day life can lead the way to improved wellness.

Need help choosing or implementing more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes into your diet? I’m here for you. As a registered dietitian, I’d love to help. I’m currently enrolling airline transport pilots and air traffic controllers who deal with high blood pressure and high blood sugar.  If you don’t know your numbers and you fear your next FAA medical exam…we should talk!

Wondering how to make that broccoli taste great or how to substitute legumes for ground meat? Want more tips and strategies to start kicking those sugary drinks to the curb? Need support to plan, shop, and prepare more nutritious and healthy meals for yourself or your family? These are just a few of the topics I cover with my clients.  If you are tired of doing this alone and scared about your current health going into your next FAA Medical, I can help!  Schedule a free 30 minute consultation call with me today!