Depressed about your health?

Have you ever gotten chewed out by your doctor? The threat of "if you don't lose some weight and exercise more, I'll be putting you on high blood pressure meds." I have gotten that lecture. Right after I left the doctor's office I fell into a depressed state of mind. I was sort of going through the motions of the rest of the day but in a daze. I didn't know what hit me. I had always had low blood pressure and suddenly it was high.

When your car breaks down you can call someone to get it fixed. It was at that time I wished that there was a service I could call for my body. I knew that the only breakdown service I could call on was ME. I was the one who had to change it. I didn't want high blood pressure and definitely didn't want to go on meds.

I took that depressed state of mind and turned it around - I had to, it was my health that depended on it.

Taking up yoga

It is now official, hubby has to take up yoga. It is doctors orders!!!

His spine is bothering him and after a full MRI, a trip to several doctors the diagnosis is surgery unless he can strengthen his core and completely muscle up. The doctor and the specialist both said yoga was the first step and to work up to pilates.

I mentioned this to a co-worker who was document scanning at the time and she said she had a yoga DVD we could borrow. Since there are various different styles of yoga being taught on DVD it is best to see which one would be a good starting point.

One diet pill that really works

A family member was having a very hard time losing weight. He weighed 325 pounds and for 2 years was trying desperately to get down to 240 pounds but couldn't get past 270 pounds. He was exercising 3 times a week at a gym and was on a 2000 calories a day diet. Finally he convinced his doctor he needed something else to help him so he put him on these diet pills that were not meant to be actually diet pills, but what us lay people call, "uppers." He was on them for one month and lost 30 pounds. The doctor took him off of the pills for a month then put him back on them for 2 more months. He got down to 220 pounds and stayed there for several months. I have been waiting for an update to find out if he is back on the pills or not, or if he is finally managing to maintain his weight without pills.

Should you have a career in health care

Yes there is a growing demand for people to enter the health care field but should you be one of them? Before you decide on a glowing career as a doctor, nurse or even a CNA, think about these valid points:

• Can you handle death? You will experience death up close and personal as you will watch people die on a daily of weekly basis.
• Can you handle puke and poop? I am not talking about baby or small children make a mess but full grown adults.
• Can you handle working with people that have deadly diseases? Remember, you not only have to keep yourself safe but you could endanger your family if you bring home a germ or 2.

Now that you have had a chance to think that over, you might want to look into a health care career that is more distant from patients. Maybe a job as a medical technician. There are even healthcare it jobs if you are into computers more than people.

Yes you can work in the medical field but first think about what your duties would be before you take that leap.

Male health concerns

I normally don't write about male health simply because I am female. What prompted me to cover one health concern is the fact that most men seem to be obsessed with it. I am talking about ED or what used to be called impudence. The lack of libido seems to be the number one concern for most men that are not stressed out about other problems in their lives.

The inability to perform well in bed is often related to having something else on their minds. Thinking about money or lack of it is right up there with any concerns about size. Doubts about sexual performance will often hinder that performance.   

The business community has latched onto men's concerns of ED that a huge multi billion dollar business has cropped up in the last 15 years. Everything from Viagra pills to enlargement devices and surgery. Whole websites devoted to the subject of male enhancement reviews sales of pills are now the norm.

While I would love to say to those men to just not worry about your ED and it will go away, that is not always true. First and foremost talk to your doctor before embarking on a trail of trial and error when it comes to ED. Only then will everything get better.

Midnight snackers

I have a dear friend that always seems to be on a diet of some sort. I have known her long enough to see her go through the very obese times to the very slim days. She is currently back to her overweight time and until recently I was unaware that she was a closet midnight snacker. Her husband told me that he would be getting ready for work one day and found all kinds of food left out in the kitchen. He put it away and thought nothing more about it. Then a week later it happened again. He thought it was one of his teenage sons and confronted him. It was then he found out that his wife was the sneaky snacker.

My friend and her husband had a huge argument over the issue. She refused to admit that eating 2 sandwiches at 1am in the morning was contributing to her almost 280 pound problem. At one point he threatened to put a lock on the refrigerator or figure out a way to keep her out of it during certain hours. He even wondered if any company made such a thing like refrigerator filters that detected who was opening the door and what they were getting out or putting in.

What he finally did in the end was make an appointment for her at the doctor and not tell her about it. The appointment was around lunch time and he made arraignments that it looked like he would be taking her out to lunch and instead they ended up at the doctors office. After the appointment her midnight snacking stopped......at least for now it has. She dropped 30 pounds since not making those midnight runs.

Getting a doctor to help you

Often we have to get a doctors help when we have hit a roadblock in weight loss. The doctor will be the first to inform you that there is no way to quick weight loss other than surgery. The doctor will be able to determine if there is another reason why you are having a problem with losing weight or even tell you if you should not lose weight. There is a small group of people that obsess over their weight to the point of losing too much weight and end up putting their health in jeopardy.

How much weight to lose each week?

Have you ever wondered how much weight you can safely lose each week without any ill effects? The truth is that most doctors don't want you to lose weight fast. They recommend a weight loss program and diet that you lose no more than 3 pounds a week. Weight loss at a faster rate will have some adverse affects to your internal organs mostly due to dehydration.

If you think about, it took you more than a week to put on a few pounds so it is wise to take off all that weight at the same rate you put it on.

Weight loss news from the Mayo Clinic

You hear the complaints every year. People groaning about the 5-10 pounds they packed on during the holidays. But for many people, too much weight is an every-day issue. Thousands of people are obese, and that means their health and quality of life can suffer. Surgery may be an option for some people, but for those who don't want surgery or can't have it for medical reasons, there is another option. Doctors at Mayo Clinic developed a liquid meal program geared toward people who need to lose a lot of weight. Video below:

Do weight loss products really work?

So you have gotten to the point of almost giving up on that healthy diet and exercise routine. You haven't lost an ounce in at least a month and you are at your wits end. Should you resort to find a weight loss product over the counter or should you consult your doctor first? Writing from experience I say get your doctor involved. I had to have blood tests run to see what was wrong with me - I couldn't lose weight at all for at least 2 years no matter what I did.

Your doctor can assess your body and tell what would be the best weight loss product for your body or even if you need such a product. My doctor found out that I had an under active thyroid that was slowing down my metabolism. Without my thyroid medication, my under active thyroid would also affect my internal organs. So by having my doctor check me out I avoided putting my general health in jeopardy.

The down side to being overweight

We all know the health affects of being overweight.The increased risks for heart attacks and other health problems but it also affects our pocket book. Did you know that our insurance rates go up? Life insurance is a big one on that. Most insurance policies make you get a physical check-up as part of procedure to get a policy. It is almost a rarity to find life insurance no medical exam nowadays.

Also did you know that any medical information reported to an insurance company goes on your rate information? If you have ever seen the TV show Seinfeld then you might have seen the episode of Elane trying to find a doctor where she had not been "blacklisted" with. It maybe funny but some elements of that show were right on the money - insurance money that is.

Be good to your lungs

Of course you know better than to smoke if you are trying to get into shape. Your lungs will require more air as you workout and you need clean air for your body to not be stressed out. Keeping that in mind you will want to exercise in an area that is free of smoke, air pollution and dust. If you exercise outdoors, watch the local pollution reports for the air index. If you exercise indoors then you should have a dust free area which means you will either have to keep your workout area clean and keep an eye on your indoor air filters on your air conditioner or heater.

Take care of your lungs. If you start coughing during your workout it could be because of dust or that your heart is struggling. Slow down and stop if you have to. You need to eliminate the cause before you continue. The first thing will be to determine if it is dust or indoor air pollution. If that is not the case then a trip to the doctor is in order for a complete check-up.

Surgery for weight loss

Would you resort to surgery as a method of weight loss? Most people would say no, but there are some people where surgery is the only option left open to them. The lap band was recommended to a family member that cannot exercise because of lack of mobility. That person uses food as a comfort. Depression of his condition triggers him to eat more which in turn depresses him. It is a vicious cycle.

I would not recommend you go out and find a lap band doctor on your own. You need to go through your doctor for all the information and discuss the surgery with him/her. After all, lap band surgery is MAJOR surgery and not to be entered into lightly.

Surgery to reduce your size

Losing weight is not that hard. It is simply a matter of putting less food into your body than you body is utilizing. Unfortunately some people want the results fast and that is when people resort to fad diets, pills and lap-band surgery.

Is surgery a realistic option? I have watched people keep the weight off with lap-band surgery and I have also seen them gain weight after a weight loss. You see the lap-band surgeon never explained to those patients that the stomach is very adaptable and will grow to accommodate more food over time. The same is true when patients have part of their stomach removed to make it smaller. If they don't learn to eat less then over time they will go back to where they started, obese again.

Can your weight ruin your marriage?

Marriage is a tricky subject at the best of times. Adding any type of stress to an already marriage on the edge and you can have a disaster. Your own weight can play an awfully big part in a successful marriage. Whether we like it or not our partners found our appearance pleasant at the time we first met and that was the initial spark to a first date. Our looks, fitness and weight all played a part of that first look.

Now you might say that he or she loves me for who I am and not what I look like which would be true in very strong marriages. If you took elements from that marriage like sex and other physical activities that you enjoy doing together like hiking or tennis then the marriage might change.

I have seen marriages start to fall apart because the wife refused to have sex with her 350 lb husband. His weight was too much for her to bear during sex. When they first got married he weighed only 200lbs. They both loved to cook and eat. He gained 150 lbs and she 40 lbs during their 10 year marriage.

They did not have to get marriage counseling from the National Institute of Marriage but got help from their doctor who sent them both to a dietitian.

He is now down to 275 lbs and she has lost 15 lbs. I know that they are happier now but no word on the bedroom activities yet.

Here are some facts on marriage counseling:

With the national divorce rate around 50%, there is no doubt that many marriages run into communication problems at some point. There is a communication epidemic. The National Institute of Marriage has created marriage counseling programs and resources utilizing a structure that is the most powerful format they have found for helping couples who feel stuck and hopeless. They have designed several programs to help couples move past the barriers and experience the marriage of their dreams.
NIM's Intensive Marriage Counseling Programs are unique from weekly marriage counseling in three distinctive ways:

· Intensive Marriage Counseling Format: Committing to an extended amount of concentrated time like the 2 or 4 day Marriage Intensive allows people to get to the root of the problem and stick with it in order to work through it. If you’ve been in traditional marriage counseling before, you may have experienced how you spend the first half catching up from the week before, the second half getting into the real issues, and then the time is gone. The Intensive format is designed so that people have the chance to go deeper without many of the other distractions of daily life and have enough discuss to consider solutions.

· Efficiency: One of the first steps in the process is an extensive assessment with some questionnaires. This allows the therapists to gather background information and can get an idea of the best strategy to proceed before you arrive for your session.

· Marriage Counselors: The counselors at the National Institute of Marriage are specialists in this area. One analogy we like to use is that of the Mayo Clinic: people go to their regular physician but may be sent to a specialist to work with specific areas. The NIM marriage therapists have been trained in this format to maximize its effectiveness. Also, the NIM marriage counseling programs provide the perspectives and insight of two professionals rather than one.
If you are considering divorce, you must try the National Institute of Marriage before giving up. They have developed a continuum of care that meets couples wherever they may be in their relationship. Regardless of the health of their marriage they have a service that can help couples improve their marital satisfaction. Visit their website at http://www.nationalmarriage.com. Read the incredible testimonies from the couples that saved their marriages by attending a Marriage Intensive at the National Institute of Marriage.

The best compliment ever

I was sent off to work with a smile on my face. My husband said good-bye to me and called me "baggy pants". It was the best backhanded compliment I had ever heard. Ever since his doctor put him on a low carb diet 3 weeks ago (he has lost 20 lbs so far), I had decided to join him on the diet. My results were not as dramatic as his (3 lbs so far) but I felt thinner. Last night I decided to try on a pair of black jeans that I had in the closet that were almost brand new. I bought them almost 2 years ago and found out they were too tight. I decided to keep them for when I lost some weight. When I put them on they FIT!!! I did not have to pull the 2 sides of the zipper close together to zip them up either. I will wear my "baggy pants" label with pride today!

The weight plateau

I have reached my weight loss plateau. You know what that is. It is the phase in our diets that you can't seem to lose anymore weight. I am still 25 lbs over my desired weight and I can't seem to get to shedding more pounds. I am to the point that I have to make a doctor's appointment to see what is going on or maybe try an over the counter diet aid like Lipodrene with Ephedra. I have been staying away from stimulants and pills that make your stomach feel full because I need to find a healthy way to help my body lose the excess baggage. Unfortunately I am getting desperate to lose my extra pounds. The plateau I am at right now has been lasting for about 3 weeks now and nothing seems to be working. Before trying any over the counter herb, diet pill or other type of diet aid I will consult with my doctor because I am on medication that might interact with over the counter diet aids. I do want to lose weight but I don't want to make my health worse by trying the wrong method.

Surgery to lose weight

Now I know from personal experience there are just some people that don't have the will power or the discipline to lose weight. There are a few members of my husbands family that need to lose weight NOW or suffer the consequences. Thankfully the medical community has come to the rescue with lap-band surgery a method of putting a band around the top part of your stomach so that it will allow your body to think it is full of food only after a much smaller meal. If you have tried everything to lose weight and you are in the obese category then you might want to talk to your doctor about this option.

Liquid diet study

If you have ever thought of going on one of those liquid diets then read this interesting article about a study done in Australia on obese dieters.

Learn to listen to your body

Learning to listen to the signals your body gives you will help you on your way to good health. Watch the video and learn more.