Setting goals #1

By Dr John Ellis MD // Leave a comment

I didn’t set out to lose 125 lbs.  Rather, I set out to change how I ate and to increase my exercise.  I decided I would be happy with whatever weight loss accompanied those changed habits, if I could maintain them.  It just happened to be 125 lbs lost over 18 months, and kept off for another 20 months.

I just read a number of suggestions that are applicable to weight loss and my experience.  The article, by Heidi Grant Halvorson, from the Harvard Business Review (of all places), is called “Nine Things Successful People Do Differently.”

I’ll go through some of them over the next few days and how they exemplify lessons I’ve learned.

1. Get specific. When you set yourself a goal, try to be as specific as possible. “Lose 5 pounds” is a better goal than “lose some weight,” because it gives you a clear idea of what success looks like. Knowing exactly what you want to achieve keeps you motivated until you get there. Also, think about the specific actions that need to be taken to reach your goal. Just promising you’ll “eat less” or “sleep more” is too vague — be clear and precise. “I’ll be in bed by 10pm on weeknights” leaves no room for doubt about what you need to do, and whether or not you’ve actually done it.

One specific goal I had was to do strength training twice a week.  And whether I did it with a trainer or on my own, I put it on my schedule.  I still often do that – I make an appointment with myself, and record it, with text reminders on my Google Calendar.

Challenges

I eat olive oil every day – and that may keep me from having a stroke!

By Dr John Ellis MD // Leave a comment

By Amy Norton NEW YORK | Wed Jun 15, 2011 5:28pm EDT

I add a TEAspoon (40 calories) of olive oil to my cooked veggies (1/2 – 1 lb for each lunch and dinner).  It adds taste, but I don’t drown my food in oil – the calories add up quickly.

A Mediterranean diet (which typically includes olive oil) has been shown to help prevent heart disease and diabetes.  Now a new study shows 41% less stroke as well in those who eat olive oil frequently! Reports Reuters:

“We need to remember that this is an observational study,” said Dr. Nikolaos Scarmeas, a neurologist at Columbia University Medical Center in New York who wrote an editorial published with the study. The study found a correlation between people’s olive oil use and their stroke risk, he told Reuters Health — but that doesn’t necessarily translate into cause-and-effect. “People who use a lot of olive oil may be very different from people who don’t,” Scarmeas said. Olive oil users may, for example, have higher incomes, eat better overall or exercise more often than people who never use the oil. The researchers on the new study, led by Cécilia Samieri of the French national research institute INSERM, tried to account for those differences. And after they did, olive oil was still linked to a lower stroke risk. But it’s impossible to fully account for all those variables, Scarmeas noted. What’s needed, he said, are clinical trials where people are randomly assigned to use olive oil or not, then followed over time to see who suffers a stroke. Such clinical trials are considered the “gold standard” of medical evidence.

Olive oil and balsamic vinegar

Cooking, Medical Issues

TV watching is deadly!

By Dr John Ellis MD // Leave a comment

The average American watches 5 hrs a day of TV.  And TV watching is once again shown to be associated with diabetes, heart disease and death!

Yet people say they have no time to shop, cook, or exercise.  One place to find the time is to decrease TV watching.  Instead of the family watching TV, how about a family walk (especially this time of year) after dinner.  Even better, having sit-down family meals is associated with less obesity in kids.

I understand that we often watch TV at the end of a long, stressful day.  But too much is deadly, especially when combined with mindless snacking.  I try to watch as little TV as possible.

Challenges, Cooking, Exercise, Kids, Medical Issues

TV

Happy Fathers’ Day

By Dr John Ellis MD // Leave a comment

I saw a number of men pushing strollers and out for walks and bike rides with their kids yesterday.  I was on my walk (2.3 miles – not much – but consistency is key!)

Dads:  after your kids let you sleep in (yeah, right!), maybe going for some outdoor activity with the young people is a great way to celebrate.

Remember – you help set your children’s habits and health for the future.  And future fathers:  if you eat a high-fat diet, that can make for changes in your sperm that can make it harder to conceive.  Also, in animal experiments,  when fathers eat a high fat diet, their daughters have higher chances of getting diabetes – even if the daughters eat a normal diet!

Happy Fathers’ Day!

Kids, Medical Issues

father

Commuting and obesity

By Dr John Ellis MD // Leave a comment

When I bought my first car during internship, I gained 30 lbs in 4 months.  I was no longer walking 1.5 miles each to work (up and down hills); I was no longer lugging laundry in a duffel bag to the laundromat.

Long driving commutes mean more stress, and less time to devote to health habits.  The more we drive, the more likely we are to be obese.  Especially with all the drive-through temptations…

People who take public transportation, on average, weigh less.

The graphs above are from The Economist; they also note:

A striking relationship between obesity and driving

AMERICANS are getting fatter: obesity rates have risen 74% in the past 15 years to nearly 28% of the adult population. And they are driving more: the number of miles driven by each licensed driver (VMT/LD), excluding commercial vehicles, increased by an average of 0.6% a year between 1988 and 2008. Academics at the University of Illinois have  found a striking correlation between these two variables—but with a large time lag. They noted that previous research had found that changes in diet had an effect on body weight only after some six years. Therefore VMT/LD in 2004 is correlated with obesity in 2010 (see left-hand chart). This near-perfect correlation (99.6%) permits predictions about obesity rates. Since VMT/LD fell in 2007 and 2008, America’s obesity rate could fall to as low as 24% in 2014 (see right-hand chart). These predictions come with a strong caveat: correlation does not equal causation. And it should be noted that the authors did not control for factors such as diet, income and lifestyle. Additionally, they did not explore the possibility that the larger, and thus more immobile, people become, the more they drive.

 

Challenges

Real men eat beans, greens, and rice

By Dr John Ellis MD // Leave a comment

I’m not vegetarian.  But I eat lots of plants!  1/2 – 1 lb of green veggies with every lunch and dinner.  Mike Tyson and Bill Clinton have lost tons of weight by eating a plant-based diet.

Fish or skinless chicken are my usual sources of protein.  But the other day at a graduation luncheon for my cousin’s daughter (go Lizzie!), the restaurant couldn’t steam fish for me.  So, I had beans as my protein source.  That, plus brown rice and spinach (and hot sauce) made for a great meal.

My sister ate such a diet when in Africa as a Peace Corp volunteer.  Suffice it to say, she was thinner there than when she’d been back in the US for a while.  Check out a similar story about a Chicago cab driver originally from Sudan.

Brown rice is to preferred to white rice; it still has the protective covering around the white rice that slows the absorption of the starch in the white rice inside.  Brown rice is like a whole grain; white rice is like white bread.  People who eat brown rice are less likely to develop diabetes than those who eat white rice.

Cooking

Losing weight boosts your vitamin D levels

By Dr John Ellis MD // Leave a comment

Vitamin D is important not only to bone health, but also possibly to cardiovascular health and prevention of obesity and diabetes.  Overweight people, and dark-skinned people living in the North are prone to having low vitamin D levels.

New research shows that losing weight (diet and exercise) boosts women’s level of vitamin D, even if they don’t take a supplement.  This may be a virtuous cycle – weight loss increases vitamin D, which may help to reduce fat accumulation…

I take 5000 U a day of vitamin D. I do not recommend you taking that dose of vitamin D without checking with your doctor and gettings blood levels measured.

Good food sources of vitamin D?  From the Federal government’s Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS):

Table 3: Selected Food Sources of Vitamin D [11]

Food	IUs per serving*	Percent DV**
Cod liver oil, 1 tablespoon	1,360	340
Salmon (sockeye), cooked, 3 ounces	447	112
Mackerel, cooked, 3 ounces	388	97
Tuna fish, canned in water, drained, 3 ounces	154	39
Milk, nonfat, reduced fat, and whole, vitamin D-fortified, 1 cup	115-124	29-31
Orange juice fortified with vitamin D, 1 cup (check product labels, as amount of added vitamin D varies)	100	25
Yogurt, fortified with 20% of the DV for vitamin D, 6 ounces (more heavily fortified yogurts provide more of the DV)	80	20
Margarine, fortified, 1 tablespoon	60	15
Liver, beef, cooked, 3.5 ounces	49	12
Sardines, canned in oil, drained, 2 sardines	46	12
Egg, 1 large (vitamin D is found in yolk)	41	10
Ready-to-eat cereal, fortified with 10% of the DV for vitamin D, 0.75-1 cup (more heavily fortified cereals might provide more of the DV)	40	10
Cheese, Swiss, 1 ounce	6	2

* IUs = International Units.

Note how good fish is in this regard!  I take fish oil every day.  I also eat a lot of canned tuna, salmon, sardines, and mackerel.

Sun exposure is crucial, too, for making vitamin D (though not too much for light-skinned people).

Medical Issues, Vitamins and supplements

fish oil, vitamin D

Structured living

By Dr John Ellis MD // 2 Comments

Challenges, Cooking, Exercise, Stress

structure house

I will be on the radio tomorrow afternoon

By Dr John Ellis MD // Leave a comment

Please tune in (http://www.wvon.com/ and click on “Listen Live”).

Date and Time: Saturday, June 11, 3:00-4:00PM (Central)

Please suggest questions that I might address on the show

The African Diaspora on WVON Talk Radio, 1690AM

Host: Dr. Doriane C. Miller, MD – Director, Center for Community Health and Vitality, The Urban Health Initiative of the University of Chicago Medical Center

In studio guests:
• Yvette Moyo Gilliard, co-founder of Resource International Ltd. and co-founder of Real Men Cook and Real Men Charities, a national Father’s Day Program in its 22nd year
• Chaga Walton, International Travel entrepreneur, and long-time participant inReal Men Cook
•Dr. John Ellis, MD, Graduate of Pritzker Medical School. Dr. Ellis has served for over 20 years as faculty at Pritzker and Professor in Anesthesia and Critical Care. He is also a first-time cook. Dr. Ellis has a very personal story to share about how he seized control of his heath.

news

Exercise helps, even when doctors do their best

By Dr John Ellis MD // Leave a comment

One thing that motivated me to exercise and lose weight was a small heart attack I had several years ago.

I read a study from Germany, where people with coronary heart disease (artery blockages) were either assigned to get an angioplasty (the cardiologists use a balloon to open up the blocked vessels by threading a catheter up from the groin) or a supervised exercise program where patients were exercised up 70% of the heart rate that caused them to have chest pain or other symptoms.   They were asked to do this at home daily for 20 min on an exercise bicycle, and come to clinic once a week for a group training session of 1 hour.   In the exercise group, not surprisingly, patients were gradually able to exercise at higher levels… and, the exercise patients did better in the following months than the angioplasty patients!

Exercise training was associated with a higher event-free survival (88% versus 70% …)(death of cardiac cause, stroke, CABG, angioplasty, acute myocardial infarction, and worsening angina with objective evidence resulting in hospitalization).

Mayo Clinic researchers have shown now that even after patients get an angioplasty (with or without a stent to help prop the vessel open), they are less likely to die if they enroll in a similar program of cardiac rehabilitation after their procedure.

Bottom line:  Physicians can do procedures and prescribe medicines to reduce your risks, but your decisions to exercise and make proper food choices are probably at least as important. More importantly, exercise and proper food choices are much less expensive and carry lower risks!

Exercise, Medical Issues

angioplasty, coronary disease, heart attack