VitalityHouse Health Articles

Maybe, Just Maybe

It was late in the third quarter and Penn State was fighting not only to keep its undefeated season alive, but its hopes for a national championship as well.  As Penn State quarterback, Daryll Clark scrambled for a seven-yard gain, he collided with two 300-pound defensive linemen.  Seven snaps later, Penn State officials diagnosed Clark with having sustained a concussion from the collision and pulled him from the rest of the game.  Those watching the game could see that Clark was visibly upset by the decision not to let him return to play.

Not only did Penn State win the game and keep its national championship hopes alive, Penn State demonstrated that the health of its athlete was more important than winning a football game.  Dr. Wayne Sebastianelli, Penn State’s Director of Athletic Medicine, was quoted as saying “We know the stakes are high, but we’re pretty much dedicated to the preservation of an athlete’s well-being.  No one questioned it at all.  We knew we had to find another way to win.  That was it.”

The actions by Penn State’s team doctors and coaches should be a lesson to everyone that players who sustain concussions during sporting events should not be returned to play.  Maybe, just maybe, others will follow this example.

Best Diet Tips (Part 4) : Does Food Occupy Your Thoughts All Day?

I've often noticed that my weight loss clients and friends who are overweight spend an awful lot of time thinking about food - planning what to eat, salivating over what they think they should not eat, giving themselves a hard time about what they ate and think they shouldn't have, talking about what they ate

And in contrast my friends who are slim just get on with their lives - they may plan what's for dinner but they don't often think about food until they are hungry (or until someone puts a chocolate cake before them - well, they are human too!) and when they've eaten they don't think about it again (unless it was a spectacularly delicious meal!)

In some cases, the slim friends have busier lives than the more overweight ones - but it's not always true.

So what is going on here?

It seems to me that the slim friends have a "set it and forget it" approach to food. They may have a vague idea what they'll have for lunch or dinner or a firm plan in place and when they get hungry - they eat!

The others eat more because thoughts about food comes into their head all day. It's a bad habit they have got into. When they think about food, they feel hungry even though they are not physically in need of food - and more often than not they give into temptation because they don't stop thinking about food until they do.

I have found three ways to deal with this obsession:-

The first involves getting 100% occupied and interested in what you are doing so that you get in a flow state where you don't even think about food. This is the ideal but it's difficult for most people to achieve when they have got into the habit of thinking about food too much. And to be fair, most of our lives are not filled with activities that are so very interesting!

The second involves not giving into food thoughts unless we are truly physically hungry (tummy rumbles required) and giving ourselves a task to do before we even consider  whether we are hungry again. It means not eating now "in case we can't get time to eat later". It means not fearing being a little hungry - it won't do you any harm to wait.

With the third solution, you eat whenever you like but you change what you eat. Give yourself permission to nibble all day if need be but keep very low calorie foods (such as raw vegetable sticks) on hand and all higher calorie foods under lock and key until meal times.

If you need to lose weight, try to use a combination of all three tactics so that you get out of the habit of

a) thinking about food all day
b) giving into food thoughts when are not hungry
c) eating lower calorie foods when you do give in!

Daubert Issues in Traumatic Brain Injury Cases

Last Thursday, October 23, 2008, I traveled to New York City to participate in a continuing legal education program on traumatic brain injury sponsored by Lorman Education Services.  My topic at the program was Daubert Issues in TBI Cases.  My presentation focused on the evidentiary requirements for expert testimony and steps that can be taken to keep junk science out of the courtroom.  Besides my presentation, the attendees heard from other outstanding attorneys who specialize in neurolaw as well as from Wilfred van Gorp, Director of Neuropsychology at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.

Best Diet Tips (Part 3) : Are the Bathroom Scales Your Enemy?

When you're trying to lose weight, there's nothing like the joy of seeing the figure on the bathroom scales go down.

And of course, there's also nothing like the disappointment of being "good" all week, eating healthy food and exercising like mad and seeng the scales not budge at all or (worse) go in the wrong direction. 

The problem is that the figure on the scales is subject to a lot of variation and much of that is nothing to do with whether you have been following your weight loss program or not.

Food type (chiefly the presence or absence of salt), weather and hormones all have an effect on how much water you retain and can affect your weight adversely even if you've lost fat. On the other hand you may be falsely celebrating (and so be in for a disappointment next weigh-in) just because your stomach is empty and you're wearing lighter clothes than last time you weighed yourself.

To get over this, if (and only if) you can be dispassionate about the scales and see them as a tool rather than the be all and end all of weight loss, I suggest weighing yourself every day at the same time wearing nothing at all (e.g. just before your morning shower) and plotting your weight on a graph.

Daily your weight will go up and down but on average you should be seeing a downwards path. You can happily look at your average going down from week to week and use that as motivation.

However if you are someone who reacts badly to the figure on the scales either by getting depressed if it goes up or celebrating too much (or rewarding yourself with extra food) if it goes down, then give up weighing yourself more than once a month. Use your clothes to be the judge of whether you are losing weight or not.

You really can’t control what the scales say on a day to day basis BUT you can control what they say from month to month and above all you can control your behaviour no matter what the scales say. Weighing yourself won't change your weight. But sticking with your weight loss program will…

Best Diet Tips (Part 2) : Give up Exercise!

Ok, I'm joking. But seriously you've got to stop the boom and bust with exercise and just fit more movement and activity into your everyday life.

Because you know what happens when you decide to go on one of your exercise bouts - you go crazy with it and get sore or injured and you just don't feel like doing ANYTHING for a week. Or you put off starting exercise until you're not so busy/tired because it all seems like too much effort. Or even worse, you exercise and then you reward yourself for all that effort by eating or drinking many more calories than you used up.

To lose weight you'll need to either eat less or move more or both. There's no magic diet pill, patch or gimmick no matter what the ads try to tell you. If you move your body more, you'll be able to eat slightly more than you otherwise would and still lose weight.

But we're not talking plates of pasta here - we're talking about an extra apple or yogurt, maybe an occasional cookie.

You walk for 10 minutes, you use about 50 - 60 calories. That's all! And you need to use up 3500 calories to lose a pound of fat. So don't go thinking you can have  a bar of chocolate after a walk around the block and still see a result at the end of the week!

If you love exercise and don't feel the need to reward yourself afterwards - go for it! We all need to get exercise for our health. But if you hate it and can't get through a jogging or gym session without the idea that you deserve a treat (and an edible one at that) - go for gentler exercise, a 10 minute walk here, an extra stair climb there, and add some activities which you find fun rather than a trial - tennis or badminton, swimming, skating or golf, dancing or karate. Let the activity itself be the reward.