Ask Dr. Cheryl

Topics discussed in this episode: 

• Our daily habits the bring real wellness (0:18)
• Water (0:30)
• Movement (3:38)
• Fresh air (5:46)
• Sleep (6:21)
• Sunshine (8:16)
• Healthy connections (9:58)
• Mindful choices (10:57)
• Power and purpose (13:40)

Transcript:

So we've been talking about whole foods and now we want to talk about you as a whole person and how we can supercharge those foods with the right daily habits to give you real wellness, all of you from your physical, your mental, your social, and your spiritual. So let's talk about those habits. So one is we need to hydrate the cell. So water. Water is one of the habits that every day we've eaten all the great foods we have the whole foods, but now we also need water. So when we hydrate, we call water the real energy drink. So when we drink water and we're properly hydrated, we have 20% more energy and that boosts what caffeine can give you. So water is the winner for the real energy drink. And so also know that the majority of the population is under hydrated at any given point in time. Another thing I always like to point out about water is that children under the age of 12 and adults over the age of 65 do not feel thirst. So we can't follow thirst to determine hydration. So it's especially concerning, or something we want to be aware of ,is if you're with someone under 12 and you're with someone over 65 to continue to encourage water. If you're outside at that baseball game and somebody's with you or the kids, it's really important to encourage water. And so one of the ways we do that is make water taste good. And there is a lot of people that do not like water. So when we've raised our kids on apple juice and milk and formula, they've had a lot of very sweet flavors. So to offer them water, a lot of times that will be rejected. So think of ways to find their favorite water. I'm a Fiji fan. So think about spa waters and think about what makes their favorite water. So whatever you can do to hydrate, but also know that within the water category would it, would be anything that doesn't have calories. So you could use an herb tea, it can have strawberry or lemon in it. Um, so we can create all kinds of flavors, but find water that you love. And again, this is how you can make it yours. So that's a fun part about water. And just make sure you're, you're drinking enough and that's a good thing. And when we caffeinate, we're actually dehydrating. So when we're looking at water, be sure to drink six to eight glasses a day to properly hydrate. If it's hot, you may need a little bit more, if you've been sweating, but ultimately the typical day six to eight cups will properly hydrate. The next we wanna look at is other things that we drink, but alcohol can dehydrate. So be aware of that, that you need to drink more water if you've had alcohol. And the other thing is to be sure that you're meeting the guidelines for alcohol. So this is another one of our habits that we want to think about. So the Mediterranean tells us the red wine. There's a lot of research on that, about how alcohol, is it good for you? Is it not and the conflict of that? And where I sit is scoring one point for meeting the guidelines of zero, if you don't drink, don't start. It doesn't have a health benefit that you need to drink and up to one drink per day and a maximum of five per week. These are the new guidelines that I suggest that we follow. These are the 2018 US dietary guidelines for drinking. So that's my recommendation. And we can talk about a drink is about 14 grams of ethanol, but ultimately a drink would be five ounces of wine, approximately one beer. And ideally stay within those guidelines and that's how you earn a point also on the score. So that's what we recommend for that. The next is moving. Movement is a super important habit and it's a great way to supercharge what you've eaten. So when we think about how movement ties into energy and metabolism, I wanna make sure in the habits that you move your way every day for 30 to 60 minutes. And that's something that if we start looking at it, some people like to track, some people like to really write down what they're doing, but most people know that movement makes us healthy, it gives us energy. And so there are people that love to exercise and this is a super easy habit for them. They're like, I'm all over this one 60 minutes, I'll do more. And that's great, but I want to know, I wanna speak to some of you that it isn't your favorite thing to do. And as we talk about that, even if you're just walking and it can be divided, it can be 10 minutes. So those oxygen cocktails we talked about for the plate to help with blood sugar, if you were to walk 10 minutes after breakfast, 10 minutes after lunch, you have 20 minutes in. So for dinner you can do 10 minutes, but maybe extend it to a 30 minute walk after dinner and that would really maximize how you used your minutes of walking to help with metabolism and to boost your energy and really give you a really optimal lifestyle. So that's great. But if you love hitting the gym, cardio fitness, you can do a continuous cardio fitness. We kind of call it zone two and do something like that for 30 to 60 minutes. Maybe that's three to five days a week. And HIIT training. Some of you know about interval training and we recommend that can be a part of what you choose for your activity in your 30 to 60 minutes. So whatever you choose, strength, flexibility, yoga, Pilates, whatever you like, make it what you love to do. Do something that you have fun doing. It's sort of like the plate where we say, don't eat foods that you don't love. So I want you to, if you love walking, it's great, you don't have to do any more than that. But if you really love doing, you know you love running, you like swimming, all of those work. So you have to move your way every day, 30 to 60 minutes for maximum benefit. The next is breathe fresh air. And this is super important as we look at, are we breathing deeply? Are we sitting up when we think about sitting throughout the day? The breathing exercises that are so important, but it also includes our environmental air. And we think about this is where smoking comes in. And this is something that really we see very clear research that smoking is not the best for our health. And so we recommend, if you're avoiding smoking and vaping and also secondhand smoke as much as possible, this is how on the score, you will see that you get a point for for that as well. The next is sleep. And this one is my biggest, worst one for me. But each one of us will find of these habits, they're easy ones. And then you'll find the ones like for me, I work through the night. Or you'll be a busy, and you just don't get the sleep and some people can't sleep. So what I think's important is when we start eating well and we start moving more and we start hydrating properly and we're not waking up to a glass of coffee, or a cup of coffee, and going to sleep with a glass of wine, I'd love to see the lifestyle where you don't need to do those things. You may want to do those things, but you can actually go to bed and feel peaceful cause your body is at rest. It feels good. And so it's easy to go to sleep. So you will find that your sleep will improve as you do these other habits. So give it a little bit of time, but try to sleep seven to nine hours per night. That's your ideal sweet spot. When you're under the seven hours, you really will not be your best, 100% self the next day. You might not know it or feel it, but it's really the ideal amount of time. And I think it's important for us to measure that and how that's working for us, is if we can wake up feeling rested without the need of medication to sleep. That's really the marker that I'm really sleeping well. So just know in your life if you have a lot of stress, you have a lot of things going on and you're not sleeping, look at that as a red flag of something that I can do that I need to work on that because my body needs that sleep. So that's a really important part. And when, if you need nine hours and not the seven, that's okay. Don't, don't some people really need nine hours of sleep every night and give your per yourself permission to have it. So I think that's a really important part because sometimes we feel like, oh, I don't wanna tell everybody I need nine hours of sleep. It's okay. So anywhere in that range, seven to nine hours. The next is sunshine and sunshine's really important. And I think this is the one where we, we worry about skin cancer and in doing that we start to kind of cover up, sunglasses, sunhats, and are we getting enough sunshine and sun is a part of our hormones. It synchronizes our body. So what we recommend is 10 minutes of sunshine every day, early morning. So you don't have to worry about those rays. And you can get this sunshine and you will find it will energize. It boosts nitric oxide if it touches the skin. And it also gives us vitamin D. So if 40% of our body is exposed to the sun just until we have a very light pink, not a burn, we get about 40,000 units of vitamin D. So when we start to think about, hmm, how come in our population, I rarely see someone that has vitamin D blood levels at the optimal level without supplementation. And so what that tells us, and I live in California, so when I think California, you're gonna have all the sun you would want. Definitely if you're in Pennsylvania and Michigan, we are running short on sunshine. So this is super important and that's just something to think about is to synchronize your body and your body clock. And this will help you sleep better that night. So if you were to have sunshine in the morning, you'll sleep better. So think about your walk outside and there's your moment to have some of that sunshine. And if it's warm enough, having a short sleeve shirt on so that you can at least get some sun to the skin. Super important habit. The next is creating healthy connections. This is our social and this makes us happy. So having healthy relationships and spending that time nurturing those relationships, expressing gratitude, finding a friend that you confide in, these are quality of life. This is what really makes people happy. And what I find is people are lonely. And we've had covid and so people are lonelier and we're working from home. So really work on: am I spending time every day with healthy relationships? And I know there's relationships that some call toxic, but let's think of nurturing healthy relationships, people that inspire you and people that you feel like make you better and that you do the same for them. So that's an really important part of our habits. And again, on the score, you get a point for doing that. So that's an easy point that should be easy for us to do every day. The next is mindful choices. And this is one of our habits that looking at diet culture and as we look at how can we make mindful choices that help our body and focus on being healthier and having a good attitude toward it, thinking positive, giving ourself permission to be able to take care of ourself. Living in balance, that's what mindful choices is really about. And getting rid of that inner shamer food police that says you ate that chocolate cake and you should feel bad for that. And that's something that can take, it'll steal all the joy of everything that we're doing. So if we're trying to eat the perfect plate and we're trying to exercise just right and we're getting all this lined up, this part in our mind can literally steal all the joy in our life. So let's kick out the food police. And this is a place where I want everybody in our community and in our membership to feel it's judgment free. This is be transparent. Be who you are on your journey. This is where we're honest, we can trust each other and we are here for wherever you're at in the journey that we're here to inspire you every step of the way. So we wanna do that for each other. And we need a community of people that have that type of attitude. Tired of diet culture. Tired of saying, oh, if I gain that 55 pounds or if I lose that five pounds, I'd be happier if I gain the five pounds, I'm gonna beat myself up and make myself go through this restrictive diet. This yo-yo dieting. All it does is harm our body. So this habit is about really making healthy choices and giving ourself permission to just not be perfect. And that's where I love the part on the plate. That's your happy food. This would be the part of the habits that's your happy place. And it's like making it yours and giving yourself permission to really not be guilted and really enjoying life. And then the ultimate of this is when I would meet you in person and you're having an ice cream cone and we can sit and have a conversation and you're not trying to hide it. That would be, that's what I want for you. Whatever you enjoy, I want you to enjoy if you were sitting right next to me at this table. That's to me where we're really there for each other. And I want you to know, I want to be that for you. Not to judge what you're doing, but to inspire you and celebrate and be a part of making your life happier. And our last one is power and purpose. And this is where spirituality is the key to health and happiness. This is where we get the power and this is where we find our purpose. This is where we really know our why. And this is super important for us to spend time thinking about it and talking about it. Because in our whole per whole person health, our spirituality is a really important part of who we are. So I want us to dive deep into that. And every day spend time with God or your spiritual belief, meditation, prayer, time for self-reflection, enjoying a daily inspirational talk or podcast or reading a book. Get inspired every day. It might be a blog, but find something every day that inspires you and helps you build that connection and find your purpose. So these are the habits that make us whole person and when we tie this together with the foods we really are, this is the most we can do of putting our body an environment to heal. So whatever you have, wherever you're coming into this, if you already have cancer, if you don't want to get cancer and you're on the preventive side of it, eat wherever you are, whatever your genetics are aligned for, this will change genetic expression, these habits and this food so that your body can thrive at the best it can for its natural healing. When people practice these foods and these habits and get a score of 18, 19, 20 on the score this, that's when we begin to see even clinical risk factors change and connecting the dots. I want you to see that as you do more of these things, you'll begin to see quality of life improve, more energy, you'll start to see your blood pressure come down, and you'll reduce your need for medication. This is the food and the lifestyle that from my understanding and my experience and all that I've done with thousands of patients and the research that I know, this is the best of the best of the habits and the food that heal. Welcome to wellness.