Thursday September 8, 2011

Before I lead you to this great guest post by Dr. J, I want to thank you all for the amazing comments yesterday! I also got an email question on how many calories I eat. I really do not log my food anymore. What I knew was what worked for me in terms of eating since my 40's. As the body & hormones changed, I make adjustments to the types of food & how much I ate from that point in time. That is what I do now as well. When things stop working or the clothes fit tighter or the scale goes up & not down, I make adjustments to my current food plan in terms of what I eat & how much. In my younger days, I was eating anywhere from 2100-2400 calories a day. I am guessing that right now I may be in the 1700-1800 calories per day ON WORKOUT days. I eat less on non workout days. I may try to figure it out better some day for you!  I am a huge believer in label reading and portion control as well.

Dr. J offers his irreverent, slightly irrelevant, but possibly useful opinions on health and fitness. A Florida surgeon and fitness freak with a black belt in karate, he runs 50 miles a week and flies a Cherokee Arrow 200.

It has been a while since I tag treamed with DR. J but today is the day & he is talking about the choices we make in life! Take a read & think about the choices you are making to lead you down the path of a healthier life!

The Cone of Uncertainty

With the arrival of Irene, the U.S. has seen what devastation and destruction even a "minor" hurricane can do! Unfortunately, it will be a while before many towns and areas of the eastern U.S. will be back to normal again.

September actually is the peak month for hurricanes. Like the pins in a bowling alley, we in the eastern and southern United States are the targets of the numerous bowling ball-like counter-clockwise spinning objects coming across the Atlantic!

Unfortunately, there are no gutters, so somewhere will have to take the hit! Yes, there is the occasional odd ball that just hooks into the North Atlantic, picking up water and returning it as rain, but those are all too infrequent! For the rest of them, there is only the Cone of Uncertainty. Where in the cone our hurricane ends up tracking depends on several factors such as steering currents, high level wind sheers, area of origin, presence of high and low pressure fronts, mountainous land masses, and so forth. The slightest variation in factors can determine if your home gets trashed or if it will be someone else’s home in the next city, state or country!

Our individual cones of uncertainty

Perhaps when we grace the earth with our formation, we also enter our own cone of uncertainty, where many factors — some predetermined, many controlled to various degrees by ourselves or our environment — will all add up to our life’s direction!

When I was involved in adolescent psychiatry, I often thought about how a small change in a patient’s life direction could, over time, make a large difference as to where they would end up as their young lives moved forward. I told a story in an earlier column about a former patient, Heidi, who changed her direction while under our care and went on to happier times! This is one of the reasons that I feel important directional choices need to be made or instituted if possible, while we are children!

The choices we make determine our lives, which has long been a mantra of mine. While we are born with our genetic makeup, I feel the major determining factors in our lives can be largely influenced by the choices we make. Even if one looks at identical twins their fingerprints, which were identical at birth, do not remain the same as they age!

Every choice influences your life

Think about the choices in the type of diet you eat, the exercise and activities you get involved with, the health related decisions, etc. All of these contribute to where you will track in your cone of uncertainty! Do you smoke, wear a seatbelt or riding helmet, get vaccinated, have a gun in the home, the list goes on, all factors influencing your track.

Of course we cannot control everything, but we do have control over our reaction to what happens to us. Stress is not our problem, but our reaction to stress can become our problem! There are obvious controllable factors over which we have considerable influence. The all-too-often self-acquired diseases which comprise the metabolic syndrome, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol and triglycerides, are as a unit, or separate entities, all conditions that can usually be avoided by healthy lifestyle choices.

Even arthritis and many other conditions such as heart disease and cancer are minimized or decreased by the avoidance of being overweight or obese, eating a healthy diet and being active.

There are many ways to go in life! Each and every one of us has the privilege of finding our own best path. It will be a unique and special path for each. Some will do better than others, but all of us have the opportunity to do our individual best! When you are that bowling ball cruising toward your destiny will you be a strike, or will you be struck? It is your choice within your cone of uncertainty!

From Jody - LOVED this post & it is so true! Find the path that is best for you but don't give up! Share your thoughts!