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Having served as an airborne combat medic, worked as a nurse, been
subjected to surgery, and tried various exercises/workouts, I tend to
get a lot of questions about health and medicine.
Note: the following are my observations from my experiences and are
in no way official and/or legally binding. That's for all the
litigious twits out there.
Pages & Links
Having a Healthy Diet
A good diet is not a temporary thing. You need to get serious and
develop good habits. First, you need to know what those are. These
links can
help. Here's my two cents for some simple golden rules:
- Basically, eat the way our bodies became accustomed back when
natural selection stopped working for humans
- Avoid refined foods, especially refined sugars and breads
- Know what a balanced diet is and follow it! The USDA guidelines
can help there.
- Know what a serving size is...most folks don't really know,
they overstimate; and you can get too much of a good thing
- Don't fall into fad diets that wreck your biochemistry to achieve
a low body weight, e.g. Atkins
- If a diet sounds too good to be true, it probably is
- When you have all of that down, you can take the next step and
go for a variety of foods
- Glycemic index is worth understanding (Sugar
Busters, Glucose Revolution, etc.), i.e. apple juice
= good, orange juice=not so good
- Our bodies were built to consume natural grains, and raw fruits
& vegetables; whole fruit is
better than
juice
- Smoothies? Why take perfectly good fruit, tear it apart, water
it down, and then dump sugar on it?
Suffice to say, after our post-natural selection ancestors did not
have eclairs, donuts, white bread, white sugar, smoothies, etc. Oh,
and
they were
OMNIvores.
So
go eat a balanced diet!
Some links on health and diet
- Healthfinder.gov - A
variety of government resources
- Nutrition.gov & HealthierUS.gov -
Here's where you can get the official diet info from the USDA;
the info seems ot be more appropriate this year, but realize that
the
bureaucracy involved in creating their guidelines can slow
the appearance of cutting edge research findings in their material.
- Eatright.org - From the
American Dietetic Association
Addiction Assistance & Support
Just about everyone has heard of Alcholics Anonymous. Less folks have
heard about Narcotics Anonymous. Even less folks know that both are
based in religion - they are
non-denominational, but their basic tenets are based in theism
and a fundamental underpinning that the inidividual is unable to quit
(they must rely upon submission to a "higher power" to do it for them).
Some folks have complaints about AA's approach and techniques. After
hearing
from
someone
that
was eager
to quite
drinking
but turned off by the piety and operation of their AA group, I asked
around and
found some other sources of help. Please realize that this is not an
endorsement
or
validation of these services; I am simply passing on some suggestions,
and I urge you to investigate the services fully (including AA/NA)
to find whatever solution works best for you:
Online Health References
Online Diet Delivery Services
Here are a few places that purport to provide healthy, balanced meals
delivered to you.
Warm-up/Cool-Down: essential components to a
good workout
A good warm-up will help prevent you tearing up your muscles and joints
when you exercise. A good cool-down will help remove lactic acid
buildup from your muscles and I find it is also a great time to stretch
a little longer/farther to increase your flexibility. It's like
driving a car. If you stomp on the gas when the light turns green
and then slam on the brakes at the next red light, you will damage your
car. You may not notice it the first, second, or third time, but
a few years down the road, when you need a new engine, you will.
Of course, the human body can repair itself, but it has its limits,
and it's pretty hard to just get a new "engine" for it.
Key concepts:
- Always do static/slow stretches, do not "bounce" when stretching,
it tends to injure and/or tense up your muscles.
- Walking for a few minutes before your warm-up is best, but I find
that just taking the warm-up slow and easy at first works just fine.
- Shoot for six to eight minutes each for the warm-up and the cool-down.
- Warm-ups
- stretches - I stretch all of my muscles every time I work out,
regardless of whether or not they will be the focus of my routine
that day.
- some light calisthenics - I do a few generic ones to get the
body going
- Cool-downs
- you might do some light calisthenics, but do them slow and
easy
- stretches - I usually repeat the same stretches from my warm-up.
Exercise-related pain
Pain sucks. However it can tell you a lot. Some thoughts:
- If you have any suspicion that you need medical treatment, then
go. You only have one body.
- If your pain is more dull and/or diffuse and isolated to your muscles,
then you probably just have good old lactic acid buildup which is
probably due to your overdoing it or not doing a good cool-down.
The only way to get rid of this is to move the toxins out of the muscle
in question. Heat, good hydration and further exercise (after
proper rest periods) can help.
- If your pain is sharp, then you may have torn ligaments and/or
tendons, which is bad. Seek medical attention.
- If you have a pain you have never experienced before, consider
seeking medical attention.
For simple sprains/bumps, you basically
want to reduce the initial inflammatory response, then speed the body's
"clean up" of the injured area:
- The first 24 hours - apply cold and elevate (preferably above level
of heart) to control swelling. Take an analgesic or anti-inflammatory
(it is the inflammatory response we are fighting right now). Tylenol
or aspirin (both analgesics) will do fine, if you have no medical
condition and/or allergy that contradicts taking them, but aspirin
is not as desirable at this point because of its greater anticoagulant
("blood-thinning") effects. Some form of ibuprofen/motrin (a
non-steroidal anti-inflammatory) might be a better choice at this
stage, if you have no medical condition and/or allergy that contradicts
taking them, because it is an anti-inflammatory. Wrap the joint,
the width of the bandage should be about :
- Knee - four or six inch bandage
- Ankle - three inch bandage
- Wrist - two inch bandage
- After the first 24 hours - apply heat and elevation to reduce swelling
and improve blood flow to the injured area so healing can get under
way. Now, aspirin would be a good choice, if you have no medical
condition and/or allergy that contradicts taking it, because of its
anticoagulant ("blood-thinning") effects. A good analgesic cream
that makes the muscle "hot," e.g., Ben-Gay, can help.
- Range of Motion (ROM) exercises - this is where it gets tricky.
Basically, you want to explore the full range of motion of your joints
with steadily increasing pressure until you get back to original functionality.
Start slow! Injuring yourself again is a bad idea. For
ankles, the best routine I know of is to "draw" the letters of the
alphabet with your toes while keeping your leg still, drawing the
letters as big as you can. This takes you through a lot of different
movements and works well. The wrist is a little more obvious
and people tend to go through a decent ROM naturally. The knee
is quite constrained in its ROM, hopefully, so it's not hard to figure
out what to do there, and like the wrist, approaching normal use of
the knee's full ROM naturally rehabilitates it
- Prevent further injuries - keep the muscles around your joints
strong. Exercise them and be sure to warm-up them up well before
exercise, especially for high-impact activities.
Common medications for pain: Aspirin vs. Acetaminophen
(Tylenol) vs. Ibuprofen (Motrin)
Be certain you have no allergies to these medications before taking
them. Consultation with a medical doctor is always advisable.
A good internet source is RxList -
the Internet Drug Index.
First, let me say that far too many people have become medication snobs.
For many, Aspirin and Acetaminophen are too "common" for their "extraordinary"
pain. The simple fact is that they are both fantastic medications
that are cheap, easy to acquire, and work well.
For sensitive stomachs, Aspirin is worst, Ibuprofen is bad, and Acetaminophen
is good.
If you want anticoagulant/"blood thinning" effects, Aspirin
is best (ibupofren has some side effects like this).
For analgesia and antipyresis, all three are similar.
Aspirin: quite possibly one of the most
wondrous medications we have found. We still do not know exactly
how it does what is does. It can be hard on one's stomach though.
For sensitive stomachs, Acetaminophen or Bayer
Aspirin is advisable. Be certain you have no allergies to these
medications before taking them. Consultation with a medical
doctor is always advisable. A good internet source is RxList
- the Internet Drug Index. Aspirin is:
- an analgesic (pain reliever) and antirheumatic (arthritis reliever)
locally by acting on prostaglandins (tissue hormones) and systemically
by acting on the hypothalamus. This latter effect is still
not well understood.
- an anticoagulant ("blood-thinner") - it reduces the effectiveness
of the blood to coagulate into clots. If you take it regularly,
it will probably take a little longer for your bleeding to stop.
Of course, this anticoagulant effect is desirable, e.g. for sprains
(after the first 24 hours) and post-operative heart patients.
In the case of the latter, a "baby" aspirin.
- antipyretic - reduces fevers by acting on the hypothalamus to
increase peripheral blood flow and vasodilation. This is sort
of like making your car's radiator bigger and thus increase dissipation
of heat.
Acetaminophen (e.g. Tylenol):
Tylenol is a great medication. It is a lot less of an anticoagulant
("blood-thinner") than Aspirin, and is much easier
on the stomach. Be certain you have no allergies to these medications
before taking them. Consultation with a medical doctor is always
advisable. A good internet source is RxList
- the Internet Drug Index. Acetaminophen is:
- an analgesic (pain reliever) and antirheumatic (arthritis reliever)
locally by acting on prostaglandins (tissue hormones) and systemically
by acting on the hypothalamus. This latter effect is still
not well understood.
- antipyretic - reduces fevers by acting on the hypothalamus to
increase peripheral blood flow and vasodilation. This is sort
of like making your car's radiator bigger and thus increase dissipation
of heat.
Ibuprofen (e.g. Motrin): one of
the most abused and overused medications I now of. The analgesic
and antipyretic effects are similar to Aspirin.
Be certain you have no allergies to these medications before taking
them. Consultation with a medical doctor is always advisable.
A good internet source is RxList
- the Internet Drug Index. Ibuprofen is:
- an analgesic (pain reliever) and antirheumatic (arthritis reliever)
- see Aspirin. About as effective as Aspirin.
- antipyretic - see Aspirin
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