A new 10 year study of more than 500,000 people was just published stating individuals who are overweight by 50 have a 20% – 40% increased risk of premature death within the next decade. Individuals who were considered obese, a BMI of above 30, had a whopping 100% – 200% increased risk of premature death within the next decade.

The moral of the whole story is to take responsibility of your health by exercising on a regular basis, eating healthier foods with smaller portions, and pay close attention to your body fat and overall weight.

My biggest advice is to re-evaluate what a typical portion actually is. Cut down the portion size, and increase physical activity. Take a weekly assessment to determine if enough exercise has been done. If not, schedule times for activity. Your health, and longevity may depends upon it.

Since my wife and I are three weeks away from delivering our first child, I decided to share this information with you.

Congratulations on your pregnancy! Now that you know you are expecting, there are many different things that you will need to prepare for. Even if you have never had a baby before, you probably already know that your health and well-being is very important for the health of your baby throughout this pregnancy.

Exercise- You know that exercise is important but how much exercise and what kinds can you do while you are pregnant? Well, it also varies depending on your health, your stage in your pregnancy and your doctor advice. In the beginning of your pregnancy, most everything you did before will still be safe to do while pregnant unless you participated in extreme or dangerous sports. Ask your doctor to be sure if you have any questions.

As you progress throughout the stages of your pregnancy, you will need to revert to low-impact exercise but common pregnancy exercises include walking, yoga and swimming. Swimming is actually a fantastic choice all the way to your delivery date. The water helps reduce pressure on your body and can be very soothing and comfortable while still giving you the workout you need. There are also many fitness and health centers that have programs designed for pregnant women and you get the added bonus of having someone to talk to while you are there that understands your situation.

Before you begin any new exercise program, you need to ask your doctor to be sure it is safe. You should also be sure you always stay properly hydrated while exercising and that you warm up properly, start slow and sop immediately if you experience anything painful or unusual. If you experience cramps, contractions, pain or bleeding, you should stop what you are doing immediately and see a doctor.

Water- Exercise and diet is very important during your pregnancy but you may not know how truly beneficial water is. Your body needs tons of water anyway but especially now that you are pregnant. Water can also help prevent preterm labor and contractions and help keep your skin healthy too. Drinking water can help prevent UTI (urinary tract infections) and helps reduce bloating and swelling. It can help alleviate constipation and hemorrhoids as well. These are actually just some of the many benefits of water while you are pregnant. You should drink at least eight glasses of water a day. You might want to carry a container or bottle of water around with you so that you can sip on water throughout your day.

Diet- In addition to exercise and water, your diet will play a very important role in your health and well-being. In addition to the normal reasons why your diet is important, it also helps your emotional state. During pregnancy, you have a lot of emotions and hormone changes that can feel pretty overwhelming. A healthy and balanced diet can help alleviate some of this. You also need to remember that what you ingest, your baby gets too so the healthier you eat for baby, the better you both will be.

Dental care- The health of your teeth and gums is also very important during pregnancy which is something you may not have thought of before. If you haven’t had a dental checkup recently, it is a good time to get one. Tooth and gum disease can lead to problems in your pregnancy such as premature birth.

Mental health- Mood swings are also very common during pregnancy but if you feel you are falling into depression, it is important that you seek help with that. Postpartum depression and even depression during the pregnancy can be very harmful to you and your baby so be sure you talk to someone if you are feeling your emotions are out of control or if you feel like you don’t have a very good support system throughout the pregnancy.

Taking the time to be sure you have and maintain the proper health and well-being during your pregnancy is giving your baby the best possible start in life. You also ensure that you will remain as healthy and happy as possible during your pregnancy and once your new little one arrives in the world.

A new research study showed people do what their environment teaches them to do. As we all know the world is getting bigger, not taller, but heavier. The main reason, in my opinion, is the skewed sense of portion size. We follow what the marketers teach us when it comes to defining a portion. If larger portions are heavily marketed by restaurant groups, other will follow in competition; thus, the once smaller, recognized portion has now become larger. The sad thing is we don’t even realize it. Eaters tend to look at food at a unit.

In the study, researchers put a large bowl at M&M’s out for public consumption in a heavily traveled apartment building. One day they used a huge scoop, while alternating a small teaspoon scoop the following day. Guess what?  The people had eaten much more on the large scoop day. Thus, portion size is skewed.

Dieters need to get back to the basics and become famililar with what a reasonable portion used to be. Don’t fall into this supersize marketing trap. The scale will suffer.

Perhaps food companies, and restaurants should define how many portions are in its foods.  Another strategy is to ask for a doggy bag as your restaurant portion is delivered, and only eat half. 

A couple of days ago I heard an incredibly empowering talk on preventative aging. As a matter of fact, the person who spoke, Dr. Michael Roizen, is responsible for selling 2.5 million copies of his book called YOU – The Owner’s Manual. YOU was the #2 best selling book in the world  in 2005, just behind Harry Potter.

Since I had the privledge of hearing Dr. Roizen speak a couple of days ago, I would like to share the highlights with you, hoping you will benefit as much as I did.

You – The Owner’s Manual is about taking responsibility for your own health by focusing on proven preventative measure in order to protect your bodily functions from aging. His concepts are truly what is needed in the world today. Dr. Roizen is so right when he says doctors are very very good at diagnosing, and treating disease, but lousy at preventing it. It is all about fix, fix, fix, and not much mention of preventing the problem.

According to Dr. Roizen, our body functions roughly decline 5% every 10 years. This is simply called the aging process. However, what if we could do things that slowed down, or even halted this decline. You can! The big question he asked the group is how old would you like to feel? This is exactly the concept he promotes on his website. First off, you need to determine, according to studies, how old you really are. This is not your chronological age, but your real health age, which is determined by one person, and one person only – YOU… Go ahead and take his little quiz at Real Age to find out what age you really are. You might be surprised.

During Dr. Roizen’s presentation, his main goal was to provide an emotional link between the information he presented and the visitor. He did so by showing a live example of two extracted Aorta’s, one from an 89 year old who was killed in a car crash, and another from a 44 year old who died of heart disease. Wow! we could actually look at two aorta’s. This is what I mean by making an emotional connection which propels you into life changing action. He also showed a movie of what happens when a person eats too much saturated fat. He actually showed a heart attack in the works.

Below are a few tips he shared….(please verify each of these with your own personal physician)
1. Your body can re-program itself every 3 years in order to reverse the effects of previous damage.
2. Limit Trans and Saturated Fats to 20 g per day max.
3. Eat plenty of the good fats such as olive oil, fish oils, avacado, etc. to increase your HDL cholesterol
4. Stress is the #1 greatest ager of all!
5. Walnuts are the best “good fats” nut
6. It is never too late to start preventing (remember the every 3 years rule)
7. There are 141 things YOU can do to decrease you real age.
8. His take home actions included walking, aspirin, strength training, tomato sauce, walnuts, and taking specific vitamins and supplement.

I hope you invest in his powerful book (endorsed by Oprah), and live the preventative lifestyle. The best aging pill you can take is PREVENTION. Do it today!

All My Best,

Jim O’Connor
Wellness Word Newsletter

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