Live Well Now  

   A journey of exploration into our overall

   lifestyles and how it affects our health.

 

Live Well Now is a program embracing a variety of healthy living lifestyles.  We will review the pros and cons of different eating plans, everyday habits, exercise, and emotional and Spiritual effects on our lifestyles. 

Welcome to Live Well Now!  My hope is that there will be something for everyone at some point.  I covet your prayers in this new adventure.

One of my main goals is to bring attention to the “good, bad and ugly” of some of the fad diets and real lifestyle changes that are bombarding us every time we turn around.  For those of you who know me, you know I am not a fan of fad diets and they can be harmful to your health, your emotions and mental attitude.  On the other hand, there are several lifestyle changes that we can make that improve your health, soothe your nerves and attitude and even make your doctor happy.  I recommend you check with your doctor before making dietary and exercise changes.

There are different motivations for these changes and each individual needs to examine your motivation carefully.  If you are doing it for someone else, it isn’t likely to work or last.  If you are doing it for yourself, understanding fully that it may very well affect the rest of your life on this earth, your attitude changes.  Above all, I have found that if I focus on the fact that I am a child of God and I want to glorify Him with my life, then it falls into place much easier.  God created us to love, worship and serve.  How can we do that fully?

Something I have discovered in the past few years is that while one thing may work perfectly for me, it may not be effective for you at all.  Likewise, something may be ideal for you and not work for me at all.  Our bodies all react to food differently.  Even though both of those plans may be real food and healthy, your bodies may just respond differently.  Even though a plan may be healthy, if you don’t have the lifestyle (remember The Daniel Plan Essentials? Faith, Food, Fitness, Focus and Friends) that rounds out and balances your daily living, it is going to be very difficult to stick with it.

That gives you an abbreviated version of what is to come.  I hope you enjoy the ride!

Pray Unceasingly!!

In His light,

Lois

I recently watched a webcast on The Prevention of Alzheimers Disease, a subject near and dear to my heart.  There are different degrees of dementia, different causes, and obviously, different names.  Unfortunately, when you are watching a loved one suffer with any of these, all the titles and classifications fade.

The webcast was through the Science of Prevention and involved many prominent doctors who have, and are researching in this field.  The narrator, Dr. David Permutter, is also an author who has written numerous books about the brain.

Alzheimers is a very specific disease involving beta-amyloid proteins, accumulating as sticky plaques in the brain.  If there is any function to these, it remains unclear.  There is currently no cure for alzheimers so it is even more important to do what we can to prevent it.

Despite great scientific efforts to find treatments for Alzheimer’s disease (AD), only 5 medications are marketed, with limited beneficial effects on symptoms, on a limited proportion of patients, without modification of disease course. The prevalence of AD doubles every 5 years reaching an alarming rate of 50% in those aged 85 years and older. In the context of the demographic trends of modern society, where the elderly are the fastest growing segment of the population, identification of new therapeutic targets that may prevent, delay, or cure AD is critically needed. (italics added).  (Excerpt from Reversing Alzheimers by Dr. Perlmutter)

There was so much information that it was difficult to keep up but I tried to get the main points.

A good place to start seems to be risk factors.  There is an acronym used, NEURO.

Nutrition

Exercise

Unwind, relax and stress management

Restorative sleep

Optimum cognitive activity

All at once, as early as possible!

 These risk factors include biological age, diet, hormones and medications.  Keeping in mind, prevention is key, some of their recommendations to avoid cognitive decline include:

#1 Diet – low carb, lots of healthy fats, mild ketosis and intermittent fasting

#2 Exercise – strength and aerobic

#3 Sleep – deep, and restorative; have a consistent wake up time, no caffeine after 2 pm, avoid exercise up at least 4 hours before bedtime, restrict blue light exposure from electronics, cooler temperature, shoot for 7-9 hours of sleep

#4 Brain training – cognitive exercise (word games/ math exercises, just use it!

#5 Hormone balancing.

Another factor that has a relationship with brain health hidden brain toxins.  Environmental toxins are all around us.  They include our food, if it is loaded with chemicals and preservatives.  Neurotoxins, a poison that affects the nervous system – Common examples of neurotoxins include lead, ethanol (drinking alcohol), glutamate, nitric oxide, botulinum toxin (e.g. Botox), tetanus toxin, and tetrodotoxin.  A newborn baby’s umbilical cord has shown 287 neurotoxins.  They are absorbed through the skin.

Glysophate and things like artificial sweeteners affect our microbiome (gut health) and are directly connected to inflammation.  Glysophate is related to genetically modified organism which has become common in our food.  It is found in cereals and other processed foods.

Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum systemic herbicide and crop desiccant. It is an organophosphorus compound, specifically a phosphonate, which acts by inhibiting the plant enzyme 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase. It is used to kill weeds, especially annual broadleaf weeds and grasses that compete with crops. Wikipedia

The brain is strongly connected to our immune system.  Damaged hormone levels equal problems with weight, sleep and fatigue and all increase our alzheimers risk.

Because soil depletion has affected the nutrients we get from food, use targeted supplementation to optimize your brain health.

Magnesium for our muscles and better sleep (preferably evening)

Melatonins help repair blood barrier to the brain and help sleep

Omega 3 fish oil, DHA specifically helps with inflammation

B vitamins, including the critical B 12 and DHA from algae

Folate lowers alzheimers risk

Vitamin D influences the function of thousands of genes

Turmeric is anti- inflammatory, an antioxidant and improves blood sugar and brain health

MCT or medium chain triglycerides are a great source of fuel for the brain and metabolism

Coffee, polyphenol, nurtures gut bacteria and brain health

If you have made it this far, congratulations!  You have the ability to determine your cognitive health.  Live your life to be stronger, healthier and better.  You are worth the investment of energy.  Be the best you that you can be.

Pray Unceasingly!!

In His light,

Lois

For almost 5 1/2 years we have been traveling along on the Daniel Plan journey.  It has been such a wonderful experience for me and I hope you all have pulled out, at least, bits and pieces that have improved your health or even your attitude towards faith, food, fitness, focus and friends! 

 
Lately, it has really been on my heart that it is time for a change.  Now, before you get too excited, I’m not going anywhere!  The name and focus will be changing though.  I am still working on the details but you will know soon after I do.  I do know we will be exploring different healthy options for different goals.  I think we may study other healthy and not so healthy plans to know what we should avoid.

One thing that will never change is those 5 essentials because they are the solid base for any healthy lifestyle! 

Our faith can bring about change, it can hold things steady when needed, it can renew us and revive us.  It is what keeps me going from one day to the next.  Then there is food.  There are so many things  we can just cut out.  Stop cold turkey and call it good.  Food is not one of those things. Fitness is not one of those things that we always like to talk about.  What we have to keep in mind is that you don’t have to participate in a marathon.  You can walk a mile or two or you can walk around the block.  You can walk to the mailbox , then take it from there!  My routine has changed drastically this past few months, but I can still water walk, so that’s what I do. Focus – now that’s another favorite!  Where our focus is, that’s where our heart and mind will be.  Is it worthy of our time?  Does it glorify God?  And last, but definitely not least is friends.  Our group has bonded and I will always consider them my friends.  They have supported me through thick and thin and loved me even when I didn’t feel lovable.  So yes, we will hold on to these essentials.

I ask for your patience during this transition and I will let you know as soon as details are ready!  Meanwhile,

Pray Unceasingly!!

In His light,

Lois

Sometimes, it seems like we are being pounded from every direction.  We no sooner get one situation taken care of and another appears. 

Other people can be the problem.  There is always that one person who seems to just want to make you frustrated.  Other times, your enemy is much stronger and more subtle.  He prowls, just waiting for an opportunity to swallow you up.  We all have vulnerable moments and the enemy waits for those moments so he can attack. 

This enemy, of course, is Satan.  Always selfish, always greedy.  He wants to destroy your happiness, your health and your life.  If he has his way, he wants your family, friends and church too.

When I feel the evil presence, I DO fight back!  I order him out of my life, in Jesus’ name.  I will go room to room, if I need to, and ask Jesus for HIS presence to fill me and run out anything that is not from Him!  I order Satan out of my body, my home, my family and my church.  And I pray.  I pray long and hard.

Time is growing shorter.  Satan must feel the timetable closing in because he is working double duty.  Always be aware and ready to fight back with the powerful weapon of Jesus Christ.  We know how the story ends, but we also know there are battles to be fought.  In Jesus’ name, we will win!

Pray Unceasingly!!

In His light,

Lois

Let God Be Your Defender

“I depend on God alone; I put my hope in him. He alone protects and saves me; he is my defender, and I shall never be defeated. My salvation and honor depend on God; he is my strong protector; he is my shelter” (Psalm 62:5-7 GNT).

There are always going to be people in your life who misunderstand you and people who don’t like you. There will always be people who criticize you, judge you, attack you, and spread rumors about you.

When you are misunderstood, you’re going to have a tendency to get in there and defend yourself. When you’re attacked, your first reaction is often to attack back—just like the rest of us. When people criticize you, you want to criticize back. When people insult you, you want to insult them back.

Don’t do it! Let God be your defender. Every time you are under attack, criticized, put down, or misunderstood, you have two choices: You can defend yourself, or you can let God defend you. Which will it be? Who do you think can do a better job defending you? God can.

Pay attention to this: You’re most like Christ when you say nothing in the face of attack, lies, and unfair criticism. You’re most like Jesus when you remain silent and leave it in God’s hands.

“When [Jesus] was insulted, he did not answer back with an insult; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but placed his hopes in God, the righteous Judge” (1 Peter 2:23 GNT).

Even Jesus did not fight back in the face of his unjust conviction and persecution. He trusted God to defend him when it mattered most and to have the ultimate justice.

In the Bible, King David was criticized and attacked his entire life. In fact, for most of his life, people wanted to kill him because they were jealous of him.

In Psalm 62:5-7, David said this: “I depend on God alone; I put my hope in him. He alone protects and saves me; he is my defender, and I shall never be defeated. My salvation and honor depend on God; he is my strong protector; he is my shelter” (GNT).

A lot of people are going to be jealous of your success, too, and they’ll want to attack you for many different reasons. But like David, you need to let God be your protector, your Savior, your defender, your victor, and your shelter.

Let God handle it. Let him be your defense.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” Hebrews 11: 1.

Do you believe in Jesus Christ?

Do you believe in healing?

Do you believe that our faith is what brings us to that belief?

Then why, if Jesus can heal our bodies, do we think he can’t or won’t heal our addictions?   Be it food, alcohol, cigarettes, shopping or whatever, do we think he can’t do that?   The very same God who created the world and everything in it, including our bodies, can’t take away our addictions?

Whose strength are we trusting?  His or our own?  I say that with love and I say that with experience.  Sometimes, we forget that God knows every single thing we go through, including our addictions, our guilt and our heartaches.  He is able to take care of anything we can throw at Him but we have to trust Him.  We have to place our faith in Him and believe He will heal us of whatever we need healed. 

Keep trusting and wait for God’s perfect timing.  And always:

Pray Unceasingly!!

In His light,

Lois

7 Essential Tips For Lasting Change
Daniel Amen, MD

Are you having trouble sticking with The Daniel Plan? Don’t beat yourself up. The Daniel Plan is designed to help you rewire your brain so you can get thinner, smarter, and happier. But don’t expect it to be as easy as flipping a switch.

Did you know that your brain is hardwired to resist change? The human brain likes to conserve energy and doing the same-old, same-old doesn’t require as much energy as trying something new and different. No wonder it can be so hard to change lifelong habits!

Be patient. It takes time to overwrite old neural pathways with new ones. But you can do it! The Daniel Plan is here to help you along the way. Here are 7 essential tips to help retrain your brain so you can continue making progress.

1. Don’t try to change everything at once.

If you have come to the decision that you want to make changes in your life, you probably want them to happen NOW! But after nearly 30 years of helping patients navigate the change process, I have learned that taking a gradual approach is the surest way to success.

So many people try to change all at once, but this almost inevitably invites disappointment and failure. You don’t have to change dozens of behaviors at once. Start with a few vital behaviors—the ones that will have the biggest immediate impact—and go from there.

2. Believe you can do it.

If you don’t believe in yourself, you will never achieve your goals. Lean on others in your small group for support and encouragement. When others believe in you, it can help you learn to believe in yourself.

3. Focus on your successes.

Rather than dwelling on the habits you haven’t managed to change yet, focus on the positive steps you have made. Are you drinking more water? Terrific! Are you eating more veggies? Excellent! Are you walking with your small group? Fantastic! Celebrating even the smallest successes can help keep you motivated.

4. Don’t swap one bad habit for another.

If you’ve got a sweet tooth, you may think that kicking your sugar habit is the ultimate goal. So instead of chomping on chocolate in the afternoon, you start sipping a diet soda or a café latte. Yes, it isn’t chocolate, but it still isn’t good for your brain or your weight-loss efforts. I see this so many times with my patients who quit one bad habit only to acquire another one in its place.

Some people even turn to illicit drugs. At the 2010 meeting of the American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, researchers presented evidence that some people who have bariatric surgery replace their food addiction with drug or alcohol addiction. A survey of post-bariatric surgery patients in substance abuse programs revealed that 85 percent of them put some of the blame on “addiction substitution” and 75 percent thought “unresolved psychological issues” played a role in their substance abuse.

This doesn’t surprise me because, as I like to say, stapling your stomach may be working on the wrong organ. There may be underlying biological, psychological, social, or spiritual causes for your overeating. If you get rid of your problem foods or have surgery to shrink your stomach but do NOT address these underlying problems, you won’t make any progress. You will simply look for other ways to self-medicate. To be your best self, you need to kick your bad habits and replace them with healthy habits.

5. Get back on track—setbacks don’t mean failure.

The road to change is not a one-way street. The steps to change are not static. I frequently tell my patients that their journey will be like going up and down a staircase. They will go up several steps, feel like they’ve made progress, then go back down a few steps when difficult situations arise. They will make several more steps of progress, then slip back a few, but usually not as many as before. Usually, the slope of progress is in an upward, positive direction.

If you aren’t expecting to encounter setbacks, it can derail your efforts. Let’s say you’ve been doing a great job sticking to your daily calorie limit and have lost 5 pounds after a few weeks. But then you go to your parents’ house for the holidays where you overindulge and end up gaining 2 pounds in a week. Then you feel like you’ve blown it, so you continue overeating after you return home and then you give up entirely on changing.

Understanding that setbacks are part of the process and planning how to deal with them makes them easier to handle. So, you ate more than you should during the holidays and gained a couple pounds—just get back onto your program the next day. Remember, losing weight is not a race, and faster is not necessarily better. Slow and steady is the healthiest way to lose weight and keep it off.
6. If you hit a plateau, change things up a bit.

Hitting a plateau can be one of the most frustrating challenges in your weight-loss journey. A plateau is when your scale seems to get stuck on a certain number and just won’t budge even though you haven’t veered away from your new brain healthy habits. Rest assured that this is a common scenario.

First, ask yourself, is it really a plateau? Even if the number on the scale is stuck, your body composition might still be improving. So don’t automatically get discouraged if the number on the scale isn’t changing fast enough for you. We often get so hung up on a specific number that we lose sight of our real goal, which is to look slimmer, feel happier and more energetic, and be smarter.

If you really have hit a plateau, then it is probably time to add more intensity to your workout routine or adjust your calorie intake.

7. Remember that change never stops.

Our bodies and lives are in a constant state of change. Marriages, divorces, job transfers, pregnancies, injuries, illnesses, and hormonal transitions are just some of the many things that keep us in flux.

Because of this, as you reach your initial goals, you may decide that you want even greater results. Or unexpected things might happen in your life that make you reevaluate your original benchmarks and downshift your expectations. Just know that with every change that comes into your life, you have the power to be in control of the way you handle that change.