The Power of Health Behaviours - Pt 1/3

Health Behaviour #2: Quantity of food eaten Our bodies need enough food (calories) to sustain our basic, doing nothing, energy (basal metabolic rate) plus our “on purpose” physical activity energy demands. It goes without saying, the less active you are the less food (calories) you need. If we overeat and are not physically active enough to burn up the excess calories we intake, we have a problem. When we have unused calories floating around in our blood, they have to go somewhere and almost always they end up turning into fat tissue. Having some fat tissue is a good thing,...

Health Behaviour #1: Physical Activity  Physically active or sedentary lifestyles are our own choices on how we behave. We have to choose to be physically active and/or to exercise versus choosing to sit around and be physically inactive (sedentary). In other words, physically active and sedentary lifestyles are health behaviours the vast majority of us choose. It’s the sedentary lifestyle behaviours that are the problem. We are all pretty much guilty at some level of choosing comfort and convenience instead of exertion and challenge. The problem is that too much comfort and convenience and not enough exertion and challenge equals...

Health behaviours Preventing sudden cardiac arrest, heart disease, and heart failure sounds like a pretty good idea. But societies all around the world have spent a bazillion dollars on how to treat heart disease and heart failure and sadly, have never found a cure. There are lots of wonderful drugs and procedures to “manage” heart disease and heart failure, but no cures. Health care systems can keep you alive longer after heart disease starts but can’t cure it. Too bad only a very small fraction of dollars are currently, or ever have been, spent on preventing heart disease. For the...