Nutrition and the Caregiver

Nutrition and the Caregiver

Are you providing care to a loved one? According to the Caregiver Action Network, more than 65 million people, 29% of the U.S. population, provide care for a chronically ill, disabled or aged family member or friend during any given year and spend an average of 20 hours per week providing care for their loved one.

On an airplane, an oxygen mask descends in front of you. What do you do? As we all know, the first rule is to put on your own oxygen mask before you assist anyone else. Only when we first help ourselves can we effectively help others. Caring for yourself is one of the most important—and one of the most often forgotten—things you can do as a caregiver. When your needs are taken care of, the person you care for will benefit, too.

You may wonder what your day-to-day nutritional choices have to do with being a caregiver.  The food that you eat affects your moods, overall health and immune system.  When you experience the ongoing stress of caregiving, good nutrition becomes critical to maintain your health and well-being.

Here are some tips for making healthy, time efficient meals.

• Make breakfast for dinner i.e. omelets, egg sandwiches, pancakes, waffles or breakfast casserole.
• Microwave potatoes and serve with cheese, broccoli or chili.
• Make or purchase soup and freeze the remainder for future meals.
• Take advantage of the deli in your local supermarket.
• Look for a new array of snacks appearing in supermarkets that are higher amounts of protein and often include healthy ingredients.
• Place an assortment of vegetables like carrots, squash, onion, peppers, and potatoes on a baking sheet and roast in the oven at 425 degrees and check after 25-30 minutes.
• Have some leftover fruit? Freeze and use in smoothies.



Ways to Boost Memory

Ways to Boost Memory

Have you ever wondered what you could do to improve your memory? There are many things that can help expand your brain power at any age.  Your brain has the ability to form new neuro pathways and to alter existing connections that can increase your cognitive abilities.  Here are a few ways that may help.

• Eat memory-boosting foods such as vegetables, especially those that re cruciferous or dark leafy greens (broccoli, cabbage, spinach, leaf lettuce).  Berries and cherries, especially dark ones are rich in anthocyanins and flavonoids that may boost memory function.  Healthy fats that contain omega-3 are essential for good brain health.
• Give your brain a workout.  Your memory is like muscle strength; you lose it if you don’t use it.  The best brain activities to increase memory are ones that break your routine, challenge and engage you.  Something you could try is learning to play an instrument, learn a new language, or a new game.
• Physical exercise increases oxygen to the brain and increases growth factors, which in turn, stimulate new neuronal connections in the brain.  Aerobic exercise keeps the blood pumping.  Try a short walk or even some jumping jacks.
• Getting enough sleep impacts memory greatly.  Ninety-five percent of adults need 7.5 to 9 hours of sleep each night. Even losing a few hours makes a difference.  Your memory, creativity and critical thinking skills can be jeopardized if you don’t get enough sleep.
• Having a strong support system and active social life have shown to have a slowing effect on memory decline as studied by the Harvard School of Health.  Try joining a club, visiting friends more often or even adopting a pet.

Source: Brown County Aging and Disability Resource Center    

MyPlate Snack Tips for Parents10 Tips for Healthy Snacking

MyPlate Snack Tips for Parents

http://www.choosemyplate.gov/sites/default/files/tentips/DGTipSheet24MyPlateSnackTipsforParents.pdf

 

Did You Know?

Did You Know?

• About 86 million American adults have prediabetes, but 90% of them don’t know it!
• You can add our prediabetes quiz to your website to help people find out in minutes if they’re at risk.
• You can also help spread the word about prediabetes and how to prevent diabetes by sharing these CDC resources, including links to social media, infographics, and podcasts.

 

Polyunsaturated Fat Levels in Foods

Polyunsaturated Fat Levels in Foods

Polyunsaturated fats can have a beneficial effect on your heart when eaten in moderation and when used to replace saturated fat and trans fat in your diet.

From a chemical standpoint, polyunsaturated fats are simply fat molecules that have more than one unsaturated carbon bond in the molecule; this is also called a double bond. Oils that contain polyunsaturated fats are typically liquid at room temperature but start to turn solid when chilled. Olive oil is an example of a type of oil that contains polyunsaturated fats.

Polyunsaturated fats can help reduce bad cholesterol levels in your blood which can lower your risk of heart disease and stroke. They also provide nutrients to help develop and maintain your body’s cells. Oils rich in polyunsaturated fats also contribute vitamin E to the diet, an antioxidant vitamin most Americans need more of oils rich in polyunsaturated fats also provide essential fats that your body needs but can’t produce itself – such as omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids. You must get essential fats through food. Omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids are important for many functions in the body.

Yes. While, all fats provide 9 calories per gram, monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats can have a positive effect on your health, when eaten in moderation. The bad fats – saturated fats and trans fats

Here is list of some vegetable oils and percentage of polyunsaturated fat.
Safflower oil – 78%
Sunflower oil – 69%
Corn oil – 62%
Soybean oil – 61%

Other good sources of polyunsaturated fats include: walnuts, pecans, pistachios and almonds.

Some fish are high in omega-3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA) include:
Herring – Atlantic
Salmon
Sardines – Pacific
Trout
Tuna

Take Control of Your Blood Pressure

Take Control of your Blood Pressure

February is Heart Month, a time for us all to think about heart health for ourselves and those we love. Heart health is complicated and many factors contribute to it, but many of those factors are within our control.

High blood pressure is a leading cause of heart disease and stroke. One in every six Americans has high blood pressure and for certain groups the rate is even higher. Two out of every five African Americans have high blood pressure. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), people with high blood pressure are 4 times more likely to die from a stroke and 3 times more likely to die from heart disease, compared to those with normal blood pressure.

 So what can you do?

1. Ask your doctor what your blood pressure should be and check it every few months. You can have it checked at your doctor or at your local pharmacy. If you have high blood pressure you may want to have a blood pressure cuff at home for regular monitoring.
2. If you smoke, quit! If you don’t smoke, don’t start.
3. If your doctor prescribes blood pressure medicine, take it as directed.
4. Reduce the amount of sodium you eat. Follow these steps from the CDC to reduce sodium in your diet.

• Cook more food at home and eat less food from restaurants.
• Buy fresh, frozen (no sauce) or no salt added canned vegetables.
• Buy low sodium or reduced sodium versions of products like soups, sauces and ready-made dishes like flavored rice or pasta.
• Compare Nutrition Facts labels on food packages.
   
  Source: Christine Hradek is a State Nutrition Specialist with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach
   

Mindful Eating vs Dieting

Mindful Eating vs. Dieting

I recently read the following article written by Michigan State University Extension.  I thought it was very interesting, so am including it on my blog.

Mindfulness is a practice of slowing down and staying in the moment without judgment. In contrast, dieting is often judgement-based and promotes abstinence from certain foods or caloric reduction. Slowing down and being aware without judgment seems much easier than dieting until you actually physically try it. However, there is some great information available to help anyone who wants to start introducing mindful eating into their lives.

Dr. Jan Chozen Bays book, “Mindful Eating – A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food,” makes you realize that the reasons people eat are a complex subject. In her book, she explains seven kinds of hunger and patterns of eating and how habits form. The book explains how to unwind these patterns through six simple guidelines to become more mindful of the pleasures of eating. Mindfulness truly is the basics of eating and getting back to listening and appreciating what our body is communicating to us, much like an infant instinctively does.

This article explores the third principle- The energy equation (learn about the first principle, slowing down). In the last article, eating the right amount of food was explained. The energy equation is similar in that it focuses on being mindful of the amount of food we buy, prepare and eat but this third principle of mindful eating focusses on the idea of food as an energy source. Dr. Bays explains that when we eat, we take in energy. When we live our lives, we are releasing and spending that energy. If our weight stays constant, it is a sure sign that the energy flowing through our bodies is equal to the energy flowing out. 

The main way we get energy into our bodies (besides breathing) is by eating. You can’t absorb calories mysteriously just by working or looking at foods, you have to eat them. The release or flow of energy coming out  of our bodies is complex and may not be fully understood. However, we know energy flows out in all the activities we do including unconscious activities like keeping the body warm and keeping the metabolic factories in all our cells operating. We also use energy when we exhale warm breath, urinate, shiver or when we have a fever, energy use of this kind is called “insensible loss.”

America has an obesity issue and although the issue remains a complex one, in many ways it also continues to be an issue of energy imbalance. American’s portion sizes, choice of cheaper calorie-rich foods, grazing and snacking and other less-mindful eating practices all add-up to a greater intake of energy than previous generations. We have less energy flow coming out due to working less for our food, having more sedentary lifestyles than a generation ago and more entertainment that requires minimum or no exercise and reduced recess and physical education in schools. 

Being mindful when eating involves paying attention to what we are eating and what we can do to help maintain a balanced energy flow. Making just one small adjustment can make a huge difference. Try parking the car further away from the office and taking the stairs or taking moderate first servings and looking at why you are taking seconds – hunger or habit?  

This article was published by Michigan State University Extension

 

How Much Money Should I Spend on Food

How Much Money Should I Spend On Food

I often get questions about how much money should households spend on food on a monthly basis.  Below is a link to a calculator that will lead you to a calculator designed to provide an estimate based on the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Low-Cost Food Plan. 

 

http://www.extension.iastate.edu/foodsavings/page/what-you-should-spend

 

Tracking Food, There's an App for That

Tracking Food, There’s an App for That

We are now into the fifth week of 2016 and although one in three Americans makes a New Year’s resolution pertaining to a healthier lifestyle, after just one week, already 25 percent of those resolutions have been left behind. By six months, those still working toward meeting their resolution goals drops to 50 percent. There are many reasons for this downward trend, but mostly, it’s because sticking to a resolution is hard work. Being healthy is a lifestyle, not just a 10-week plan and it can be difficult to self-motivate long-term. For those of you that are technology oriented, explore how a food tracking app might be helpful in reaching your health goals this year and beyond.

 

First, what is a food-tracking app?  It is a program that allows the user to input the foods they have eaten throughout the day and gives output data related to calories consumed and other dietary data like sodium intake, the amount of sugar consumed, etc. Some apps also allow users to input exercise data and personal body type data. The level of detail depends on the app. A simple keyword search on a popular download site yielded almost 100 diet tracking apps, many of which are free. Choosing the right app for you, however, can be painstaking.  No matter what app you choose, these tools have their pros and cons but overall they were incredibly helpful in giving a visual of calories in/calories out and how much (or how little) food we should be consuming in a day.

 

Just like almost anything else on the web, the first thing you must do is sign-up. Sites often ask for similar information including gender, age, height, weight and weight goal.  The differences between apps appear after entering this information. For example, when comparing two sites, one site calculated  daily caloric need as 1600 calories (standard USDA recommendation for average American female) and one calculated it to be 1365 calories per day, which was possibly calculated based on my measurements and weight goal (which was to maintain my current weight). A 365-calorie difference for some is not a big deal, but for those that really want to lose weight, an accurate calculation of caloric need is important.

 

Many sites have a pretty good catalog of searchable food items in their database, although some may be easier to use because the food items popped up as they were typed as opposed to taking you to a different screen to select foods. The food entry part of these apps is the most time consuming, but obviously the most important. The apps and sites work best when you’re eating manufactured foods, eating simple things like “apple,” or when eating at popular restaurants. It gets tricky, and sometimes downright annoying when you do a lot of home cooking. For example, one day you make a squash, apple, and lentil soup from scratch. Whenever these foods were eaten, the apps wanted to enter it into the food tracker and the challenge is how to do that accurately. Often it is necessary guesstimate how much of each ingredient was in each serving and enter those items separately.

 

After entering food for the day, both the sites used allowed for a physical activity entry. Both sites produced nearly identical data for all the activities completed and the options are pretty endless. You can get credit for anything from playing with your children, shoveling snow and of course, all the typical things like running, biking and swimming.  Although the different sites gave similar data for each activity.

 

A helpful option is being able to see just how much every little thing consumed chewed into my daily caloric need. Many times we say  to ourselves, “oh it’s just one little slice of cheese,” or “it was just a handful of chips,” but actually seeing the calorie gauge increase with each entry really painted a clear picture of what is being consumed and ultimately, how much  exercise was need to burn off calories..

 

You can also see if you are consuming more than the daily recommended amounts of sugar, sodium and fat, which is also very useful information when thinking about overall diet and health.

 

Although there is not yet any specific data showing that food-tracking apps help people meet their health and nutrition goals, if you are better at visual learning or like data-based information, tracking your daily food and activity using an app could be helpful to you.

 

This article was published by Michigan State University Extension. For more information, visit http://www.msue.msu.edu.

 

 

February is American Heart Month

February Is American Heart Month

During the month of February, Americans see the human heart as the symbol of love. February is American Heart Month, a time to show yourself the love. Learn about your risks for heart disease and stroke, and stay "heart healthy" for yourself and your loved ones.

 

According to a recent article by the Center for Disease Control, Cardiovascular disease (CVD)—

including heart disease, stroke, and high blood pressure—is the number 1 killer of women and

men in the United States. It is a leading cause of disability, preventing Americans from working and

enjoying family activities.

 

You can control a number of risk factors for CVD, including: diet, physical activity, tobacco use,

obesity, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, and diabetes.

 

As you begin your journey to better heart health that can last a lifetime, keep these things in mind:

• Try not to become overwhelmed. Every step brings you closer to a healthier heart, andevery healthy choice makes a difference!
• Partner up. The journey is more fun—and often more successful—when you have company.
• Ask friends and family to join you.
• Don't get discouraged. You may not be able to take all of the steps at one time. Get a good night's sleep—also important for a healthy heart—and do what you can tomorrow.
•  Reward yourself. Find fun things to do to decrease your stress. Round up some colleagues for a lunchtime walk, join a singing group, or have a healthy dinner with your family or friends.

 So this February show some love to yourself, and take one step to hug your heart!

 

Source: Devon Christiansen, Director, Brown County Aging & Disability Resource Center