BY SANDRA GUY

Now that the coronavirus pandemic is keeping many people in their sweats and pajamas all day, it’s easier than ever to reach for a few soda pops and bags of M&Ms, Reese’s cups and Gummy Bears.

Stop – and stop now. It’s going to take a 360-degree turn to keep weight gain at bay, especially with most workout clubs shuttered.

Any rationale for coping with stress and boredom by indulging in unhealthy eating habits — especially over-eating high-fat, high-sugar and highly processed food as a stress reliever — requires a full-scale change of mindset, desire and behaviors, experts say.

Think comeback kid. Play the theme song, “Gonna Fly Now,” and watch Rocky’s run in the “Rocky II” movie. Laugh. Read food jokes. Relax. Get motivated.

“Stress eating is poor stress management,” says Sylvia Herbozo, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychiatry and surgery and director of the Body Image and Eating Behaviors Lab at the University of Illinois-Chicago’s College of Medicine.

“Breaking the link between stress and eating as a relief from stress is the way to go,” she said.

How is that possible, especially after a lifetime of what experts call “emotional eating?”

The first step is to recognize that emotional eating — stress eating and binge eating — may spring from psychological underpinnings, often starting as early as childhood.

And those high-fat, high-sugar foods release dopamine in the brain and “light up the reward center — the feel-good part of the brain” – so it’s like an endless loop of hunger urges.

The good news is that anyone who’s serious and committed can overcome ingrained bad habits.

Start with small steps, such as eating one more vegetable each day or eating fruit instead of candy or baked goods, experts say.

Other tips:

• Plan meals and snacks in advance.

• Learn healthy ways to cope, whether that’s taking up yoga, exercise, meditation or talking with a counselor.

• Acknowledge that success comes from being willing to change. That might mean getting up 30 minutes earlier than usual to stretch or exercise.

• Try to get seven to eight hours of sleep each night.

BY SANDRA GUY

It’s tough to think of sleep and rejuvenation amid a global pandemic.

But as you try to keep a healthy schedule while homebound, put sleep at the top of the list – and not just to feel better.

Six to eight hours of uninterrupted sleep helps repair cells and tissue.

Think of it as a facial for men and women – only in this case, it’s an essential daily health routine rather than just an occasional treat.

A new scientific study, published in Nature Cell Biology, revealed that collagen — the most plentiful protein in the body — contains two types of rope-like forms, one thick and the other thin.

Collagen is one of the major building blocks of skin, bones, muscles, tendons and ligaments, and is found in eyes, teeth and blood vessels.

Biologists at the University of Manchester (U.K.) who tested mice found that the thicker structures are permanent, according to the published study. The thinner ones break as we move and work during the day, but regenerate as we sleep.

Other researchers in France are developing a sort of construction material from collagen to replace and repair damaged blood vessels.

So challenge yourself to stay rejuvenated. You can use a fitness tracker to keep upping your game.

BY SANDRA GUY

The first openly transgender NCAA Division I swimmer says his struggles with his gender identity and an eating disorder motivated him to become a national spokesperson for mental-health counseling.

Schuyler Bailar, 23, said he came to terms with his identity as a man and overcame his body obsession when he got psychological counseling for an eating disorder.

“I didn’t identify as a woman, so all my womanhood was wrapped up in my body,” he said. “I thought to myself at the time, ‘I don’t have any personal, soulful connections to womanhood.’ It became how I identified my self worth.”

Bailer is speaking out during National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, Feb. 23-March 1, in his new role as a fellow for Monte Nido & Affiliates, a residential and intensive outpatient center that treats people with eating disorders and exercise addiction. The center’s aim is to help people achieve a clear understanding of their problem and its effect on their life, and to find their own appreciation of what’s necessary to recover.

Monte Nido is opening two new treatment centers in the Chicago area: In the DuPage County suburb of Winfield in early March for all genders, and this spring in west suburban Naperville at Clementine, exclusively for adolescent girls ages 11 to 17.

Bailar said he became aware that he wanted to be a boy by the time he was 9, and started dressing like a boy and wearing his hair short.

But he kept struggling to conform to society’s pressure to be a woman, so by middle school he was trying to be a “perfect woman” – and he received praise for being skinny.

“My body was part of my worth as a woman,” Bailar said.

The break point was literally that – Bailar broke his back at age 16 in a biking accident with his brother. He fractured two vertebrae on Aug. 24, 2012, after he accidentally fell over the side of a mountain.

The ensuing several months – with no swimming allowed – left Bailar struggling with depression.

“I felt very much out of control, and had no idea what to do with the time – I was suddenly doing nothing after training 20 hours a week,” he said. “I had lost my social life.”

He adapted – in what he now acknowledges was a mal-adaptation – by trying to control the situation by restricting his eating.

Bailar reached out for help and spent time in a residential treatment center — The Oliver-Pyatt Centers, a program run by Monte Nido in Miami, Florida. The program helps people gain insight and coping skills to recognize the emotional and psychological issues that can trigger a relapse.

That’s where Bailar uncovered his true gender identity.

“My therapist saved my life by providing me the space” to do so, he said.

He spent time at the YES Institute, which focuses on helping young people develop in a healthy way in their own gender identity and orientation.

“There’s so much shame in getting treatment,” said Bailar, who faced the double pressure of being from a Korean culture that never mentioned mental health issues.

“We need to rewrite the narrative for men,” he said. “The culture I grew up in was all about ‘Man up. Be a man. Grow up. Don’t be sad.’

“That’s the culture I grew up in.”

In treatment, Bailar said he learned to be grateful for what his body could do, rather than focusing on his body shape. After he was allowed to swim for 30 minutes his first time back in the pool in five months, he said he felt a sense of ease and peace.

“I felt a thankfulness of where I was,” he said. “Let’s think about the fact that my heart beats. My eyes can see things. My legs can walk me around.”

Bailar said he wasn’t entirely satisfied with what his body looked like at the time, but he let go of fighting his body “every second of every day.”

“I’m not sitting here thinking I’m less worthy because I don’t have a model’s body,” he said. “Oh, and I’m someone who is smart, silly, resilient.”

It’s about putting one’s energy into what really matters.

Bailar said part of the breakthrough is figuring out why you need control.

“It’s about the intentionality. Perhaps the reason is because your mom told you you’re too fat, [but] that’s not a good reason,” he said. “That’s a good reason to do therapy about how much your mom hurt you as a kid.”

By the time Bailar was in high school, he had emerged as a star swimmer. Harvard University recruited him for the women’s team.

But in 2015, he decided to swim with the men’s team. He finished last in the men’s 200-yard breaststroke but considered it a victory for achieving his personal authenticity.

Dr. Joel Jahraus, Monte Nido’s chief medical officer, says men and boys now account for 20 percent of eating disorder sufferers.

Men get obsessed with lean muscularity – they want big pecs and shoulders to feel good about themselves – rather than seeking the feminine ideal of a slimmer total body shape.

“They’re trying to fit societal expectations,” said Jahraus, a physician for more than 40 years who co-authored a chapter on eating disorders in Textbook of Psychosomatic Medicine, published by the American Psychiatric Association, and The Treatment of Eating Disorders: A Clinical Handbook, published by New York: Guilford Press (Grilo, C. M. & Mitchell, J. E. (Eds.), (2010).

Sports activities often accentuate the male body ideal, but collegiate and high-school sports leaders have grown more aware of the potential for disordered eating and eating disorders, Jahraus said.

Jahraus said he emphasizes to young men that proper weight and nutrition are essential to being fit, rather than telling them that they’ll run faster if they’re thinner and lighter.

“I tell athletes who think they can perform better at lower body weights that it’s impossible for the body to function at peak performance when metabolism is impaired from compulsive workouts and severe food restrictions that cause a serious drop in weight,” he said.

“And I point out that any type of purging behavior causes a loss of electrolytes and fluid, which are essential to proper muscle and other bodily functions,” he said.

Another source of harm is that when boys or men lose weight excessively, their organs shrink, their cholesterol levels go up, and any obsessive-compulsive traits about food, weight or body image intensify, Jahraus said.

That’s potentially deadly, since starving can cause the heart to lose up to 25 percent capacity of the left lower pumping chamber – the primary pumping chamber that sends blood throughout the body.

The brain can get smaller; bone loss may magnify, and the testicles, uterus and ovaries can shrink to pre-puberty levels.

The key to helping people is to “dig deep” to find out what drives the eating disorder, Jahraus said.

“If you don’t get to the root, you’ll never get lasting recovery,” he said. “The good news is that, with proper nutrition and weight back to normal, most of the body and organs usually return to normal size and function.”

 

 

 

 

 

BY SANDRA GUY

Arthritis sufferers are years away from getting personalized treatments, but they’re finding hope in new medications.

That’s important as people with arthritis, including those who’ve suffered with the autoimmune disease since infancy or young adulthood, work to heighten awareness that arthritis can affect anyone.

Their efforts come to the fore in May — National Arthritis Awareness Month. Arthritis has no cure, but medicines can help put it in remission.

“It’s always been a part of my life,” said 17-year-old Bridget Boockmeier of Oak Park, who was diagnosed at age 3 with juvenile idiopathic arthritis that affected every joint in her body except for her jaw.

Boockmeier, whose prescription for Enbrel at age 8 changed her life by easing her daily stiffness, still remembers being unable to run to first base when she started playing T-ball and riding her bike to the park when she was in pre-school because she couldn’t walk with the other children.

Now, Boockmeier plays tennis doubles and lacrosse at Trinity High School in River Forest, where she is a senior. She runs three to four miles a day.

“I have to work harder to be equal to everybody else,” she said. “It’s ended up being a benefit because that’s carried over to athletics, school work and being a good person to others.”

Boockmeier estimates that she and her family have raised $35,000 over the past decade in the Arthritis Foundation’s “Jingle Bell Run” to aid in research.

Boockmeier’s father, Andrew, said the family held out hope that Bridget would get help, even while watching her suffer such pain that she could hardly get out of bed. He advocates for the Arthritis Foundation and its programs, including a camp where teens with juvenile arthritis can spend time together.

For Monserrat Velavquez of Bridgeport, minor pain and stiffness started in her hands when she was 23 and working as a cashier. The stiffness spread to her arms so that, after six to eight months, Velavquez could no longer work or go to the grocery store to pick up a gallon of milk because she was unable to carry it.

“The thing that hit me the most was that I couldn’t put on my shoes,” she said.

Velavquez, 29, was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis — an autoimmune disorder that inflames joints by causing a person’s own white blood cells to attack the joint.

When Velavquez wanted to have her fourth child – she was the mother of a son and twin girls at the time – she said she switched to a doctor at UI Health because her former doctor tried to scare her about possible harm she could do to a new baby by taking her arthritis medication.

Her new doctor at UIC – Dr. Shiva Arami, professor of clinical medicine at the UI Health’s section of rheumatology – assured her that she could have a baby safely.

In fact, Velavquez’s arthritis symptoms eased when she was pregnant, but returned after she gave birth to her now one-year-old daughter.

“The hormones that my body produced while I was pregnant made my symptoms go away,” she said. “It was a little miracle.”

She now takes Prednisone and Azathioprine. Though much of her pain is controlled, the rigidity remains, she said.

Velavquez credits her husband, Adrian Rodriguez, with being her strength and support throughout the painful journey.

Neither Velavquez nor Boockmeier have any relatives with arthritis, or any indication they could have inherited it.

The key to controlling arthritis of any kind is to see a doctor as quickly as possible after noticing any signs of pain, stiffness, or a red and swollen joint, experts say.

That’s because arthritis sufferers can get severe joint deformity, loss of joint motion and, in extreme cases, require joint replacements, if they fail to get timely treatment, Arami said.

Though people who have diabetes or an increased metabolic index may be at greater risk because they’re “in a pro-inflammatory state,” and arthritis reflects an overactive immune system, no specific diet has been proven to stave off or treat arthritis.

Hopeful research at Northwestern University shows progress in using ultrasound to biopsy tissue in patients’ wrists, knee, elbow or other inflamed joint.

The aim is to figure out what differentiates each person so doctors can determine the correct individual treatment, said Dr. Eric Ruderman, associate chief of clinical affairs in rheumatology at Northwestern Medicine.

“It’s a way forward, and could be a vast improvement from treating people with trial and error,” he said.

BY SANDRA GUY

We’ve all read the headlines: Pets ease people’s stress and can even help children with Type 1 diabetes check their glucose levels.

But there’s an equally important process going on: The National Institutes of Health is working to improve the methodological rigor of these studies.

“No one should get a pet simply for the perceived health benefits. That’s not a good reason,” said James Griffin, Ph.D., acting chief of the child development and behavior branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

“It’s so important to understand the underlying mechanisms – is it having something to look after? Someone to look after you? Is it unconditional love?” said Griffin, who directs the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) branch’s early learning and school readiness program.

To delve into these issues, NIH has partnered with a company better known for its M&Ms and Milky Ways – Mars Inc. — and its WALTHAM Centre for Pet Nutrition.

Scientists are looking into the potential physical and mental health benefits for a variety of animals, from fish to guinea pigs to dogs and cats.

A key hurdle is creating a blind study.

“We don’t randomly assign people to have pets or not have pets,” Griffin said.

But exceptions do happen.

One is a study involving adolescents with Type 1 diabetes. Scientists gave each kid a fish to care for. And they set up the fish feeding around the time the young people needed to check their blood glucose.

Result: Sure enough, the kids got much better at checking their blood glucose levels when they timed it with caring for the fish.

The researchers are also studying animal interactions with kids who have autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and other conditions.

“We’re trying to tap into the subjective quality of the relationship with the animal—that part of the bond that people feel with animals—and how that translates into some of the health benefits,” Griffin said.

One study found that dogs can help children with ADHD focus their attention. Researchers enrolled two groups of children diagnosed with ADHD into 12-week group therapy sessions. The first group of kids read to a therapy dog once a week for 30 minutes. The second group read to puppets that looked like dogs.

Kids who read to the real animals showed better social skills and more sharing, cooperation, and volunteering. They also had fewer behavioral problems.

Another study found that children with autism spectrum disorder were calmer while playing with guinea pigs in the classroom. When the children spent 10 minutes in a supervised group playtime with guinea pigs, their anxiety levels dropped. The children also had better social interactions and were more engaged with their peers.

The researchers suggest that the animals offered unconditional acceptance, making them a calm comfort to the children.

“Animals can become a way of building a bridge for those social interactions,” Griffin says.

 

BY SANDRA GUY

As Chicago’s famous wind takes on a chilly bite for Fall, outdoor runners, Summerdance enthusiasts and sunrise yoga worshippers have plenty of indoor exercise options — thanks in part to Chicago entrepreneurs.

If you’re like most of us who’d rather avoid running sprints in the snow, look for affordable alternatives at the local YMCA or community center.

They host indoor activities ranging from weightlifting to water aerobics to recreational leagues for soccer, volleyball, basketball.

“Before someone tackles a new workout regimen, they might want to delve into their own personalities and figure out what’s cool and exciting enough to get them up and out the door when it’s dark outside,” said Dr. Chris Hogrefe, a clinical assistant professor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine who specializes in sports and emergency medicine.

That’s especially important because people tend to store more fat and eat more carbohydrates as Fall and Winter chill sets in, Hogrefe said.

If fun is a motivator, the MaZi Dance Fitness Centre studios (http://mazidancefitness.com) — the name is a mixture of the two founding sisters’ first names — offer upbeat, energy-filled, music-driven classes with names like “Ballerina Bum Bootcamp” and “Zi Cardio.” (New students pay $30 a week for unlimited classes, and get a free class when they “tag” the post and MaZi via social media.)

The sisters—Marisol Sarabia and Ziba Lennox—are former professional ballet dancers who couldn’t find a place with strength exercises derived from ballet technique plus easy-to-follow dance cardio.

 “People who love these classes are a mix of people who have never danced but haven’t found the right workout and former dancers, yet they all realize how great these exercises make them feel both mentally and physically,” said Lennox, of Evanston, who earned both undergraduate and MBA degrees in finance from the University of Rochester in New York and is mom to sons Matteo, 3, and 1-year-old Henrick.

Sarabia studied and danced with the San Francisco Ballet on full scholarship in her teens. The Streeterville resident is a civil engineer and works part-time for Leidos engineering consultancy while co-leading the MaZi exercise studios in Lincoln Park, Wicker Park and the South Loop.

Jeanine Pekkarinen, 44, of Roscoe Village, rediscovered her joy by going to MaZi classes such as “Ballerina Fight Club” and “Zi-Cardio.”

“You just have fun,” said Pekkarinen, an outreach manager for the American Dental Association who grew up performing in musical and community theaters in and around her native Waukegan.

She likes supporting a local women-owned business and appreciates the instructors’ attention to members’ proper form. Pekkarinen worked with the teachers at MaZi to create a foxtrot for her and her husband’s wedding dance.

“It’s great music, great energy and a great workout — and it’s not difficult to follow along and take your first step,” Pekkarinen said. “It’s freedom. It’s relaxing. I don’t think I’ve ever walked out of the Z Cardio class without a smile on my face.”

Besides the exercise studios, MaZi also holds fitness class twice a week at the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab, formerly the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago hospital.

Another woman-owned workout is run by Shama Patel, who traded in her corporate law career in Chicago for a fitness entrepreneur’s dream of creating a cutting-edge, core-strengthening exercise program called AIR® Aerial Fitness.

Headquartered in Chicago, the health and wellness franchise specializes in fitness studios and facial bars: AIR® Aerial Fitness and Mud Facial Bar.

Patel, a River North resident for over a decade, perfected the design of a hammock rigging system with the help of her father, a structural engineer. The rigging system supports a person’s body weight, and is designed so that participants engage their core instantly.

The hammock is the centerpiece of three studios in Chicago—in River North, Lincoln Park and the South Loop.

The hammock’s role in building core strength is what Diandra Asbaty appreciates when she takes AIR® fitness classes—AIR® Core, a 30-minute ab blast class; AIR® Foundation, a 50-minute beginner class that introduces new clients to aerial exercises, and AIR® Flow, a mixed-level flow class fusing yoga poses with aerials to increase flexibility. (First-timers can use the promotional code AIRCHICAGO at checkout to take the first class for free; membership details are at http://www.airfitnow.com.)

Asbaty, a professional bowler and South Loop resident, took up the fitness regimen to gain strength both personally and for the Professional Women’s Bowling Association tour.

“As a mom, I sometimes feel I put myself last,” said Asbaty, 37, mother to 7-year-old son Madden and 3-and-a-half-year-old daughter Jersey. “Going into 2017, one of my New Year’s resolutions was to take better care of myself.”

Asbaty runs her own coaching firm, The International Art of Bowling, and started non-profit youth bowling tournaments, Elite Youth Tour.

She said she fell in love with the classes right away because they provided “a really good combination of mental stability and physical strength.”

Asbaty also enjoyed her quick progress, as well as an extra uplift from supporting a local woman-owned business.

“I could barely lift myself up when I started,” she said. “Now, I have a lot more control.”

The South Loop studio’s franchise owner, Hannah Wolf, 28, teaches classes with the strength and grace of her training as a dancer and, in childhood, as a competitive gymnast.

“I’ve been in fitness my whole life, and I’ve never seen results I’ve had with AIR®,” she said. “I’ve never been so toned or in shape in my life.”

Runner’s High, a new indoor running gym, uses technology to set up each runner’s treadmill to his or her casual and comfortable jogging mile time, and to train accordingly.

The setup lets runners stay “together” on side-by-side treadmills even though they’re all running at different speeds and paces.

Large screens enable the runners to “virtually” watch a big screen to go on excursions to places like the Swiss Alps or the hills of San Francisco.

Runner’s High founder Jeff Levy, who grew up in Glenview and now lives in Old Town, says he wanted to make running on a treadmill more fun and to let people feed off of one another’s energy. A single class costs $25, with several price packages available. See www.runnershighstudio.com.

The gym is set up to provide both a respite — the reception area is outfitted with patio furniture and a crescent-shaped couch surrounding a fireplace — and a complete fitness center, with recently added classes offering yoga, core and body-strength training.

“Our slogan is ‘Find Your High,’” Levy said. “We want you to find your happy place and achieve it over and over.”

Indeed, Northwestern medicine’s Hogrefe says the best way to stay fit is to build exercise into your daily routine.

 

 

BY SANDRA GUY

Trying to talk yourself into reaching for just five or six M&Ms instead of the entire bag the next time you feel stressed and anxious?

How about aiming to reach for a cookie instead of a cupcake when you get home, frustrated and exhausted?

Not even close.

Any rationale for unhealthy eating – especially over-eating high-fat, high-sugar and highly processed food as a stress reliever – requires a full-scale change of mindset, desire and behaviors, experts say.

“Stress eating is poor stress management,” says Sylvia Herbozo, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychiatry and surgery and director of the Body Image and Eating Behaviors Lab at the University of Illinois-Chicago’s College of Medicine.

“Breaking the link between stress and eating-as-a-relief from stress is the way to go,” she said.

How is that possible, especially after a lifetime of what experts call “emotional eating?”

The first step is to recognize that emotional eating – stress eating and binge eating — spring from psychological underpinnings. It often starts at a young age, especially if children turn to food for comfort and then eat poorly — snarfing potato chips for breakfast or downing soda pop for lunch and dinner.

It’s a serious issue because 16.2 percent of Illinois children ages 10 to 17 self-report as obese, compared with 15.8 percent nationally, and 31.8 percent of Illinois adults are obese, up from about 28 percent five years earlier, according to a 2017 study by Trust for America’s Health, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit that advocates for wellness and disease prevention.

Children’s body mass index is calculated differently than adults, and is based on how the child compares with his or her peers in age and gender. Adults deemed overweight have a body mass index of 25 to 29.9; those considered obese measure BMI of 30 or higher.

As University of Chicago Medicine nutritionist Courtney Schuchmann explained, high-fat, high-sugar foods release dopamine in the brain and “light up the reward center – the feel-good part of the brain.”

At the same time, it’s more likely that people who are overweight and obese are stress eaters. And abdominal fat itself increases cortisol, which in turn makes you want to eat high-fat, high-sugar foods.

“It’s a feedback loop,” said Schuchmann, who works with patients who require weight and diabetes management, among other diseases, in UChicago’s section of gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition.

To make the dilemma even more excruciating, fast food and unhealthy, highly processed foods are everywhere.

Stress is ubiquitous, too.

Millennials ages 22 to 39 reported the highest level of stress – 5.7 on a 10-point scale – in a November 2017 survey of nearly 3,500 U.S. adults conducted by the American Psychological Association.

For Boomers and Gen Xers, stress levels decreased slightly from the year earlier (2016), to 3.9 on the 10-point scale (from 4.1) and 5.3 (from 5.4), respectively. Each generation’s stresses differed, with healthcare the most likely source of stress for Gen Xers (47 percent) and Boomers (49 percent).

Both Herbozo, a Latina originally from Miami, and Schuchmann, a native of German descent from Roselle, Ill., led active lifestyles growing up, and both saw their teenaged peers go to extremes of eating disorders.

“At that time, I knew very few people in my Latino culture” focused on their appearance, Herbozo said. So she was surprised when she first overheard women in her college dorm force themselves to vomit and others compare their bodies to others’.

“I was shocked, and that led me to wonder, ‘Why would someone engage in such negative behaviors?’”

The experiences influenced Herbozo to pursue research in body image and eating disorders.

A bright spot is that people who are serious and committed can overcome ingrained bad habits.

Schuchmann and Herbozo suggest starting with small steps, such as eating one more vegetable each day or eating fruit instead of candy or baked goods.

“You can allow yourself to have sweets – as long as it’s not associated with how you cope with stress or other emotions,” Herbozo said.

Schuchmann said that might mean planning to eat a sweet treat – let’s say a Reese’s peanut butter cup – on Friday and Saturday nights rather than every night of the week.

Parents need to take on the responsibility of being role models for their children, helping them learn to cope with stress in a healthy way, Schuchmann said. It’s important they prepare meals at home and sit down as a family to talk about emotions, feelings and the day’s events while eating.

Parents and guardians should also encourage kids to be physically active to feel their best – not just as a weight-loss tool, Schuchmann said.

Teens should talk with their parents about foods that could trigger a binge.

“If your parent is bringing home chips every day as a ‘show of love,’ but you think it’s contributing to your poor dietary behaviors, have an honest talk,” she said. The goal is to pursue healthier options.

For young people active on social media, it’s key to have positive peer groups rather than focusing on unrealistic, perfectly curated body images.

“Set aside a specific amount of time each day for scrolling social media, but also set aside time to work on personal development by listening to motivational podcasts or reading books,” Schuchmann said.

Other tips:

·       Plan meals and snacks in advance.

·       Manage the portion sizes.

·       Learn healthy ways to cope, whether that’s taking up yoga, exercise, meditation or talking with a counselor.

·       Acknowledge that success comes from one’s willingness to change. That might mean getting up 30 minutes earlier than usual to stretch or exercise.

·       Try to get seven to eight hours of sleep each night.

·       Learn everything you can – read books, watch documentaries, do your own research – about healthy and plant-based meals and recipes. This helps you understand how poor eating and coping mechanisms can lead to obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, fatty liver disease, and even tooth decay and gum inflammation.

·       Understand that lifestyle and behavior modifications should be first-line priorities. Surgeries and prescription drugs pose risks and potentially far-reaching consequences.

·       Acknowledge that the first two weeks of changing habits – or even the first few months – may feel uncomfortable.

“Studies show it takes 21 days to develop a habit,” Schuchmann said. So it’s going to take time to break that habit, especially if it’s deeply ingrained.

Herbozo avoids the word ‘diet.’

“I don’t believe in diets,” Herbozo said. “It’s about a lifestyle.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BY SANDRA GUY

Don’t be a statistic. January – the month dedicated to cervical cancer awareness – affords the perfect time to get a PAP test to ensure you’re healthy.

Nearly 13,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with cervical cancer each year, but 93 percent of the cases are considered preventable with the appropriate vaccination and screening (Pap and HPV tests), experts say.

Chicago has some of the highest rates of HPV – the virus that causes genital warts and abnormal PAP smears, and the most common type of sexually transmitted disease. Women of color are most affected, partly because they have lower rates of getting vaccinated for HPV.

The University of Illinois-Chicago College of Medicine and UI Health (the University of Illinois Hospital and Health Sciences System) is aiming to identify patients at risk for a delayed or late diagnosis, as part of a two-year, $500,000 grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“These patients might have a suspicious lesion on an X-ray or an abnormal finding. We’ll be able to work within existing protocols to carve out a rapid diagnostic pathway,” said Dr. Heather Pendergast, associate dean of clinical affairs for the UIC College of Medicine and vice chair of academic affairs for the UI-Health Department of Emergency Medicine.

About 79 million Americans are infected with HPV (the virus), and about 14 million become infected each year. It’s so common that at least 75 percent of sexually active men and women will get it at some point. People often have no HPV symptoms.

Here’s how to stay aware:

·       Guidelines for how often to have PAP smears vary, depending on age, medical history and other factors, so ask your doctor the proper protocol, and follow it.

·       Ask your doctor, ‘What other tests should I have?’

·       Eat a diet high in antioxidants. An article titled “Cervical Cancer and Antioxidants” concluded “the literature clearly establishes both a protective and a therapeutic advantage in selected antioxidants including vitamins A, C, and E, CoQ₁₀, EGCG, resveratrol, and vegetable lycopenes. Similarly, it may be contended that the higher incidence of disease in lower socioeconomic groups may be related to dietary deficiency of those same substances.”