Shape Up, or Be Shaped

Health — Your Wellness Printout. How Do You Want It?

This piece is the second of a number of stand-alone DESTINY postings on how to rise above and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic by shaping up to be healthy, fit, tough and wise. It is based on the author’s multi-decade insights as a cardiologist and founder in a non-profit lifestyle coaching program completed by thousands of patients and coworkers. All the advice comes from participants’ real-life experiences, state-of-the-art science and diverse time-honored wisdom.

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Tak Poon, MD
August 26, 2020.    7 min read.

Y ou have a choice: Surrender to fate or shape your own destiny, now.

You can live life by accident and happenstance. Or, as fate presents itself, take it as an opening and march forward intentionally toward your own destiny.

In this pandemic you’ve proven your capability to adopt new routines. Now optimize the adjustments to build a better version of yourself for life.

Set definite goals. No wishful thinking. Just promise yourself:

• I am going to weigh ______ lbs. in ______ months.

• I am going to walk 10,000 steps a day by ______ days.

• I am going to learn to resolve my stress, starting now.

Whatever hardware you have (i.e. how you are wired), by using the proper software, hitting one click or keystroke at a time in a proven way of your choice, you’ll see the printout that you want.

Sure, it’ll take some self-reprogramming, but you’re already a pro at it since the COVID lockdown.

Follow this blog series and we’ll get to all the new how’s.

. . .

HEALTH MATTERS

• Body Mass Index is a reasonable weight guide. By western health standards, BMI 18-25 is ideal, 25-30 is overweight, and over that obese. Add/Subtract 1-2 points for exceptionally big/small body frames. BTW, if hit by COVID-19, BMI over 35 is a massive risk factor for not making it. 



• Losing 6% of your weight, even if your BMI is not yet “ideal”, you will still get most of the health benefits. Losing more than 1-2 pounds a week is not so healthy or sustainable.
  
  Yoh, no yo-yo, y’all.

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Getting off a roller-coaster,
kids beg to do it again and parents want to check into the ER.
Same ride. It’s how you feel about it that really matters.

— Metacardio

FOCUS

1. Successful graduates of my lifestyle program’s 2000+ enrollees did not become healthier, better people by a mad dash. It took a series of small steps repeated regularly. 


   
   

   Let’s make that pain-free, even pleasurable, like brushing your teeth. Before you know it, you’ll have crossed the finish line with the grand prize — good habits for good.
   
   

2. I used to hold the mistaken belief that stress just happens like bad luck. Shift happens! How we respond inside changes everything. Your inner reaction can cause toxic feelings and ill health. Or it can resolve the problem and advance your well-being. Stay tuned for lists of options.

   
   

3. I find that as long as I can breathe, I can relax. Some people call it meditation. I do it as breathing exercise. It’s powerful, though. Just don’t analyze too much or try too hard. Sucking in a deep breath tenses you up initially. It’s the out breath that relaxes you, so go sloooow. 


Pick out or hold on to the practice you like best and keep practicing. You’re also welcome to try our easy routine:

BREATHING ROOM

There is no better time, maybe not even any other time, to emerge from these troubled times as a better version of yourself that you’ve always wanted. But you must first want it and then commit to it.

NUTRITION

1. A can of soda has up to 16 lumps of sugar, and many juices are no better. Start with diluting all your sugary drinks by about 1/8 with plain or sparkling water. Even if you take sugar-free sweeteners, add ~1/8 less for they keep growing your sweet tooth. 


   
   Then gradually increase this willful “dilution delusion” until you feel satisfied. 100% is quite okay.
   

   Sugary drinks can amount to 25% of one’s total calorie intake. Diluting them alone can be an easy ticket to losing a pound a week while gaining better health long term.

   
   

2. Almost all diets work but few dieters can stay on them. People soon lose their “taste” for what doesn’t taste good to them. Since you must like the taste of the food you’ve been eating all along, let’s not go “cold turkey” on that. 


   

   Just trim all your portions by 1/4, so gradually that you hardly notice. That’ll lose you 1-2 pounds per week. Don’t get too hungry, though, or you’ll lose “the hunger game”. Hunger is too strong a primal drive to overcome with sheer will power.

3. As your stomach shrinks with smaller portions, and it will, hunger goes away. Meanwhile, have snacks handy to quell your “hunger strikes”, palm-size, not palm-leaf size. Sugary snacks will make you even hungrier and very quickly. Try snacks with higher fiber content. Go nuts.
   
   

Nuts are on the menu of the Mediterranean Diet (feast, really), along with many other tasty and healthy options. From your yummy new finds switch out some of the “bad carbs” and other “sins” in your usual meals.

My lifestyle program enrollees ultimately all gave up their faddish “ultimate diets” simply because of taste.

They found a simple secret: Just enjoy your “normal” food, and portion-control imperceptibly over time. Then slowly switch in the tasty favorites you discover from healthier sources.

In this way, you’re just eating for the joy of life, not dieting for the fear of death.

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Reshaping yourself is like tailoring a beautiful outfit.
It takes one planned stitch at a time.
A fast glue gun wouldn’t hold it up.
                                                                                      
- Metacardio

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ACTIVITY

1. In a health lock-down, limitations in workout options can actually help in your building of a convenient, no-fanfare, sustainable activity routine. Many people quit exercise because they make it into a big production. 

   

2. Many beginners push too hard, so they hit the wall, feel awful and quit. Walk, don’t run, yet—unless you’re already fit.

Just 20-25 minutes a day of moderate activity, like brisk walking, already meets the minimum gold standard.

That’s 150 minutes a week, divided into as many sessions as will fit into your schedule readily.

3. Sleep between 7-9 hours a day. People who do tend to function better, stay healthier, and weigh less. Didn’t know you could sleep it off, did you?

   
   A great printout of yourself takes an inside job.                                                                                 
   – Metacardio

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TAKEAWAYS

While you try to “sleep it off” before next week’s posting, listen to this free preview of an upcoming podcast. Enjoy, all at once or, better yet, one day at a time (2-3 minutes).

Good Night Podcast (Dream)

Every week we explore a different topic of dreamy, wondrous and miraculous realities usually not on people’s mind because they are often taken for granted, neglected, even ignored by our mind.

1. Do Dreams Come True?

4. Dream performance

2. Common sense, uncommonly practiced

5. Body-Mind-Spirit

7. Make your dream come true

3. Science of scoring hoops

6. Your life’s dream

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"If you can imagine it, you can achieve it.

If you can dream it, you can become it."                                                                  
– William Arthur Ward

WRITTEN BY

Doc Tak

Tak C. Poon, MD, PharmD, ABIHM, FACC
Board-certified American Preventive Cardiologist now developer of a wellness blog and a lifestyle habit-forming app at www.metacardio.org

Readers’ Out-of-Sight Insights:
I would love to post any valuable ideas or teachable moments you might want to share in this Destiny series.