My Fitbit Experiment: Part 1

My Fitbit

Thanks to the suggestion of some friends, I recently purchased a Fitbit.  This intriguing little piece of technology is much more than a pedometer.  It tracks my steps, but it also tracks how many calories I'm burning, how efficiently I'm sleeping, and graphs how active I am throughout the day. 

Sleep graph example

Activity level graph example

The website (which anyone can have a free account with) has tons of tools, like a food diary, a journal to track your mood, allergies, and make notes, and logs for blood pressure, glucose, and more!  I know I sound like I've been paid by the creators of this little gem, but I assure you I have not.  I'm just so impressed by this tiny contraption!  What a great tool to get and stay motivated.  One of my favorite features is that I can compete with my friends and family for how active we are.  I'm aiming for 1st place!

Stay tuned for future experiments to see how caffeine, alcohol, activity level, and diet affect the sleep graph!

Living healthy on a budget

Impossible, you say? I've heard it all... "But doc, all I can afford is mac and cheese out of a box!" "But the dollar menu at Mickey D's is all I have money for..." Those, my friends, are words that stem from pure laziness.

Let me start from square one. Let's assume you live in a 200 square foot studio (for argument's sake), and the closest you come to a kitchen is a hotplate and a bar fridge. All hope is not lost. First of all, rice and beans are not only a complete protein, but pay a buck for a bag of each (if that) and you're eating for a week! They are easily flavored with herbs from a small window herb garden (a desk lamp with a fluorescent bulb will do the trick if your place is devoid of light). Other things you can grow inside? Salad greens, tomatoes, and peppers can all make it with a grow light, however, if you have a "black thumb" all hope is not lost! Frozen veggies are an excellent economical option. The methods used these days regarding harvesting and flash-freezing are so effective at preserving nutrients that in today's market, frozen can often be better than fresh that has been sitting in a warehouse, truck, or store for two weeks or more. Once something is harvested, it's nutrients immediately start breaking down. Flash-freezing stalls this process. Watch for sales and use coupons and stock up! Frozen veggies are always on sale and a whole bag can often be purchased for a dollar or less!

Another thing to remember when grocery shopping: The more packaging, processing and marketing, the higher the price! Stick with simple ingredients - eggs, milk, produce, beans, rice, and herbs - and you'll not only spend less, you'll be eating healthier!

As far as exercise goes, who needs a gym membership to get moving? My friend Godelieve Babey, a personal trainer, shows people how to use playgrounds, parks, and even their own backyard to get a good workout. Really, all you need is a good pair of sneakers and your imagination. A jump rope, a few cans of soup, a flight of stairs... all can be used to create a great workout that gets your heart pumping, muscles stronger, and nerve cells firing to make a healthier you!

But truly, the most powerful instrument you can use to be healthy and stay healthy is free and everyone comes into this world fully equipped with one. It's your mind. Refuse to harbor unhealthy thoughts. We cannot control the world around us, but we can control the world within us. Be kind to yourself, refuse to pass judgment, accept yourself and others... Love yourself, and healthy actions will simply be the logical choice. Now go and get 'em, tiger!

I begin my blogging journey...

Welcome, to both of us! You, to my blog, and me, to the world of health blogging. I'm not new to the blog scene, but I realized recently that people are either clueless, apathetic, or hopeless about their health and what it means to be truly well, and as a Chiropractor, who lives, breathes, and was trained with a wellness philosophy, I felt it was my responsibility to get out there and educate. And this just happens to be one of the many ways I intend to do so.

I'd like to add a disclaimer at this point. I am, by no means whatsoever, "a picture of perfect health." I indulge my sweet tooth. I skip exercise to do other things. I even *gasp* eat such nutritionally terrifying foods like fried chicken and biscuits with gravy. I am not perfect, nor do I expect anyone else to be. But I strive for good health. I strive to be healthy the majority of the time, so that those days when I misbehave, it doesn't count quite so much in the long run. Some days, I do better than others. Some days, I let it all go, give myself a hug, and remind myself that I'm only human. And some days, I beat myself up with the best of them, before I remember, "Oh yeah. I'm not supposed to be perfect!" This blog is simply a place where I can share the latest in research, observations, and the wellness philosophy. I'll even throw in a recipe, cooking tip, or favorite exercise here and there. Topics you can look forward to are as follows (but don't even think I would limit my topics to these few!):

• Living healthy on a budget
• Affordable Organics
• Easy vegetable gardening for small or large spaces
• Why do parents feed their children things they wouldn't eat themselves?
• Exercise: Why bother when I don't have time?
• I'm going to the pediatrician for ANOTHER prescription????
• Vaccines
• ADD/ADHD
  
• Recently discovered causes of Asthma and Allergies
• Why put sugar in your gas tank when you wouldn't do that to your car?
  

And of course I'll throw some chiropractic success stories in there as well as general rants (be assured those will be both equally amusing AND disturbing).

I hope you enjoy our journey, and remember, true health is not simply the absence of disease, but a sense of vitality in which all our body's systems are working in harmony and the mind is at ease. It is a potential we are all born with, or we wouldn't be born at all. Unfortunately, through introducing toxins, depriving ourselves of nutrients, leaving our body to become one with the couch, and sabotaging it with toxic thinking, we give our health away. Time to earn it back! We are constantly traveling the distance between health and sickness... which direction are you going to choose?