Chaparral Pharmacy congratulates all Calgarians, Albertans, and Canadians on the New Year.
Now is an excellent time for your new year’s resolutions!
All of us went through lots of issues, from lockdowns to curfews, going through the COVID-19 variants, vaccines (first, second, and booster doses), and lots of debates about vaccines’ efficacy and side effects. All of this stuff affected our lives, societies, families, work, and mental health. Practically everything. That’s why we need to care for ourselves and put our health on track again.
On New Year’s Eve, Chaparral Pharmacy suggests several good ideas for New Year’s resolution from a health perspective.
Don’t take that extra bite!
Most people as widely known try to put weight loss in their new year’s resolutions. Some succeed, but most people fail or give up or go into a yo-yo cycle of weight loss and gain. We at Chaparral Pharmacy believe that extreme dieting is hard, but just forsaking that extra bit of this cake or not drinking the whole pop bottle/can is a good alternative.
People in general tend to underestimate their calorific intake. Everybody would be amazed at how many calories we hog and not lending our attention to it. There are many problems that prevent us from correct estimation of our calorie intake, such as:
- not correctly estimating the size and portions of our food,
- wrong estimations on food labels,
- eating too much clean food (strange but true because you think you can eat what you want if you are eating “clean”),
- not knowing the number of calories per serving, dehydration (strange but true because the human brain can be confused between dehydration and hunger),
- having lots of stress (blood sugar will be consumed fast, initiating hunger feelings),
- using too much-sophisticated ways of tracking calories, and
- many other factors.
The simple solution for most of these problems is accurately tracking your food for a week or so. Know your body needs, know how much 100 grams look for each type of food, know how much 100 grams (or any other fixed amount) each food has in calories, stay hydrated as much as possible, and then quit!
We don’t mean totally quit, but just quit the meticulous counting, weighing, and accurately measuring calories, and start doing guesstimation (educated guesses to estimate your calories) based on monitoring your food and eating habits. That way, you will be more motivated and have less monitoring work, which may promote sticking to the newly reduced calorie intake.
Another important thing is to diversify your diet and the sources of your calories. The more colours you put in your meals (not candy and sauces, of course!). The Canadian guidelines on the “rough” proportion and types of food are half vegetables and fruits, a quarter of diverse sources of proteins, and a quarter of starchy carbs of whole grain food.
And again, don’t take that extra bit!
Do it like Canadian Air Force!
People abhor exercise. We know that. It is also a scientific fact that the human body likes to preserve its energy and be in homeostasis. Homeostasis means that your body (and its organs and hence your brain) always tends to balance (or even through psychological tricks, prevent) any disruption in its equilibrium.
To be able to trick the human body’s psychological tricks (no pun intended!) is by promising it that exercise won’t take too much time, consume its resources, or put it in an uneasy situation.
That can be accomplished through very short exercise times.
Maybe 11 minutes?
According to this very old (but effective) Canadian Royal Air Force’s Five Basic Exercises (5BX
Plan), you can do a very little amount of exercise and get the maximum benefit in as little as 11 minutes!
You are promising your body that you only will do 11 minutes of action for a full range of body motion, which is an awesome deal for your body. It will thank you!
There are different levels (or charts per the 5BX) of progressive 5BX exercises, which depend on your current fitness levels.
Roughly the first level (or exercise chart) includes:
- Stretching up and down using your upper body
- Arms-assisted crunches
- Being on your abdomen, raise your head and alternate raising your legs
- Semi push-ups with most of your legs on the ground
- Stationary run
As your fitness and appetite to exercise increase, you can move to the next level in the 5BX.
Of course, you must consult your physician before undertaking any new exercise or diet.
Set ambitious goals (But make them achievable, please)
The most damaging thing for somebody is excessive routing. We don’t say that all routines are bad. It is just when everything looks the same, yesterday is similar to today and tomorrow and the week after. That infinite repetition may take a toll on the human mind.
The best way to break this cycle is to set a goal to achieve anything that could motivate the body and the mind. A body of research emphasizes that goal-setting is essential to attain self-esteem and self-confidence and will lead to more motivation which may lead to more goal setting and success.
So, for example, set yourself a goal to read the five most recommended books by your favourite influencer or celebrity. And stick to it by reading a few minutes (maybe 15 minutes at least) every day. You can get your books from your local library. Or you can share the idea with your friends, and each one of you can buy a book from that list and then share.
Stick to your medications. If you have any
Medication adherence is a major issue in today’s turbulent world. During the infinite Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram feeds, you will for sure forget to take a pill here or there.
Chaparral Pharmacy can help you put your medication(s) in blister packs (also named compliance packages) to make things easy. In those packs, you will find that each pill is arranged according to the time of its administration. It will also let you know by just looking that you are about to run out of your medications.
The best part is that Chaparral Pharmacy will do it for FREE.
Chaparral Pharmacy wishes you a happy, fruitful, and joyful year!
If you have any questions, you can call us at 403-475-5544 or visit our compounding pharmacy location in southeast Calgary at 210 – 10 Chaparral Drive SE, Calgary, AB T2X 3R7.
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