Retirement As You Want It

Eat Healthy to Live Long and Well

Have you been bombarded with nutrition advice that you rarely, if ever, heed? Is your waist as big as your hips? Would you rather take the elevator up 1 flight instead of walking? You might be among the majority of Americans, who are experiencing an epidemic of overweight-ness and obesity. Not good for your future health and happiness as you age.

Aging Well: the Magazine for Professionals Promoting Positive Aging focuses its articles this month on successful strategies for "heart healthy aging." What are the main points?

• Utilize a Mediterannean diet, including moderate amounts of extra virgin olive oil and whole plant foods. See the Mayo Clinic website. Even red wine is recommended.
• Avoid high-fat animal proteins, including red meat, pork, and full-fat dairy products
• Increase complex carbohydrates such as fruits, veggies, legumes, nonfat dairy, soy products, and nuts (especially walnuts that are low in saturated fat)

•  Moderate amounts of fish and skinless poultry

 Avocados, nuts and seeds to get the good omega-3 fatty acids; the usual omega-6 fatty acids that flood the supermakets cause inflammation that is conducive to chronic disease, said Janet Bond Brill, nutrition consultant

Eat "nutrient-dense, fiber-rich, antioxidant-boosting plant foods, such as whole grains, beans, berries, fruits, seeds, and nuts for decreased risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease.

The word from experts is to add those foods that are "heart healthy." You can end up eating good portions of food, as long as you avoid those high-fat animal proteins.

So, enjoy your food again! What sort of healthy eating routine satisfies your need to stay healthy, vigorous, and fulfilled?

Boomers Take Charge of Their Bodies Via Healthy Eating

Boomers like to eat well... and now are dedicated to eating healthy (healthily, my English teacher mother would have said). Janet Helm of the Philadelphia Daily News wrote in "Baby Boomers Taking Charge of Eating Habits" that the gigantic boomer population is changing the way food marketers operate. No longer are they willing to buy gobs of Krispie Creme-type foods. They're more likely to gravitate to the natural foods aisles or shop at Whole Foods or natural food stores. Helm says "This generation is redefining what it means to have quality food." They look for the option of organic produce, fish with low levels of mercury, whole grain bread and pasta, low or non-fat milk and ice cream. And the grocery stores better have those items, or they're going elsewhere, even if it means driving a bit of a distance.

Boomers grew up with the idea that they could control their future and by their sheer numbers, they affect the culture. Look at all the fitness centers, spas, and meditative retreats that have opened in the last couple of decades. Now it's commonplace to see people in their 50's and 60's being fit and active, looking more like their daughters and sons, with a few more wrinkles and sagging necks.

My diet is significantly different from what I was introduced to as a child. I had a Viennese grandmother who lived with us and baked wonderful cookies and cakes almost daily. We rarely had fresh veggies or fish. We at a lot of red meat. Not anymore. I'm rarely tempted by sweets unless it's homemade and I know it'll be delicious. I try not to go back for seconds. I eat wild blueberries and flax seed on my high-fiber cereal, only whole-grain bread and pasta and grains and non-fat milk and yogurt. And I feel more energetic and stronger than I ever did in my 20s.

How about you? What are your eating habits and what do you struggle with? Comment at the end of the post or write to me at Karma@LifeSpringCoaching.com.

Take Health Care Information Access Out of the Dark Age and Into the Web Age

Do you make travel plans online? How about shifting money from 1 fund to another? Or, booking tickets for Bonnie Raitt?  But, if you want to find out the results of your last lab test, you often have to hang on the phone for minutes, then be transferred to the nurse practitioner, then leave a message and wait until he/she gets back to you.

Would you like to be able to take more control of your health care via a virtual coach?  A Healthwise whitepaper, e-Coaching for Boomer Health: How Information Therapy Tools Can Give Boomers the Personalized and Efficient Health Care Experience They Want and Need by Molly Mettler, MSW, and Donald W. Kemper, MPH, tells us how this might work.

78% of Boomers use Web-based tools to find out about health care information already. They search for "tingling in the hands," or "rapid heartbeat" or any number of symptoms and try to figure out what's the best antidote for what they're experiencing, rather than taking the time to go to their doctor. Wouldn't it be wise for the health care industry to design systems so that consumers could manage their health conditions more readily from the Web?

Mettler and Kemper point to 3 self-care rules: 1) Do as much as you can for yourself, 2) Ask for the care you need, and 3) Say "no" to the care you don't need.

My PCP's office allows me to make or cancel appointments, get referrals, or request prescription refills online. That's more than my husband's PCP does (no Web access!). But, if I have a quick question that probably does not require a visit, or even a call from a health professional, I cannot get that online.

Mettler and Kemper give 3 examples of common conditions, asthma, back pain, and diabetes, where expensive and scary crises could be avoided if virtual health care were available. They advocate for you, as the consumer, to ask for the care you need by increasing your sense of competency to make decisions. If you have asthma, what kinds and how much controller medication do you need? If you're diabetic, how well are you keeping your blood sugar in the target range?

Since our health care system cannot afford to give us each a personal health care coach, we can...and do have the expertise...to get the information we need from the Web. Using virtual methods, we can get that info 24/7.

Here's some methods that are in the works. Since many health care systems are trying to get the electronic medical record in place, when we access our PCPs website, our questions can be coordinated with our record to personalize the response.

Information therapy (Ix) can prescribe information to help us make better health care decisions.These can be triggered after every health care visit, after a prescription for medication or a test is made, or any treatment. You know how confusing it can sometimes be after getting recommendations from your practitioner...what did she say? How many times? Under what circumstances? Wouldn't it be comforting to be able to go online and get to your personal profile at your PCPs office, and know that the answers you need will be right there with easy access?

We can get reminders for preventive services online. We can monitor our chronic conditions. With virtual coaching (which is in the early stages of design), we can even have interactive conversations with a health care coach who can take us through a series of questions to get to what level of knowledge we need and then provide it through a virtual conversation.

This technology is readily used in online games and travel and financial services. Why is health care so dinosaurish? With the huge Baby Boomer population entering the ages of more health care risk, we have the clout to expect that we have more easy access and more comprehensive information online so that we can take better care of our bodies. Ask for it!

Let me know your experiences with accessing your health care and what you're doing to request better services. Write to me at Karma@LifeSpringCoaching.com