Avoiding Hazards of Holiday Excess-Holidays and Nutrition
The holidays, as enjoyable as they may be for family gatherings and just plain vegging out from a busy work schedule, can take their toll on your health. This is the time of year when you are most likely to abandon a faithful exercise schedule and a healthy dietary regimen. The plan is that you’ll get right back in the saddle again, and, after all, Thanksgiving and Christmas are not the time for self-denial.
Psychologists tell us that people who are not overweight may gain a pound or two over the holidays. After all, it takes 3.500 extra calories to gain a pound. Five pounds translate into 18,500 extra calories. The average man requires in the neighborhood of 2,500 calories a day just to maintain healthy bodily functions, which should mean zero weight gain. This does not figure in metabolism and activity levels but is a vivid illustration of how even short-term overeating affects weight gain.
Now when you consider that you have to cut that daily calorie intake to 2,000 calories to lose a pound a week, it indicates how hard it is to get back on track. As far as compensating by initiating a daily exercise routine, consider that you burn only 100 calories by either walking or running a mile.
People who are already significantly overweight or obese are more likely to pack on five or more pounds during this celebratory span each year and barely 150 calories over an hour of running or walking.
Massive Calorie Intake During Holidays
Post-holiday from Thanksgiving until the start of the new year is when we often assess the massive amounts of calories we have consumed— much of it off the beaten path from our usual try-to-eat healthy lifestyle. January and February is when we are most likely to get serious about healthy living, including serious exercise and dieting.
To make up for our eating excesses, we too often set unrealistic goals in returning to a healthy lifestyle, relapsing to some of our unhealthy ways. You need an expert in preventative health, which simply means preventing ill health and injury through healthy practices and habits.
At Oakland Spine & Therapy we believe that nutrition and what you eat are directly connected to your health, critical to maintaining the musculoskeletal system. That means it is important in building and rebuilding the tissue that carries nervous system impulses.
Chiropractic care is all about preventative approaches, and that includes nutrition as a tool, reports Dr. Brad Butler, Chief of Staff at Oakland Spine & Therapy: “Medicine is the best at treating the symptoms of disease after it’s already present,” he says. . “By contrast, preventative healthcare, of which we are a part, looks to prevent disease before it happens.”
Nutrition is a big part of that, and sometimes you just need a nutrition-savvy preventative health practitioner on your side.
