This Week's Healthy SC Challenge Tips

COLUMBIA, SC (03/07/2008)(readMedia)-- The Healthy SC Challenge is the Sanford family’s effort to get all South Carolinians to do just a little more to live a healthier lifestyle. The tips are designed to encourage individuals and communities to live healthier lifestyles in three categories - nutrition, exercise and help to quit smoking. The tips can also be found on the challenge’s website, www.healthysc.gov.

Healthy Tips

Nutrition

I am firmly on record as a nutrition expert who does not recommend the use of artificial sweeteners (with the exception of those with diabetes). Based on my review of the extensive science available, I have no concerns with their safety - meaning I see no evidence that they have long term health risks. I am concerned however, that they may indeed lead to weight gain. As demonstrated in laboratory studies, artificial sweeteners can interfere with the body's natural ability to learn how to use sensory cues like sweet taste to gauge how many calories are coming in the body. Artificial sweeteners are exquisitely sweet substances - (200-800 times sweeter than table sugar), yet have no calories. When included regularly in the diet, it may be that the body learns to not expect much in terms of calories from sweets and responds by ultimately eating more - sounds scary! At a minimum I can assure you that they exploit the human palate's highly developed taste for sweet. If you include them regularly, the bar for what tastes sweet to you is set somewhere way up in the stratosphere and I have concerns that you will ever be able to appreciate and enjoy the delicious and healthy sweetness of nature's desert - namely fruit, as Mother Nature intended. Assuming you are not diabetic - when you feel the need to sweeten a food or beverage, just use a little bit of the real thing. I put a teaspoon of real sugar (or honey) in my morning coffee and I'm still lean and healthy.

-Dr. Ann Kulze, Nationally recognized nutrition and wellness expert, www.dranns10steps.com

Physical Activity

In interval training, you alternate between bursts of higher-intensity exercise and periods of less-intense exercise (or "active rest"). As you get more fit, you decrease the "rest" time and increase the high-intensity periods. You'll see big fitness gains if you train this way regularly. For example, if you now run for 30 minutes at 6 mph, try this routine: Jog for five minutes to warm up. Then, increase your speed to 6.5 mph for one to two minutes (less if you can't go that long). Then, jog for a few minutes at your normal speed, then again at the faster speed, and so on until you reach your time limit. Your ratio of work to active rest would be 2:3 if you ran for two minutes at 6.5 mph, then jogged for three minutes at 6 mph. You can also use your heart rate to set intervals. For example, if your heart rate hits 70% of your maximum when you jog at 6 mph, start at that speed. Then increase either your speed or elevation (if you're on a treadmill) to get your heart rate to 85% or 90% of maximum for one to three minutes. Then, go back to jogging at the 70% heart rate, and continue alternating.

-www.webmd.com

Tobacco

Smoking - or living with a smoker -- can cause snoring, according to a study of more than 15,000 men and women. Habitual snoring, defined as loud and disturbing snoring at least three nights per week, affected 24% of smokers, 20% of ex-smokers, and almost 14% of people who had never smoked. The more people smoked, the more frequently they snored. Even nonsmokers were more likely to snore if they were exposed to secondhand smoke in their homes. Almost 20% of these nonsmokers snored, compared with nearly 13% who had never been exposed to secondhand smoke at home.

-American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine

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The Healthy SC Challenge is an outcome-based, cooperative effort aimed at encouraging individuals, communities and organizations across the state to show shared responsibility in developing innovative ways to improve the health of South Carolina's citizens. For more information about the Healthy SC Challenge, please visit www.healthysc.gov, or call 803-74772.