Nutritional Guidelines

Here is a set of common dietary guidelines offered by six national health organizations* as protection against the major chronic diseases:
  • Eat a variety of foods.
  • Choose most of what you eat from plant sources.
  • Eat at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables every day.
  • Eat at least 6 servings of whole-grain foods each day.
  • Minimize the high-fat foods you eat, especially those from animal sources.
  • Choose low-fat, low-cholesterol foods.
  • Limit the amount of simple sugars in your diet.
Remember—your healthcare professional can help you determine the daily calorie intake that is right for you.

*The American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, the American Dietetic Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Institutes of Health, and the American Society for Clinical Nutrition


How to Cut the Fat?

  1. Decrease portion sizes, especially of high-fat foods.
  2. Eat more whole grains, fruits and vegetables.
  3. Use leaner cuts of meats (white meat of poultry without skin; fish; round or loin cuts of beef; loin cut of pork).
  4. Use non-meat sources of protein (beans, peas and lentils).
  5. Choose low-fat (1%) or nonfat dairy products.
  6. Cut down on the use of added fats (butter, margarine, mayonnaise, salad dressing) or use low-fat alternatives.
Do you know what your Body Mass Index (BMI) is? Your Body Mass Index is a measure of weight that takes height into account. Higher BMIs are often associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and heart disease. Calculate yours right now.

Know your body

“Be Thankful for what your body tells you.”

Every day you get up and out of bed you take a little inventory. Whether you realize it or not, every morning you do a little check-list of your body…..legs (no cramping or wobbling), back (no pinches or strains), shoulders (no pain or soreness), neck (no tweaks or twinges), mouth (I need to brush my teeth)….all of this is a normal, natural process that really takes place between your bed and the bathroom.

What about the more subtle things with your body?

What if you wake up and your vision is a little more blurry than normal? Would you toss that up to an extra ‘sleepy ball’ in the eye or something more serious? Your vision is a key indicator of a stroke.

What if you are a little short of breath on the way to the bathroom? Could that be from the weather or a larger concern? Shortness of breath is a symptom of many serious conditions.

The point is you know your body. What a good day feels like, what a bad day feels like and just about every other day that you have had some experience with. But, if you wake up tomorrow and it feels different, there is a reason for that, and you may not have long to figure it out. The finer point is, don’t ignore it, do something about it.

For example, 40 years old Nigerian citizen had a Sudden Cardiac Arrest. He happened to be in the right place at the right time so I thankfully fell in to the 5-8% who survives an Out-of-Hospital SCA. But he reported, had I listened to my body and what it was telling me, it never would have happened. Many months before my event I was feeling more sluggish in my work-outs, sweating more and taking longer to recover. As a fairly fit 40 year old, you tend to think you are closer to 30 than 50, so it was difficult for me to hear what my body was obviously telling me. Had I listened, there were definitely signs of something going wrong. Work-outs continued to get slower, recovery time got longer, but I still could not fathom that I could be on the brink of disaster. I must just be getting older and this is what it feels like. Until finally one day, I went down in full SCA-Heart in v-fib, statistically very little chance to survive. I got very lucky.

My favourite cliché now is, “Hind sight is 20-20”. The thing that was so hard to see in front of me was crystal clear looking back. The signs were obvious and I was not seeing it because I was ignoring what my body was telling me.

Your body could be telling you the same thing right now. Take inventory and take action. You know what is normal and what is not. You have been living with your body a long time now. All the kinks are worked out and you have got a good routine together. If there is something wrong, it will tell you, you have to listen.

When it comes to safety of your body, you are the CEO. No one else will look out for your body better than you. No one else can diagnose an issue quicker or more effectively than you. No one else will bring the proper actions or precautions to bear. Be Thankful for what your body reports to you, now, take action.

The 10 Secrets for Personal Leadership Effectiveness in Achieving Success

1. Take charge and make a difference. Avoid having a victim mentality and take responsibility for developing disciplines and new habits that lead to being proactive and positive.
2. Live life with a sense of significance. Develop a healthy self-concept, recognize your uniqueness and realize you can make a difference. Look for opportunities to grow.
3. Embrace problems as positive opportunities. It is CRITICAL to have a positive attitude. Embracing a negative situation causes stress that can demoralize your individual performance and your overall productivity.
4. Build and sustain a values-based lifestyle. Learn to build a values system around foundational “character-based principles”.
5. Define your vision, mission and purpose. Live with a sense of destiny, excitement and meaning.
6. Gain balance in all aspects of your life. When a person is out of control and loses balance, they become highly susceptible to distress, anger, fear, depression and even burnout. It is critical to build balance into your life if you are to maximize your personal leadership efficiency.
7. Resolve personal challenges and conflicts. Learn the importance of listening, how to confront people properly and to know when to empathize at the right time.
8. Cultivate your individual character. Your character will determine ultimately the quality of your relationships, your contribution at work, in your community… and in society at large.
9. Keep adjusting to obstacles. You must learn to make mid-course corrections and how to deal with constant change. History is filled with success stories, whereby individuals overcame enormous challenges and barriers in their life to press on and accomplish great things.
10. Never give up or quit on the things you choose are important. Those who succeed at healthy, dynamic whole lives fail often, but they fail forward. They learn how to stick with it and persist…they simply do not quit.