Get Moving: Listen to your parents

Larsen Daehnick
Larsen Daehnick

Your parents told you:

- Eat your vegetables.

- Turn off that TV (or phone) and go outside.

- Don't eat all that junk; it will make you sick.

At that time, we didn't realize they were giving you the simple and basic recipe for a healthy life. If you analyze each of those statements and put them to use in your daily life, your health is sure to improve. Each of those statements is basic "adulting," a concept that is simple to say but not as easy to follow in daily life.

EAT YOUR VEGETABLES

Take a look at our plates today; often our plates are a majority of some shade of brown. Bread, pastas, fried food, hot dogs, hamburgers and even our drinks are often a bubbly brown. Nature has given us an array of beautiful colored fruits and vegetables that provide us with numerous healthy compounds that interact in our body in ways that we may still not even understand. Yet, we gravitate toward the easy, common convenience foods that do us more harm than good. Why? Because food manufacturers have spent millions of dollars to kidnap our taste buds. They have food down to a science, knowing how texture, sweet, salty and other components can be combined to keep us coming back and buying more and more of their products.

Those products, if you are honest with yourself, do not contribute to a healthy lifestyle. Put in front of any school age child a French fry and a stalk of broccoli. Which will they choose to eat? Most likely the French fry. Ask that same child which is healthier, and most will reply the broccoli.

As adults, doing this "adulting" thing, we know what is right; we just have to be able to do it. Therefore, make your next plate or meal and all others, half vegetables. Colorful vegetables, try for three to five different colors on your plate, with minimal or no sauces. Use salt and spices and cook them way you like. In a short time period, your taste buds will come to prefer the vegetables and possibly even crave them. At first you may not "love" the taste, but give it a chance. Listen to your parents!

TURN OFF THAT TV (OR PHONE) AND GO OUTSIDE

This is a big one. As we get more technically advanced, we move less. Does anyone remember, walking from the bus stop, pushing the lawn mower, manually opening the garage door, and, heaven forbid, getting up off the couch to change the channel. With the advancement of technology, we have made our lives significantly better. Unfortunately, at the same time, we have made ourselves lazier.

The human body was made to move, it is an amazing self-repairing machine that can utilize movement to help repair itself. Everyone can relate to being stuck in a presentation that lasted way too long and squirming around in your chair. When that presentation was over, all you wanted to do was get up and move. Do the seventh-inning stretch. Your body was trying to tell you something.

This doesn't mean you have to take up CrossFit, run a marathon or even join a gym. But the more daily movement you can add into your life, the better you will feel. Regular low level movement like taking the dog for a walk, walking up and down stairs in your house, riding your exercise bike, will all contribute to a healthier you. Combine that with occasionally lifting something heavy and getting out of breath, and you will see and feel a dramatic difference in your body. Getting outside in the morning sun does wonderful things for your body and primes it for a better night of sleep. Science has proven morning sunlight will help you sleep better. Turn off that gadget, and get up and move. Listen to your parents!

DON'T EAT ALL THAT JUNK, IT WILL MAKE YOU SICK

Diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke and low quality of life are all listed by the CDC as a consequence of obesity. Obesity does not occur from eating too many stalks of broccoli or having too many apples. Junk food may not be the only cause of these diseases, but it is definitely a contributor. You have control over what and how much you put in your mouth; therefore, you have a strong part in controlling your health.

Celebrations, holidays and special occasions happen, and who doesn't want to be part of the celebration and have a piece of cake or pizza? The problem comes when that is not just a once or twice a month occurrence but a regular, two or three times a day occurrence.

As stated earlier, eat your veggies. Fill your plate with healthy foods; foods that don't come in a box or bag. Eat food that can rot, not food that can sit in your house for month or years without going bad.

Here is an easy-to-say but often hard-to-follow guideline for a healthier life. Fill half your plate with veggies, have a lean source of protein (meat) and a small helping of starches. Make dessert fruit. Get up and move, walk after every meal. Go outside every morning. Find a hill and walk up it fast a few times a week, then pick up something heavy.

Keep in mind, it isn't what you eat between Christmas and New Years, it is what you eat between New Years and Christmas that makes the difference.

Thank goodness most of us growing up didn't have to hear "put your mask on right!"

Larsen Daehnick is an exercise specialist at the Sam B. Cook Healthplex. He has a master's degree in exercise physiology from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He likes the wide range of people he works with and the freedom to challenge himself to learn and grow while he helps others improve themselves.