Scales For You

I just read that our hospital now has a new Nuclear Medicine imaging system to help heart disease and cancer patients receive highly accurate diagnoses in brief exams with optimized X-ray dose.  It gives doctors information about both the nature and the precise location of heart disease, all in a single exam that is quick and comfortable for patients.  It combines nuclear imaging (SPECT) with computed tomography (CT) and provides sharp, high quality images.  Doctors use it mainly to diagnose heart disease and to identify and locate cancerous tumors, with a typical exam only taking ten minutes. 

As we are all aware, we don’t want treatment until an accurate diagnoses has been made.  However, I don’t really need a doctor to tell me why my knees hurt and I can’t hold out to do things like I used to (don’t even have the breath to sing like before).  When I step on my large capactiy scales, I immediately diagnose my problem–overweight.  The diagnosis is easy, the treatment is the hard part.  Eating a healthy diet would be easy if it didn’t mean leaving off all those good fried foods and sweets.  Exercising has never been easy for me.  Although, I’ve always considered myself to be an active person, my activity consists of things like reading, crocheting, computering, watching television, and talking on the phone.  From what I have read, none of these burn many calories or use much energy, hence the weight problem.  Check out www.holladaypartners.com   They have scales in many sizes and styles with colors to match any decor. 

Our entire world is full of advertisements.  I drive along the highways and see billboard after billboard.  I get on the computer and the ads pop-up whether I want them or not.  I can’t watch anything on television without interruptions for the commercials (and have you noticed they are louder than the program you are watching).  The newspaper contains pages of ads, plus flyers from all the local businesses tucked in the middle.  Just think of the money that is spent on advertising.

I have found the most unbelieveable advertisement yet!  It is advertising a magazine about health issues, but just listen to its claims:  By reading this report, the health secrets are so easy and effective that you may not even notice them until “you can easily zip-up a pair of pants you thought were two sizes too small…or lose 10 pounds without really trying.”  Wow!  I love to read, so if I can just get this magazine, I can sit in my chair and read and the pounds will just melt away!  I can hardly wait to step on my body fat scale.  I’ll bet my ratio of fat to my total weight will improve, also.  Of course, I know that I’ll have to actually do the things they suggest with my eating habits and exercise routine if I really want to lose weight, but they make it sound too easy.  www.holladaypartners.com offers the Escali body fat scale at the lowest price ever.  Check it out!

I read in Readers Digest that a pacemaker for the stomach may become available in about five years.  It will be an implanted device that sends electric signals to make the person feel full.  Volunteers who got the Tantalus System lost an average of 11 pounds and lowered their blood sugar.  Based on this information, I may just procrastinate losing weight for a few years.  This sounds easier than what I’ve tried before.

Just kidding!  Five years is a long time to carry this extra weight.  It’s not good for my knees, ankles, heart, and any number of body organs.  Besides, I don’t want to have a foreign object implanted into my body until absolutely necessary.  I’ll get a cooking scale (not implanted) to help determine food portions before they’re placed on my plate.  It’s reasonably easy to eat a balanced, healthy diet–the hard part comes from limiting the amount of food eaten.  www.holladaypartners.com offers a variety of kitchen scales in many styles, colors, and sizes at the lowest prices ever.

Now I have to worry about having a fat liver!  I read that if you’re overweight and diabetic, doctors have concluded that you probably have a fatty liver.  This raises the risk of not only liver problems, but also heart disease.  Kerry Stewart, EdD, an exercise physiologist at Johns Hopkins University says it is just an added reason to exercise.  A recent study has found that moderate biking, walking, or running three times a week, plus resistance training, trimmed fat in livers (of volunteers) by as much as 40 percent.  I’m finally going to have to admit that exercise is necessary to retain and improve my health. 

Nutritional scales can help determine what nutrients are actually included in the food we eat.  The Escali Cibo digital nutritional scale has a smart weighing system inside with easy to use features that diplay nutritional values, including carbohydrates, fat and protein.  It displays calories, sodium, protein, fat, carbohydrates, cholesterol or fiber via the input of 999 different food codes and calculates total nutritional value of up to 99 different meal components.  It even has a removable stainless steel plate for fast and easy clean up.  You can find this nutritional scale at  www.holladaypartners.com

I just read on Facebook that one of my friends got on her treadmill for the 12th straight day.  It made me feel really bad and guilty because I haven’t been on my treadmill in forever and a day.  Some new research shows that a little sweat brings hefty benefits, no matter your size.  Just an hour of exercise a week was enough to make life easier for people carrying an extra 100 pounds.  It helped them with tasks like tying shoes and getting up from a chair, even without weight loss.  Also, regular workouts cut the risk of endometrial cancer by 22 percent for overweight and obese women.  All it took was easy-to-moderate walking for 30 to 45 minutes a day.  And, if our food intake doesn’t increase, our weight will probably decrease because of burning the extra calories.

I need to reset my priorities with exercise near the top, get a good weight scale, and get serious about improving my lifestyle.  It is certainly aggravating and embarrassing to be short of breath just from bending over enough to tie my tennis shoes.  www.holladaypartners.com offers a wide variety of scales for the bathroom, kitchen, restaurant, or lab in many colors, sizes, and styles to meet every need.  Prices are the lowest ever, too!

Since I am over 65, I’m very intrigued by a study of Canadian women older than 65 that found that those who took part in regular aerobic activity had cognitive function scores 10 percent higher than their peers who did not exercise.  They also had lower blood pressure and better vascular responses in the brain, which suggests that better blood flow aids the ability to think.  This means that being sedentary increases the risk of stroke and dementia, since better blood flow translates into improved cognition.  So, something as simple as a walk every day (or a mile or two on the treadmill) is critical to staying mentally sharp and remaining healthy as we age.

In today’s busy world, it is too easy to procrastinate about an exercise routine.  Perhaps, we can get some time-saving assistance by making our work or hobbies more time-efficient, thus making time for the much-needed exercise.  Electronic scales in the kitchen, lab, or a counting scale to use in a hobby can allow us to accomplish the same amount in less time.  www.holladaypartners.com offers a wide variety of scales to fit every need and in many styles, colors and sizes to match any decor.  Save time, walk daily and increase your brain power.  I don’t know about you, but I need all I can get! 

Studies have shown that omega-3 fatty acids reduce blood pressure and the risk of heart attack.  Fish is a top source for omega-3 fatty acids, but some people just don’t like the taste of fish.  A study in England shows that we can get almost as much benefit from plant foods, which contain alpha-linolenic acid.  Our body converts this substance into omega-3s.  In fact, blood tests showed that women who ate the plant substitutes became more efficient at making the heart-healthy conversion than the ones who ate fish.  The best sources of alpha-linolenic acid are walnuts, flaxseed, tofu, and canola and soybean oils. 

One thing for certain–we can eat all the healthy foods that are recommended, but if we overeat and are overweight, we’re still at risk for many health issues.  A bathroom scale will help us determine if we are increasing, decreasing or maintaining our body weight.  As a result of new technology, bathroom scales now have many features that are convenient and fun to use.  www.holladaypartners.com offers a wide variety of electronic and digital bathroom scales in many styles, colors and sizes at the best prices ever.  Choose the ones that have the features that appeal to you. 

I’ve decided you can prove anything by research.  We read that we shouldn’t eat eggs, then we read it’s good to eat eggs.  It’s bad to drink coffee, then you should have a cup of coffee each morning, and on and on.  Now a study has shown that eating cheese can be heart healthy for women, but not so much for men because they tend to pick cheeses with more saturated fat and salt.  Women who ate a serving of cheese a day (about the size of four dice) had higher HDL (good cholesterol) and lower LDL (bad) than those who didn’t, according to a study at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  They suggested that the slimmed-down versions of mozzarella, Cheddar and other cheeses with less saturated fat are better that fat-free products that tend to have more sodium.

Moderation is the key.  Too much of any one food cannot be good for our body.  A set of electronic scales in the kitchen can help measure food portions to determine that our body is getting a well-balanced diet, while cutting calories to lose unwanted weight.  www.holladaypartners offers a variety of kitchen scales in many styles, colors and sizes to match any decor while helping us form healthy eating habits. 

Recent research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that people who fall at either extreme of the weight spectrum are more likely to get severe migraines compared with those at normal weight.  The weight categories associated with a higher prevalence of headaches is a Body Mass Index (BMI) under 18.5 or a BMI over 30.  BMI is a formula used to determine whether a person’s weight falls in a healthy range.

Since it has been many years since I was in school taking math and working on formulas, I prefer the easier route of purchasing a body mass index scale and letting it figure my BMI.  www.holladaypartners.com offers the Escali body mass index scale that has a memory to follow ten users.  It even has a remote control with an easy-to-read display.  By keeping the BMI at a healthy range, a lot of health problems can be corrected or avoided.

I was with a relative today whose husband died with a sudden massive heart attack.  She is overweight, has diabetes and high blood pressure.  She told me that her sugar level was 270 this morning (normal is 80 to 120) and she had taken a full dose of insulin.  Yet, when we ate, she ate a very large serving of sweets.  I’m not trying to criticize her.  I’m looking at what she did as somewhat normal behavior for Americans.  Regardless of all the information we have about health issues, we seem to have very little will power when it comes to eating a healthy diet.  We tend to ignore the fact that we only have one body and when it’s gone, we go.

I believe it is time to reset our priorities.  If our priorities are to “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die,”  we’re on the right track.  However, if we would rather forego a few of those fats and sweets in order to keep our body healthy longer, we need to reorganize our eating and exercise habits.   Large capacity bathroom scales can help us face the reality of our situation.  They can also help us keep motivated if we see progress from week to week.  www.holladaypartners.com has a wide variety of scales in many styles, sizes and colors that match any decor.