Deliberate Self-Care

By Eve Prang Plews

Licensed Nutrition Counselor

(Originally Published in Sarasota’s Natural Awakenings magazine February, 2011)

Consciously or unconsciously, we all design our lives.  The gift of 168 hours each of us receives every week can be spent wisely or foolishly.  Our daily opportunity to live a more fulfilling and happy life is based in part on how all the elements that promote and provide health are prioritized and balanced in your life.  For without health, all the details of living life pale in comparison to regaining health.

We all have to sleep – and likely more than we’re doing now.  Research clearly documents a reduction in all major mental and physical functions when we are sleep deprived.  Memory, accuracy, fine and gross motor skills, mathematical skills and mood all suffer when we get less than 7 hours sleep nightly.  Those folks who say, “I do fine on 5 hours,” are just kidding themselves.  Only teens actually need 9-10 hours of shut eye to effectively navigate the world.  Too little (5.5 hours) and too much (9 hours) have both been linked to increased risk of premature deaths in a meta-analysis of over one million people.  A 12% risk increase was incurred by those sleeping less than 6 hours nightly.  Nine hour sleepers increased risk of death by a whopping 30%!  Researchers suspect an underlying health issue is suspect in the over sleepers, while sleeping too little actually increased risk.  They are the ones that show up in clinic at ages 46-54 with chronic exhaustion that no amount of coffee or energy drinks can repair. Does that last hour of TV, computer games or social networking really add value to your life?  Just try 30 minutes more sleep each night for one month and you’ll see both mood and productivity rise.  Plus the newest research demonstrates that adequate sleep reduces weight gain and aids those who want to lose weight.  With 73 million Americans now obese, sleep is an easy tool to help lose extra pounds. 

Thus we are all left with over one hundred hours each week to live our lives awake. No doubt we must assign a bare minimum of 3 hours weekly to deliberate exercise.  There is no Fountain of Youth as powerful as exercise.   That scant 30 minutes 6 days a week of simple walking reduces brain shrinkage as we age.  Yikes!  If brain atrophy doesn’t sound like a good thing, you’re right.  Dementia of all kinds is reduced in regular exercisers plus they feel better, have better joints, better memory and better mood.  Exercise doesn’t have to be all about muscle building.  It’s best result is from the increase in blood flow and thus oxygen.

Time to shop, cook and eat is rarely put in a weekly calendar; but should be.  After all, that’s where the fuel comes from to do all the other activities of life that you value.  Planning is a key to success with eating well.  Surprisingly, people who cook for themselves spend less than 10 extra minutes per meal than those who choose drive-thru and take the food out.  They exchange prep time for waiting and transportation time.  Seems foolish and expensive, and raises the overall toxic load as mass prepared food often contains ingredients not found in your kitchen pantry.

It doesn’t take twice as long to fix 6 things as it does to fix 3.  When you roast a chicken, add a sweet potato or two to the oven.  Make a pot of bean soup every week.  Split pea, lentils and black eyed peas require no presoaking and are ready in less than one hour.  Beans are inexpensive, tasty and healthy.  Put on a pot of brown rice at the same time. Then sauté up some meatballs (could be turkey instead of beef.)  Lastly, make a novelty salad like cole slaw or carrot salad.  You’re now set for at least 4 days of meals with very little extra prep.

Day one could be chicken, sweet potato and some freshly steamed broccoli.  Day two lunch: bean soup over rice with a green salad.  Day two dinner might be spaghetti sauce from a jar over pasta with the meatballs and leftover broccoli. Day 3 midday meal may be a chicken sandwich with slaw.  Day 3 dinner: puree some bean soup to fill a wrap and top with a broken up meat ball, finish the slaw. 

You get it.  If you have 2 proteins, (chicken and meatballs) 2 starches (sweet potato and rice) plus a bean soup and a salad, you can mix and match for 4 days with no repeats.  The variety would change each week. Next week’s choices might be turkey breast and salmon plus acorn or butternut squash and another kind of bean soup. Add a cucumber or tomato salad and you’re set again for low maintenance meal preparation. You’ll actually spend less time (and money) and eat better without the ongoing 6 pm stress of “What are we gonna eat tonight?”

Want your life to be a “pleasing harmony of various elements?” That’s one definition of balance.  Then start with putting sleep, exercise and great food at the top of your health priorities.  Those 3 commitments will give you the energy, the vitality to fill the rest of your 168 hours each week with the work and play that can fulfill you.  That equilibrium can help you paint a picture of a happy, balanced life.

Eve Prang Plews, a licensed Nutrition Counselor, has been in practice at her Sarasota clinic, Full Spectrum Health, for 22 years. You may contact her at 941 952-1200 or www.fullspectrumhealth.com.  Her previous articles are available at eveplews.com.  Eve’s radio show,  No Nonsense Nutrition, airs Mondays at 9 AM on WSLR 96.5 FM, or stream it live at wslr.org.  Alternate Mondays at 11AM she is on WMNF, 88.5FM Radioactivity call in show with Rob Lorei.