Achieving Menos #001

Menos is an ancient Greek concept encompassing good health, physical & mental fitness, and vitality. More than simply good health and fitness, it is about life vibrancy. Menos is not just good health, but an energetic good health.

Achieving Menos, the monthly newsletter, is about helping people make healthy choices in their lives so that they can experience menos. The only health care system that can be truly sustainable is one which first seeks to keep people healthy and then looks to natural therapies before resorting to expensive drugs or invasive surgeries. Read more on this concept in my essay on Sustainable Health Care.

Important Points to Remember

1- Achieving Menos is in no way a rejection of science or modern medicine. Remarkable breakthroughs in the treatment of many diseases are being made by doctors and scientists. We should embrace the best of modern medicine, while first seeking to prevent disease (true health care, rather than disease care), then seeking to treat the whole person, rather than just the disease.

2- Neither this newsletter, nor its author, can diagnose or provide treatment options for your specific health problems. It is highly recommended that you find a medical doctor that you are comfortable with and working with him or her to address your specific health concerns and circumstances.

3- Use common sense in applying the ideas and tips presented in this newsletter to your life. For example, if you know you are allergic to one of the foods mention as being healthy, do not eat it.
Achieving Menos - The Basics

Here are my basic steps to achieving good health and vitality. These are the steps to healthy living I try to incorporate into my life on a daily basis. Following these steps sets the foundation upon which you can build your menos.

Basic Steps to Improve Health & Vitality

1- Avoid smoking and/or abusing drugs or alcohol. My father died of cancer caused directly by smoking cigarettes. I know two other people currently fighting cancer caused by smoking. You can fume about "smoker's rights" all you want, but it makes as much sense as "suicide rights." And make no mistake about it - if you smoke, you are committing a slow form of suicide.

2- Get between 7 & 9 hours of sleep per night. I know plenty of people who claim to get by on six hours of sleep a night or less. You might "get by" with less, but the research is overwhelming - adequate sleep is very important to good health.

3- Consume less meat, especially red meat. Red meat especially is full of saturated (unhealthy) fats, not to mention hormones, dyes and other undesirable stuff. I am not suggesting giving up meat altogether, but you should at least eat meat only a few times a week, and even then preferring fish or poultry, if you want to achieve maximum health. This is one of the cornerstones of the traditional Mediterranean diet, long known to be one of the healthiest diets possible.

4- Eat 5+ servings of fruits & vegetables a day. Fresh fruits and vegetables are a cornerstone of a healthy diet, and you cannot eat too many. Try to eat a wide variety fruits and vegetables, including citrus fruits, tomatoes, carrots and the cruciferous veggies, which include cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, bok choy, radishes, horseradish, and various greens (turnip, mustard, kale, collard, etc). Legumes (beans, peas) should be eaten for their fiber, protein and other nutritional value.

5- Eat whole grains instead of refined grains. Many studies suggest that the high rate of consumption of refined or "white" flour, bread, pasta, cereals and rice are contributing to the current epidemics of obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes and even cancer. Switch to whole grains whenever possible.

6- Consume less sodium & refined sugar. Also contributing to obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and cancer is the high rate of sugar consumption in all its forms, especially high fructose corn syrup. Cut back drastically on the amount of sugar you consume, and when you do use sweeteners, prefer natural sources such as fruit & honey.

7- Be physically active everyday. Many experts recommend at least one hour of moderate exercise a day, at least five days a week. What is moderate exercise? It should be vigorous enough to cause you to break out in a slight sweat. Walking, swimming and bike riding are excellent, low impact, ways to exercise. Use common sense - if you are elderly, badly out-of-shape or suffer from serious health conditions, please get your doctor's advise before starting an exercise program.

8- Visit your doctor & dentist for regular check-ups. Find a doctor you like and are comfortable with, hopefully one who takes a holistic approach to your health care and believes as strongly in preventing disease as he or she does in curing disease. What constitutes "regular check-ups" depends on your age & health conditions and should be mutually decided on by you and your doctor.

Note: One would think that such common sense advise would not be controversial, but I have learned otherwise. Let me quickly try to anticipate and address some potential criticisms based on my past experiences. 1- No reasonable reading of the above list would indicate that I am promoting fad diets. I am not. 2- Fats are an essential part of a person's diet. We need to consume some fat to be healthy. However, there are some kinds of fats which are unhealthy (trans fats & saturated fats for examples). We should try to limit or eliminate unhealthy fats. 3- I clearly state that what constitutes "regular" check-ups varies from person to person and should be decided on between your doctor and yourself taking into consideration your individual circumstances. 4- In regards to sleep, recent studies have determined that for maximum health the typical adult needs between seven and nine hours of sleep a night. Any more or less has detrimental effects on health. The long-held notion that healthy adults can get by on six hours or less sleep per night without it having an effect on their health has been demonstrated to be false. They may be able to "get by", but the cumulative effect on their health will be negative.

A word on organic food: A simple definition of organic food is food that is produced without the use of artificial chemicals such as those found in many fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, or without the use of growth hormones in animals. There are more complex and detailed definitions of course, but for the purpose of this discussion the simple definition will do. Some of these artificial chemicals may cause serious health problems in humans, including various types of cancer and other diseases. It is a good idea to choose organic food whenever possible.

HOWEVER, "organic" doesn't necessarily mean "healthy". Eating too much organic sugar, for example, can cause the same health problems as eating too much non-organic sugar. Overeating too much organic food will make you just as fat as eating too much non-organic food. Bad fats are bad for you regardless of the source being organic or not. So, while organic food is a good idea, it is not a panacea for good health.

In Closing

I hope you enjoyed this first issue of Achieving Menos. More importantly, I hope it has given you some encouragement to take control of your health by making wise choices in your life. I am planning for this to be a monthly newsletter, with occasional supplements in addition. You can be sure not to miss future issues by subscribing to the Sustainable Future blog (it is free!) by email or feed reader so that you will not miss future posts. Sign up boxes can be found in the upper right of the Sustainable Future website. You will receive one email update each day at most, so it will not clog your inbox. Your email address is never sold, rented or shared with anyone else.