Changing eating habits key to healthy life changes

By Rob Sigler

Retired family medicine doctor Tracy Sanford, DO, has advised and helped thousands of patients over her 25 year career become more health conscience.

In trying to make healthy changes, she said “bite size” changes tend to work best.

“When folks know they’re eating poorly, drinking sweets and not exercising, they are rarely going to change all of those things at once,” Dr. Sanford said. “Exercise, while important for fitness, accounts for very little of our weight loss. That is typically one of the later changes that I suggest. Liquid calories are probably the most damaging part of an unhealthy lifestyle and is always the first thing that I ask people to change.

“In Mississippi, sweet tea is a big culprit. Once that is eliminated, weight loss is much easier.

She suggests breaking up an exercise regimen throughout the day.

“In the past we’d tell people to exercise for 30-60 minutes at a time,” said Dr. Sanford. “Now we’ve learned that six, five-minute bursts a day works as well as 30 straight minutes. It just has to be brisk enough that it raises the heart rate.”

The south Mississippi physician said a key to making any type of change is making goals that are measurable and attainable. A SMART Goal Setting Plan is a great idea. The acronym stands for “Specific Measurable Attainable Relevant Timely”.

Specific: What do I really want to precisely achieve?

Measurable: How will you know when you’ve achieved it?

Attainable: Is it really attainable in this time frame?

Relevant: Do I truly desire this?

Timely: When do I want to achieve it? Write down a date.

“Saying ‘I’ll exercise more’ isn’t helpful because you can’t really measure that and if you can’t measure it, you never really have the satisfaction of achieving a goal,” she said. “Instead, ‘I’ll exercise for two fiveminute bursts this week’ is better.” She also recommends keeping a writ- ten exercise journal and trying to match or beat the previous week, which keeps people progressing.

Although not a nutritionist, Dr. Sanford does recommend certain exercises and diet.

“With regard to exercise, yoga is one of the best studied and always shows improved quality of life scores and increased length of life,” Dr. Sanford said. “Yoga is good for all ages and all abilities, whereas most types of exercises don’t have as much flexibility in who can use it safely.”

In regard to diet, she tends to suggest a “moderate” diet rather than a specific diet. “Avoiding any liquid calories five days a week as the first dietary change, always. After that, I suggest stopping second servings of anything and then eventually working with patients on serving size,” said Dr. Sanford.

She said generally the food issues (other than liquid calories) are more an issue of quantity than anything else.

“People don’t tend to radically change their diet staples unless there has been a serious issue, such as a heart attack, stroke, or cancer,” Dr. Sanford said. “Even in that circumstance, most radical changes don’t stick for very long.

“I tell patients that lifestyle modification doesn’t fail to work, it fails to stick.”

She said studies strongly recommend a Mediterranean diet as likely the most healthy.

According to the Mayo Clinic, Living the Mediterranean way means building meals around vegetables, beans and whole grains. Eating fish at least twice a week. Using olive oil instead of butter in preparing food. Serving fresh fruit for dessert. And also being physically active.

As far as seeking a doctor’s advice prior to making life changes, Dr. Sanford said it’s probably unnecessary for those under 50 with no prior health issues. But it’s always a good idea to routinely see your physician.

“If people are wanting to make serious life changes, having a set of lab and a visit with their doc is a good thing,” said Dr. Sanford. “Most people walking around have no idea if they are hypertensive or diabetic. Either of those things can be problematic during transitions.

“Treating hypertension drops heart attack and stroke risk dramatically and in the short term, exercise raises blood pressure which can trigger serious problems,” she said. “Of course healthy changes can improve those risks, but only if you live long enough to make improvement.”

The other benefit to a pre-change visit is to have an accurate “before” value on weight, sugar, and lipids.

“Again, to be meaningful, goals need to be measurable and if you don’t know where you started, improvement can’t be measured,” said Dr. Sanford. She also said don’t be discouraged if you don’t see major changes right away. “I generally try to get my patients to hear that baby steps are fine, even tiny changes in the right direction add up over time,” said Dr. Sanford. “Journal your SMART goals so that you know how far you’ve come.”

She also gets a sense of satisfaction when observing the progress patients make in lifestyle changes.

“I can’t tell you how happy it makes me when I see patients making these steps,” Dr. Sanford said. “When I have someone truly working to improve, I have them come in monthly for the encouragement and the accountability.”

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