Tag: Measure
Todd’s take: The measure of a community
by on Jun.30, 2011, under Health and Fitness
New YMCA offers fitness classes for whole valley
STRETCH THOSE MUSCLES: Loed Boehm stretches her legs during the ‘Strength and Range for Seniors’ class Monday at the Hemet YMCA at the Simpson Center.
Read more on The Valley Chronicle
Todd’s take: The measure of a community
Mahatma Gandhi said, “A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” Children, because of their stature and youthful inexperience, are the often weakest members of a society.
Read more on Lexington Clipper-Herald
Diabetes 2 – When To Measure Your Blood Sugar ! So Get Started !
by on Jul.17, 2010, under Uncategorized
Each patient with type 2 diabetes will have a different time schedule they need to measure their blood sugar. the inittial step is learning how a patient’s body with Type two Diabetes responds to physical activity and your diet regimen. It requires building something referred to as a blood glucose profile. You take a blood sugar reading after regular activities such as eating breakfast, going for a morning walk, or taking an afternoon nap. After a few days, you will start to see a pattern emerge that shows what effects your blood sugar levels. For some it may be eating breakfast triggers a glucose spike. For other patients with Diabetes Type 2 it may be that morning walk produces a dramatic decrease in their blood glucose readings.
When should you measure your blood sugar levels? When someone with type 2 diabetes uses insulin, the general rule of thumb is to monitor blood glucose levels before every meal. For those using oral medications or managing it without medication, it’s okay to measure blood glucose less often. Many patients only do it once or twice a week or when needed. Experts suggest most patients with Type two Diabetes do one full day of measurements of blood glucose readings at least once a month to monitor for any abnormalities. If you feel unwell or feel your glucose levels may be off, take a glucose reading to see what the situation looks like.
Each person with a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes will need to learn their own patterns. Once you have a blood profile and do a few readings, you will learn how things feel when blood sugar levels are too high or too low. The first signs of a spike or plummet will be physical symptoms. Once you recognize the symptoms, you will know when you need to take a measurement. The people normally around you also need to become aware of the signs. Sometimes a spike or plummet can come on quickly. Others may see external symptoms before you notice them.
You have a wide selection of monitoring tools available today. Many patients must select from a small set if their insurance (in the USA) is paying. However, the technologies have improved greatly over the past few years. A couple of decades ago you might have needed a large drop of blood. Now it only requires a speck of blood. Many monitors will store the results for several readings to allow you to review your recent history. Some even hook up and download to your computer. Monitoring your blood sugar is a matter of good health and poor.
How to Measure Your Health and Fitness Progress
by on Apr.28, 2010, under Health and Fitness
There are a number of ways in which you can measure success. When it comes to your health and fitness it is important that you measure your progress by both new healthy habits and your appearance. The most important measures of success with a health and fitness program is the long-term decrease in medical problems, injury and other health risks while improving your quality of life either with or without weight loss.
You can also measure short and medium term changes regularly during the process of your health and fitness program. Some obvious changes can be noted in health related behavior patterns like a decreased need for medications, an increased ability to perform physical tasks, a reduce fat intake and an increased intake of dietary fiber, vitamins and minerals.
Watch what you eat closely:
One way to make great improvement towards a healthier lifestyle is by making slight changes to how your food is cooked and prepared. You may even notice yourself checking labels at the grocery store or discovering new tastes and textures for food. If you feel good about yourself and know about these changes then you are more likely to keep making progress with your health and fitness program.
A physical way in which you can measure your progress towards a healthier appearance is by measuring the fat distribution through the waist circumference and waist-hip ration or WHR. Abdominal obesity is most commonly linked to risk factors such as diabetes and heart disease. This is why any slight reduction you notice in waist circumference or in the WHR is a good step towards having a healthier fat distribution in your body even if you aren’t actively losing weight.
Body fat can be a good measure of fitness:
Another way you can use to measure you physical progress is through body fat measuring with either hydrostatic weighing, electrical impedance or just by using skin fold calipers. The last method is obviously the cheapest and most accessible method. However, it is also a less accurate method, but it will give you at least a beginning point for you to measure decrease in your body fat.
No matter how you choose to measure your physical progress you should never rely on a scale for your indicator. Your overall weight loss in numbers and pounds doesn’t determine your healthy progress. Your weight is merely a combined total of both your lean body weight and body fat weight. Two individuals can have the save body weight while having completely different body compositions. One individual can be in more shape than a person with the exact same weight.
A scale has no way of measuring your body composition and the actual changes that are occurring. While a scale may show you’ve lost seven pounds it can’t tell you if half of the weight was muscle loss and water instead of fat. People also become discouraged when the scale shows they haven’t lost any weight but in fact they have lost pounds of fat and just replaced it with healthy, firm and fat-burning muscle. So consider other methods other than the scale to get a true measure of your health and fitness progress.
Roberto is a health and fitness researcher and author. Visit his site that shows people how to quit smoking quickly and relatively easily. Also be sure to find out how losing weight can also be done easily so you can be even healthier.
