October 21, 2011
How Much Weight Can You Lose Walking the Dog?
The great outdoors tend to be even better when you can share them with man’s best friend.
Northern Nevada and most states offer many safe outdoor settings to hang out and play with your pooch.
The great outdoors tend to be even better when you can share them with man’s best friend. In a recent study, people who walked their dog 20 minutes a day, five times per week lost an average of 14 pounds over a 12-month period! Northern Nevada also offers many safe outdoor settings to hang out and play with your pooch.
For dog-friendly park information in Northern Nevada and the Reno-Tahoe area, go to Living In Nevada Do Parks.
September 30, 2011
Got Belly Fat? Now What?
What used to work for us to lose weight in our 20’s doesn’t seem to work for us in our 30’s, 40’s, 50’s and beyond due to a lifetime of accumulated wear and tear. Our bodies are not able to release the stress of old injuries and infections, which can cause elevated levels of the “stress” hormone cortisol. When we have elevated levels of cortisol in our system it shuts down the function of the thyroid which controls metabolism. This explains how someone can go to the gym, day in and day out, and not lose weight.
Exercising when the body is already stressed can cause a person to plateau, or in some cases even gain weight. Lowering calories when the body is experiencing extreme stress (no sleep, too much pain, sugar or alcohol) can cause the same problem.
If you can’t lose weight and don’t understand why, you might take a look at old injuries and infections that weren’t taken care of properly. Old problems that cause pain or interfere with ordinary bodily functions can slow down the normal activity of our body. It’s like having too many applications open on the computer. Your body just won’t work as well.
How do we fix this situation?
The obvious answer is to reduce stress. If we could only remove our jobs, traffic, work, difficult situations and people, then this would be simple. Right?
So, what we can do, is heal the body through re-establishing communication within the body, reducing the levels of cortisol and most importantly, healing the adrenals. We do this through a combination of improving the person’s sleep and eliminating pain and complications from old infections, injuries and surgeries.
A combination of lifestyle changes – including nutrition and exercise to heal the metabolism and light acupressure to get to the root of the problem – have been known to heal the body and allow it to function properly with weight loss as a much desired side effect.
The thing to remember is if the body is not healthy, it will never let you lose weight. Its first priority is function, not weight loss.
The old school method was to lose weight, and then become healthy. The problem is its not sustainable long term.
The new science is to get HEALTHY first, and THEN lose WEIGHT. When your body functions are working properly, weight loss is natural and much more sustainable!
For more information or to schedule an appointment with Dr. Layne Linebaugh, D.C., please call Alpine Wellness Center at 775.657.9026.
November 3, 2010
Children Hearing Loss on the Rise
Ear, Nose and Throat Doctor, Philip Schlager, MD
Hearing loss is on the rise in the United States and the most common reason is noise. It is estimated that ten million people suffer from irreversible noise-induced hearing loss. Noise comes from a lot of sources. For many years, OSHA (Occupational Saftey and Health Administration) has understood that noise in the work environment is detrimental to hearing and requires hearing protection for exposure to over 85 decibels in an eight hour work day. Examples of noise levels include a whisper at 30 decibels, a normal conversation at 60 decibels, a busy urban street at 85 decibels and a chainsaw at 110 decibels. Exposure to sound at 100 decibels can cause hearing loss in as little as 15 minutes. With this in mind, Ear, Nose and Throat doctors are seeing a rise in hearing loss in children. One in eight children aged 6-19 have some noise-induced hearing loss which is twice the rate as seen in 1971.
Noise is not a new phenomenon for children. In past generations, children have worked on farms, mowed lawns, cut down trees and fired guns for years without hearing protection; however mp3 players (personal music players) are new to the current generation and are here to stay. A visit to any school, mall or ball field will see a number of children and adults wearing them. Sometimes you can hear the music before you see them. The ever popular iPod has been measured as loud as 115 decibels at full volume. Certainly not everyone listens to them at that level, but the sound level is often turned up to block out background noise. Also, the ear buds (ear phones) are directed right into the ear canal only a short distance from the ear drum.
So what do we do? As OSHA has noted there are two factors to control, 1) intensity and 2) duration. As parents, if we can hear their music clearly with their ear buds in, then it is too loud. If you have to shout to get their attention over the music, then it is too loud. Sixty percent of the volume level for one hour is generally considered safe. Keeping ear buds in the ears with music playing during sleep is not recommended. Take regular breaks from the music. If there is a concern about hearing loss, then see an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor or an Audiologist for a hearing exam.
Here's to Your Health 