This past week I attended a meeting at which Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn (see my post comparing his plant-based diet to other real-food-based diets) was also in attendance. He used a phrase I’d never heard before, and my ears perked up immediately. We were talking about how to inspire people to take better care of themselves and he called it “lifestyle literacy.” Wow! Lifestyle literacy! I like that. Literacy is something you can learn, like reading.  

There are all kinds of literacy and here are just a few: cultural, environmental, geographic, academic, language, financial, music, technical, athletic/kinesthetic, computer, and emotional. Naturally, we tend to gravitate to the ones for which we have an affinity. That makes sense; it feels good to succeed. We say that the best kid on the baseball team is a “natural,” even though he hones his throwing skills by practicing for 30 minutes with his dad every night after dinner. In this way, good gets better, and better becomes best. 

A tiny sign hangs by the piano in my home: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. Aristotle”

But what about the kinds of literacy that don’t come naturally?  What if your parents discover that the reason you are struggling in school is that you have great difficulty matching sounds to symbols, the way your reading classmates do with ease? What if you could never sing on key, or were always the last kid picked for the team in gym or at recess? 

These are common problems with real solutions. By breaking down the task into smaller, more explicit steps, people can develop tools to learn what might otherwise be an insurmountable task.  Children with dyslexia are making enormous strides with “Wilson-based” programs, a kind of reading instruction that assumes no intuitive leaps and provides concrete instruction for each and every possible vowel sound, consonant, and combination that a student might encounter. 

I have a friend from a musical family who considered himself tone deaf, and sang in a way that convinced me of it. At some point, he became tired of his inability to sing along with the radio. He got a teacher to sing tones into his ear, and learned to match pitches. He learned about musical intervals, and used nursery rhymes to understand. With impressive perseverance, he learned to sing along. This is a true story.

In my case, after many years of being a mediocre dancer at best, a friend convinced me to step out of my comfort zone and sign up for a Jazzercise class. The relative simplicity of the steps, coupled with repetition, repetition, and more repetition, flipped some kind of switch and, after a time, I found myself experimenting with new steps, relaxing, enjoying myself (!), and generally dancing with abandon. I never thought I’d say it, but I can dance now.

Of course my friend will never sing like Whitney Houston, rest her soul. And I will never dance like Alvin Ailey. But that’s not the point. The point is that we developed our skills to a serviceable degree, one that meets our own needs, be they emotional, physical, or both. Not only is dancing good for me, but it makes me happy; and that’s probably the best endorsement anyone could offer.

Lifestyle literacy, then, means that there is hope for all of us, including people who don’t come by it naturally. Remember that perfection is the enemy of progress. The goal, at least initially, is to adjust our choices sufficiently to become healthier than we are today. It’s okay if you don’t train like Jack LaLanne; your goal is to train like YOU.

Most importantly, if it doesn’t come “naturally,” we can LEARN lifestyle literacy. We can get better at it, and there are people out there to help us. I know lots of people who have dedicated their careers to teaching us how to stay out of the aisles at the grocery store, increase our activity levels, relax, sleep better, and quit smoking. You can find those people, too.

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If you’ve never been on “Your Health is on Your Plate” before, and you’re not sure where to start, visit Lets Start at the Very Beginning to get a jumpstart on preventing diabetes and obesity in yourself and the ones you love!!

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Then, scroll down and check out “A Milestone Celebration — Your Favorite Posts” to find a list of great blog entries!

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Follow Dr Sukol on Twitter @RoxanneSukolMD.  

To comment on this post, follow Dr Sukol on Facebook at Roxanne Breines Sukol.

My friend’s husband said that he was sick and tired of eating “salad.”   My friend was surprised; their dinners had recently had more variety than usual, she thought.  That was true of the ingredients, she realized, but not of the dishes.  Caesar salad, Waldorf salad, Chef Salad, Salad Nicoise, Cobb salad, and Caprese salad (sliced fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil) had all been on the menu in the past two weeks.  It appeared that it wasn’t that he was tired of the food; in fact, he was tired of the word.  

This post is a call to the chefs of America:  Create dishes for us.  Name them, and drop the word “salad.”  Of course it’s a salad.  According to the dictionary, salad is a mixture of vegetables or fruits, often with a sauce or dressing, sometimes with meat, fish, pasta or cheese, served as either an appetizer, side, or main dish.  Well, I’d say, that about covers it!

Any combination of greens, vegetables, meats, fish, or fruit makes a salad and then some.  Here’s what I mean: pasta salad, rice salad, macaroni salad, potato salad; Greek salad; Israeli salad; eggplant salad; cabbage salad, parsley salad, green salad, tomato salad, cucumber salad, roasted beet salad; fruit salad; egg salad; tuna salad, whitefish salad, crab salad, salmon salad; chicken salad, turkey salad; ham salad; three-bean salad, chickpea salad, and Michigan salad (greens with dried cherries, blue cheese, and vinaigrette).

Enough!  Give us fatoush, antipasto, cole slaw, baba ganoush, tabouli, and panzanella.

Blaze a trail for arugula, sauteed mushrooms, crumbled hard-boiled egg, and diced red onion!  Give it a name!  Don’t call it arugula-mushroom-onion-hard-boiled-egg salad.  Call it, I don’t know, Symon Sez.  Or Downtown.  Just don’t call it salad.  

How about red bell pepper slices, a bit of watercress (or romaine), and thin peels of carrot tossed in lightly in olive oil and a sprinkle of salt?  I’d call this one Fire.

I’m thinking about the ingredients, all the different kinds of lettuces at the market, all the nuts and seeds, all the cheeses (cubed, crumbled, or grated), the edible flowers, the rainbow of vegetables, the fish, the meats, the exotics (like artichokes), the olives of every color and size, and the hundreds of possible dressings, none of which contain corn syrup.  

There are tossed salads (like a Caesar), composed salads (with the ingredients placed precisely, like a Nicoise), bound salads (stuck together, like tuna).  The possibilities are clearly infinite, and to place them all in the same category is confusing.  

Chefs of America, make us not just an American cuisine, but a nomenclature, with real names for real dishes.

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Some time ago my friend, Larry, mentioned that his mother had, for years and years, written a column on health and nutrition for her local paper.  When he mentioned that they had been helping her to clean out her house recently, I asked him to keep an eye out for copies of those columns.  What had she had to say all those years ago, before the subjects of health and nutrition became so popular?

Yesterday, I was rewarded with a stack of her articles!  Rosalind’s essays are filled with wisdom, collected for decades and likely passed along, from mother to daughter, for centuries.  Here are some of my favorites:

On Stress

“Give yourself time to relax and minimize the effects of stress.  Meditate, take long walks, watch the sunset and add years to your life.”  Rosalind Lerman ought to know; she’s 94! 

“People who laugh, and who make others laugh, tend to have better immunity.  Telling a joke is also a good way to improve your memory and can help delay the onset of cognitive decline.”

“Research finds that a full social network can contribute to good health and resistance to disease  Stress is lessened by emotionally reassuring relationships.  Friends and family help you put your stress in perspective, in the opinion of Dr. David Spiegel of Stanford University School of Medicine.” 

“Find something to think about each day, and do something for others.”

On Food

“Insoluble fiber, as in wheat bran, can relieve constipation but does not lower cholesterol.  Soluble fiber, as found in oats, beans, oranges, and baked potato with skin, can help to reduce cholesterol.”

“A five-year study of 805 Dutch men, ages 65 to 84, found that those who consumed high amounts of tea, onions, and apples seemed to benefit their hearts by reducing formation of plaque and by lowering their blood cholesterol and blood pressure.  The ingredients these foods have in common are flavonoids, also termed bioflavonoids…. Good sources are grapes, plums, apricots, cherries, blackberries, black currants, grapefruits, oranges and lemons.”

“Researchers regard a diet rich in spinach, collards, kale, and other greens to be helpful in delaying the onset of age-related macular degeneration… A study of more than 850 participants found benefit for those who ate foods rich in carotenoids, such as spinach, collards, carrots, tomatoes, broccoli, and winter squash as often as two to four times a week.”

On Activity

“Physical activity benefited the mental function of a group of people, age 65 to 72, who walked regularly.  After 16 weeks, their aerobic capacity increased, and their scores on cognitive function improved.”

I look forward to sharing more of Rosalind Lerman’s insights in the weeks and months ahead.

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