The Optimise Health Blog

I had surgery for malignant melanoma on April 18th 2012. I don't normally remember dates but as this was the first general anaesthetic and the first time I had ever had significant surgery I remember the day and the events leading up to it very clearly. I spent the next 8 weeks off work willing my leg wound to close up and heal which it has now done and all the bizzare nerve jolts and tingling sensations have ended. This is a relief as a jolting leg can be quite embarrassing and disruptive when you're trying to work or talking to a client! My leg finally healed leaving an impressive war wound for which I have invented many stories in case I don't want to go into the "you survived cancer, i'm so proud of you have a medal" conversation. After the op everyone kept telling me how well I looked, to which I replied that I had only had a lump of dodgy flesh removed from my leg and groin, it was not an illness but disease prevention for the future and that I w...

 Here in the UK many still practise the Christian tradition of Lent: the discipline of giving something up to consider living simply, frequently a food item and for health benefit. The idea is to mimic the 40 day fast undertaken by Jesus in the wilderness, when he was tested by the devil and tempted to prove he was ready to start his mission. In England we start by making pancakes on Shrove Tuesday - to use up the sweet stuff in the larder so we are not tempted to eat it again for the duration of lent and to fuel the fast. Today the focus may be more about the challenge of reining in appetite or curbing bad habits like smoking or eating treats to excess and less about Christs' 40 days and nights in the desert being stalked by satan. Interestingly most ancient traditions held in them the concept of feasts: I.E. celebrating a particular event or time of year with a party and food. This meant eating special luxuries or taking pleasure in rarer foods or harvest time...

Goal setting is a thorny challenge - how high can we afford to set the bar by creating realistic yet achievable goals without selling ourselves short? The old saying goes if you aim for nothing you will hit it every time; equally there are plenty of proverbs prompting action over inaction. So how can we make and achieve goals in an upward ascent to reach the pinnacle of overall health we strive for? A recent practical article from Harvard Health describes a way of making and achieving realistic goals step by step. This stepwise approach is key to achieving the most achievable goals first, enabling an attempt a new higher goal - like training to climb everest by starting with smaller mountains and working up to the main event. If you are trying to lose weight you need to set a realistic timeframe and fast weight loss is never healthy or sustainable long term; reaserch shows many yo-yo dieters put it all back on again in the following weeks; any weight loss needs to be sustainable ...

I just became a father to a beautiful girl called Scarlett who is 3 weeks old today. All my advice on keeping weight down has been very much a reality for me in the last 3 weeks as there has been little I could control in my environment and I really wanted to avoid weight gain. In the limbo of hospital I couldn't really exercise, as I spent every day driving to the hospital to see my wife and newborn child in the hope of bringing them home by car. Eventually with little sleep catch up after 48 hours wakefullness through labour, terrible hospital food and fending for myself at home with an empty fridge, we came home. The timetable has been a bit different over the last few days with a 3 hourly feeding program to encourage the little one to gain weight. Our church and friends have been amazing at bringing around food every night for dinner. I have adopted a commando lifestyle, eating whenever food is available as you never know when the next meal will be. I have managed...

Its tempting to think you need a break from everything at the weekend including your healthy lifestyle plans! I often lose the motivation as I feel I deserve a treat and need to recover from the exertions and stress of the working week. However, when I plan some exercise (sooner in the weekend the better) I feel energised and active again, I tend to eat less, feel calmer and more relaxed and sleep better ready for monday. This weekend plan some fun activity with partner, family or friends - get to the open country, do a new route, plan a day out with keeping active at the heart of it. Go on, you will feel better! Dr Ben Sinclair Sinclair Health Limited https://www.optimiseclinic.co.uk Twitter: @menshealthtips Linked In: http://ow.ly/5iykm

If you need to strenthen your resolve you need to buddy up. Choose someone you know well enough to talk about your weight and who you are happy to accept a challenge from. Tell them about your aims and get them to keep you accountable through regular communication. If it cuts both ways this is helpful as you are both relying on each other and both able to challenge each other. Share your challanges, barriers to success and your vices! These are the hardest things to overcome but your buddy may be able to see an alternative. In the book Nudge a pact between two stockbrokers is described and seems to work very well as a deterrent to weight gain and a successful tool to weight loss - they both realised early on in their careers that with the hard work and hours they put in it was all too easy to gain weight - so they entered into a pact where either one could call a snap weigh in at any time and if the other was over his desired weight limit he paid £10,000 to the other! Appar...