Health Essentials
Weight loss and nutrition: How do I go about it?
Variety is definitely the spice of life and this year we will read from different professionals who will provide us with priceless nuggets to enhance our health and wellness. In our quest for weight loss, FAT LOSS should be the goal so even if your scale reads the same but your clothes fit better, you may have lost fat and gained healthy muscle that generally weighs more (3x) than fat of the same size.
I introduce Salomey Kokoro, a Registered Dietitian who contributes to www.healthessentialsgh.com. You will pick a line or two even if this is a path you have taken several times. Salomey writes; In this day and era, where we get everything at the click of a button, Technology has made life very easy and convenient but unfortunately it has rendered us busy, inactive and prone to numerous health conditions. People in their late 20s, 30s and 40s are now susceptible to many lifestyle diseases like Diabetes, High Blood Pressure, High Blood Cholesterol, Heart Problems etc. which were earlier considered to affect people above 50yrs of age. Obesity and overweight has been ranked as the leading cause of many of these lifestyle diseases. The alarming fact is that majority of people do not know their weight status (whether obese or overweight), they reach this sad realisation only when the complications of obesity begin to set in. It is important that each individual makes a conscious step to know their weight status and begin to make positive efforts towards losing or maintaining weight. Our weight loss goals may come in various forms: losing that tummy pouch/pot belly, losing the baby fat after delivery, dropping down a few dress sizes, losing those flabby arms, get that hourglass figure or build up some muscle. Regardless of how little the goal may seem it will require conscious and active efforts to successfully achieve this, unfortunately there is no quick fix, magic pill or tummy shrinking belt, to make this happen. “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.” –Maya Angelou Ever wondered what life is going to be like in the next five years? The limitations that your current weight may pose on your lifestyle? The possible health complications that may arise? The strain it may put on your marriage/sex life? The possible reduction in your energy levels and productivity? The possible joint associated pain it may pose during old age? These and many more questions should be a source of motivation during our quest to lose weight. The mere act of contemplating starting the weight loss journey means you have taken the first step towards change. The next step is to seek the right professional advice on what the process entails and how to go about it. The World Wide Web is loaded with a lot of information but unfortunately about 70 per cent of this information are either diluted truths or mere fallacies. Again information out there are not individualised, usually written to suit the general public so following such advice may not give you the best possible outcomes. “Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful.” – Mark Victor Hansen In the human body, weight loss and weight gain has everything to do with eating. This is because food gives us energy (calories) needed for living and going about our daily activities. This calorie needs to be expended but due to the sedentary nature of our 21st century jobs and general daily lifestyle, a bulk part of the energy we consume is stored in the body in the form of fat simply because we are not physically active or we consume more energy than our body requires. Basically: we lose weight when we eat less calories than we expend. Conversely, we gain weight when we eat more calories than we expend. So to successfully lose weight or maintain your current weight, you need a proper and accurate understanding of calorie and nutrient content of common foods, appropriate meals for weight loss, meals and practices that hinder weight loss, best cooking methods, appropriate times during the day to eat, quantity of food to eat at a sitting and so on. 4 Common meals that hinder weight loss – Soda drinks – Oily soups/stews e.g. palmnut soup, groundnut soup, palava sauce etc. – Fried food and snacks e.g. fried meat, chips, kelewele etc. – Excessive intake of fruits A Registered Dietitian is your best shot at receiving professional advice tailored to suit your body requirements and lifestyle. A detailed nutrition assessment coupled with evidence based research information is the basis of advice meted out by the Dietitian. Book an appointment with a dietitian now and start making the change you have always wanted to make. “There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them.” –Dr. Denis Waitley Written by: Salomey Kokoro, RD Founder: RdSali Nutrition RdSali is a for – purpose company looking to better the lives of individuals, families and communities by providing credible and relatable healthy eating services.
AS ALWAYS LAUGH OFTEN, ENSURE HYGIENE, WALK AND PRAY EVERYDAY AND REMEMBER IT’S A PRICELESS GIFT TO KNOW YOUR NUMBERS (blood sugar, blood pressure, blood cholesterol, BMI)
Dr. Kojo Cobba Essel
Health Essentials Ltd/ Mobissel
(dressel@healthessentialsgh.com)
*Dr. Essel is a medical doctor, holds an MBA and is ISSA certified in exercise therapy, fitness nutrition and corrective exercise.
Thought for the week – “Keeping our surroundings clean and ensuring personal hygiene with an emphasis on washing our hands regularly and properly with running water and soap will get rid of most of the diarrhoeal and respiratory diseases that we suffer from!”
By Dr. Kojo Cobba Essel
This week I bumped into Deborah, one of my avid readers and I promised her I will be writing this weekend. So Deborah, this is for your reading pleasure and to pick some golden nuggets for the future.
The quest to find the best way to make one’s golden years, happy, exciting, healthy and a time most people look forward to continues unabated. One factor that keeps popping up is the need to grow friendships with people more than 20 years younger than yourself.
Do not take this for granted. It is a form of “social security” since these close friends who are much younger than you will step in to support you in more ways than you can ever imagine.
Some conditions may make life challenging for older adults but knowing these Geriatric Giants helps us to take the necessary steps to reduce our risk.
“Geriatric Giants” refers to a group of chronic health conditions that are common in the elderly, typically 65-year-olds and older.
These conditions quite often co-occur and can impact on the independence, dignity and overall wellbeing and quality of life of an elderly person.
These Geriatric Giants include:
- Impaired Intellect/ Memory (e.g. Dementia)
- one of the major battles we need to deal with is challenges with memory
- Exercise, adopt the Mind Diet, build a great social network and enjoy time outdoors
- Keep reading and solving puzzles for as long as possible
- Instability – leading to much feared falls
- A good reason to indulge in Balance Training and Core Strengthening exercises from today
- Ensure your home is safe; avoid clutter such as cables crisscrossing floors, toys etc. These are all trip hazards and should be avoided
- Many healthy, happy and fun-loving older adults have died soon after a fall with its attendant complications.
- Do whatever it takes to avoid falling
- Immobility (opening the doors to pressure sores, joint stiffness)
- Even when you are unable to move about on your own it is important to get support to change positions as often as possible or get an appropriate mattress or bed that prevents prolonged pressure over any single point.
- Make sure you passively or actively move joints daily.
- Incontinence (urine, faeces or both)
- This is one of the reasons older adults prefer to stay at home and avoid going out to meet friends etc.
- Iatrogenic Disorders – adverse effect of medication
- Quite often most older adults are on several medications and some side effects such as drowsiness may seem to cause more unhappiness and may even lead to falls.
- Inappetite – this may result in poor nutrition
- This may also be linked to loss of teeth thus making chewing very difficult or limited.
- The loss of smell and taste may also reduce the amount of food one may willingly eat.
The power to reduce the impact of the Geriatric Giants starts now and should be a lifetime commitment. It is never too early to start making the appropriate lifestyle modifications, nor is it too late to reduce the impact of the giants on one’s life.
Other conditions that significantly impact on the lives especially of the elderly are:
- Sleep Disorders
- Good sleep has the power to give us energy, improve our thought pattern and even helps us to make good choices.
- Good sleep sets the tone for a healthy life
- Constipation
- This is a challenge that confronts quite a number of older adults.
- Movement, fibre and lots of water go a long way to reduce the stress that frequent constipation generates.
- Fraility
- Muscle loss is real and as we age, we lose a significant percentage of our muscle plus our bones also become brittle.
- Make sure strength training is part of your exercise schedule
- Polypharmacy
- Another headache that needs to be confronted head-on
- Everyone especially older adults need a good primary care physician or a general practitioner who can coordinate all medicines from the different Specialists who may be attending to an elderly person. This ensures that unnecessary medicines are dropped
The goal of care at all times is to optimise the quality of life. As family, professional caregivers and friends we should always show respect so that the dignity of the elderly is preserved at all times. For those of us who are not yet in the age group with such challenges, we need to start the conversation about the type of care we will prefer and take steps to stay healthy and independent for as long as possible. The goal should be a long Healthspan and not just a long Lifespan.
AS ALWAYS LAUGH OFTEN, ENSURE HYGIENE, WALK AND PRAY EVERYDAY AND REMEMBER IT’S A PRICELESS GIFT TO KNOW YOUR NUMBERS (blood sugar, blood pressure, blood cholesterol, BMI)
Dr. Kojo Cobba Essel
Health Essentials Ltd (HE&W Group)
(dressel@healthessentialsgh.com)
*Dr. Essel is a Medical Doctor with a keen interest in Lifestyle Medicine, He holds an MBA and is an ISSA Specialist in Exercise Therapy, Fitness Nutrition and Corrective Exercise. He is the author of the award-winning book, ‘Unravelling The Essentials of Health & Wealth.’
Thought for the week – “There is no magic formula to being happy but making a conscious effort to be happy goes a long way.” – Dr. Kojo Cobba Essel
By Dr. Kojo Cobba Esse
The call to action
We must move beyond the cycle of temporary outrage. I propose a four-point blueprint for the Ministry of Health and the government:
1. A Digital Bed-Tracking Command Centre: Legally mandate all public and major private hospitals to update a live, digital bed-registry every hour. The NAS must be able to see a vacancy before they move. This must be matched with the available resources and services so that the right patient will be sent to the right facility.
2. Strategic Capacity Expansion: We must stop building “prestige projects” and start building high-volume stabilisation centres. We need a targeted investment to triple the ER bed count in Accra and Kumasi within 24 months. This should then be extended to other regional capitals.
3. Specialised Emergency Hubs: Designate specific hospitals as “Centres of Excellence” for Cardiac and Stroke care (and for other health emergencies), ensuring they have 24/7 imaging and intervention capabilities as well as the requisite expertise to manage these conditions. Policy makers must incentivise public-private partnerships to ensure that a heart attack in Accra or Kumasi can be treated with the same urgency as one in New York.
4. Develop a nationwide trauma system: This is extremely important because trauma is a major cause of deaths in Ghana. In the US, each state has a statewide trauma system with three levels. Level 1 trauma centres are usually University Teaching hospitals that provide comprehensive trauma care and also play an important role in local trauma system development, regional disaster planning, increasing capacity and advancing trauma care through research. Level II trauma centres are expected to provide initial definitive trauma care for a wide range of injuries and injury severity.
Level III centres provide definitive care to patients with mild trauma. Having such systems is imperative to ensure proper treatment of trauma patients.
Even for those who survive trauma, disability is a major assault on economic potential and viability. Importantly all this cannot happen with a cash and carry system. Emergencies should be managed under a different model to save life and limb first. Obviously, there is a need to ensure that healthcare facilities will be able to recover their investments in emergency care, and that balancing act needs careful consideration.
Frontline clinicians are often forced to bear the public’s anger for infrastructure deficits they did not create and cannot fix. This is a failure of governance, not a lack of clinical care. Responsibility lies with the policy makers who manage the nation’s resources.
The “No Bed Syndrome” is a systemic disease. It cannot be cured with a directive from the Ministry of Health, parliament or a lecture on ethics. It requires a blueprint, a budget, and the political will to treat this like the menacing threat it is.
It is safe to say that non-emergent healthcare is excellent in Ghana for the most part if you can afford it. However, emergency care is suboptimal. We had a sitting president die from an emergency health issue and a former vice president also die from an emergency. If that is not enough warning, it is clear that anyone can be a victim of an emergency.
If we do not act, the next ambulance driving aimlessly through the streets of Accra could be carrying anyone, including the very people who have the power to fix this issue.
Prof. Jonathan Laryea is a Professor of Surgery at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock. Arkansas. He is board certified in General Surgery, Colorectal Surgery and Clinic Informatics.
He is a graduate of the University of Ghana Medical School (Class of 1997)
