September 24, 2006
Cut breast cancer risk
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so this is a great time for you to take stock of your lifestyle and make healthy changes. A recent study shows that eating the right number of calories and getting enough exercise are the best defenses against breast cancer -- not just one or the other.
"We found that post-menopausal women with high body mass indexes who didn't exercise at least three hours per week were five times more likely to develop breast cancer," says Alecia Malin, an assistant professor of surgery at Meharry Medical College in Nashville. "Even women who adopt these healthy behaviors later in life are more protected."
The research indicated that lowering caloric intake alone is not enough to prevent cancer. It's the combination of exercise and weight control that's crucial.
THREE KEY FACTORS TO LEARN
Body mass index (BMI). Check out www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/bmi/index.htm. If you fall into the "overweight" or "obese" categories, then begin making changes to your diet and exercise habits to get yourself into the "normal" range.
Activity level. Keep a journal of all your activity. That includes housework, walking, gardening and taking the stairs -- anything that gets you moving. Tally up your time for the week. If it's less than three hours, find ways to add activity to your day.
Caloric intake. Have no idea how many calories you should consume each day to maintain your weight? Find out at mayoclinic.com/health/calorie-calculator/NU00598. Then keep a daily food journal listing all calories you consume to see how you're doing.
Contact Jorge Cruise, author of "The 3-Hour Diet," at 3hourdiet.com.
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Family dinner is the recipe for great kids
Takeout or prepared food is just fine.
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As the hectic fall days start to crowd your family time, let's take a nudge from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse: Monday is its Day to Eat Dinner with Your Children. Studies show teens of families that dine together are less likely to smoke, drink, try marijuana or have weight problems and are more likely to get good grades, have friends that parents approve of, and confide in Mom or Dad.
Sound like an impossible dream? Author and social psychologist Susan Newman has these family meal tips:
Lower your standards. Takeout, delivery or prepared foods are fine. Try breakfast for dinner. The point is togetherness, not gourmet cooking.
Eat with whomever is available.
Soccer game? Dance rehearsal? Pack a picnic and take it on the road.
Get the kids involved in the menu, prep and cleanup. Once they are invested, they'll be motivated to attend.
Make sure you don't gripe, grill, criticize or argue at the table. "Dinner should be a positive," Newman says. The point is to make it fun, not drudgery, for everyone.
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What's better than a mutual fund?
Frustrated by stock funds? Looking for ways to diversify? Have you tried "Spiders," "Cubes" and "Diamonds" yet? They sound like a witch's brew, but they could be a pot of gold.
They're exchange-traded funds (ETFs), baskets of stocks that track the performance of stock indexes like the S&P 500, Nasdaq-100 or Dow Jones Industrial Average. And if you wish you could drill for oil to capture the rise in energy prices or if you want to capitalize on China's boom, there are ETFs that track these sectors, too.
ETFs trade like stocks and have better flexibility, diversification and expense ratios than most mutual funds. You only pay brokerage commissions to buy and sell ETFs, and management fees usually are much lower. But similar to mutual funds, with several companies represented in one ETF, if a stock tanks, the tumble is softened. A soothing thought for those whose portfolios keep them up at night.
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Time to seed your lawn
Fall is the perfect time to seed or reseed a lawn. There are two key elements to help ensure a lush, green lawn: selecting the correct seed mixture for your climate and location on your property; and adding rich, crumbly soil for a nutritional foundation upon which the seeds can germinate and grass can thrive.
To reseed some areas:
Dig up existing vegetation or kill it off with a herbicide.
Briskly rake up any dead vegetation.
Lay down 1/2 inch of crumbly top soil and level off with a rake.
Hand-spread grass seed, then lightly rake it in.
Water daily until seed has germinated and filled in.
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