BY: LIZ FLEMING
lurking in our genetic mix. The good
news is that there are lots of strategies you can employ to keep them
where they belong – in your family’s
past, not in your present or future!
Step two is developing a plan for
the healthiest life possible – a plan
that will discourage the expression
of particular genes and encourage all the healthy ones to come
out to play. What’s important is to
take a strong proactive role, rather
than a ‘wait and see’, approach.
We all know people who eat badly,
drink too much, smoke, and never
hoist themselves off the couch.
“Ah,” said one sedentary buddy of
mine, “if I can’t get there by an easy
road, then I don’t want to go at all.”
My friend was beating the odds until
recently, when he was diagnosed
with lung cancer and had to undergo
surgery to remove the tumor. Turns out
both his father and grandfather had
suffered the same thing – a legacy my
friend should have paid attention to.
It’s unfortunate that a cancer scare
and major surgery had to be the driving force behind the change, but my
buddy has now lost 40 pounds, quit
smoking and reduced his alcohol consumption to one glass of wine a day.
He walks and works out at the gym a
couple of times a week and is already
on track to outlive both his dad and
granddad – neither of whom saw 50.
Don’t wait for a nasty gene to begin to express itself before making
healthy choices in your life. It’s
time to get motivated to make
positive changes to minimize your
risk of illness and to suppress any
nasty genes that might be hanging
around, looking for an opening.
Dr. Dean Ornish, a well-known proponent of healthy living to maximize
health and longevity says: “Unfortunately, mortality has a 100 percent
risk factor!” The important thing is
recognizing that we can postpone the
inevitable for a long, healthy time!
WHITE OAKS
ADVISORY BOARD
“Exercise - find something you
like to do and do it….often! Eat
healthy, most of the time. You
know what the smart choices are
so it’s just a matter of deciding
how strict you want to be. Eat
lots of fruits and vegetables, be
sure you have enough Omega 3
in your diet and choose whole
grains whenever you can. Avoid
processed foods, drink six to
eight glasses of water per day,
minimize red meats, and enjoy
one or two glasses of alcohol
per day if you’re a man, and one
and a half if you’re a woman.”
DR. MICHAEL TORRIGIAN
It’s a common sense approach to keeping nasty genes from expressing themselves but if you’re thinking you might
need some coaching to get you on
track and keep you there, the Lifestyle
Clinic at White Oaks, where Dr. Torigian provides invaluable services to
Club members, could be the answer.
“We have people who come to us
looking for help with their workouts,
their diets and with their health
in general. We work with them
and in some cases, we’re even
able to get people off medication
they’ve been taking for years, simply by improving their lifestyle.”
Weight loss, lowered blood pressure…these things are all possible and all life-changing.”
Remember that chapter on your
health we were talking about? The
one we used to think was carved in
stone on the day you were born? The
one we now know you can rewrite,
editing out the genes you don’t want
to have expressed? Healthy-life
authors - the time to start writing
your healthy first sentence is now!
.
liz fleming
IN ADDITION TO EDITING WO, LIZ FLEMING IS ALSO
THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF CRUISE & TRAVEL LIFESTYLES MAGAZINE
AND A REGULAR CONTRIBUTOR TO Air transat’s atmosphere and
THE TORONTO STAR. SHE’S THE AUTHOR OF TWO AMAZON EBOOKS
“SINCE YOU’RE HERE, WE MIGHT AS WELL SHAG” AND “207 TRAVEL TIPS
BECAUSE 101 JUST WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN ENOUGH.
spring 2016 | wo magazine | 45