Prevention

Hundreds of thousands of Americans are dying from preventable cancers every year.

Here are seven steps listed by the Mayo Clinic to help you to prevent cancer:

  1. Don’t use tobacco
  2. Eat a variety of healthy foods
  3. Stay active and maintain a healthy weight
  4. Protect yourself from the sun
  5. Get immunized
  6. Avoid risky behaviors
  7. Get screened

Other steps and approaches to preventing cancer can be found at:

In addition to obtaining regular exercise, to lower the risk of getting cancer, we also must make healthy food choices. Dr. William Li emphasizes the importance of healthy food choices in this Ted Talk:

After completing more research, Dr. Li returned to TED a year later to briefly emphasize the importance of eating local, sustainable food.  VIDEO LINK

For more regarding healthy, preventative living– including making time to take a walk every day:

What if I wish to walk more than 20 minutes per day?

Please do!

I encourage everyone to walk 20 minutes per day because it is easy for most of us to do, and when you do so, it will benefit you greatly. If you find that walking 20 minutes per day is establishing positive momentum in your life, and you wish to go further and take more steps, then please do! You’ll help yourself, and you’ll help those around you. The more positive changes you wish to integrate into your daily life, the better off you’ll be.

What if I’m already walking 20 minutes per day?

Then I’m happy that this is the case for you. If you find inspiration to take another step forward in life, I’d like to suggest a variety of ideas:

Perhaps you can invite a family member, friend, or acquaintance to walk with you?

Apply 20 to another portion of life – “20%”. Perhaps you could do with 20% less junk food? Would it be possible to take the bus to work 20% of the time? Can you afford to make 20% of your grocery purchases organic? (There’s also the other, more extreme end of this spectrum: only eating 20% as much junk food; only driving to work 20% of the time; only allowing 20% of your grocery purchases to not be organic.)

I’m a very busy person, where can I find time for 20 minutes per day?

Yes, most of us lead busy lives, and sparing a few minutes can be a hardship for some of us. That said, with a little fun creativity and ingenuity on your part, you should be able to find ways to successfully integrate twenty minutes of added walking to your busy day.

You can take walks during your lunch break. Enjoy the day downtown, rain or shine, while you strengthen yourself. Perhaps a co-worker would care to join you?

You can avoid the elevators/escalators at work, and instead opt for the stairs. Or if you work on the 34th floor, perhaps you can find a creative way to combine elevators and stairs. Is it possible to exit and FL 30 and walk up the remaining flights of stairs?

Make this a way to spend fun, quality time with the kids, family, friends, neighbors…

Park a ways away (end of the lot). Use your time walking into the store to think over what it is you’re looking for – what you want. “Do I really need it?” Cut down on impulse buying! Establish a strong mentality before entering into any store – one strong enough so that you aren’t easily swayed into making impulse purchases.

What if you don’t like “health nuts”? what if you think they’re snobs?

Well, admittedly, I don’t care to spend much time with incorrigible snobs either.

I’m not asking you to be anyone you don’t wish to be, nor to associate with anyone that has a negative impact on you.

Do this for yourself! Take steps forward and make changes for yourself!
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Here’s an instructional video from Dr. Mehmet Oz & trainer Joel Harper, which teaches Oz’ seven-minute morning workout:

There obviously are many steps we can take to prevent cancer.

Making the time to take a walk every day is an excellent step forward toward making our bodies more healthy, and even if we decide not to take steps beyond a simple walk every day, it helps to know that at least some solid, helpful contribution is being made to the bank of our health.

 

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