This Week's Healthy SC Challenge Tips

The Healthy SC Challenge is the Sanford family's effort to get all South Carolinians to do just a little more to live a healthier lifestyle. The tips are designed to encourage individuals and communities to live healthier lifestyles in three categories - nutrition, exercise and help to quit smoking.


Nutrition
Almost every South Carolina town or community has an annual fair, festival or carnival. These events feature many high-calorie treats like funnel cakes, cotton candy, caramel apples and corn dogs. Since you do a lot of walking at these events, you may think you can burn off those extra food calories. You can, if you walk up to a mile and a half for a bag of cotton candy or three miles for a funnel cake!
Most of the foods we traditionally associate with fairs, festivals and carnivals are characterized by big portions with lots of sugar and fat calories. For many people, attending the event wouldn't be nearly as much fun without these tasty treats. You look forward to a corn dog or cotton candy, and some of these treats are once-a-year foods.

So, how much exercise does it take to walk off your favorite munchies? On average, you have to walk about one mile to burn 100 calories. To visualize how far that is, there are approximately 12 city blocks to the mile. Although calories in your favorite festival food can vary depending on portion size, recipe and more, you would have to take an 18-block walk to burn off the calories in a serving of cotton candy.
Here are the approximate distances you have to walk to burn off the calories from a few popular foods available at festivals, fairs and carnivals:
* Corn dog, large: 4.5 miles
* Fried candy bar on a stick: 4.5 miles
* Funnel cake, 6-inch diameter: 3 miles
* Soft pretzel: 3 miles
* Caramel apple: 3 miles
* Soft drink, 32 ounce: 2.5 miles
* Snow-cone: 2.5 miles
* Cotton candy: 1.5 miles

This does not mean that you need to load a picnic basket with carrot sticks and celery before heading to the fair. With a little planning, you can fit your favorite fair foods into your daily diet. Here's how:
* Quench your thirst with a small soft drink instead of the larger sizes. Better yet, buy or bring along bottled water. Save your calories for your favorite once-a-year food.
* Limit yourself to one treat. Make sure the rest of your choices are reasonable serving sizes of lower-sugar and lower-fat items.
* Check out all the food booths before making your selection. Imagine that you have a "calorie salary." Enjoy the foods you like the most for your "salary."
* Split foods among several people. For example, share a large funnel cake with friends. Everyone gets a taste, and no one gets overloaded.
* Allow enough time to sit down and eat, rather than grazing your way from one end of the fairgrounds to the other. It's hard to know how much you're eating when you're walking, talking and eating at the same time.

Dress in comfortable shoes so you're more likely to walk off some of those extra calories. Wear a pedometer and see how many steps you can take at the festival. One mile equals about 2,000 steps, or around one-third of the calories in a caramel apple. Finally, if you do indulge a little too much, remember to return to a more balanced way of eating the next day. A day or two of overeating won't affect your weight that much, but weeks of overeating will. Eating an extra 100 calories daily can result in a 10-pound weight gain in a year.
-Clemson Extension Home & Garden Information Center

Physical Activity
Here are important components for what make an ideal workout partner.
1) Sharing the Same Schedule: This is a big one. If someone has a different schedule, it's just going to be more hassle than it's worth. Picking someone you work with or someone who has the same hours at the office is always a good way to go. If you live in opposite directions, carpool from the office to the gym and you'll be helping the environment in the process! Or even better, walk to the gym with each other!
2) Sharing the Same Goals: This one isn't a necessity, but it does help. If one person is trying to lose weight and the other is trying to get super muscles, it might not be a great match. Plus, if your partner is lifting so heavy that you can't even handle the weight, it will pose a risk to both you and your partner.
3) Sharing the Same Dedication: You may not think that this is important, but if you partner up with someone who is wishy-washy about staying in shape, you may be hindering yourself and your gains. Think about it. If you get in the groove of only going to the gym when you're partner goes, you'll be dragging yourself down to their dedication, and that's no good! So pick someone that is motivated!
-www.gohealthygofit.com

Tobacco
You've tried the patch, gum, lozenges, inhaler, Zyban, etc., and that didn't work. What's left? No one substance or method is the magic bullet. You need to keep tinkering and trying. Meanwhile, people who manage to shift their addiction to nicotine replacements, like the patch, the gum, etc., have already taken a huge burden off their lungs, their heart, and their gastrointestinal system. And for some reason, it's easier to taper off the replacements than off of straight tobacco. Studies show that people who use these items triple their chances of finally quitting.
-www.dukehealth.org