Cracking the Secret Language of Restaurant Menus

Eating at a restaurant can be a great way to enjoy some good food and even spend quality time with friends or family. Unfortunately, eating out can also pose a significant threat to your regular healthy eating habits. You don’t have to stop eating out or avoid certain restaurants to stick to your healthy eating habits! This is the third and final article in a series discussing the pitfalls of eating out. The first two articles discussed how to eat out without eating too much while still getting enough variety in your meals.

Eating out, by itself, is not necessarily what poses a health risk. More often, the threat is posed by eating behaviors and food choices made while eating out. Restaurant dishes may contain way too many Calories, too many carbohydrates, too much fat, too much salt, too much sugar, highly-processed ingredients, or not enough variety/nutrients. Additionally, some dishes that are presented as healthy or “lighter” options are not as nutrient-dense as you may think. One example of this is a salad that is primarily comprised of iceberg lettuce or has very few other healthier food items (other vegetables, fruits, lean protein) on it.

Looking For an Apple in the Barbeque Joint

Eating at a restaurant can be a great way to enjoy some good food and even spend quality time with friends or family. Unfortunately, eating out can also pose a significant threat to your regular healthy eating habits. You don’t have to stop eating out or avoid certain restaurants to stick to your healthy eating habits!  This is the second in a series of articles discussing the pitfalls of eating out. The first article discussed ways to avoid eating too much.

Even if you’re disciplined about making healthy food choices on a regular basis, it can still be challenging to maintain this habit when you go out to eat. One healthy strategy that can be particularly difficult to stick to when you’re at a restaurant is eating a balanced variety of food groups and nutrients.

How to Eat Out without Eating Too Much

Eating at a restaurant can be a great way to enjoy some good food and even spend quality time with friends or family. Unfortunately, eating out can also pose a significant threat to your regular healthy eating habits. This is the first in a series of articles discussing the pitfalls of eating out. You don’t have to stop eating out or avoid certain restaurants to stick to your healthy eating habits!

Many restaurants in the US serve exceedingly large portion sizes. This, in combination with a number of other psychosocial factors, leads most of us to overeat when we eat out. Last Thanksgiving, I published a guide to help you enjoy the holiday meal without over-doing it. While you may not be able to follow all of the tips provided in that guide, there is still some advice in that article that applies to eating out: you can’t always control the size of your dishes, portions served, or eating utensils, but you can control how much you consume by adapting several of the tips given here last November.

Fuel for Healing

Giving your body what it needs can keep you healthy, help you achieve or maintain your target weight, improve your physical and mental performance, and improve your mood. “Giving your body what it needs” can include resting from physical activity, staying hydrated, and eating nutritiously. Unfortunately, performing artists can have a difficult time integrating these healthy behaviors into their daily routine.

Rest and hydration guidelines have been presented previously, so this article focuses on the importance of nutrition on injury prevention and recovery.

4 Behaviors that Hurt Your Voice

Vocal health problems like hoarseness, fatigue of the voice, pain, and vocal cord lesions are caused by vocal abuse (using the voice in a way that damages your voice and vocal health) or vocal misuse (habitual vocal strain). While it’s easiest to identify and avoid isolated instances of vocal abuse (like screaming/yelling or cheering at a sporting event or concert), it may be more important for long-term vocal health to recognize and stop the vocal misuse that happens on a regular basis.

Four Things You Must Do While Carrying Something (or Someone)

This is the fifth and final article in a series examining low back pain in the performing arts. Previous articles examined the causes of low back pain, rules for safe lifting, proper lifting techniques in the performing arts, and the controversy surrounding using a lifting belt. This article discusses carrying, a common cause of low back pain.

Performers are frequently required to carry objects (instruments, props, equipment, parts of a costume) or even people. There are three steps in the process of carrying an object: lifting the object, moving while holding the object, and setting the object down. Safety measures while carrying weight are anchored in proper lifting mechanics, which maximize safety during the first and third steps of carrying. Since lifting technique has been discussed previously, this article focuses solely on actually carrying the object (the second step).

The Best Way to Ice a Muscle

Putting ice on an acute soft tissue injury (like a strain or sprain) can prevent further tissue damage, limit the appearance of new swelling, and decrease pain. However, it’s important to remember that using ice, like most injury treatment techniques, is best utilized in moderation and in combination with complimentary treatment methods.

Concussions in the Performing Arts

March is National Brain Injury Awareness Month

The most common brain injury suffered by athletes and performers is a concussion. A concussion is a traumatic injury to the brain, and it comes with a plethora of symptoms that can affect nearly all of the systems in the body. Even with prompt and proper care and recovery, suffering a concussion can result in permanent or life-threatening consequences.

When people think of activity-related concussions, they typically think of high-impact sports like football, hockey, or boxing, but performing artists are at risk of suffering concussions, too. Most commonly, activity-related concussions are caused by collisions, falls, or blunt trauma to the head (getting hit in the head or hitting the head on something). In the performing arts, concussions are almost always caused by accidents or mistakes while executing choreographed movements.

Lifting Belt Controversy: Should You Use One?

This is the fourth article in a series examining low back pain in the performing arts. Previous articles examined the causes of low back pain, rules for safe lifting, and proper lifting techniques in the performing arts. This article discusses a commonly-used piece of safety equipment: the lifting belt.

There are many types of lifting belts, also occasionally referred to as “back belts.” The lifting belts most commonly encountered in the performing arts and athletic worlds are specifically designed for athletic use. These belts are designed to support the lower back while minimizing the extent to which they interfere with body movement. Conversely, some back belts are intended for people with specific back injuries or for manual laborers to wear at work. These belts may have suspender-like supports or may be made of inflexible materials, like hard plastic, which make it harder to perform athletic movements while wearing these belts.

Industrial Lifting Belt

How to Care for Your "Shin Splints" and Avoid Them in the Future

Pain in the shins, often referred to as “shin splints,” can be debilitating. But what exactly are “shin splints”? Medically speaking, “shin splints” don’t exist – the phrase is not a medical diagnosis.

The term is actually a catchall for any number of conditions that cause pain and inflammation in the lower leg, including tendinitis, muscle strains, stress fractures in the lower leg, medial tibial stress syndrome (MTSS), recurrent chronic anterior compartment syndrome, and inflammation of the connective tissue around and between the bones in the lower leg (called periosteitis and inflammation of the interosseous membrane, respectively).

Ten Tips to Snack Smarter (and Healthier)

Snacking is a great way to keep your energy levels up between meals, stabilize your blood sugar, and make sure you’re getting all the nutrients and variety of foods your body needs. However, snacking on the wrong foods can derail dietary plans, lead to over-consumption of fats, sugars, or Calories, and interfere with adequately fueling your body. The following tips will help you make smarter snacking decisions so you can get the most fuel and nutrition out of your snacks.

Safe Lifting Techniques in the Performing Arts

This is the third article in a series examining low back pain in the performing arts.

Nearly all people experience some degree of low back pain at some point in their lives. In the performing arts, most cases of low back pain are strains and/or sprains. Usually, these injuries are caused by misuse and overuse of the low back’s tissues. Improper lifting technique is the most common culprit of low back pain, so following safety guidelines and using correct lifting mechanics can reduce the risk of suffering a low back injury.

Using RICE to Treat Your Acute Injury

In the sports medicine world, “RICE” is a well-known self-treatment for acute soft-tissue injuries. RICE stands for Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation. Like most things in life (especially performing arts medicine), RICE should be used in moderation, as too much of even just one of the segments can hinder healing and potentially cause additional tissue damage. The exact length of each segment depends on the severity, location, and stage of healing of your injury.

The best time to apply all four components of RICE is several hours after a severe acute injury before you have the injury evaluated by a medical professional. Unless you are specifically told to do so by a medical professional, you shouldn’t need to apply RICE more than 3-5 days following a severe acute injury (assuming you don’t re-injure yourself).

A Cold or the Flu? Use These 8 Symptoms to Find Out

It’s the holiday season, but, unfortunately, it’s also cold and flu season. You can take steps to prevent getting a cold or the flu by washing your hands frequently with warm soapy water, avoiding contact with infected people and contaminated surfaces, and getting a flu vaccine. However, sometimes these steps aren’t enough.

Colds can happen at any time throughout the year, whereas flu outbreaks tend to be seasonal. In the United States, seasonal flu activity generally peaks between late December and early March. In order for the flu vaccine to be effective, it needs to be administered early enough for the body to react to it and produce protective antibodies before being exposed to the virus. These antibodies develop within two weeks of receiving a flu vaccine (so get your vaccine now, if you haven’t already!).

Why Medical Professionals Insist on Making You Describe Your Pain

Pain is your body’s way of telling you that something is wrong. It’s a protective mechanism (pain causing a recoil or limp prevents you from further injuring your already compromised body part). Not only does pain indicate that there is a problem, but it can also give you clues as to the extent and location of the injury and which type(s) of tissue are damaged.

Ten Keys to Making it through Thanksgiving without Feeling More Stuffed than the Turkey

Thanksgiving is a great holiday to get together with family and friends and remember all of the great things and people we have in our lives. Unfortunately, it also has a reputation of offering way more food than anyone could possibly eat without exploding. Survive the multitude of heavy sides, savory entrees, and mouth-watering desserts by following the following tips.

10 Keys to Saving your Back...and Your Performing Career

This is the second article in a series examining low back pain and injury in the performing arts.

Nearly all people, active or otherwise, will experience back pain at some point in their lives. Most often, back pain is caused by a combination of poor posture and bad mechanics, specifically lifting technique. Adhering to the rules of lifting can save you a great deal of pain and disability – and may even keep you from missing rehearsals and performances due to back pain.

Your Guide to Pain Medicine

Pain is the most common reason people seek medical attention, so it’s no surprise that there are so many different medicines designed to reduce or eliminate pain. Pain signals are sent to the brain through the body’s nerves after pain receptors on the nerve endings have been activated by chemical, mechanical, or thermal damage to tissue cells. Medication and therapeutic treatments aimed at reducing pain work through a variety of mechanisms, including removing/limiting the irritants that contribute to pain, raising the threshold of the nerve endings to delay pain signal transmission (you have to be in more pain before your nerves decide that it’s important enough to tell your brain about it), or preventing or removing the swelling that increases mechanical pressure on nerve endings.

Pain medicine covers a wide range of types of medication, including counterirritants, local anesthetics, analgesics (narcotic and non-narcotic), anti-inflammatories (including steroid-based and non-steroid-based), and antipyretics. This article only addresses oral medication (pills) that is available over the counter (OTC) (as opposed to prescription medications), focusing primarily on analgesics and anti-inflammatories.

Shoulder Injuries in the Performing Arts: "Stingers"

This is the third and final article in a series on shoulder injuries in the performing arts. This series of articles addresses fairly damaging acute shoulder injuries. Unless otherwise noted, these injuries are substantial enough that they should not be self-treated until after you've seen a medical professional who has instructed you to do so. These traumatic shoulder injuries should be treated as emergencies, since there is a high risk of significant complications if they are improperly or incompletely cared for (these complications can include nerve damage, internal bleeding, and nonunion fractures).

What to Look for on a Nutrition Label

Eating nutritious, well-balanced meals is important because the food you eat is your body’s fuel. Giving your body what it needs can keep you healthy, help you achieve or maintain your target weight, improve your physical and mental performance, and improve your mood. But eating well can be very challenging. There are many factors that can get in the way – cost, time available for meal preparation, food allergies and preferences, daily schedule – but one factor that prevents many people from eating as well as they’d like is a lack of awareness of how to use a food item’s nutrition label and ingredients list to help make informed decisions.

Interpreting nutrition labels and ingredients lists can be intimidating, but it is incredibly helpful when comparing similar foods or identifying the nutritional value of your current diet.