Living a healthy lifestyle includes NO smoking.  But what if you don’t smoke but others around you do?!?

The facts are Secondhand smoke causes cancer

Secondhand smoke is classified as a “known human carcinogen” (cancer-causing agent) by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. National Toxicology Program, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a branch of the World Health Organization.

Secondhand smoke causes other kinds of diseases and deaths

Secondhand smoke can cause harm in many ways. In the United States alone, each year it is responsible for:

• an estimated 46,000 deaths from heart disease in non-smokers who live with smokers
• about 3,400 lung cancer deaths in non-smoking adults
• other breathing problems in non-smokers, including coughing, mucus, chest discomfort, and reduced lung function
• 150,000 to 300,000 lung infections (such as pneumonia and bronchitis) in children younger than 18 months of age, which result in 7,500 to 15,000 hospitalizations annually
• increases in the number and severity of asthma attacks in about 200,000 to 1 million children who have asthma
• more than 750,000 middle ear infections in children
• Pregnant women exposed to secondhand smoke are also at increased risk of having low birth- weight babies.

(Source: American Cancer Society)

If you are conscious about your health – you don’t want to be exposed to second-hand smoke but I’m sure you also don’t want to be stuck at home because people smoke in most bars and night clubs.  That is why you need to check-out Let’s Be Totally Clear.

As a consumer, you have a lot of power – you should exercise that power to support Smoke-Free Establishments and encourage stronger smoke-free air laws that protect all Louisianans from secondhand smoke and help others in your community understand the dangers of secondhand smoke exposure.

You are at risk when exposed to secondhand smoke but the people constantly at risk are those who work in bars and casinos that can still allow smoking due to current local and state laws – bartenders, waiters, casino dealers, maintenance workers, entertainers, DJs and musicians. Let’s be totally clear: all Louisiana employees deserve protection from secondhand smoke

Join Let’s Be Totally Clear on Facebook

Questions:
* Do you prefer breathing clean, smoke-free air versus toxic secondhand smoke?
* Do you hate going to bars or going out to hear live music because of all the secondhand smoke?
* Are you a musician, bar or casino worker who wishes Louisiana would protect all workers from secondhand smoke exposure?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then Let’s Be Totally Clear is for you and your involvement can change things!

I’m not that old and I didn’t grow up on a farm…yet I remember the saying “If you don’t have your health; you don’t have nothing at all.”  I remember my dad telling me that. He wasn’t or isn’t a sick man but he is a self-employed man; he owns a construction company. His health is very important to him because without his health/ability to put in a hard day’s work – he doesn’t make money.

The saying also definitely applied more in the old days – when most people did some sort of physical labor as the primary way to earn a living. If people were sick or injured, they couldn’t perform their work duties and they didn’t get paid.  The incentives to be healthy were far greater (survival) and by default of performing physical/manual labor people were more active.  Times have changed.  Technology has changed the way we earn a living and most people in developed countries can perform their job while being overweight, out-of-shape, and plagued with chronic diseases, etc. Most people don’t care about their health.  It’s obvious when looking at the results of studies. Louisiana ranked 41 out 50 on the 2009 Well Being State Ranking. #1 being the best – 50 the worst. From Gallup and Healthways Well Being Index (Click on the image for larger image)

Merging decades of social and clinical research, development expertise, health leadership and behavioral economics, Gallup and Healthways collaborated to develop the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index (WBI) – the first and largest survey of its kind, aggregating data from 1,000 calls a day, 350 days a year. The Well-Being Index is already the largest behavioral economic database ever created and, over the next quarter century, will generate more than nine million individual responses.

The Well-Being Index and associated City, State and Congressional District Reports provide the only measurement today for total well-being. Beyond medical condition and access to healthcare coverage and services, the Index also questions respondents about economic, professional, emotional and social circumstances. With Well-Being Index data, it’s possible to quantify and establish a correlation between the places where people work and the communities in which they live and their well-being.

Some more results were released today.

The County Health Rankings—the first set of reports to rank the overall health of every county in all 50 states—were released today by the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation at a briefing in Washington, D.C.  The 50 state reports help public health and community leaders, policy-makers, consumers and others to see how healthy their county is, compare it with others within their state and find ways to improve the health of their community.

Each county is ranked within the state on how healthy people are and how long they live. They also are ranked on key factors that affect health such as: smoking, obesity, binge drinking, access to primary care providers, rates of high school graduation, rates of violent crime, air pollution levels, liquor store density, unemployment rates and number of children living in poverty.

Poorly ranked counties often had multiple challenges to overcome, including:

• Two- and three-fold higher rates of premature death, often from preventable conditions.
• High smoking rates that lead to cancer, heart disease, bronchitis and emphysema.
• High rates of obesity which can put people at risk for diabetes, disability and heart disease.
• High unemployment and poverty rates.
• High numbers of liquor stores and fast-food outlets but few places to buy fresh fruits and vegetables.

Read More from the Press Release

Now, if only Gov. Bobby Jindal would have a look at this study and stop his plans for cuts to health care…

Here’s a look at the results for Health Outcomes.  For the Greater New Orleans area St. Tammany Parish was #1, Jefferson #16 and Orleans and St Bernard 59 and 62 respectively.  Interesting disparity between those…any thoughts of why? (Click on the map for larger image)

And the results for Health Factors: For the Greater New Orleans area St. Tammany Parish was #1, Jefferson #5 and Orleans and St Bernard 47 and 59 respectively. (Click on the map for larger image)

For greater details of the overall rankings and finer details check this out.

I normally don’t write posts this long…but this is serious – we have to start going to back to the mentality: If you don’t have your health; you don’t have anything at all.

Coming off of a successful bodybuilding season in 2009, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to compete in the 2010 season because of everything on my plate – a full time job, Be Fit NOLA, training and a limited budget.  However, after much thought and encouragement from Ann and others in the community, I’ve decided I’m going to train for and compete in the 2010 Greater Gulf States Bodybuilding Championships – 26 June 2010.  Ann knows what to expect this time around with the competition prep and she’s pushing me to go forth and make it happen.

Usually when I have a thought about doing something I tend to only put forward 50% effort and I can be easily distracted; in this case that thought was competing.  I knew I wanted to compete but I wasn’t sure about being able to do it.  That thought became a reality when I made the decision to commit to it; this forces me to adjust my schedule and make it happen.

Now that the decision has been made, it’s time to start buckling down on diet, training and outside activities.  Since deciding to compete this year, I’ve developed my nutrition and training program for the rest of this off-season.  My precontest program will come into play about 8-9 weeks out, depending on my conditioning around 3 months out from the show.  Similar to my show last year, I’ll be writing about my training, diet, supplementation, etc… leading up to the competition.  This took a little extra effort last year to do but it was well worth it because it allowed me to communicate with others about my contest prep and it also allowed people to follow someone who was in preparation for a bodybuilding competition.  In New Orleans, there is no one doing this so I hope I’m able to shed some positive light and give good insight to others interested in bodybuilding.

For those of you who don’t know me, I just returned from Iraq last year and moved to New Orleans with my fiancee, Ann.  The New Orleans culture was a big shock to me but I’ve come to embrace this city because of its unique culture and what it has to offer.  While I was in the process of making my transition back into a “normal” environment, I met some great folks around the city who helped me get situated in the bodybuilding community.  I hope to continue to meet more great people and highlight bodybuilding, as well as health & fitness in the Greater New Orleans area.

Please follow me as I prepare to battle some great local New Orleanians in what I will call an unforgetable 2010 bodybuilding season in New Orleans!

Be Fit NOLA is a resource to help you be and stay healthy – we are a preventive care resource…we promote living a healthy lifestyle through proper diet, exercise and stress management in order to prevent the development of illnesses and sickness.  If you do get sick, we are not a health care resource or provider but thankfully the State of Louisiana has you covered.

From Stay Healthy Louisiana

The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals recently launched http://www.healthfinderla.gov, a comprehensive online resource that allows users to compare cost and quality of services offered by hospitals, nursing homes, and public and private health care plans. The site also helps you compare retail prices for the 100 most commonly prescribed drugs.

I visited the site and was pleased by how well organized, informative and helpful the site is.  Just like GNOCommunity.org which I covered in this post; this is another well thought out site that is designed to properly serve the community (State).

Since posting my initial bodybuilding blog I’ve been doing a lot of research on bodybuilding in New Orleans and throughout the rest of Louisiana hoping to find new and updated information to share with everyone.  Well, there isn’t much information available on the internet despite there being a great bodybuilding community.  What I find is bodybuilding, similar to health and fitness in New Orleans, gets overlooked because no one has taken the lead on educating others on the available resources in the area.  I’m going to put some focus on highlighting bodybuilding, events, meetings, seminars, etc… to help connect athletes so they are informed.

One good place to start out is the Louisiana National Physique Committee (NPC), where you can view the 2010 calendar of upcoming events.  Luke Tesvich, Louisiana NPC Chairman, tries to keep everyone informed on NPC related events; you’ll find this site informative because it lists different athlete meetings, as well as, the competitions and seminars for the region.  On Facebook, a gentlemen named Allen Wess Coon has taken the initiative to try to provide motivational content through a group called Louisiana Muscle.  This is all excellent stuff and it’s a great starting point to get bodybuilding going again in the GNO.  Below are a couple of key dates to mark in your calendar this year:

2010 Bodybuilding, Figure, Bikini & Wheelchair Championship events:

• May 22^nd Shreveport NPC Optimum Classic
• June 19^th Baton Rouge NPC Red Stick Classic
• June 26^th Metairie NPC Greater Gulf States
• July 10^th Lafayette NPC Louisiana State

Above I mentioned “getting bodybuilding going again”; there was a much stronger presence years ago and dated back into the 1960s.   I was fascinated to find out Boyer Coe, a bodybuilding superstar in the Arnold Schwarzenegger days, was a Louisiana native from Lake Charles.  Boyer’s bodybuilding titles include: Teen Mr. America, Junior Mr. USA, Junior Mr. America, Mr. America, Mr. Universe, Mr. International, Pro Mr. World, Grand Prix Champion and IFBB Weider Hall of Fame member.

As you can see, there is a history to Louisiana and bodybuilding so it’s a goal of Be Fit NOLA to revitalize that and to bring some NOLA swagger back to the industry.  There is so much that can be done online to increase visibility and awareness for Louisiana bodybuilding.  I’ll continue to do research and share what I find.  I encourage everyone to do some searching too and share your findings and thoughts on how to highlight the bodybuilding community that exists in the Greater New Orleans area now.  We’d also like to begin an interview series with local bodybuilders so they can get the recognition they deserve for all their hard work.  If you’d like to be interviewed, let us know!

Louisiana is losing 25 – 35 square miles of coastal wetlands each year. The Barataria Basin is the fastest-eroding area of Louisiana’s coast.  Jefferson Parish once had 50 miles of near-solid healthy wetlands between it and the Gulf of Mexico. The wetlands protect developed areas against hurricane surges, provide natural treatment for storm water, and provide a rich nursery ground for fisheries. Now, a large percentage of these wetlands have been converted to open water, significantly reducing storm protection. Volunteer to make a difference.

Two opportunities to volunteer: Saturday, January 23 and 30th, 2010 8:00 AM

*If inclement weather (rain or high winds), please call 731-4612 to check if a scheduled event has been cancelled.

Meet at 8am: Cochiara’s Marina, 4477 Jean Lafitte Blvd, Lafitte, LA 70067
Volunteers must be 17 years of age or older.
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Don’t want to go alone?  Join the New Orleans Outdoor Meetup Group

Please contact the following for more information or apply to volunteer:

Jefferson Parish Department of Environmental Affairs
4901 Jefferson Highway, Suite E
Jefferson, LA 70121
Phone: (504) 731-4612
Fax: (504) 731-4607