Winter Wellness: Tailoring Your Diet and Fitness Goals for a Healthier Year

Winter can bring about chilly days, more time spent indoors, holidays, and end of year festivities. The season can be exciting for many, with plans for friend and family connections, but challenging for others as they shy away from festive gatherings and try to balance the increasing hours of darkness with more efforts to let sunlight into their lives. Such resolutions—often made in the lead-up to the new year—can be summed up by Nido Qubein’s quote, “Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start.”¹

Two popular areas to look at for winter and the new year are diet and exercise—and each can be individualized to fit the season.

A favorite go-to for diet advice is Cancer Dietitian which has been featured in CONQUER: the journey informed many times. Julie Lanford is a registered dietitian, licensed nutritionist, and board-certified specialist in oncology nutrition. She translates evidence-based nutrition guidelines into consumer-friendly messages for everyday life. Her goal is to make healthy living fun and not a burden. An often-repeated column titled Does Sugar Feed Cancer? is perfect for this season.² Also be sure to check out her favorite holiday recipes!

Many of the celebrations at this time of the year involve alcohol. The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) 2024 Cancer Progress Report (which features scientific discoveries that have led to new anticancer drugs and improved overall survival) has some interesting facts about alcohol to keep in mind.³

The concern is for the lack of public awareness about the link between alcohol and cancer. Excessive alcohol consumption in the United States is one of the modifiable risk factors associated with 40% of all cancers, and the AACR report calls out a link to the risk for 6 different cancer types: head and neck, esophageal squamous-cell, breast, colorectal, liver, and stomach.

Exercise for most people is prudent before, during, and after cancer treatment as it improves quality of life, energy, and coping with treatment side effects. Walking is the most common suggestion for physical activity, but stretching, standing, yoga, chair exercises, and use of light resistance bands are also options. Just try to get more movement in via daily tasks, such as performing arm circles while taking phone calls or knee lifts while sitting down.

There are numerous exercise applications that can be downloaded onto electronic devices if going to a gym or exercising in a group setting is not preferred.

Winter can be a wonderful time of year. It is a time for connection, as well as a time for hibernation and reflection that can have positive effects on mood and health.

Anne Bradstreet summed it up best: “If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.”⁴

References

1. Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans. Nido R. Qubein: Horatio Alger Award recipient. Accessed November 4, 2024. https://horatioalger.org/members/detail/nido-r-qubein/
2. Lanford J. Does sugar feed cancer? Cancer Dietitian. Accessed November 4, 2024. https://cancerdietitian.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Does-Sugar-Feed-Cancer.pdf
3. American Association for Cancer Research. Cancer progress report 2024. Accessed November 4, 2024. https://cancerprogressreport.aacr.org/progress/about-the-report/
4. Bradstreet A. The Works of Anne Bradstreet (The John Harvard Library). Belknap Press; 2010.