Every New Year, it never fails: the gym is PACKED at every hour of every day, for the first three weeks of the year. When January 1st hits, people get a new spark of enthusiasm for being healthy. Gym memberships soar, health oriented websites surge in traffic and personal trainers don’t have enough hours in the day to see the new clients who’ve signed up for sessions.

Unfortunately, the enthusiasm rampant in the beginning of January wanes after a few weeks and before you know it, gyms have membership cancellations, websites see drops in traffic and personal trainers have a more manageable number of clients. This trend is as predictable as the ball dropping in Times Square New Year’s Eve.

Just because this happens to the majority of resolution makers, however, doesn’t mean that you, too, have to be a resolution dropout. Here are a few ways to ensure that you don’t fall off the wagon:

1. Don’t Bite Off More than You can Chew: It is easy to want to do it all at once, but taking one day at a time is important. Don’t try to over commit yourself too early. Ease into your resolution so that you don’t get overwhelmed or discouraged.
2. Do What You Love: Pretending to love running when you don’t, is not going to encourage you to exercise. Instead, find activities, classes and exercises that you really enjoy.
3. Play with Your Food: Similar to exercise, force-feeding yourself rice-cakes when you think they taste like cardboard isn’t going to make you love health food. Instead, make a game of it. Experiment with different types of health foods to find the ones you like.
4. The Buddy System: Finding a friend or family member to help motivate you will help you to be more committed to your resolution. Not only do you have to motivate yourself, but by buddying up, you will be committing to someone else that you will help them to stay on the wagon as well.
5. Be True to Yourself: If you choose to buy a membership at a gym or to purchase personal training sessions, be sure the gym and/or personal trainer ‘is a match’ for you. Working out in an environment that you don’t like or with a person you don’t respect is not going to keep you coming back for more.

New Year’s resolutions are a great way to make change in your life. You owe it to yourself to stick with it! And you can! What helps you to stay motivated?

Related Topics:

• New Year’s Resolution Roadmap - Final Week
• How to Choose a Great Workout Buddy
• Top 10 Ways to Know if your Personal Trainer is Worthless
• Do you Budget for Exercise

Well, the New Year is just around the corner and you have been actively pursuing your New Year’s Resolutions pre-New Year.  It must feel great!  You have gone through three weeks of preparation and you are finally in the last leg of preparing for ‘A New You in 2009′.

Last week, we focused on making smart choices in regards to your diet and nutrition, and rounding out your workout to include not only cardio, but also strength training, core training and flexibility training…all important to ensuring you are taking good care of your body.

This final week is meant to give you all that you need to continue on with your journey to a new you.  So, you should think of it as ‘the final week and moving forward’.

General To-Dos. Now that you have had a few weeks of preparation, it is time to be serious and to commit to yourself.  You are ready to fully work on living a healthier lifestyle!

• Start a Lifestyle Journal. Use this to help you record your progress.  You can write anything you want in it, including: what you eat, what activities you do, your feelings and emotions and anything else.  This is for you…not for anyone else.  So make it what you want.
• Calculate your BMI and LBM. There are several ways to measure your health.  None of them are perfect and each one has its positives and negatives.  If you use several measures, however, you can gauge the general trend of where you stand health and weight wise.
  • Use these as a guide.  You want to be sure that you don’t obsess over the specific numbers.  Instead, focus on the ‘ranges’ into which you fall.
  • Record the numbers in your journal.  Record not only the actual results of the calculations, but the measurements you take.  These will be your point of reference as you continue on your journey to a New You in 2009.
  • Repeat Monthly.  Retake your measurements and recalculate your BMI and LBM every month.  A month gives you enough time to see results and to see how your new lifestyle is working.
    

Nutrition - Complete the Picture. At this point, you know what you should and shouldn’t eat, and you should have broken bad habits and started healthier ones. Now it is time to be sure you are getting the right amounts of nutrients.

• Calculate your Ideal Caloric Needs.  Base your calculation on what you weigh today. Once you know how many calories you need to maintain your current body weight, use the below guidelines to maintain, gain or lose weight as you need.  Whatever you do, however, make sure the calories you consume remain within appropriate proportions of protein, carbs and fat.
  • With your ideal caloric requirements, again, understand that these are guides. Every person is different and responds differently to nutrition and to different foods. That said, make sure you are eating enough and not starving yourself.
  • If you are currently at your ideal weight and gain weight at the recommended caloric intake, back off 200 calories a day for about a week. If you are still gaining weight, back off another 200 calories a day for a week until you stop gaining weight.
  • If you are at your ideal weight and lose weight at the recommended caloric intake, add 200 calories a day for about a week. If you are still losing weight, add another 200 calories a day for a week until you stop losing weight.
  • If you are trying to lose weight (body fat), the most common guideline for calorie deficits for fat loss is to reduce your caloric intake by at least 500 calories a day, but not more than 1000 below your maintenance level(result from the calculation). The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends that calorie levels never drop below 1200 calories per day for women or 1800 per day for men.
  • If you are trying to gain weight, add 200 calories per day to your recommended caloric intake for a week.  If you aren’t seeing a difference, try adding an additional 200 calories per day for a week until you do start gaining weight.
• Eat balanced and eat often. Continue eating the 4 to 6 times a day you started a few weeks ago. However, make sure that each small meal is balanced. This will keep you from getting hungry and will also make sure that you are getting appropriate amounts of nutrients

Fitness - Raising the Bar and Maintenance. Continue progressing each week by raising your heart rate a little bit higher and extending your workout to be a little bit longer. Make sure your routines incorporate all types of training so that you are keeping your workout well-rounded to train all your systems of the body. Look at some of our examples of workout formats that are under an hour, but incorporate diversified exercises. Enjoy yourself. Exercise should be fun, not dreadful. Continue doing what you love and stick to it. You’ll be glad you did!

Well my friends, this is the end of your Roadmap!  We’ll be checking in with you in the next couple of weeks to see how things are going!  Hope you have a wonderful New Year and we look forward to hearing about your success stories in 2009!

Let us know how the resolution roadmap has been working for you so far.  Did you find it helpful?  Did you hope to do more?  Was it easy or difficult to stick to?

Related Topics:

• Calculate your BMI
• Calculate your Lean Body Mass (LBM)
• Calculate your Caloric Requirements
• Calculate your Target Heart Rate
• Get a Jump Start on your New Year’s Resolution
• Resolution Roadmap - Day 1
• Resolution Roadmap - Week 1
• Resolution Roadmap - Week 2
• Resolution Roadmap - Week 3

Happy Happy Hump Week!  You are now entering your 3rd week of the four week series of ‘A New You in 2009.’  Last week, we focused on getting rid of bad nutritional habits with a ‘detox’ and revving up your workouts by increasing your intensity and duration.  All of these steps should help to make this week’s ‘to-dos’ easier.  As I’ve mentioned before, make sure you have successfully completed the second week steps prior to moving forward.  This will give you a sense of accomplishment and help you to not feel overwhelmed.

Week 3’s Roadmap is outlined below! 

Nutrition: Making Smart Choices. Last week we focused on getting rid of the excess sugars, toxins and chemicals in your body.  You now should be ready to start fresh and eat the foods that your body really needs to be nourished and function properly.

• Healthy Starchy Carbohydrates. If you like bread, pasta and cereals, that is ok, just stop eating those made with bleached and refined flours or non-whole grains. Whole grain pasta and whole grain breads taste really yummy and offer you a lot of healthful benefits, such as fiber and lower amounts of sugar (which we learned from week 2 is an enemy). Regular pasta and white bread have very little nutritional value and pack on pounds. Any time you want bread or pasta, reach for whole wheat, whole grain, multi-grain, grain, grain, and um…grain…
• Eat your Veggies. Hands down, vegetables are vital to a healthy diet. Find the ones you like the most and eat them. Eat lots of them. Eat so much that you can’t eat anymore. Why? They are loaded with vitamins and minerals and provide you with much needed fiber. Further, they fill you up, causing you to eat less of the bad stuff. If you start your lunch and dinner off with a salad, you will be filling yourself up with healthy stuff, curbing your appetite and interest in eating unhealthy stuff. Be careful though, use dressings sparingly, and think twice before loading nuts and cheese on, for these add a lot of fat to the otherwise healthy salad
• Healthy Fats. You should definitely incorporate fats into your diet.  However, you want to make sure that you eat the right ones (mono-unsaturated fats, poly-unsaturated fats and essentially fatty acids, Omega-3 and Omega-6) and that you use them sparingly.
• Low-fat and Non-fat Dairy. Dairy can be your friend, but aim to consume those that are low in fat or non-fat. If you are drinking full-fat milk or 2%, knock it down a % notch. Eventually, you should aim for 1% at a maximum with Skim milk being optimal.  The reason for this is that full fat dairy has a lot of saturated fat…one of the worst types of fat for you.
• Lean Protein. Protein is essential to a healthy diet.  That said, you want to be sure that the protein you consumer is lean: White meat poultry, fish, beans, low to non-fat dairy, egg whites. Try to avoid red meat, or limit your intake to no more than once a week.

Fitness: Rounding it Out. Last week we had you up the ante around your intensity and duration of exercise.  Your heart should start to feel a little stronger and you should feel like you have more endurance than you did when you started.  Now it is time to round your workout out.

• More than Cardio. Now that you have a feel for what you should be doing for cardio, start looking at your other training types and working on incorporating them into your work-out
  • Strength Training. Classes that hit on these include those that incorporate some weights, resistance bands and bars. Body Pump, Body Sculpting and others incorporate strength training. Also try to use weight machines and free weights. You should target all muscle groups. A great resource for strength training using weights is: The Body Sculpting Bible for Women, Revised Edition: The Way to Physical Perfection (Body Sculpting Bible)
  • Core Training. Classes to try: Pilates, Abdominal classes
  • Flexibility Training. Classes to try: yoga and pilates
• Personal Trainers. If you have access to personal trainers, think about trying a couple of sessions to get some guidance as to what you need to be doing

Good Luck with Week 3!  Let us know how Week 1 and 2 went.  Did you find it helpful?  Did you hope to do more?  Was it easy or difficult to stick to?

Related Topics:

• Strength Training Programs
• Types of Exercise to Round Out Your Workout
• Calculate your Target Heart Rate
• Learn about Good and Bad Fats
• Basics of a Fitness Program
• Get a Jump Start on your New Year’s Resolution
• Resolution Roadmap - Day 1
• Resolution Roadmap - Week 1
• Resolution Roadmap - Week 2

You may have seen the television ads for the ‘new and improved’ Splenda:  Splenda with Fiber.  Call me cynical, but this idea just seems silly. From the makers of Splenda, this seems like a great idea.  They argue that the average adult needs 25 grams of fiber every day true, but only gets 13.  This very well may be true, but does this mean that individuals should turn to this product to rack up the fiber?  I don’t think so…and here’s why:

1. Big Bad Sucralose: Splenda is made with sucralose which is not so great for you.  Sure, the FDA has approved it as a safe artificial sweetener (yes folks, it is manufactured in a laboratory), but believe me, the FDA has its own motives.  This past September, Duke University published a study that concludes Splenda DOES, indeed, have side effects.  It “contributes to obesity, destroys “good” intestinal bacteria and prevents prescription drugs from being absorbed.”  So, regardless of the fiber, why ingest this product?
2. Putting Lipstick on the Pig: Now that we have established that Splenda really isn’t so great for you, masking it as being healthy because of the additional fiber seems like a really cheap way to make a buck.  Not to mention it borders on misleading the consumer.
3. Miniscule Benefits: Splenda may give you a fiber boost, but it is only one gram per packet.  Unless you are planning on ingesting 13 packets, you aren’t really making a big dent in your fiber intake.   Meanwhile, if you eat one small apple, you’ll get 4 grams of fiber.
4. Feeding the Processed Food Frenzy: Maybe I’m too simple minded, but fiber should come from the foods you eat that naturally have fiber.  A lot of fiber-filled foods are tasty and health and aren’t artificial: fruits, vegetables, whole grain breads, grains and cereals.  If people ate healthy diets, as opposed to diets filled with processed foods, they would get the 25 grams they need.  Splenda just contributes more to the processed food frenzy.

So, have you tried Splenda with Fiber?  Do you buy into the idea that Splenda is better with fiber or do you think that it is a sham?

Related Topics:

• 5 Misleading Nutrition Labels
• Facts on Fiber
• Natural Sweeteners that Subsitute Sugar
• Your Solution Guide to HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup)
• Why Special K Isn’t So Special
• 5 Ingredients to Avoid
  

Congratulations!  You are now entering your 2nd week of ‘A New You in 2009.’  Last week, we focused on laying a foundation for a healthier diet and increasing basic activity into your life.  Hopefully, your ‘to-dos’ were easy to get into and not too overwhelming.  If so, take an extra week and stick with the First Week plan to get adjusted.

For those of you ready to jump into your 2nd week, your roadmap is outlined below! 

Nutrition - It’s Detox Time! When our diet includes unhealthy foods, ingredients and chemicals, our digestive system functions less efficiently and has to work overtime to eliminate toxins and waste. Further, the more of these you eat, the more you crave them. In week two, we are going to retrain your brain and your stomach by eliminating these from your diet, which will hopefully reduce your cravings and dependency on them.

• Cut out sugar. Sugar is one of your biggest enemies. In any form: raw, as part of a food, processed,
  etc.
  • If you put sugar in your coffee or tea, cut back. Instead of 4 heaping teaspoons, make it 3 level teaspoons. Continue to cut back until you need no more than 1 teaspoon at a maximum or optimally, none
  • Don’t drink soda, and if you do, start drinking diet until you can stop drinking it all together. Soda has tons of empty calories and artificial ingredients
  • Look at your nutrition labels. If the first ingredient listed is sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, corn-syrup, dextrose, sucrose, fructose, it is bad news
• Cut-out Saturated Fats. Saturated fat is ‘bad fat’. You want to have as little of these in your diet as possible. Cut these bad boys out for good and think about healthier alternatives:
  • Butter, margarine and full-fat dairy
  • Poultry skin and fried foods
  • Egg yolks
  • Coconut oil, milk, cream and Palm oil
• Limit Alcohol. Although it is a bit difficult during the holiday season to refrain from the bubbly, alcohol, by far, can be a huge saboteur to your diet.  Alcohol has 7 calories per gram, which is 3 more calories than both carbohydrates and protein per gram. These calories add up fast. Further, alcohol takes a toll on your skin, causing dryness, dilation of small blood vessels and redness. Try to limit yourself to no more than 1 drink per day, or 7 drinks per week.
• Fried Food. Fried food, no matter what it is fried in, is bad. Whether it is fried a little, fried a lot or deep fried, it is bad. Bad, bad, bad. It causes clogged arteries, bad skin, heart disease, constipation…need we say more? Just stop eating it. Look for other tasty alternatives that are baked, grilled or poached. Pan-seared is ok too.
• Processed Foods. Processed foods are up there with fried food. The more processes a food has to go through, the higher the chance it is loaded with chemicals, preservatives and unhealthy ingredients. All of which you want to avoid. Look for foods that are whole…from the ground or naturally from an animal. This doesn’t mean it can’t be packaged, but if the food takes a form, shape or look of something other than how it would be naturally found, it is processed. Ex: Chicken Nuggets (Highly processed) vs. Chicken Breast (very little if at all processed)
• Limit Caffeine. Caffeine is a chemical that causes your body to have ups and downs in energy, and is a diuretic, causing water-loss. Try to limit yourself to no more than one cup a day, preferably in the morning.
• Clean out Your Closets. Go through your kitchen cabinets and throw away foods that are obviously bad for you. Anything that has a lot of sugar, is processed, has a lot of fat, etc. deep six

Fitness - Ramping it up. Now that you have been a bit more active than normal, it is time to up the ante.  You need to move from ‘getting some activity’ into ‘getting some exercise’.  Again, you don’t want to overdo it by trying to do too much.

• Raise that Heart Rate! Make sure you are raising your heart rate enough to get the most out of your workout. Each week, you should aim to exercise in a slightly higher Target Heart Rate Zone.  Learn how to calculate YOUR target heart rate to ensure you are making progress.
• Increase your Duration and Frequency. Each week, you should aim to exercise for a little longer and a little more often, working up to 4 to 5 days a week for 45 minutes to an hour each day.  This week, specifically, aim to move your duration and frequency from 20 - 30 minutes, 3 days a week to 30 - 35 minutes for 4 days.

Good luck this week with your Week 2 To-Dos!

Let us know how Week 1 went.  Did you find it helpful?  Did you hope to do more?  Was it easy or difficult to stick to?

Related Topics:

• 5 Ingredients to Avoid
• Learn about Target Heart Rate Zones
• Calculate your Target Heart Rate
  
• Learn about Good and Bad Fats
• Basics of a Fitness Program
  
• Get a Jump Start on your New Year’s Resolution
• Resolution Roadmap - Day 1
• Resolution Roadmap - Week 1

Every weekend, while downstairs in our building’s fitness center, I see this one personal trainer with his client.  I have seen them there every weekend for the better part of 6 months.  The client is a woman who is probably in her mid to late 30s, is extremely overweight and seems to lack genuine interest in exercise.  I say this because she tends to do more talking than exercising.  Further, her discussions are one way conversations, consistently involving her asking her personal trainer about newly released diet pills, exercise pills, weight loss surgery, plastic surgery and the latest and greatest gossip of the most recent face lifts, liposuction, miracle diets, etc., of the stars of Hollywood.  Even with my iPod at full blast, she is so loud and distracting, that it is quite difficult to tune her out.

The reason I am bringing this up, however, isn’t so much to discuss the client, but rather to discuss the personal trainer.  Having been a group fitness instructor and personal trainer myself, I am always interested in how personal trainers work with their clients.  In this specific case, I’m especially bewildered.  I have to believe that this personal trainer isn’t really doing his job.  Granted, his client seems to be a difficult case at best, but if a personal trainer is being paid money to help someone get into better shape, then certain standards should be met.  As a follow-up to my entry on Top 10 Ways to Know if Your Personal Trainer is Worthless, I wanted to use this case in particular, to highlight what you should expect from an ethical and capable personal trainer.

1. You Should See Some Change: The woman in this case hasn’t made any progress over the six months that she has been working with this personal trainer.  Not that I have personally weighed her or taken measurements to know exactly what changes her body has or hasn’t undergone, but it is visually apparent that no strides have been made.  It is a personal trainer’s job to ensure that you get results.  If what they have put together for you isn’t working, then they need to modify the program.
2. You Should be Challenged: The fact that this woman has the ability to talk none-stop the whole hour of her session (and no, I am NOT exaggerating) says that she is not being challenged.  She is never out of breath and from what I can tell, she exercises at a very low intensity and at a snail’s pace.  Her heart rate should be raised high enough that the conversation becomes physically difficult.
3. The Personal Trainer Should be Involved: In this case, it is clear that the personal trainer has ‘checked’ out.  To let the client go on and on about whatever topic she finds entertaining, while he just stands there and listens, means that he isn’t engaged in the session, the process or for that matter the progress that she should be making.  Your personal trainer should be doing more of the talking then you.  He should be actively explaining things to you and helping to guide you through exercises.  Further, he shouldn’t be standing on the sidelines, he should be part of the program, physically working with you to get you to do exercises correctly and to address misalignment etc.  He shouldn’t just be putting the pin in the weight rack.  You could do that on your own.
4. They Should Give you Perspective: I’ve said it before, and I will say it again: there is no quick fix.  This specific personal trainer should be telling his client that all the pills in the world will not ‘fix her.’  Nor will any type of surgery.  He should be firm and state this simply and clearly.  If anything, your personal trainer should be educating you on proper diet and nutrition.  He should be explaining how to boost your metabolism naturally.  He should be explaining how you can get more results out of your workout through effective workout formats and he should be educating you as to how to be safe with your exercise.  Popping pills should not be in his repertoire.
5. Conversation Topics Should Be Relevant: I’m sure that the client thinks that her topics of discussion are relevant to her program, but if you look at #4 above, they really aren’t.  I’m not saying that every word that you or your personal trainer utters should be about exercise, but the majority of the discussion should be around getting you to understand the proper form you should be using, the muscles you are using and the benefits of the exercise in general.  If you find that your personal trainer doesn’t explain anything to you, he isn’t doing his job.  You are hiring them for their knowledge and expertise.  As a result, they should be imparting both to you so that you can learn.

When you spend money on a service, you should be getting what you paid for.  In my mind, this personal trainer isn’t doing his job and instead, his client is becoming more and more delusional about how to be healthier.  Personal trainers should be giving their clients the information they need to be healthier and to make positive change in their lives.

Have you had any personal trainers that seemed unethical or lacking in ability?

Related Topics:

• Top 10 Ways to Know if Your Personal Trainer is Worthless
• 8 Traits of a Bad Aerobics Instructor
• There is No Quick Fix
• Exercise in a Pill: Another Way to Keep America Lazy

Whether or not you exercise, you may have a predisposition to adhering to a program more than others.  Although there aren’t a lot of scientific studies out there on this topic, AFAA, the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America, has developed four distinct categories of the population, each with its own behavioral characteristics.  Their view is that certain populations require different motivators to facilitate exercise adherence within group fitness classes.

Although AFAA specifically applies these categories to group fitness participants, some of the principles can be applied to the adherence of any exercise regimen.  Having an idea as to which of these four categories you fall into, may actually provide you with insights that will help you increase your chances of adhering to any fitness program.  The four categories are described in detail below.:

Type A: Type A people are most likely to exercise every day.  They will sometimes exercise for 1 to 2 hours at a time or may even exercise two times each day.  These individuals are often competitive and may be Type A individuals sociologically - driven, successful and highly motivated.  Sometimes these individuals believe they are immune to injury and will ‘overdo’ it or work through pain when they shouldn’t.

• If you are Type A: Type As don’t need a lot of incentive to exercise.  If anything, they may be predisposed to overdoing it.  If you are a Type A Fitness personality, look to cross-train.  This will help reduce potential injury from overuse of certain muscles.  Additionally, it will help to ward off boredom.  Type As may focus on one activity too much and tend to push themselves so hard, that they may end up burning out as a result.

Type B: Type B people tend to work out consistently at a moderate level.  They may exercise every other day and will alternate lower intensity and impact with higher intensity and impact activities.  These individuals tend to work out ‘responsibly’ and are sensible in their approach, as compared to Type As who may be more compulsive.  Type Bs tend to see exercise as part of a lifestyle and understand the benefits of it long-term, as well as in the short-term.

• If you are Type B: Type B exercisers really have the right mindset.  They don’t really require very much in the way of incentives to exercise, but understand how to maintain balance in their approach.

Type C: Type C individuals are those individuals who have never experienced exercise as a regimen before.  While some people in this category may have been involved in activities for fun, they may not have ever thought of it as fitness.  Others, however, may have been relatively sedentary.  Type Cs may be at risk for not sticking with the program if they feel that the program isn’t ‘working for them.’

• If you are Type C: Type C exercisers may want to consider hiring a personal trainer for a few sessions if they have no real knowledge about exercise.  Otherwise, you may want to find a gym that has great customer service and personalized approaches for their members.  If you are a Type C, fitness classes may be a good starting point so that you feel that you have a ‘community’ and support network that you can rely on and/or feel comfortable with.  Look for ways to get positive reinforcement so that you stay motivated.  Speak with your fitness instructor if you are part of a class and inform them that you are new to exercising.  They will (if they are good) be more apt to ensuring that you get the positive reinforcement and guidance you need to stick with the program.

Type D: Type D individuals are completely inactive or sedentary.  Although they may be able to exercise, they are prone to start and stop or never even partake in regular exercise at all.  They may not exercise due to time constraints, expense, convenience or other obligations.  But most likely, they don’t have real interest.

• If you are Type D: Type D exercisers are at the highest risk for not adhering to an exercise program.  They need to address three barriers: time, effort and on-the-spot excuses.   If you are a Type D, you should think about the benefits of exercise and understand the health implications of not being active.  You may want to start off slow by taking a few minutes out of every day just to walk.  Slowly build up to 10 minutes a day…15 minutes a day…20 minutes a day and so on.  Even small changes, like taking the stairs instead of an elevator, are helpful.  Type Ds need unconventional programs that are convenient and leave little room for excuses.  They should aim to understand their  de-motivators and/or excuses that come most easily.  Once they identify their biggest excuses, they  should look for ways that they can’t be excuses anymore (E.g., the gym is too far…get a piece of cardio equipment for your home).  Lastly, find ways to motivate yourself to be healthier.  Reward yourself for making positive changes in your health and activity level.

So now that you know the different ‘Fitness Types’, which one are you?  What have you done to ensure success and adherence to a fitness program?

Related Topics:

• The Basics of Exercise
• The Importance of Exercise Intensity
• The Correct Workout Structure
• Exercise Resources: Fitness Calculators, Calories Burned, etc.
• Top 5 Excuses for Not Working Out
• 6 Ways to Stay Motivated to Exercise this Winter
  

Hopefully you have taken some time to ‘prepare’ for your healthy start to 2009 with the Resolution Roadmap - Day 1 post. At this point, you should be in the right mindset to start moving forward and making progress.  Remember, this Roadmap is meant to help you make smaller changes over a few weeks so that by the end of December, you are ready to start 2009 with a bang.

As a recap, for Day 1 I asked that you get into the right mindset both nutritionally and physically.  Nutritionally, you should stop thinking about diets (and dieting) and instead, focus on the choice of a new lifestyle.  Further, you should focus on the qualitative changes to come vs. your weight.  Fitness wise, you should start visualizing yourself as you want to look and feel, listing out your favorite activities, budgeting for a fitness program and researching your options.

As we kick into week 1 of the roadmap, we want to start making some minor changes that will help you as you make some of the harder changes to come.  Here is your Week 1 To Dos:

Nutrition: Laying the Foundation. Preparing yourself for a new way of eating is important so that when you start making bigger changes, they don’t feel so extreme. At this time, you want to do what it takes to ensure you are covering the basics.

• Drink lots of Water: Although some may argue how much water you really need, water is definitely undervalued when trying to eat healthy.  Your goal should be to drink your body weight x .66 per day in ounces.  First off, water helps to keep you hydrated.  It also helps to keep your digestive tract moving along, which will help you be more regular.  Lastly, it helps to keep you full so that you don’t confuse hunger for thirst.
• Eat Breakfast. If you aren’t already eating breakfast, start. It should be a balanced meal that integrates carbohydrates and proteins and be low in fat.  Whole grain cereal with low-fat or skim milk is a good option.  Egg whites or an egg white omelette with whole grain bread is even better.  And, a yogurt parfait is always a yummy way to start the day.
• Eat 5 to 6 times a day. Eating smaller portions and more often will boost your metabolism. It will also prevent you from being really hungry really quickly.  As a result, try to eat smaller breakfasts, lunches and dinners, and eat a snack between your meals so that you are eating every three hours or so.
• Educate yourself. Do your homework in understanding basics of healthy nutrition.  Sheer Balance provides a lot of good, solid, basic information.  Learn why fat, protein and carbohydrates are all important to a healthy diet.  Learn about essential vitamins and minerals. Understand what they do and why they are important. Also take some time to start learning how to read nutrition labels.
• Multi-Vitamin. Start taking a multi-vitamin. This will help ensure you are getting all the important vitamins and minerals you need every day

Fitness: Ease into it. If you are new to exercise, you need to make sure you don’t try to do too much all at once.  Also, consult your Doctor prior to starting any exercise regimen.  

• Start Slow. If you haven’t been exercising, start slow. The last thing you want to do is over do it and as a result, burn-out fast. If you have decided that a gym membership is going to be part of your program, try to go three times a week and spend about 20 to 30 minutes each day. If you are not using a gym, try walking, jogging, running, bike riding or rollerblading. What is most important is that you are active for 20 to 30 minutes a day for three days a week.
• Experiment. If you haven’t been exercising, this is your time to learn what is out there and what you enjoy. Don’t get bogged down in too much detail, just feel your way through the process and your options.
• Classes. If you are going to a gym or have a fitness class studio nearby, learn about the classes they offer and try those that interest you most.
• Equipment. Try equipment you have access to: the bike, the treadmill, the arc trainer, the elliptical trainer, and any other machines that catch your eye. Try it out for 20 to 30 minutes and see how you like it.
• Be Safe. Each time you exercise, make sure you’re workout is incorporating a warm-up, a cool-down and stretching. This will ensure that you are being safe and avoiding potential injury.

This may or may not seem like a lot to swallow.  But the idea of this week is to start getting used to the idea of making some changes.  Your changes should be small enough so that they are manageable and not overwhelming.  If you try to bite off more than you can chew (pardon the pun), you may become discouraged.  Good luck and share with us your progress!

How was your first day?  Did you come across any challenges?  Did Day 1 motivate you?

Related Topics:

• Get a Jump Start on your New Year’s Resolution
• Resolution Roadmap - Day 1
• Do You Budget for Exercise?
• Diet or Lifestyle?  Why to Choose the Latter
• Why you Shouldn’t Weight Yourself
• Sheer Balance Nutrition Guide
• Healthy Breakfast Recipes and more
  

A few weeks ago, I wrote about getting a jump start on your New Year’s Resolution.  I asked you to share what your goals are for the upcoming year and hoped to start a dialogue around how to reach those goals.  Whether or not you read the entry, you may have been thinking about making a resolution for your health anyway.  Maybe you want to resolve to eat better…or to exercise more…or both.  Regardless, a resolution is a promise…a promise to yourself to make a change in your life.

The tradition of making resolutions is something we look forward to because we believe it is a fresh start.  The New Year gives us a clean slate, allowing us to leave bad habits behind, while looking forward to a brighter, more positive future.  We feel confident that just as a whole calendar year can change in a 10 second countdown, we too can change our attitudes, conquer our demons, and gain tons of willpower all in the blink of an eye.

Expecting too much of ourselves too quickly, however, can be self-defeating.  If we don’t see the results we are looking for fast enough, we may end up frustrated, undermining even the best of intentions to stick to our promise.  As a result, finding ways to hold yourself to your resolution is even more important than the resolution itself.  Setting interim milestones and taking small steps one day at a time is a much more promising and realistic way of attaining your goals. You owe it to yourself to keep your promise and if you do, you’ll find that it proves to be very rewarding.

Great.  Now that we got all of that out of the way, let’s get to the meat of the topic:  How do we ensure success in our healthy resolutions?  Here is Day 1 of your New Year’s Resolution Roadmap to a better, healthier, more balanced you in 2009:

Day 1:  Get in the Right Mindset

Nutrition:

1. Stop thinking about diets. The word diet is negative and implies deprivation, starvation, hunger…lots of bad things in general.  Instead, focus on ‘a way of life’ or even better, a lifestyle.
2. Focus on the Choice of a New Lifestyle: This is your choice. This is something you want to do. Thinking you are, instead of you have to is a mindset that will start you believing that you really want to be healthy…not something you are being forced to do.
3. Be Qualitative, Not Quantitative: Eating healthier is going to create a lot of positive change in your life, and although weight loss might be part of the outcome, it shouldn’t be your focus.  As a result, stop focusing on weight or numbers, instead, think about the qualitative change to come.  “I’m going to feel great”…”I’m going to look great”…”I’m going to be healthier”…etc.

Fitness:

1. See yourself as you want to look. If you can visualize yourself in better cardiovascular shape, having more muscle tone and having a leaner physique, you can look that way. Yes, it will take some physical effort as well, but the more you can actively see your goal, the more you will be able to make it a reality.
2. List out your favorite activities: If you don’t enjoy exercise, your motivation will diminish.  As a result, think about the kinds of activities you enjoy.  Do you enjoy outdoor sports, indoor fitness classes, dance, marshal arts, etc? List them out and think about how to incorporate them into your life.
3. Budget: It is important to be realistic in budgeting for your exercise.  Decide how much you are willing to spend on exercise every month, and put that amount into your monthly budget.  This amount may or may not cause you to rule out certain activities or gyms, but it is important to understand those limitations.
4. Research: Where can you do the activities you want to do for how much you want to spend?  Once you answer that question, you will be on the road to starting a successful fitness program.

Basically, Day 1 is meant to be about getting motivated and into the right mindset.  You want to keep it very simple and not get too carried away!  Enjoy your decision to be healthier!

Related Topics:

• Get a Jump Start on your New Year’s Resolution
• Do You Budget for Exercise?
• Diet or Lifestyle?  Why to Choose the Latter
• Why you Shouldn’t Weight Yourself

On November 20th, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that obese people have the right to two seats for the price of one on flights within Canada.  Apparently, an appeal made by Air Canada, Air Canada Jazz and WestJet was declined and as a result, the one-person-one-fare-two seat policy will go into effect January 2009.  The policy “stipulates that people who are too large to fit in one chair should be given two seats, so as to avoid unpleasant situations during the flight.”

As a frequent air traveler, I have witnessed extremely obese people overflowing into the seats next to them, and to be perfectly honest, I am amazed that those passengers don’t get charged for two seats.  The passengers sitting in the adjacent seats, have barely a half of a seat to call their own…and they surely can not be comfortable.  Unfortunately, they have absolutely no control over the situation.  It is pure luck of the draw: Seats are assigned, and if the flight is full they can’t move, leaving them stuck in a very uncomfortable seat for several hours.  However, they paid the same amount of money as the encroaching obese passenger next to them.

Ironically, the Canadian Court ‘agreed that this was a very delicate situation that could not be resolved without hurting either the feelings of people with extra pounds, or the benefits of the airlines.’  Forgive me, but the truth is that if every business had to worry about the feelings of consumers, there is a good chance a lot of companies would be out of business.  When we think of the actual ‘costs’ for airlines, extremely obese people (I’m not speaking about overweight individuals, I’m speaking of individuals who have several extra hundreds of pounds on them) directly impact Airlines’ bottom lines: extra weight means extra fuel.  Guess who will inevitably be making up the extra cost on this one?  You guessed it…the average weighted passengers.

This ruling really has me confused.  In a day when we are being charged for everything from the weight of our baggage to water to headphones for a B-Rated movie, how is it possible that a 450 pound individual can pay the same price for a ticket as a 150 pound individual?  The 450 pound person is 3 TIMES the weight of the 150 pound person.  Further, that 150 pound individual most likely will take up 1/3 of the space as the 450 pound person.  Call me crazy, but this just doesn’t fly (pardon the pun).

I realize that this is a very sensitive issue and probably hits a raw nerve for a lot of people, but I can’t help but put this out there.  I feel for those individuals who are extremely obese.  But the fact that they are so overweight shouldn’t be anyone else’s problem but their own.  Most obese people have a choice.  It is extremely rare that a person who is hundreds of pounds overweight has absolutely NO control over their weight, and as a result, it seems extremely unfair that average weighted individuals should have to pay for another individual’s choice.  Further, no one should have to give up their personal space for someone else’s ‘medical disability’.  Granted, airlines could afford to increase the alloted space per seat in the main cabin, but regardless, if an obese person wants to fly and is so large that they take up two seats do you think average individuals should subsidize the extra seat?  Or do you think that it is only fair that the obese person should pay for the space that they use. First Class and Business Class passengers pay for the extra space, why shouldn’t people who require two seats due to their size?

Personally, I feel that giving an additional seat to an obese person for free is enabling obese people to stay the way they are and to not take responsibility for their condition.  The more people are coddled, the more they won’t change.  Where will it end?

We are already paying higher insurance premiums because of obese people, does it make sense that we should now pay for their ‘right’ to a second seat on public transportation?  Do you think that average sized individuals should subsidize free seats for extremely obese passengers or do you think obese passengers should be required to purchase two seats?

Related Topics:

• Obesity in Children: Who’s to Blame?
• 7 Places They Should Ban Smoking
• Should Healthy People Always Set an Example?
• Should the Government Ban McDonald’s?
• Calculate your Lean Body Mass and Body Fat
• Calculate your BMI
  
• Canadian News Article: Canadian Obese People Buy Two Airplane Seats per Ticket