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Gratitude or Guilt

This time of year we have a tendency to overindulge. You will read lots of hints of how to stay on your diet–eat only turkey and vegetables

, etc, etc. How boring! I love stuffing and pumpkin pie. Thanksgiving without those treats would be depressing. You CAN enjoy the foods you love at Thanksgiving without blowing your diet or “cheating”. Here are a few strategies I’ve found that work:1. Enjoy the foods you REALLY love. Don’t feel like you have to try a “little of everything”. I’m not going to waste calories on foods I don’t absolutely love.

1. Start you day with a high protein breakfast. A smoothie is perfect. If you aren’t starving, you can choose the foods you want to eat and have an appropriate portion.
2.  Stay hydrated, especially if having alcoholic drinks. Dehydration can make you feel lethargic and thirst can be confused with hunger. Have a glass of water before you eat and one for every alcoholic drink you have.
3. Add some exercise to your day. Starting your day with a walk is a good way not only to get your metabolism revved but deal with the stress that comes so many times with family gatherings. (One year I walked to my mom’s–8 miles. It was a beautiful day and I had no guilt over eating my fill at dinner.) Gather the family for an after dinner walk or throw around the football.
4.  Balance your calories over 72 hours. Cut back a little the day before Thanksgiving and a little the day after and overall you will probably be in the right calorie range.
5.  Give to others. Some of my most memorable Thanksgivings have been serving meals to the homeless. Two years ago, Mandy and I delivered meals in the slums of San Francisco. The gratitude we received when we handed out a hot meal was overwhelming. (We also got lots of exercise carrying boxes of meals up flights of stairs.) My mom always invited people to our home at the holidays. If anyone didn’t have a place to go, they were welcomed to our house.

Let’s not forget why we celebrate. Be thankful for good food, family and friends. Gratitude and guilt are incompatible. May you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

What’s Your Five Year Plan?

“What’s your five year plan,” the doctor asked Helen.

“What do you mean, my five year plan, I’m 80.”

“Everyone needs a five year plan.  I think you need to start strength training.”

“WHAT!  I’m 80!”

“No excuses–let’s find you a trainer.”

That’s how I came to do strength training with 80-year-old Helen.  Helen had accepted that frailty, disease and disability were a natural part of the aging process, but Helen had a can-do attitude and was willing to give it a try.  I came to love and admire Helen’s spirit.  Helen and her husband traveled the world.  She had gotten to the point that if there were stairs on a tour, she would sit on a bench and wait for the others and bypass the cathedral or whatever site was on the agenda.  It was  a shame she had to always be on the sidelines because of the limitations of her body.

Helen had also given up going places by herself because if there were stairs

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, she wasn’t able to manage them.  As Helen became stronger, she lost her fear of going places by herself and became much more independent.

After strength training for two years, Helen slipped and fell and broke her hip.  The doctors were amazed how much muscle she had in her hips and legs.  In fact, they said any other 82 year old would probably be dead from such a fall.  But Helen was a warrior—when life knocked her down, she got right back up.

Helen called me one day very upset.  “They kicked me out of therapy,” she said.  “What do you mean–they kicked you out of therapy?”   I replied.  “The doctor approved me for twenty sessions and they kicked me out after only two sessions.  They said I met all the criteria of activity for an average 82-year-old.”  I had to laugh, “Well, Helen, they don’t understand that you’re not the average 82-year-old.”

When Helen was 84, she and I and two of my friends went and stayed at a villa in the south of France.  There was no more sitting on the sidelines for Helen on this trip!  She kept right up with the rest of us, even though we were all a good 30 years younger.

“Thank you,” Helen said at the end of our trip, “I never thought I could have so much fun again at my age.”

No, Helen, thank you.  You proved that even at the age of 80, a warrior doesn’t give up.

At 85, the doctor once again asked, “OK, Helen, what’s your five year plan?”

Everyone needs a five year plan—what’s yours?

Lifestyle Fitness

The streets of San Francisco make working out easy.  Visiting my daughter last week made me realize that where we live can have a huge impact on our fitness level.

A few month ago I bought the BodyMedia Fitness Tracker.  It has been a great tool.  Researching the different trackers available, I opted for the BodyMedia because it is the most scientifically accurate one on the market.  When I first started wearing it, I was shocked at how few calories I actually used even working out and making an effort to be active.  Unfortunately

, I live in a city that is not pedestrian friendly and jumping in the car to run errands has become a habit.

Wearing my BodyMedia in San Francisco, I was amazed at how many more calories I burned just going around the city.  I wasn’t trying to workout but walking everywhere I went, up and down the hilly streets, on and off the train, using the stairs at the Muni and staying in Mandy’s third floor walkup made it easy.

If, like me, you live in a “car city”, getting enough activity takes a concerted effort.

Never Too Old

I’m often asked can frail elderly people really get strong again and how old is too old to start a strength training program.  A study* of people over the age of 90 who where put on a strength training program had the following results.  They:

•  replaced about four pounds of lean (muscle) weight
• reduced about three pounds of fat weigh
• increased their leg strength by more than 80 percent
• increased their upper body strength by almost 40 percent
• enhanced their joint flexibility by 30 percent,
• improved the functional independence measure (FIM Score) by almost 15 percent
• exhibited better physical and mental fitness
• had more endurance
• experienced less low back pain
• lowered the risk of falls
• improved muscle power

The amazing thing is that these results were accomplished in just 14 weeks of strength training working out  only 15-20 minutes twice per week.  The exercises consisted of a five-machine Nautilus program and each exercise was performed for one set of 8 to 12 repetitions to the point of moderate muscle fatigue.  When 12 repetitions were completed in good form (slow movement speed and full movement range), the weightload was increased by about five percent.  

Avoid the pitfalls of becoming frail and elderly by starting a strength training program today.  But remember, even after 90, it’s never to late to get strong.

*Wayne L. Westcott

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, Ph.D., C.S.C.S, is Fitness Research Director at the South Shore YMCA in Quincy, MA.

7 Strategies to Breaking Free of Diet Addiction

Are you a diet-oholic?   There are strategies that we can implement to help us overcome the “Diet Addiction”.

1.  Eat mindfully.  Be aware of what you are eating and make each selection you “choice”.  Don’t beat yourself up if some days the selection is better than others.  Aim to eat healthfully 75% of the time.  Take responsibility that the choice is always up to you.

2.  Learn what healthy eating really is.   Eat a variety of fresh

, real food.

3.  Eat real food.  If you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it.  The best food choices don’t have a label.  Our bodies are made to use food, not chemicals.  I read the ingredient label first.  If the label takes up half the package, it probably has a lot of junk in it.

4.  Never eat anything with the word “diet” on the label.  This is another way of saying this product is loaded with crap.  I recently saw “Diet Water” on the store shelf.  As opposed to high calorie regular water?  Reading the label, I found that  it was loaded with artificial sweetener, artificial flavor and other chemicals.

5.  Never eliminate a food group from you diet.  Fat, protein and carbohydrates are called “essential nutrients” because they are all essential for good health.  Any diet that eliminates or extremely restricts any one of these groups is not a healthy diet.

6.  Don’t make anything off limits.  If you’re like me, if someone tells me I can’t have something, I want it all the more.  Give yourself permission to have the occasional treat and you will be surprised the cravings aren’t nearly as great.

7.  And the hardest one of all–don’t read the latest diet book from this weeks popular guru or turn on the TV when the newest “miracle” weight loss plan is announced.   You will only receive conflicting information, mis-information and end up more confused in the long run.

Food is to nourish our bodies, repair our cells, give us energy and most of all it is to be enjoyed.  If we can ignore the media and eliminate the “diet brain”, we will all be healthier and much happier.

7 Symptoms of a Diet-aholic

Are you addicted to diets?  Are you always looking for the next “miracle”?  Here are 7 symptoms that you may be a diet-aholic.

1.  You find yourself turning on Dr. Oz or other shows whenever the latest diet is featured or the newest diet/fitness guru is the guest.

2.  You pick up the magazines at the checkout that feature “lose weight fast” articles.

3.  Your bookshelf if overflowing with a collection of diet books–most of which have never been used because there is always a new once coming out.

4.  When you go on amazon.com it defaults to the diet section.

5.  You have a collection of supplements on the shelf promising to “melt fat”.  (If you could really “melt” fat

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, it seems like we’d all be standing in a puddle of melted lard.)

6.  You know all the lingo–no fat, low-fat, no carb, low carb.  high protein, glutton free and have tried most.

7.  You find yourself gravitating to items on the grocery store shelf with the “diet” on the label.  ( I recently saw “Diet Water”.  Since regular water has so many calories.)

Coming soon–7 Strategies for Overcoming being a Diet-aholicism

My Knees are Killing Me

I spent the weekend moving boxes and furniture up a flight of stairs.  Since I stay active, run and am up and down stairs all day, I was unprepared for the pain I felt in my knees that night?  What happened?  Then it dawned on my I had been carrying a lot of extra weight.  What does carrying just a few extra pounds do to your joints?  A recent study showed that one pound of excess weight equals four pounds of stress on the knees.   Even though I was carrying the excess weight for a short period of time I realized:

• The 10-20 pound boxes I was carrying was adding 40-80 pounds of extra stress on my knees,
• Walking on level ground, the force on your knees is the equivalent of 1½ times your body weight,
•  The force on each knee is two to three times your body weight when you go up and down stairs,
• It is four to five times your body weight when you squat to tie a shoelace or pick up an item you dropped.

No wonder my knees hurt!

Losing a few pounds can go a long way toward reducing the pressure on your knees — and protecting them. In one study, the risk of developing osteoarthritis dropped 50% with each 11-pound weight loss among younger obese women. For men who get their body mass index (BMI) down from 30 or higher to between 25 and 29.9

, knee osteoarthritis would decrease an estimated 20%. A similar change in women of the same age could cut the incidence of osteoarthritis of the knee by about 30%.

Research shows accumulated reduction in knee load for a 1-pound loss in weight would be more than 4,800 pounds per mile walked,” writes researcher Stephen P. Messier, PhD, of Wake Forest University in the July issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism. “For people losing 10 pounds, each knee would be subjected to 48,000 pounds less in compressive load per mile walked.”

Lighten up to lessen your joint pain.

The lies your scale tells

Do you ever get on the scale and feel like it’s yelling at you?  Does how your day go depend on the number on the scale?  But what does that number on the scale really mean?  The scale is not a good way to measure your fitness progress even though so much emphasis is put on weight loss.  The scale tells what the package weighs, it does’t tell what is in the package.  If you really are just interested in losing weight, that’s easy–cut off your leg.  Ridiculous, right?  What you may be losing when you show a drop on the scale may be just as essential.

Body weight consists of fat mass weight as well as the fat-free weight which is water, minerals, and proteins that make up muscles, connective tissues, organs and body fluids.  A person who has less fat and more muscle may actually weigh more according to the scale than a person who has a higher percentage of body fat and less muscle.  The goal for health and fitness should be fat loss, not simply weight loss.

Quick weight loss is due to loss of body water.  A pound of body water is equal to 16 ounces, or 2 cups of water.  A loss of as little as 2% body-water weight leads to dehydration, which causes fatigue

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, headache, sluggishness and impaired performance.   Muscle consists of approximately 70% water.  A low carb diet is like taking a sponge and wringing it out.  When carbs are eaten, the fluid is replaced in the muscle and the weight is regained, leading to dieting frustration.

A drop in weight on the scales may also be caused by a loss in bone mineral density.   Research has shown that low carbohydrate/high protein diets may lead to a decrease in bone mineral density, increasing the risk for osteoporosis.

Losing lean muscle tissue will also show as a weight loss on the scale.  Lean muscle takes a lot more calories to maintain than fat.  When muscle is lost, calorie needs decrease which leads to yo-yo dieting.  Go back to eating the calories you did before the diet and you will gain back the weight you lost plus more because you now need fewer calories.   Muscle loss also leads to decreased energy and strength.  To maintain muscle while on a weight loss program, exercise is key.  Any program that advertises “no exercise necessary” is setting you up to lose muscle and leads to yo-yo dieting.

The bottom-line is that the scale is only a tool, and not a very good one, to gage fitness.   Body fat testing is a much better way to show your progress.  There are many inexpensive body fat scales on the market and many facilities offer hydro-static weighing as well as the Body Pod which uses air displacement.  An even easier method is a tape measure and a tight pair of jeans.  Don’t get hung up on the number on the scale.  Go by how you look and feel.

Love Your Fat

When was the last time you looked in the mirror and loved all of you–even the excess fat. Probably never. You may have cursed it, hated it and vilified it. How has that worked for you? Did it help boost your self-esteem? Did it motivate you to make long-term change? Did it help you love and accept yourself?

To make life-long healthy lifestyle changes, the first and most important step is to know where you are starting from, accept yourself, and acknowledge what actions and behaviors  got you there. You probably didn’t wake up one morning and there it was.

Let’s look at where it came from:

Comfort–Food can be a great source of comfort. It can bring back childhood memories, sooth hurts and fill the void of loneliness.

Stuff feeling–Have you ever been so mad you could bite someone’s head off but grabbed a bag of chips instead?

Celebration–Food is central in many celebrations and holidays. Overindulgence has become the norm.

Protection–A layer of fat can be a shield from unwanted attention. Obesity is often a byproduct of sexual abuse.

Being invisible–Being invisible is being safe.  People usually don’t pay much attention to an overweight person and there are less expectations.

Laziness–Exercise is hard.  Watching TV and surfing the net is easier.  Bad habits are hard to break and new habits take effort to form.  Cooking healthy meals takes time and planning.  Fast food is convenient and easy.

Misinformation–All of the so called diet and fitness experts give conflicting information.  It’s almost impossible to figure out what is true.  I Googled weight loss and got over 577 million hits.  Diet got over 500 million.  Fitness got over a billion hits.  That’s a lot of information!

What has your fat done for you?

Carrying excess weight has actually had some benefits.  Under that layer of fat are strong bones and a large muscle mass.  But carrying the excess fat has also increased your risk for heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke and many types of cancer.

It’s time to say goodbye.  Fat may have been your friend for a lot of years, but that friend can hurt you.  It’s time to move on to healthier ways to deal with your emotions.  Allow yourself to express your feelings instead of stuffing them with food.  Find ways to celebrate without overindulging.  Allow yourself to be seen and shine.  Find an exercise plan that you can enjoy.  Take time to try some new

, healthy recipes.

Most of all, don’t beat yourself up for the path you’ve taken up to this point.  Life is about the journey and the  lessons learned.   Enjoy your journey and start down the path to a healthier lifestyle today.

The Secret to Being a Warrior Not a Wimp

I told myself I was crazy to do this again.  After all, I’d proven that I could do it, so why did I feel the need to run the Big Sur Half Marathon for a second time?   At least when clients tried to give me the excuses of  “I’m too old.”  “I just can’t do what I did when I was young

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,” I have set an example that even at 60 and not a great runner, I did the Big Sur Half Marathon–twice.

I did not go in to the race this year with the same confidence as I did last year.  I didn’t feel like I trained nearly as hard, even though I was running faster.  My head just wasn’t in it.  I really thought about bowing out this year.  My daughter wasn’t going to be running it, so I was on my own.  Quitting seemed like a viable option in the short term, so why didn’t I quit?  I knew if I quit, I would be letting down the people who were rooting for me and believed in me, but most of all, I knew I would be letting myself down.  Quitting when the going gets tough can become a habit I didn’t want to fall into.  How could I encourage other women to be warriors if I was a wimp?

The morning of the race, I dragged myself out of bed and headed down to the starting line before the sun even came up.  I was thinking, “I don’t know if I can do this,”  but I kept giving  myself a pep talk to just give it my best no matter what the outcome.  Heading to the starting corrals, the adrenaline was infectious.  The sun was coming up and it was turning out to be a gorgeous day.  I made up my mind to enjoy the beautiful day and breathtaking scenery.

By the time I got to the starting line, I was feeling pretty good.  Coming up to mile one, I wondered why I was out of breath, then realized I was running faster then my best runs.  I got into my rhythm and started enjoying myself.  The hills didn’t seem nearly as bad as I’d built them up in my mind to be.  Last year I felt like I was going to die going up some of the elevations, but this year I felt really good!  I crossed the finish line and realized I’d knocked off almost ten minutes from last year’s time.

It would have been easy to quit, and I seriously thought about it.  If I had, I would have missed out on the sense of accomplishment crossing that finish line gave me.  When things are tough and look impossible, that’s the time to give it your best and not worry about the outcome.  After all, if you’ve done your best, that’s all anyone can expect and reason to celebrate.

I shudder to think what the psychological effect would have been had I quit.  I would have felt like a total wimp.  What is the difference between a wimp and a warrior?  Perseverance!   A warrior doesn’t give up when the going gets tough.  A warrior understands that you can’t fail unless you give up.  No matter what challenges are ahead of you, as long as you don’t give up, you’re a warrior.  To other people, my time for the race would seem ridiculously slow, but I did the best for me, and that’s all that counted.  Comparing yourself to other’s accomplishments is self defeating.  To be a warrior, just do your best and stick it out to the end.