Strickland Fitness

It's really hard for many folks to stick with an exercise or diet program. It really takes strong willpower to stay committed to one's physical goals. As we head into May and closer towards summertime, here's a great piece on how to keep your willpower strong and steady as you start a new exercise program. – Make it a great day, Chad

By Christine Carter, PhD / Huffington Post

Who among us has not made a plan to get up in the morning and exercise, but then hit snooze one time too many, sleeping through our morning jog?

We may have been super-inspired by the incredible brain-boosting properties of exercise. We may have had every intention to start an exercise plan and stick to it. But then… We didn't. Our warm bed sucked us in. We'll exercise tomorrow.

What we need is willpower. Once we get in the habit of exercising — or of staying calm in the face of a toddler meltdown, of not checking our email after 5 p.m., or of doing anything else we want to have the resolve to do — we don't need to try so hard. But for now, because we are in the habit of pushing snooze — or yelling, or checking email compulsively all evening — we need self-discipline.

Here are five tips for strengthening your willpower.

1.Get enough sleep. That's seven to eight hours for adults, at least nine for teens, or 10 to 12 for elementary and middle school kids.

Sleep deprivation makes us susceptible to temptations like Facebook and that chocolate-covered cookie over there, for physiological reasons. Self-control takes a ton of brainpower, and when we are tired, our bodies don't tend to deliver enough glucose to our brain for it to get the willpower engine going.

2. Meditate for five minutes a day. Sit up straight and focus your attention on your breath. When your mind wanders, as it will, you'll be building willpower when you simply notice that your mind has wandered and you bring your attention back to your breath.

As Kelly McGonigal notes in her awesome book The Willpower Instinct, the worse you are at meditation, the better it is as an exercise for building self-control. Here's why: In order to check your impulsive tendency to snag that donut off the counter, you need to build self-awareness.

When you are aware of what you are doing (e.g., "I'm feeling tempted to scarf that down."), you're actually engaging the part of your brain you need for willpower, rather than letting your impulses take over. Meditation gives you practice at engaging your self-awareness; as a bonus, deep, slow breathing also helps strengthen your self-control.

3.Lay off the cocktails. Science of the blazingly obvious, I know, but face it: We often have a glass of wine right before we need willpower to make healthy choices at dinner. Alcohol lowers your blood glucose, which a series of studies shows can dramatically weaken your willpower. (You'd be better off drinking sugary soda before testing your will, although I'm not actually recommending that.)

Alcohol also reduces self-awareness, and it is self-awareness that we need most to bring us back to our goals. (See numbers 2 and 5.) Read the rest of this entry »

I wouldn't really say exercise makes one overeat as much as the extra activity and exertion might make one hungrier than normal. This piece highlights a couple of studies that show how exercise affects different people's brains. Interesting indeed. Please share and comment. – Best, Chad

By Gretchen Reynolds, NY Times

Some people respond to exercise by eating more. Others eat less. For many years, scientists thought that changes in hormones, spurred by exercise, dictated whether someone’s appetite would increase or drop after working out. But now new neuroscience is pointing to another likely cause. Exercise may change your desire to eat, two recent studies show, by altering how certain parts of your brain respond to the sight of food.

In one study, scientists brought 30 young, active men and women to a lab at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo for two experimental sessions, where they draped their heads in functional M.R.I. coils. The researchers wanted to track activity in portions of the brain known as the food-reward system, which includes the poetically named insula, putamen and rolandic operculum. These brain regions have been shown to control whether we like and want food. In general, the more cells firing there, the more we want to eat. To continue reading, please click HERE.

There are so many questions in regards to what we need to consume when working out. Should I hydrate more? What should I eat? How many times should I snack a day? This article is a great piece on the importance of snacking during workouts. Please read and comment. – Best, Chad.

Snacking during workouts may not improve performance

Shawn Radcliffe, Men's Fitness

If you’re headed out for a run or ride, you might be better off leaving the energy bars and performance gels behind. There’s little evidence showing that snacking during short workouts actually improves performance.

According to guidelines by the American College of Sports Medicine and other groups, athletes were encouraged to eat during exercise. Written by sports exercise and nutrition experts, a lot of it makes sense. For example, if you exercise, your body will need fluids, energy and other nutrients.

However, there’s a lot of contradictory information about what, how much and when to eat. For many light to moderate exercisers, a category most fitness-minded people fall into, this might mean ditching the belt filled with strawberry-flavored energy gel. “Most of us really do not need to keep eating during a race to maintain energy and stamina,” Dr. Nancy Rodriguez, an author on the paper, told the New York Times.

Because there are no set rules on eating and exercise, the best guideline is to look at your specific situation. Whether to eat during a workout depends upon your body—can you tolerate food during a run?—as well as the intensity and duration of your workout.

It also makes a difference if you are running in the morning on an empty stomach. After fasting all night, you will probably need to eat before, or possibly during, your workout.

For moderate exercise—typically under an hour—the research is mixed as to whether eating energy bars or drinks during a workout improves performance. The guidelines, though, say that a typical power drink during a one-hour workout is fine. Your best bet, though, is to eat a healthy meal after the workout.

If you exercise longer or multiple times a day, you will need a lot more energy. This may mean eating more than three meals, along with several snacks, a day. You can also eat late in your workout or have a substantial snack late at night.

Listen to your body. That’s your best guide. If you are exercising to lose weight, go easy on the energy supplements. They contain extra calories that you probably don’t need.

 

If you've come up with a New Year Resolution to lose weight or start to exercise, good for you!  Most people don't even make it to the resolution phase.  The problem is…by the time you got to Christmas this year, your resolution from last year seemed to have faded.  Here’s a trainer that’s got some good tips about how to come up with and keep your resolution.  Please comment and share. Best, Chad.

 

By Eric Schmalzried, exercise physiologist and personal trainer
Wilfred R. Cameron Wellness Center
www.wrcameronwellness.org

It’s that time of year again! New Year’s is the perfect time to set positive exercise goals for yourself. These tips can help you stick to your resolutions all year long.

1. Set SMART goals. Use the acronym SMART to assist you in setting goals. SMART reminds you to make your goals:

• Specific—clearly define the goal
• Measurable—use concrete criteria, such as a number, so you can monitor your progress
• Action-based —include an activity; focus on what you will actually be doing
• Realistic—make the goal relevant to you and firmly based in the reality of what you can accomplish
• Time-anchored—link the goal with a specific time frame

2. For best results, meet the minimum recommendations for exercise. The American College of Sports Medicine has set the following guidelines for exercise:

• Aerobic exercise should be performed at least three to five times per week. If you are exercising only three days per week, you should exercise vigorously for at least 25 minutes. If you are exercising five days per week, you should exercise at a moderate intensity for at least 30 minutes. You can also use a combination of vigorous- and moderate-intensity exercise
• Resistance training should be performed at least two to three times per week. Select an exercise for every major muscle group in the body, and perform at least one set of each exercise.
• Stretching exercises should be performed at least two to three times per week. Ten minutes is typically a sufficient time to stretch all the major muscle groups in the body.

3. Use available time to exercise. Do you feel like you have no time during the day to fit in exercise? Think again! Research shows that exercising for as little as 10 minutes in multiple bouts throughout the day provides many of the same benefits as exercising continuously for a longer duration. If you have a
short break at work, use the time to walk up and down the stairs or around the halls.

4. Try something new. If you are so bored with performing the same routine that you dread exercise, it’s time to mix it up. Exercise should be fun and invigorating, not dull. The New Year is an excellent opportunity to try a new class or type of exercise. If you are a frequent attendee of aerobics classes, try yoga or Pilates; if you are a runner, try swimming. There are so many different options available that you should never be bored! 

For more on this article, click here.

Did you overindulge this Thanksgiving?  Don't worry, a LOT of people did.  I hear about it every day when I'm training.  Here's a great article I found that addresses some of the things you can do from preventing it from happening again this Christmas.  Please read, comment, and share.  Best,  Chad.

By CAROLINE DOHACK-MCCRARY

 

Thanksgiving has come and gone. But even as the last of the pumpkin pie dwindles in its tin pan, the calendar is filling up with festivals, fundraisers, soirees, dinners and a few more big holidays. Time is at a premium, and decadent foodstuff abounds. The result? Diet and exercise often fall by the wayside.

But we’re here to tell you it’s OK. You say you indulged? We say, so what? A few diet strategies and a realistic workout plan will keep you chugging along so, come Jan. 1, you’re not facing an insurmountable resolution.

First, it’s time to abandon that “all or nothing” mentality. A single day of indulgence won’t blow your whole year. As Scottie Rawlings pointed out, that 5- to 10-pound holiday weight gain doesn’t occur overnight. Rather, it accumulates during that period of time between Halloween and Valentine’s Day, said Rawlings, a registered dietitian and diabetes educator at Cosmopolitan International Diabetes and Endocrinology Center.

Jen Talaski, a trainer at Anytime Fitness, seconds this. It takes 3,500 calories to put on a pound of fat tissue, she said, meaning you would have to eat 17,500 to 35,000 calories in addition to what you usually eat in a day to put on that much weight. The numbers on the scale the Monday after Thanksgiving can be misleading, though, and for this reason Talaski advises people against weighing themselves immediately after the holiday.

“What they don’t realize is that a lot of giving food is very salty, so they’re going to make you retain water. It is impossible to gain 5 pounds in one day even if you’ve been gorging yourself,” Talaski said.

LEAVING THE LEFTOVERS

Kristy Lang, a registered dietitian and diabetes educator at Boone Hospital Center, said planning for the rest of the season can help eliminate some unnecessary temptations.

“We all get that Holly Homemaker mindset. We want to really make people happy. We make too much, and that’s how we end up with all these leftovers. Minimize it by making four sides instead of eight,” Lang said.

That isn’t to say all leftovers are bad. Lang said leftover turkey or ham can easily become another healthful meal.

“You can turn it into sandwiches or use the meat in other dishes,” Lang said.

Leftover desserts can be divvied up and sent home with guests.

“If everybody takes home one slice, it’s not going to ruin anybody as far as eating habits go,” Lang said.

Lang said any lingering temptations are OK to keep around if you can finish them off in a controlled fashion, say eating one or two cookies a day. But if you can’t stop there?

“Some people might be better off throwing it away,” Lang said.

EATING SMART

To get through the rest of your holiday gatherings as healthfully as possible, Rawlings recommends looking at caloric intake as budgeting.

“Oftentimes, people know how much money they’re going to spend on Christmas more than what they know they’re going to eat at the next meal,” Rawlings said.

In some instances, it helps to look at which menu items you can have any time and which are truly special. Mashed potatoes, for example, are something you can eat year-round, Rawlings said, so instead of choosing that, go for some of your favorite, once-a-year menu items. And, she said, don’t feel guilty about it.

“If you’re going to give yourself permission to eat that pie, enjoy it,” Rawlings said.

As you enjoy those foods, take time to savor them. Some studies have shown food becomes less satisfying as you continue to eat.

“There’s been research on how different foods stimulate different parts of your bran and fire all those receptors off. The first three bites tend to be the most potent. If you think of three bites of any food, that’s a pretty small quantity. If you kept it to a size that might be three to four bites, you satisfy that craving you’ve had without having blown your whole healthy-eating mentality,” Lang said.

To balance out those sensible portions, Lang said to go for plenty of fruits and vegetables.

“Fill at least half or even three-quarters of your plate with any of that produce. Instead of making junk foods healthier, enjoy them but keep your quantities smaller,” Lang said.

FITTING IN FITNESS

In addition to busy schedules, increasingly icky weather can make exercise a chore this time of year.

Mason Stevens, a fitness instructor and certified personal trainer at Boone Hospital, said cultivating the right mindset can help make it easier. For Stevens, staying on track means drawing motivation from internal rather than external factors.

“Most people exercise to lose weight. ‘I want to exercise because I want to get healthy’ is still” an external factor. “If that’s our only motivator, we’re more likely to drop it,” Stevens said.

Instead of focusing on an end result, Stevens said to focus on the process of exercise. What feels good? What do you enjoy about an activity?

“Focus on the positives: It’s easier to breathe, easier to move,” Stevens said. “When you focus on that aspect of trying to get motivated, then it’s very hard to fail. There’s not some looming goal that is always over your head. You’re focused on how you’re doing right now, and it’s not an end result that you’re meeting.”

Talaski adds that setting realistic fitness goals is important.

“Maybe your goal this week isn’t to lose weight but to maintain it. Be realistic about what you’re asking of your body and mind. Don’t be afraid to readjust those health and fitness and weight-loss goals. Sometimes life does take priority over other things,” Talaski said.

In a similar vein, Stevens said to be realistic about what your body is capable of if you miss a few workouts.

“If you’re going to take some time off, you’re not going to be able to get right back where you were when you left off,” Stevens said. “We lose ground a lot quicker than we gain it.”

So if you take a week off to travel, scale back a bit when you restart your routine. Overdoing it can lead to injury and burnout, Stevens said.

Talaski said having a Plan B is especially important this time of year.

If you are used to going to the gym after work but suddenly find yourself swamped after 5, get up earlier and hit the gym in the morning.

“If you can get it done and out of the way early in the day, then you have time for that social calendar,” Talaski said.

If you’re used to running outside but find the weather too dreary, a gym membership or some workout videos might be a good change, Talaski said.  

For the rest of this article, please go here.