Just a reminder that Saturday is the last day to come in for your post weigh-in for The New Year New You challenge and be eligible for the 6-month Fitness Center membership.  The weigh-in hours are:

today (Thursday) - till 7 PM

Friday – 7 AM to 7 PM

Saturday – 7 AM to 2 PM

 

There haven’t been a lot of returnees, as of this writing, so your chances of winning are pretty good.  But you got to come back in and weigh-in.   

 

Fit Tip

Researchers from the Imperial College London have found that people who drink one serving of sugary soda per day are 22% more likely to develop diabetes than people who consume one serving or less per month.  Bottom line is sugary soft drinks have no nutritional value and can raise the risk for developing type 2 diabetes. 

Fit Tip #12

Fit Tip

Did you know that your resting heart rate may predict your lifespan?  A study out of Copenhagen has found that healthy men had a mortality increase of 16% for every 10-beat-per-minute increase in their resting heart rate.  The study, published in Heart, monitored 5,249 healthy men from 1971 to 2011.  Here are the findings:

- men with resting heart rates of 71 to 80 beats per minute were 51% more likely to die than men with resting heart rates of 50 beats a minute or less; and

- men with resting heart rates of 81 to 90 beats per minute were twice as likely to die than those at 50 beats per minute.    

 

It’s a good bet that these findings would be applicable to women, as well.  Regular exercise lowers resting heart rate as it strengthens the heart muscle and improves cardiovascular function.  Want to live longer?  Exercise on a consistent basis.  That means at least 3 days each week.     

 

See you next week. 

 

The SUMMER SLIMDOWN begins on June 17th with weigh-ins the week of June 10th. 

A Success Story

Boy do I have a success story to tell.  I had a couple in their mid-20s come in the other day to weigh-in and get re-measured for their body fat percentages as they are both committed to trimming down and getting in shape. 

 

Since the initial weigh-in back in January, he has lost 12 1/2 pounds.  His body fat % is down 3.7%, fat weight loss is 10.5 pounds and lean body weight (everything else except fat) is down 2 pounds.  She is down 14 pounds on the scale with a % body fat loss of 3.5%.  Her fat weight is down 9.7 pounds and lean body weight is down 4.3 pounds.   

 

They cut out a lot of the artificial sugars from their diet, eat more natural foods and eliminated most processed foods.  They are also now exercising, combining cardio with strength training.  

 

The key is that they’ve made a commitment and are keeping to their plan.  They’re not killing themselves with the eating or activity, just keeping it consistent.  As I’ve said before, slow and steady wins the race. 

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The post weight-ins for the New Year New You challenge will take place in the Fitness Center at High Point Regional on these days and times:

April 29^th through May 4th
Monday through Friday – 7 AM to 7 PM
Saturday – 8 AM to 2 PM, Sunday – noon to 4 PM

Please make every effort to come back in and weigh-in!!

Fit Tip #10

What a great time of year!  It’s warmer.  The days are getting longer.  The dogwoods are coming out.  No excuses to getting outside and getting active.

 

Yard work is an excellent way to combine stretching and strengthening, and even a little cardio as well.  And what better time of year to spruce up the yard.  Mulching the flower beds, as an example, will definitely burn some calories (approximately 10 or so calories per minute for a 170 lbs. person) and it’ll make you feel some muscle groups you didn’t know you had for a few days afterward.  It’s almost equivalent to jogging at a 10-minute mile pace or playing singles tennis.

 

Make sure you start off easy though or you’ll really have a tough time getting out of bed the next morning.  Use your legs when pitchforking the mulch into the wheel barrel and when lifting the barrel off the ground.  Use small loads at first and as you warm-up you can go macho on it.

 

Working in the garden is also a great way to include physical activity into your daily routine.  It’s equivalent to walking at a 4-mph pace and will burn off about 6 calories/min. for that same 170 lbs. person.  And won’t it look nice when everything is in bloom!?

 

The primary muscle groups used while gardening are the biceps in the front, upper arm and the quads in the front of the thighs.  To see what other muscles are involved go to  http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xeamqv_learn-about-the-muscles-used-in-gar_tech.   

  

Stretching prior to doing yard work is advisable as it will reduce the potential for injury and get the blood flowing throughout the body.  This will reduce, somewhat, the initial stress to the heart.  Afterward, stretching will reduce the soreness you may typically feel the next day or two and will help to enhance flexibility.  Bob Anderson, in his stretching book, offers a good 4-minute routine to do before and afterward.  You can access it here, http://www.shelterpub.com/_fitness/_stretching/gardening.html.

 

With the longer, warmer, days here go outside and get in touch with Mother Nature.  Stick your hands in the dirt and plant something.  Then step back and watch it grow.  You’ll feel good you did.  And, it’s good for you!  

Fit Tip #9

BMI and heart disease

 

For every 5 point increase in body mass index (BMI), there is a 23% increase in heart disease incidence.  This, from a University of Oxford study who follower 1.2 million women over a 10 year period. 

 

BMI utilizes a formula of your weight in pounds divided by your height in inches divided by your height in inches again, and then multiplying by 703.  You can also just go online and type in BMI and get a ton of sites with BMI charts (like the one below) and/or formulas where you just plug in your info that makes life a whole lot simpler.

 

A score of 25 to 29.9 indicates that you are overweight and over 30 obese.  Two additional rankings represent morbidly obese at a BMI over 40 and super obese over 50!

 

So, according to the study, if your BMI increases from say a score of 23 to 28 over a period of time, your risk for heart disease goes up 23%.  As a matter of fact, the stdy showed that one in eleven middle aged women, with an average BMI of 21, will be admitted to a hospital or will have died from heart disease between the ages of 55 to 74.  The risk of disease and death progressively increases with BMI so that one in six obese women, with an average BMI of 34, will be admitted or die.

 

The leader in the study, Dr. Dexter Canoy, expalined, “The risk of developing heart disease increases even with small incremental increases in BMI, and this is seen not only in the heaviest but also in women who are not usually considered obese.  Small changes in BMI, together with leading a healthy lifestyle by not smoking, avoiding excess alcohol consumption, and being physically active could potentially prevent the occurrence of heart disease for a large number of people in the population.”

 

I’m sure these results could be applied to men as well. 

 

Related to this, another report in the American Heart Association’s journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, researchers analyzing runners and walkers found that walking briskly can lower your risk of high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes as much as running can. 

 

 So lace up those walking shoes and hit the pavement to keep those BMIs in check along with your risk for heart disease!!       

Fit Tip #8

Understanding the Catabolic State

 

Most people in an attempt to lose weight will either fast, skip meals, and/or drop calorie counts way down.  When you do this, however, your body starts to go into what’s known as catabolism or a breakdown of tissue.  The tissue that is impacted is muscle as the body literally eats away at itself in an attempt to find stored energy to function.  Prolonged catabolism leads up to fatigue, low energy, and a weakened immune system, so a higher susceptibility to illness.    

 

Now, as has been discussed in the free workshops we’ve offered and in other fit tips, you don’t want to lose muscle as muscle is a calorie burner.  You lose muscle and you decrease your ability to burn calories during the day, at rest! 

 

You also, depending on how much muscle tissue is catabolized, set yourself up for some serious illness.  One of the by-products of muscle breakdown is ketones, which are poisonous to the body.  If you develop enough ketones in the body, you poison yourself.  That’s why folks on low calorie diets need to have their blood checked every now and then just to make sure that they’re not doing themselves in.

 

The best way to prevent catabolism is through proper nutrition.  Start by having a good breakfast each and every morning as the body has not fueled itself during the night and you’ll need to give it some nutrients quickly in order to get out of the catabolic state.  Never skip breakfast!

 

Then eat small meals throughout the day, every 2 to 3 hours.  This will keep the body fueled and actually raise your metabolism a bit, which also helps to burn a few more calories.  The food you need to consume is carbohydrate and protein.  Carbohydrate to help keep the blood glucose and liver glycogen levels maintained so the body has fuel to go on.  Protein to help build (anabolism) muscle tissue.

 

Exercise, especially if moderate to intense, will actually place the body in a catabolic state.  Muscle is broken down and blood glucose and liver glycogen levels are depleted.  A post exercise meal of carbohydrate and protein consumed within 30-minutes of the end of the exercise session will slow down the catabolism and enhance anabolism.  Choices might include a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or apple slices with peanut butter, or a protein shake as examples. 

 

If you’re going for a slow walk, the post exercise meal does not apply.  The exercise session would need to be moderate to intense.

 

The bottom line is that you need to fuel the body right throughout the day so that you don’t put yourself into a catabolic state.  A good breakfast, smaller meals spread out every 2 to 3 hours and a quick nutritious snack after a good workout will help maintain anabolism.  And that, my friends, will help make you lean.    

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We do have Nutrition counseling and packages available.  If interested, contact The Fitness Center at 878-6221. 

Fit Tip #7

Happy Spring!!  Now all we need is the warm weather.

 

We had a great turnout last night for the Concerning Women Seminar Series.  About 90 folks came in to listen to me ramble on about diets, exercise and weight loss.  We had a lot of fun and some good information exchanged.  If you’re not currently, you should take advantage of the educational programs the hospital offers throughout the year.  You can find out what’s going on by going to  http://www.highpointregional.com. 
      

Don’t forget about the COPD and Your Sleep workshop, this Friday, March 22 at 12 noon in the Fitness Center.  Dr. Ejazz, Pulmonologist from Cornerstone will be our speaker.  The 1-hour session is free.  Call 878-6221 to reserve a seat.

 

Fit Tip #7

HEALTH magazine, back in November, identified 100 Best Diet Tricks Ever from RDs, MDs, psychologists, trainers, celebs, and people who have been there done that.  I’d like to highlight a dozen of these for you:

- Eat breakfast.  It’ll energize you for the day and keep your diet in check.

- Eat at least 80 percent things that grow and no more than 20 percent things that walk.

- Don’t blow off meals – you’ll lose 8 more pounds on average in a year.

- Put the soda down and step away.  Regular soda drinking may make muscles less likely to burn fat.

- If you’re not hungry enough to eat an apple, you’re not hungry.

- Eat slowly by using chopsticks or your non-dominant hand.

- Cut out drinks with calories – juice, lemonade, and hardest of all, after work wine.

- Eat protein at every meal.  It keeps you full longer and burns calories as it digests. 

- Finish eating three hours before bedtime.  Your metabolism slows down when you sleep so you shift from fat burning to fat storage.

- Brushing my teeth after dinner makes me less likely to eat again before I go to bed.

- Always grocery shop on a full stomach and with a written list.

- Many people have a “healthy” food, like almond butter that they tend to overeat – at which point it stops being healthy.  Know yours and keep it out of the house. 

Fit Tip #6

Halfway!  How’s the weight loss coming? 

 

I don’t know if you saw the latest post I put up on Facebook this morning.  Well, if you’re worried about losing your cognitive functioning as you get older, there’s good news.  Exercise, at least 150 minutes each week, seems to have a positive effect on memory, learning, attention, and reasoning.  Check it out on the Get Healthy High Point facebook page.  Just click on the icon.

 

The Fitness Center will be offering a COPD and Your Sleep workshop on Friday, March 22 at 12 noon.  It’s free and open to the public.  Dr. Ejazz, Pulmonologist from Cornerstone will be our speaker.  Call 878-6221 to reserve a seat.  Bring a friend.

 

The YWCA is offering an ongoing Arthritis Foundation Water Fitness Class to all get Healthy High Point participants.  The sessions are Mondays (12-12:45 PM), Wednesdays (12-12:45 PM), and Fridays (9-9:45 AM) and the fee is $25/month.  You can sign-up at any time.  Sign-up and pay for the class at the YWCA’s front desk.

 

Fit Tip
Gallup came out with their 2013 Well-Being Index last week and the state of North Carolina fell 5 spots from 30 to 35.  That ranks us in the bottom third in the U.S.!  That’s not good.

 

The top 5 states were Hawaii, Utah, Minnesota, Colorado, and Montana.  Compared to residents of low well-being states (which we’re one of), residents of these elite 5:

- rate their lives much better, today and in the future

- have better emotional health, including much lower clinically diagnosed depression and daily sadness

- have much lower obesity

- carry substantially reduced disease burden, including lifetime high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, heart attack incidences and chronic physical pain

- enjoy their jobs more

- smoke a lot less, but exercise much more

 

What was interesting was that these elite 5 were in with other states that had recorded the lowest adult obesity rates.  On the other hand, eight of the ten bottom states who scored the lowest in the well-being index, recorded the highest rates of adult obesity.  Do you think there’s a connection?

 

We need to do better!   

Fit Tip #5

Almost halfway through the New Year New You challenge.  How are you doing?!

 

This weekend is daylight savings.  Don’t forget to “spring ahead” on Saturday night, which means we’re going to lose an hour sleep!  The silver lining is that the days will be longer and that means more time to spend outdoors exercising.  And the warmer weather’s going to start settling in as well.  A great time of year.

 

Fit Tip

While we’re on the topic of sleep, let’s dabble into its importance.  Sleep is one of those healthy lifestyle factors that you want to pay attention too.  It’s kind of like drinking water.  Something many of us take for granted and don’t really think about, but can have a negative impact in the way we feel if we’re not getting enough.

 

And unfortunately, many folks are not getting enough sleep.  They’re averaging less than 6 hours a night.  Research suggests that adults need at least seven to eight hours of sleep each night to be well rested.  Here are some hints that you may be sleep deprived: 

• Need an alarm clock in order to wake up on time
• Rely on the snooze button
• Have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning
• Feel sluggish in the afternoon
• Get sleepy in meetings, lectures, or warm rooms

• Get drowsy after heavy meals or when driving
• Need to nap to get through the day
• Fall asleep while watching TV or relaxing in the evening
• Feel the need to sleep in on weekends
• Fall asleep within five minutes of going to bed

Chronic sleep loss can have an impact on your health.  The Harvard Women’s Health Watch suggests six reasons to get enough sleep:

1. Learning and memory: Sleep helps the brain commit new information to memory through a process called memory consolidation. In studies, people who’d slept after learning a task did better on tests later.
2. Metabolism and weight: Chronic sleep deprivation may cause weight gain by affecting the way our bodies process and store carbohydrates, and by altering levels of hormones that affect our appetite.
3. Safety: Sleep debt contributes to a greater tendency to fall asleep during the daytime. These lapses may cause falls and mistakes such as medical errors, air traffic mishaps, and road accidents.
4. Mood: Sleep loss may result in irritability, impatience, inability to concentrate, and moodiness. Too little sleep can also leave you too tired to do the things you like to do.
5. Cardiovascular health: Serious sleep disorders have been linked to hypertension, increased stress hormone levels, and irregular heartbeat.
6. Disease: Sleep deprivation alters immune function, including the activity of the body’s killer cells. Keeping up with sleep may also help fight cancer.

So what to do:

 

Keep a regular sleep schedule

- set a regular bedtime

- wake up at the same time

- nap to make up for lost sleep, but do it early in the day and keep it to about 30-minutes

 

Create a relaxing bedtime routine

- keep noise down

- keep the bedroom cool

- make sure your bed is comfortable

 

Eat right and get regular exercise

- stay away from big meals at night

- avoid alcohol before bed

- cut down on caffeine

- avoid drinking too many liquids in the evening

- quit smoking

- avoid high intensity exercise later in the day

 

Sleep is important for a healthy lifestyle.  Hope these tips help.  I apologize, in advance, to any teachers out there.   

Fit Tip #4

A few commercials if I may:

March is Nutrition Awareness Month and The Fitness Center is very happy to announce that we will be adding Nutrition Services to our program options (see attached flyer).  We offer individual nutrition counseling with our Registered Dietitian to help with weight loss, weight gain, improving a medical condition with diet, or just general healthy eating.  We also have a Nutrition Package and a Nutrition and Exercise Package available.  You can call The Fitness Center at High Point Regional at 878-6221 for more information or to sign-up.  You do not have to be a member to partake in this service.

 

The YWCA is offering an ongoing Arthritis Foundation Water Fitness Class (see attached flyer) to all Get Healthy High Point participants.  The sessions are Monday (12-12:45 PM), Wednesday (12-12:45 PM), and Friday (9-9:45 AM) and the fee is $25/month.  You can sign-up at any time as the program is on-going.  Sign-up and pay for the class at the YWCA’s front desk.

 

Mark your calendars for March 19th as I will be presenting Diet 101, Fact vs. Fiction as part of the Concerning Women Seminar Series (this flyer also attached) that High Point Regional offers monthly.  The event is free, but registration is required.  Please call 336-878-6888 to reserve your seat.  
    

Fit Tip

Interesting study just came out from the University of South Carolina comparing daily calorie burn in unemployed women in 1965 vs. 2010.  Women’s waistlines have been expanding since the 1960s and it was suggested that it might be linked to less time spent on active housework and more time sitting in front of the TV or computer.

 

Time-use diaries were reviewed to determine how thousands of employed and unemployed women spent their days.  Here are the findings.

In 1965, the average woman:

- spent 25.7 hours a week cleaning, cooking, and doing laundry; and

- spent 8 hours sitting and watching TV

 

in 2010, the average woman:

- spent 13.3 hours a week cleaning, cooking, and doing laundry; and

 spent 16.5 hours sitting and watching TV or their computers

The study suggests that women (I’m sure the same can be said about men) have exchanged the time once spent in active pursuits for sedentary time.  If indeed these numbers are accurate, the active time has been cut in half while the sedentary time has doubled.  So yes, that would make sense as to why waistlines are growing.  Expanding waistlines equate to more belly fat and that’s a prescription for increased risk for chronic disease.

 

I go back to a study I once read that said that if the average American adult (this goes for both genders) were to sit 2 to 3 hours less a day, they would burn off 6 1/4 pounds in a year’s time. . . and we all know how quickly a year goes by!  This USC study adds more credence to the negative consequences of inactivity. 

 

We are definitely becoming a more sedentary society.  Technology has helped us in that pursuit.  The antidote is to bring back the amount of time spent being physically active in our day-to-day lives and better food choices.  Three good opportunities above to help you in that endeavor!