New Years Mindset for Resolution Results

If you are like most people, regular exercise and healthy eating is more of a chore than a welcome part of your day. It feels like work, and most likely you find reasons not to follow through on your intention to exercise or prepare a healthy meal, or you find yourself doing yo-yo dieting or yo-yo exercising.

Instead of becoming frustrated, feeling guilty or giving up on fitness when you fail to stay on track, you can change your mindset about what it really takes to have a healthy lifestyle. You can break the rules without any guilt and create a better way to get and stay healthy and fit that keeps you motivated. With a change in perspective, you’ll develop a positive attitude and discover it is actually quite easy to make healthier choices and stick with your fitness routines. Here’s how to do that.

3 steps to Change Your Mindset
Become conscious when you make choices that don’t honor your body or yourself. For example, be aware when you overeat or eat food that doesn’t feel good to you physically. Notice when you choose not to exercise or exercise to the point of overdoing it. A great way to get started with this is to observe for one week all the times you start to feel full. This is eye-opening for most people.

When you do this, do not judge yourself, just notice with interest that it is happening and become curious about why that might be. If you judge yourself, you will see things as good or bad, all or nothing, black or white, and you won’t be able to see what is really driving your behavior.

Consider what is driving your choices and what you can learn from them. Assume you have a good reason worth understanding. Then you can be open to what the issue is, what good reason you have for doing what you did, and what strategies you can put into place that will help you reach your goals.

Most of the time, we sabotage our good intentions because we think we have limited or very rigidly defined options. This comes from dieting and fitness programs that specify what is and is not allowed and expect full compliance. Few people can do these well or stick with them, and the good news is there are many ways to get fit and healthy that are more realistic and enjoyable.

If you find you didn’t go to the gym, take a moment to consider why that is. Perhaps you don’t like going to the gym. If so, what else would you enjoy that gets your heart rate up and moving? What sounds like fun, would be motivating to be a part of, or you’ve done in the past and enjoyed? Perhaps you weren’t prepared to go to your class. What would help you be more prepared? Maybe you need a partner. How can you find one?

If you overate, why might that be? Maybe you didn’t get enough to eat earlier and you were so ravenous that you overate. If that happens frequently, how can you get a snack between meals or eat enough during the day. Perhaps you felt out of control because it was a food you think you shouldn’t have, creating a feeling of deprivation. If so, allow yourself to have that food in moderation, so it doesn’t have power over you. Maybe you kept eating, hoping to be satisfied or feel better, only to feel worse. In that case, find a way to eat what you enjoy in a healthier way so you are satisfied. You will eat much less naturally.

Choose foods or fitness activities that feel good to you physically. And start off easy so you can have success from week to week. If you set a goal you know you can reach because it is realistic, and then you reach it, you will be encouraged and self-motivated to do even more. One small step leads to more steps, and you won’t be fighting it but pushing yourself because it will feel so good. The goal isn’t perfection; it is to increase how good you feel physically and about yourself.

For healthy eating: Find ways to eat what you enjoy in a healthier way, and do this in stages. You don’t have to change everything in a day. You can start with breakfast or start with dinner, and begin using healthier ingredients when preparing foods you already enjoy. For example, make pizza with whole grain crust, low sodium tomato sauce, lower-saturated fat cheese, turkey sausage, and more vegetables. Choose healthier things that make the pizza taste yummy to you.

For regular exercise: Choose activities that get you active and be open to all the possible ways you can do that, from dancing to power yoga, Wii Sport to tennis, or kick boxing to aqua aerobics. There is so much to choose from when you open your mind to more than what you find in a gym.

When you change your mindset from Being Good and trying to measure up to doing what Feels Good to you and your body, you can finally succeed at having a fit and healthy lifestyle you can live with on your own terms. And you’ll be amazed to discover you will naturally choose healthier options because they feel better, and you’ll become motivated to do more than you ever thought possible when you set yourself up for success week to week.

The Best Time to Exercise? Any Time You Can

Clients frequently ask when is the best time to exercise, and while some experts will tell you first thing in the morning, the truth is whenever you can fit it in. I once made the mistake of telling a client that mornings were best, and when her schedule didn’t accommodate time for being active until the evenings she felt like it wasn’t worth doing, got depressed and sabotaged her goals. That wasn’t my intention, and fortunately she got back on track the next week without a problem.

If you create a rule that narrows your chance for success, you are setting yourself up to fail. And that isn’t necessary. Instead you can be more open and set yourself up to easily succeed. Any time that you can make for being active, whether it is 10 minutes throughout the day, longer periods a few times a week or just in the evenings is just fine.

Up until recently I used to always make time in the morning for my fitness activities, but lately it just isn’t happening and I’ve had to adjust to fitting it into my evenings. The toughest part about that is making sure I don’t let other plans get in the way. Last night I was in my basement at 9:30, where I am lucky to have a mini gym set up, and doing a functional training routine. That isn’t ideal, but I knew I’d feel worse if I didn’t do it. My body gets antsy when I go without some type of exercise, so late as it was I was glad to be there.

What do you do when you find yourself having to exercise at night? Skip it or find a way to make it work?

8 Strategies for Regular Exercising

Exercise. For most people that word conjures up unpleasant thoughts and feelings because of past experiences when they struggled with exercise or got hurt, or what they believe it takes to meet the minimum requirement of exercise to lose weight that doesn’t seem realistic for their current lifestyle. For others, it reminds them of a time when they loved being active and having the benefits associated with being fit and healthy. What does the word exercise bring up for you?

It is easy to assume that when you don’t exercise regularly, you are somehow lazy, bad, undisciplined or a couch potato. These are judgments that don’t reflect the real reasons for not exercising. The real reasons are likely tied to one of eight different obstacles, that once understood can be addressed with strategies.

These obstacles are: low motivation, low priority planning, too much too soon, compliance perfectionism, inflexible beliefs, emotional rebellion, derailment resistance and extreme associations.

To create a regular exercise routine in your life, pay attention to what feels best to you, what motivates you and what is really getting in the way of being consistent. We are all different, and our reasons for not exercising are all valid. Respect that you have a good reason and try to understand what you really need to do to get moving and to develop a consistent exercise lifestyle.

Read a longer version of this post for details about the 8 obstacles

Recognizing and Treating Tendinosis - Lessons Learned

This winter I have been dealing with an overuse injury that resulted in tennis elbow. At first I wasn’t sure why my elbow was bothering me because there was nothing in particular that I recalled doing to cause me pain. Then after a few weeks of taking high doses of ibuprofen to no avail, I realized what had happened and I learned an invaluable lesson just in the nick of time.

I had spent hours on end vacuuming up leaves with an old leaf vacuum mulcher that required me to hold the nozzle rigidly in place as I vacuumed. Without realizing it, I had overexerted my forearm muscle and created micro tears in the tendon, and that is how I had woken up one day with a painful elbow injury.

I then had another ah-ha. I remembered reading an article about tennis elbow and realized I was doing all the wrong things. I didn’t have tendinitis any longer – if I had ever had it. I had tendinosis, and the worst thing for that is ibuprofen. I was aggravating my situation and making it impossible for the tendon to heal. I share all this, so you can learn, as I did, what to do for tendinosis.

I couldn’t find the article so I started searching the Internet. My memory was right. Tendinosis frequently occurs from overusing a muscle, and it is not the result of inflammation, as tendinitis is. Tendinosis is a chronic degeneration of the tendon due to the failure of proper healing and the loss of collagen. Everything I read said there was no easy or effective treatment. The type of collagen in the tendon is totally different from what is in skin and cartilage, so a collagen supplement won’t help. Instead I learned most people never fully heal. E-gads!

Fortunately, I stumbled across one site that said one way to treat tendinosis was to pump fresh blood into the tendon in order to bring fresh nutrients and reactivate the generation of collagen. The suggested procedure was costly and required a unique series of injections. Yet I knew of an easy way to pump fresh blood into the area. Apply ice for 2 minutes, heat for 2 minutes, ice for 2 minutes and end with heat. I did this 5 times a day for almost 2 weeks before my pain started to diminish. Gradually I went from 5 to 3 to 1 times a day. My pain is nearly gone, and I have been able to add forearm physical therapy exercises and regain full use of my arm.

This was a close call, and I consider myself very lucky to read and know enough to help myself. I hope this proves to be helpful to you or someone you know dealing with tendinosis.

Conquer Exercise Resistance - Open Tele-Program

I’m offering a one hour open call on How to Address Exercise Resistance
Join me Wednesday, July 23rd at 8pm ET.

Do you plan to exercise but then don’t do it?
Do you wish there was a better way to stick with your routine and reach your goals?

Join me to learn what will help you exercise regularly and feel good about it.

We will talk about:
- What makes exercise so hard
- How to change your mindset
- How to select motivating activities
- How to get yourself started
- Tips for just doing it
- Ways to measure success
- How to stick with your routine

There will also be time to answer your questions.

Click here to register for dial-in details.

Get the help you need to get started and stick with your fitness routine.
If you missed this event, get the recording afterwards here

Bursting is the New Interval Training

There seems to be a new term floating around called bursting. Have you heard about it? I was asked about it when I did my tele-class on metabolism, and it is worth understanding.

Bursting is another term for interval training, commonly done to get more out of aerobic conditioning. Interval training includes short “bursts” of high intensity effort followed by periods of low intensity recovery, which is repeated a number of times. High intensity is generally the point when you can’t hold a conversation.

These periodic bursts overloads your cardiovascular (circulatory and respiratory) and skeletal (bone) systems, which is actually how they get stronger and more fit. Bursts also get your heart rate up higher than if you were aerobic in an extended steady state, which helps you burn more calories in a shorter period of time.

You can’t sustain higher intensities for very long, nor do you want to. It would be too hard on your body. Instead short bursts are typically followed by longer periods of recovery, during which the body regenerates energy for the next burst and it adapts to the higher intensities.

The recommended ratio of effort to recovery is 1:3 for those just starting out, such as 1 minute of harder effort followed by 3 minutes of a lower intensity to recover. It is also suggested that those who are unconditioned still be able to talk during high intensity bursts. Then as you get fit, you can increase the intensity levels and shorten the ratio to 1:2 or 1:1. You can also add bursts periodically into your current aerobic routine and get good results.

What is new since I was certified in the field is the idea that it is safe and even highly effective to continue shortening the recovery time as you progress in your fitness. Once you are comfortable at 1:1 you could then go to 2:1 (twice the work to recovery) or even 3:1. But you have to be careful and listen to your body. This is what I didn’t do so well a couple of weeks ago. I did it for too long. At these higher rates, designed for athletes, it is common to only do 4 minutes (20 seconds extreme effort to 10 seconds rest repeated 7-8 times) along with a 5 minute warm up and cool down. You also need a day or so of recovery each time you do any high intensity interval training.

I’m going to experiment further with the right ratios and mix it up a bit. You can do the same.

Follow The Spring in Your Step

It is spring and a time when our bodies want to move and get out into the fresh air. If you are like me you may be feeling antsy to get out and do something, yet it may not be enough to actually get you out. Consider what might be holding you back.

The easy answer is bad weather. But even in good weather many people who say they want to get out find they resist it. If this is you, what else besides the weather is holding you back? It could be that you can’t think of anything that sounds appealing or doesn’t seem too boring. Walking is an easy and great way to get out, but it doesn’t appeal to everyone. It doesn’t have to. I’ve had people tell me they don’t like to walk, but they assume that it is pretty much their only choice (particularly if they aren’t fit) and that they should walk.

If you don’t like to walk, then you won’t want to do it regularly and you will resist being active. Consider other outdoor activities that sound more interesting or enjoyable to you.

If you are fit, there are countless possibilities and many outdoor programs available to help you discover new ways of enjoying the outdoors and extending your potential.

Maybe you already know about your options, but you still have some resistance to being active outside. I have been in this situation, and for me I don’t like to be out mid-day because of my fair skin and susceptibility to heat exhaustion which limits some of my choices. But I can choose to be out earlier or later in the day.

Sometimes the resistance is hard to identify, because it is an unconscious belief or feeling. It may stem from anxiety about trying something new or and it may simply be you aren’t used to being active outside and need a buddy to give you ideas, confidence and support. If you ask yourself what you are feeling or what you believe about being active outdoors, you will likely get some insights.

This week, follow the spring in your step and consider ways you would enjoy being more active outdoors.

Read a longer version of this post

Are You Exercise Resistant?

I get a lot of phone calls for help with exercise, and what most people want is a way to be more motivated to stick with their routine. That seems simple enough, but there is a lot more to being motivated than creating motivational tactics and getting someone to hold you accountable. Maybe the problem isn’t really motivation at all. Maybe it is exercise resistance.

The first step is to acknowledge and validate any feelings or beliefs you carry about exercise. Then knowing how these create resistance, you can make different choices or create new beliefs that respect your emotional needs and your physical health. In many ways exercise resistance is similar to emotional eating, in that unconscious feelings and thoughts are driving your behaviors and leaving you to feel out of control.

Read a longer version of this post

Overtraining Isn't All It is Cracked Up to Be

I had to laugh at myself this week, because I did just what I tell others not to do. I got caught up in what some expert fitness trainers are now promoting for greater fitness and physique results. Actually it isn’t all that new, but it sounded better and more enticing to me this time around.

The recommendations were essentially to over train by doing one of two things. One is intense cardio intervals where the bulk of the time is spent above the anaerobic threshold (85-95% of your heart rate max) with very short recovery times. This is the opposite of interval training where you have longer recovery times after high exertion.

And the other is to replace aerobic cardio with endurance strength training, where your heart rate stays above 85% of your max the entire time, because of the 48 hour metabolic boost. Normally when you do strength training your heart rate is above that threshold, and that is fine because you take time to rest between sets. With endurance training you don’t generally take rest stops unless you are getting winded. The more you do this type of training the more accustomed you get to it and your heart rate will come down and fluctuate in and out of the aerobic zone (between 50-85% of your max heart rate).

I’ve been doing endurance training for a while, but the idea of replacing my aerobic cardio with this was a novel idea to me. So I decided to try a combination of this with the anaerobic intervals. I am fit enough to try this, but you might have to wonder about my mental state. While high exertion interval training will accelerate your metabolism, it can also have the opposite effect and drop it like a stone. You have to eat enough to support a rising metabolism or it will go the other way. I knew all this, and I knew that it wasn’t as easy as the expert fitness trainers like to make it all sound.

What I got was fatter around my waist and a short lived migraine about an hour after my sessions. As one of my colleagues reminded me when I told her, I should have known better. I did this once before by mistake and got the same results. Fortunately the results will be gone as fast as they came. The better thing is to do a little of this mixed in with more moderate cardio the rest of the week, or not do it at all and stick to strengthening and aerobic fitness.

So now I will get back to walking my talk and striving for a mix of intensities and doing things in moderation.

Is it Really News that Physical Activity Reduces Heart Disease?

More research shows that what it really takes to reduce heart disease is being physically active.

In the Copenhagen City Heart Study, published in the European Heart Journal, they learned that a combination of leisure-time physical activity and moderate drinking reduced fatal heart attacks and minimized the risks of heart disease. Both activities, they cited, are beneficial for circulatory health, although they aren't sure if it takes both activities to gain benefit. Forgive me for being amused, but do you really have to know more than that? How many more studies have to be done to show that being aerobically active improves cardiovascular health?

The other news getting a lot of press today is the release of information about statins, and how they benefit those who have had a heart attack but not those who haven't experienced near fatal cardiac arrest. What is now being debated is the relevance of LDL cholesterol in determining heart disease and the need for medication for high cholesterol levels. As this debate gets under way, the one thing they all agree is that a change in lifestyle to increase exercise does reduce heart disease. They just can't bottle that and make a profit.

What is missing from this discussion is a focus on helping people actually get more physical activity. That I find less amusing. Why is this not the main focus?

What is a Healthy Lifestyle?

Have you ever noticed that your idea of having a healthy lifestyle isn’t often the same as someone else’s? It can mean very different things to different people, and that is healthy in itself. It can also be confusing.

The most obvious description of a healthy lifestyle is eating healthy foods and being aerobically active as a way of life. But seldom will two people make the same food choices and do the same activities. Ginny, for example eats raw foods and runs most days of the week. Margaret loves pasta and grilled food, and she has found that whole wheat pasta and lean meats are a healthy way of eating her favorite things. Her activities are kayaking, hiking, Tai Chi and gardening. Robert is an avid swimmer, dancer and hiker, and he eats a lot of complex carbohydrates. All of them are living healthy lifestyles, but they aren’t at all similar.

So how do you know if you are choosing healthy foods and activities? There are several ways of knowing.

• One way to start is be informed about the basics of healthy nutrition and aerobic activity and understand that these are guidelines, not rigid rules.
• Another way is to pay attention to what your body is feeling and do what feels best to you.
• A third way is to ask a professional you trust for advice and who listens when you say something doesn’t feel right.

Read a longer version of this post