Between work, family time, recreation and keeping up the house chores, having a healthy looking refrigerator can be tough. You attempt to buy groceries once a week and find yourself tossing out all of the fresh produce you purchased. You get frustrated and fall back to bad habits, shopping in the junk food aisles and avoiding the fresh section at the store. If you can commit to hitting the store a couple times per week, you can design plenty of healthy recipes for your family. As requested by a busy and overwhelmed client, I made an easy 3-day grocery list with simple dinner ideas for two people. In just five minutes, I was able to create this list, keeping in mind fresh and lean ingredients that will assist them in weight loss. If you do this twice a week, it’s only a ten minute investment and your family is worth it!
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The next big question in the third part of the summary of the Surgeon General's initiative to create more Walkable Communities series is “Why don’t people walk more?” In other words, what excuses can people come up with to avoid exercise? Here’s what the proclamation said:
The last summary next time will be about HOW to create a more community and opportunities that already exist in the Kansas City area. Competing in endurance races is tough on your body - mentally and physically. I’m not sure I could find anyone that would disagree. You work hard for months leading up to the big day. Endless workouts, focused nutrition, early bedtimes -- it all takes its toll eventually. When you’re done with our event, it might seem natural to indulge in a few extra pizza slices, sugary drinks, and too much alcohol. If you’re like me and like to skip the part after your race when you’re sore and feeling broken down, you should follow some guidelines to help you power through these tough times. This will help you recover faster and get over the sore and achy hump.
These tips should help control muscle damage and alleviate most non-injury-related soreness and aches after your event. The most important tip to remember is to be ready for your event. Spend the appropriate amount of time training for your race and most of your post-race woes can be completely avoided. As mentioned in the first part of my summary of the Surgeon General’s new call to demand more walkable communities, an alarming number of people are inactive. (That is, performing no more than 10 minutes of physical activity per day.) So, why is walking, specifically, being promoted? Walking is one of the first accomplishments in our life. Unless a person experiences a physical impairment, such as needing a wheelchair, all it takes is two legs and a little balance. It doesn’t take any special talents, equipment or money. It’s like giving yourself a free gift everyday you go for a walk. You didn’t spend any money and your body maintains its good health. You can also make walking more interesting by challenging yourself to increase duration, intensity or elevation changes (fancy term for hills). No matter your age, ethnicity or gender, across the board, 60%+ people in these demographics all walked at least 10 minutes in the last week. The biggest difference in the gap in the number of people walking was 72% of college-degreed people walked compared to under 52% for people without a high school degree. Walking is “multi-purpose”. You can walk to work, to get the mail or to school. It is the best way to easily incorporate physical into your daily life. The other benefits listed as improving community safety, especially those that are walkable. Those communities have pedestrian crossings, traffic signals and tends to have lower speed limits. Walking in your community also forces you to get to know your neighbors. No one ever suffered from staying in contact with what’s going on in the neighborhood. These relationships can create an interdependent neighborhood, and one that looks out for each other. Another benefit is keeping the air cleaner by skipping that 2 minute drive to the grocery store. Cars have made Americans so lazy, that we forgot what it was like generations ago when people walked to the pharmacy, or made a friend walking to school. Walking can even boost the local economy according to the Surgeon General. Walkable communities are generally more attractive because of the pedestrian-friendly streets, so businesses are more apt to locate themselves within those communities. Are you sold yet on creating a more walkable life? Next time, I will summarize why people don’t walk more. Stay tuned! Yesterday, the U.S. Surgeon General hosted an online webcast of their initiative to make communities more walkable. Unfortunately, I had to miss the broadcast. However, I am reading through the PDF version of his presentation and want to hit the key points he made in his new promotion. First, chronic disease is highlighted. In 2012, 50% of American adults reportedly had a chronic disease. This number is very alarming. I would also like to point out that people may not even know if they have a chronic disease because they never visit the doctor, so the number could actually be higher. The report breaks down how many people have had a stroke, cancer, diabetes, and so on. It really is frightening to think of how poorly we, as a country, take care of ourselves. ******************** The next part of the presentation focused on the benefits of physical activity for both children and adults. Children: Improved cardio fitness, improved muscular fitness, improved bone health, healthy body composition, improved metabolic health. Adults: Longevity, lower risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, colon and breast cancer, metabolic syndrome, prevention of weight gain, weight loss (in conjunction with proper diet), improved cardio fitness, improved muscular fitness, decreased depression symptoms, prevention of injury, and better cognitive function. Wow -- just listing the benefits is motivating! I know that I have family members and friends who suffer from almost all of the chronic diseases listed. It’s hard to think about people you care for who may be suffering and that it can be prevented or controlled. ********************* Presented next is the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans.
********************** Lastly (for part one), here are some numbers for the current state of physical activity.
Take that in! To read about the Surgeon General’s Walkable Communities campaign, please see my resource at http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/calls/walking-and-walkable-communities/call-to-action-walking-and-walkable-communites.pdf I will continue to write about the Walkable Communities Initiative. Next up we find out why the focus has shifted to creating walkable communities and how this can benefit the health of the Kansas City and other metropolitan areas around the country. No one should be shocked that wearing high heels (2+ inch heels) can be dangerous. I’m not talking about falling or slipping on a slick floor. To understand what you may be doing to your lower leg, let’s consider the position you put yourself in when you slip into those stellar heels. Your foot is plantar-flexed, meaning your toes are pointed down toward the floor and your heel is lifted. If you’re familiar with the anatomy on the backside of your lower leg, with each step you take, you are shortening the achilles tendon and calf muscles, and a dysfunctional movement in the ankle joint ensues. This puts you at risk for an seemingly endless list of impairments. Of all of the injuries reported in a recent study by the University of Alabama-Birmingham, 80% on injuries occured in the lower leg, whereas 20% were in the knee, trunk, shoulder, head and neck. If you are a regular heel-wearing person, consider alternatives if you’ve experienced the following impairments:
Take these impairments seriously because these can lead to neurological function of your gait that lead to musculoskeletal disorders later in life. My advice is to try and find heels that are below 2” or flats with a supportive sole. Chronic pain of the lower leg and foot increases your chances of being sedentary, therefore putting yourself at risk weight-gain and all of the chronic diseases that follow. Take care of your feet now when your feet are still healthy and indulge less frequently in fashioning those fancy high heels. University of Alabama at Birmingham. "Injury rates from wearing high-heeled shoes have doubled." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 21 May 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150521120924.htm>. A London University has been researching factors related to the dramatic increase in obesity. This goes beyond the “too much food, too little exercise” theory we have been hearing for the past two decades.
So how will you avoid the inevitability of sometimes uncontrollable factors?
Source: University of Royal Holloway London. "New study reveals how changes in lifestyle are contributing to dramatic rise in obesity." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 1 September 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150901120807.htm>. Creating a gym in your home can be very expensive. In my ten years of training, the most amped up home gym I’ve ever been in consisted of 3 to 50 pound dumbbells, Smith Machine, a bench, a boxing bag and stand, pull-up and roman chair combo, a treadmill, an elliptical, medicine balls and floor mats. If I had to guess, all of this cost well above $15,000. For me, it’s fun to work with people who have access to all of this equipment. However, most people don’t have the space and would rather have a nicer car than home gym. The majority of the time, I spend my hourly sessions with people who have equipment that can fit in the passenger seat of my car. Their goals and results are consistent with people who have full gyms in their home. It doesn’t take thousands of dollars to get into great shape. Let me create a $50 gym for you! I love Perform Better equipment. I have found that their equipment is the most functional and the least fragile from that of their competitors. Here’s a great list to help you start building a gym in your home for under $100. (I have linked them to the website where they are available. If you time your purchase right, you can get the prices below when their equipment is discounted and save evey more!) Mini-band - $4.50 All-purpose exercise band - $17.95 10 lb. Dumbbells - $23.90 7 lb. Medicine Ball - $21.95 Yoga Mat - $19.95 Foam Roller - $10.50 =$98.75 Happy Shopping! Did you know that doing a short, five minute core workout before all else can enhance your overall workout for the day? Activating key muscles that promote efficient movement is important if you want to get the most out of your workout. Take five minutes to run through one set of each of these exercises:
If you are prepping for repetitive cardio workout such as running or walking, I would also suggest doing one set of fifteen calf raises to warm up the back side of the lower leg. You could experience a difference after just the first time trying a short core warm-up. This is one of the simplest ways to gain core strength AND improve your performance during your workouts. When it comes to weight loss, seeing the results you want never seems to happen quickly enough. You can envision what you want to look like but have a hard time getting to that place. A great place to start is to evaluate your lifestyle. Are you making good decisions frequently or catch yourself cheating on a daily basis? Are you making exercise a part of your routine? Learning from others who are successful can lead you in the right direction. Here are highly effective habits of people who experience successful weight loss:
You may not feel like you can make all of these changes today. The best action to take is to write down all of the practices that you are doing right and trying to practice adding at least one more that you are not doing to your regular routine. What is most important to remember is that you are doing this for yourself to feel and look more healthy and to be a good representation of what good health and well-being looks like. |
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