Do you end up sitting for most of the day? Most of us do, so you are not alone. Are you looking for ways to add activity to your day? While most of us don’t get enough activity, you still may be in the minority if you are trying to do more. That may seem like a cynical view, but it comes from watching our society find more ways to do less activity. Not that we want to be unhealthy, but it is often easier to go along with the times. As we get more technologically advanced (some would say dependent), our activity seems to become less of a priority.
This actually makes sense the more I think about it. Let’s think back to the turn of the century. In 1900, the average American was doing physical labor in order to earn a living. Now we spend time in automated, sedentary environments. The technology has brought many good things to our culture, so I don’t want to be negative about it. Actually, technology has allowed us to work out in many ways that were not possible before. Plus, now we know so much more about the body, the exercise we do and how it affects us.
So why are we less active now? I think it’s because we didn’t ever have to “exercise” in the sense that we do now. We were active because it was part of our life. If we weren’t active, we didn’t eat. That sounds like the ultimate motivation to me. Not that we don’t have good reasons to exercise now, but when your life depends on it, you will likely do what it takes.
That is the mentality we need to be taking today. It may be a different scenario, but our lives still depend on being active. It’s simple: if we are not active we will not survive. Clearly, it is a much longer process than it was back when we needed to be active to get food. Now we need to be active to burn the extra food that we choose to eat day in and day out.
Activity was part of everyone’s life 100 years ago. It should be that way today as well. You can do it by changing the way you look at exercise. Walking to the mail box, carrying your recycling bin, raking leaves…all of this is activity. By doing more if it, you get more benefits. You don’t have to be sweating in the gym to be getting activity.
Think about it. What if you needed to eat healthy foods and move your body in order to survive? In all reality, this is true. Sure you can survive on fast food and a sedentary lifestyle. I don’t know about you, but just surviving is not enough for me. In order to thrive, we need to care for ourselves. If we don’t, life will be rough.
We all want our bodies to be healthy. Why not do what it takes to be healthy? Why not take care of ourselves? It is as simple as it used to be, we just made it more complicated. It certainly doesn’t have to be complicated. Eat healthy foods and move your body. We’ve known this all along. Somewhere along the line we lost track of how simple it really is. I think it’s time we get back to the basics. We will all feel better and live better lives.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Kids: Why not teach them to live healthy?
In my last post we discussed weight loss and how looking at it as living healthy rather than losing weight makes it easier to get started. It also makes it easier to stick with it, which is even more important. One thing that I have been thinking about since that article is the obesity epidemic among our nation’s children.
Nearly 1 in 3 kids is obese or overweight. This is tragic! It’s bad enough that adults are so inactive, but now kids are living similar lifestyles. Put fast food and 21st century portion sizes on top of that and it is no wonder kids are following in the footsteps of American adults.
As we discussed weight loss vs. healthy living, the kids came to mind. I have heard parents say, “They don’t need to worry about what they eat”, or “They don’t need the exercise, look how skinny they are”. This is exactly the mentality that has gotten
us into trouble. We think of nutrition and exercise only as ways to lose weight.
We forget about all the other benefits. What’s worse, is that many kids never learn the benefits of living healthy and they go down the same path as their parents. Once they decide that “they need to lose weight” they try to change a lifelong set of habits and often struggle.
What we need to do is show our kids the benefits of living healthy and start them on that path right away. If we do that we won’t need to worry about weight loss. Kids will not gain the weight they are gaining now and there won’t be a need for a drastic change in lifestyle when they are older.
Imagine all of the diseases we will be preventing if this shift takes place! We are already reaching a point where kids are dealing with what were previously adult diseases. Diabetes is one example, but there are many more out there that we could simply eliminate. Forget about managing or living with them, we can simply get rid of the disease.
Nearly 1 in 3 kids is obese or overweight. This is tragic! It’s bad enough that adults are so inactive, but now kids are living similar lifestyles. Put fast food and 21st century portion sizes on top of that and it is no wonder kids are following in the footsteps of American adults.
As we discussed weight loss vs. healthy living, the kids came to mind. I have heard parents say, “They don’t need to worry about what they eat”, or “They don’t need the exercise, look how skinny they are”. This is exactly the mentality that has gotten
us into trouble. We think of nutrition and exercise only as ways to lose weight.
We forget about all the other benefits. What’s worse, is that many kids never learn the benefits of living healthy and they go down the same path as their parents. Once they decide that “they need to lose weight” they try to change a lifelong set of habits and often struggle.
What we need to do is show our kids the benefits of living healthy and start them on that path right away. If we do that we won’t need to worry about weight loss. Kids will not gain the weight they are gaining now and there won’t be a need for a drastic change in lifestyle when they are older.
Imagine all of the diseases we will be preventing if this shift takes place! We are already reaching a point where kids are dealing with what were previously adult diseases. Diabetes is one example, but there are many more out there that we could simply eliminate. Forget about managing or living with them, we can simply get rid of the disease.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Weight Loss vs. Healthy Living
Did you know that weight loss is a new phenomenon? We are the first generation to deal with even being overweight. We have taken it many steps further by building an entire industry around the losing weight. Being part of that industry for years, I don’t have anything bad to say about what we are trying to do. My only issue is with the way we are trying to do it.
Just the term weight loss strikes me as the wrong place to start. I understand that many of us have reached a point where we are overweight and want to lose that weight, but there is so much more. We make it seem that diet and exercise are only for those who need to lose weight. What about the people that have not yet become overweight? Do they not need diet and exercise?
I think we should be focused more on prevention and healthy lifestyle. That changes the entire feel of exercise. If you are presented with an option to live healthy and prevent countless diseases, it is more positive than weight loss. People would be more likely to not only start living healthy, but continue to do it if they weren’t focused solely on losing weight.
So what do we do? Well, that is a great question. The industry seems to be doing quite well selling us the new products, machines and systems. There is a new one every few months that swears to be the best. What’s even better is that we are continually told that it will be easier than “those other things you’ve tried”. What happens when they are not easy? We quit. Add that product to the list of failed attempts at losing weight. Now we’ll wait for the next big thing to come out. We won’t have to wait long.
I’m not an equipment salesman, nor do I recommend any particular plan. I’m not here to debate what works and what doesn’t. I am here to help change the way you look at exercise and nutrition. If you continue to look at it as losing weight, all you will do is focus on the weight you have now, try to find a quick way to reduce it and fail when you realize that this “great plan” doesn’t fit into your routine. Now it will be even more difficult to restart the next plan because you feel defeated. The add told you that this is THE way and it’s SO easy. It doesn’t feel good when something is “easy” and still doesn’t work for you, does it?
What if we looked at our health as an ongoing, lifelong routine that can be changed and improved at will? Wouldn’t life be easier if we just set goals, thought about what we needed to do to reach them and started on our way? I think so. I don’t think we would be worried about losing weight. We wouldn’t be trying to undo years of bad habits in one day, nor would we feel failure for not sticking with an outrageous diet we saw on television.
The beauty of healthy living is that you are not restricted to one way of doing things. You choose what you are going to do and you do it. There is no failure, there is only adjustments. For those that have mastered this lifestyle, it really is easy. It may take time to build into your life, but once you do, it never goes away. Parts of it may go away, if you choose to change your plan, but again, it’s all up to you.
As a health coach, I help people change their mindset. We go from “I want to lose weight” to “I want to live healthy and this is what I am going to do.” It sounds simple…and it is when you really think about it. We’ve overcomplicated a lot of things. Health is one of them. We’ve known for centuries that eating proper portions and staying active led to a longer healthier life. It’s no different today. We may have more options to choose from or more complications, but the bottom line is: You can live healthy if you want to. Stop thinking about weight loss and start living healthy. Weight is only a product of our habits. Change the habits and the mindset and you will change your results.
Just the term weight loss strikes me as the wrong place to start. I understand that many of us have reached a point where we are overweight and want to lose that weight, but there is so much more. We make it seem that diet and exercise are only for those who need to lose weight. What about the people that have not yet become overweight? Do they not need diet and exercise?
I think we should be focused more on prevention and healthy lifestyle. That changes the entire feel of exercise. If you are presented with an option to live healthy and prevent countless diseases, it is more positive than weight loss. People would be more likely to not only start living healthy, but continue to do it if they weren’t focused solely on losing weight.
So what do we do? Well, that is a great question. The industry seems to be doing quite well selling us the new products, machines and systems. There is a new one every few months that swears to be the best. What’s even better is that we are continually told that it will be easier than “those other things you’ve tried”. What happens when they are not easy? We quit. Add that product to the list of failed attempts at losing weight. Now we’ll wait for the next big thing to come out. We won’t have to wait long.
I’m not an equipment salesman, nor do I recommend any particular plan. I’m not here to debate what works and what doesn’t. I am here to help change the way you look at exercise and nutrition. If you continue to look at it as losing weight, all you will do is focus on the weight you have now, try to find a quick way to reduce it and fail when you realize that this “great plan” doesn’t fit into your routine. Now it will be even more difficult to restart the next plan because you feel defeated. The add told you that this is THE way and it’s SO easy. It doesn’t feel good when something is “easy” and still doesn’t work for you, does it?
What if we looked at our health as an ongoing, lifelong routine that can be changed and improved at will? Wouldn’t life be easier if we just set goals, thought about what we needed to do to reach them and started on our way? I think so. I don’t think we would be worried about losing weight. We wouldn’t be trying to undo years of bad habits in one day, nor would we feel failure for not sticking with an outrageous diet we saw on television.
The beauty of healthy living is that you are not restricted to one way of doing things. You choose what you are going to do and you do it. There is no failure, there is only adjustments. For those that have mastered this lifestyle, it really is easy. It may take time to build into your life, but once you do, it never goes away. Parts of it may go away, if you choose to change your plan, but again, it’s all up to you.
As a health coach, I help people change their mindset. We go from “I want to lose weight” to “I want to live healthy and this is what I am going to do.” It sounds simple…and it is when you really think about it. We’ve overcomplicated a lot of things. Health is one of them. We’ve known for centuries that eating proper portions and staying active led to a longer healthier life. It’s no different today. We may have more options to choose from or more complications, but the bottom line is: You can live healthy if you want to. Stop thinking about weight loss and start living healthy. Weight is only a product of our habits. Change the habits and the mindset and you will change your results.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Measuring Success
Weight is one way to measure progress toward your diet and exercise goals. The problem is, it is only one way to measure. There are many other ways to measure progress and it is very healthy to do so. It is easy to get caught up in the concern of weight, after all, we call the entire area weight loss, weight control or management and other terms that focus strictly on that one number. My focus with clients is to stop thinking about that one number and start thinking about all the other important factors that are changing as you make progress.
Let’s take a look at some of these other factors that you can use to measure your progress instead of worrying only about weight:
1. How good you feel
This is the easiest, fastest way to check to see how you are doing. How you feel after a workout, when you get up in the morning or when you are doing something in your day to day routine is a great measurement of how you are progressing. Energy level, stamina and even mood are good ways to measure. Many people notice that after a short time, they have more energy and feel more confident. And that’s not even touching on the physical fitness that they have realized which makes movements easier than they were before.
2. How your clothes fit
The biggest problem with getting caught up in the weight number is that we are making progress, but in a different way. Muscle is more dense than fat. When we lose fat and gain muscle, often we are becoming leaner (what we want!) while our weight stays the same or even increases slightly. If we are only focused on weight, we miss the victory here as our clothes fit better and we are decreasing in size. I tell clients that when you walk around in public, you don’t have a number on your chest showing your weight. You only have your body and it’s shape. The better you look, the better you feel. The weight is only a number that you see. No one else knows what it is. They only see your shape today.
3. Exercise capacity
Part of our first option (feeling good) is gaining capacity for exercise that you didn’t have before. As you get started on a routine, you may notice that you get tired at a certain point. As you continue to do this routine, you will get stronger and be able to go for a longer period and keep a higher intensity level. Since we know that the more we work, the more results we get, this is a great way to measure success. Not only are we feeling good because we are able to do more, but we also are doing more. This way, the results are going to continue to come.
4. Body composition
To get more technical with the second option, body composition or body fat percentage is a great way to measure your progress because it gets to the bottom of what we want to do. Rather than weight loss, it should really be called fat loss. As we trim body fat, we shape our bodies to the ideal form. As we discussed, the weight doesn’t always go down in direct proportions here. Because of the different densities and distribution of fat and muscle, you may be losing body fat without actually losing weight.
5. Your ideas
What have you done to measure progress? We want to hear from you on ways that you have stuck with a program and continued to see results. Sharing tips and tricks is a great way to help each other reach goals. We look forward to hearing about your success and how you got there!
Let’s take a look at some of these other factors that you can use to measure your progress instead of worrying only about weight:
1. How good you feel
This is the easiest, fastest way to check to see how you are doing. How you feel after a workout, when you get up in the morning or when you are doing something in your day to day routine is a great measurement of how you are progressing. Energy level, stamina and even mood are good ways to measure. Many people notice that after a short time, they have more energy and feel more confident. And that’s not even touching on the physical fitness that they have realized which makes movements easier than they were before.
2. How your clothes fit
The biggest problem with getting caught up in the weight number is that we are making progress, but in a different way. Muscle is more dense than fat. When we lose fat and gain muscle, often we are becoming leaner (what we want!) while our weight stays the same or even increases slightly. If we are only focused on weight, we miss the victory here as our clothes fit better and we are decreasing in size. I tell clients that when you walk around in public, you don’t have a number on your chest showing your weight. You only have your body and it’s shape. The better you look, the better you feel. The weight is only a number that you see. No one else knows what it is. They only see your shape today.
3. Exercise capacity
Part of our first option (feeling good) is gaining capacity for exercise that you didn’t have before. As you get started on a routine, you may notice that you get tired at a certain point. As you continue to do this routine, you will get stronger and be able to go for a longer period and keep a higher intensity level. Since we know that the more we work, the more results we get, this is a great way to measure success. Not only are we feeling good because we are able to do more, but we also are doing more. This way, the results are going to continue to come.
4. Body composition
To get more technical with the second option, body composition or body fat percentage is a great way to measure your progress because it gets to the bottom of what we want to do. Rather than weight loss, it should really be called fat loss. As we trim body fat, we shape our bodies to the ideal form. As we discussed, the weight doesn’t always go down in direct proportions here. Because of the different densities and distribution of fat and muscle, you may be losing body fat without actually losing weight.
5. Your ideas
What have you done to measure progress? We want to hear from you on ways that you have stuck with a program and continued to see results. Sharing tips and tricks is a great way to help each other reach goals. We look forward to hearing about your success and how you got there!
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