Incorporating Exercise Into Your Lifestyle

Tags

anti-inflammatory, exercise, weight loss

I recently moved to San Diego and everyone loves exercise here. There is 1 kick-boxing studio, 2 yoga studios, a tai chi studio, a krav maga studio, 2 places to learn dance, a pilates studio, 2 gyms, all within walking distance of my place. Not kidding. Of course, I want to participate in the healthy San Diego lifestyle, but I’ve been nervous about doing something too intense for fear of aggravating my back pain. And then of course there is the time issue. So whats a girl to do if she cant break it down like Richard Simmons?

In the world of healthy eating and activity research, I have been hearing whispers of the importance not just of EXERCISE, but how sitting still for hours on end is bad for you. In fact, a recent study has been making the rounds, talking about how sitting is the new smoking. It started with a scientist named James Levine, who has been talking about how 2 hours and 15 minutes of small movements rather than sitting amount to what he calls “non-exercise activity thermogenesis” or NEAT – basically you burn calories doing a little activity every day that is not say, a structured activity that is considered exercise like going to Pilates. And basically, he says that not having this NEAT in our lives is WORSE than smoking.

So what does that mean for me and everyone with low back pain who needs to take it easy? I have been concentrating on low impact exercises, like swimming, elliptical, and small movements. I’ve been stretching. But I’ve also been incorporating lifestyle exercise into my life. What does this mean? Heres a little list of 8 things I do:

1. Its as simple as parking far away from the door at the shopping center – sometimes that one little walk can be a thousand steps! Thats what my fitbit says anyway.
2. Keep my fitbit charged
3. Park on the bottom level of the parking garage and take the stairs all the way to the top where there is a walkway to the campus.
4. Sit on an exercise ball
5. Work on my laptop while standing (and make sure you fidget and move around!)
6. Try to get up and stretch every 20 minutes. This is key if you have back pain
7. Walk to the cafe to do work – preferrably one thats further from me(and order tea instead of a latte! unsweetened iced tea with a splash of almond milk and one packet of raw sugar – YES PLEASE!)
8. Park on the other side of campus from where my class is

A couple of extra that I dont do to make it 10 😛

1. Stand up and watch TV or play video games (My husband does this). Kids can be on a trampoline.
2. Do some grocery bag bicep curls

I have to say, this helps keep my step numbers at least in the 6-7000 range if not 9000. For me to break 10000, I usually have to be at the gym for a half hour.

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The Medicine Everyone Should be Taking

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exercise, fitness, lifestyle, weight loss

If you could put all of the benefits of exercise into a pill, literally, everyone would take it!  Everything from your weight, to your blood pressure, mood, sleep, energy levels, and risk of cancer, are all improved with exercise!

Ensure a Safe Start

With so many exercise trends out there like Cross fit, Pilates, Tai Chi, Yoga, and Zumba (just to name a few), where does one safely start? This 7-question screening form  can give you an idea if you need to talk to your physician before you get started. However, If you have any concerns at all, I always recommend speaking with your doctor first.

How Intense?

Once you have the green light, what’s next?  If you haven’t been doing anything, I like to tell people walking is one of the best and easiest forms of exercise. All you need are your shoes and a safe place to walk.

Start Small…

You can start with something as small as a 5 minute walk out, then a 5 minute walk back.  As you feel more comfortable, increase your distance and time. A general rule of thumb is to not increase more than 10% time, distance, weight (if you are doing resistance training) at a time.  Also, remember to listen to your body. In terms of intensity, you should be working hard enough that you can still talk to another person, but are not able to sing.  If you can sing your favorite song, pick up the pace! If you want some structure, you can even download a free app such as, couch to 5K, which is designed to take you from no activity, to completing your first 5K.

…but Aim For the Stars!

Your ultimate goal should be to get at least 30 minutes of moderately intense physical activity (i.e. a brisk walk) 5 days per week, or 150 minutes per week. If you are looking for a free walking group, the non-profit Walk With a Doc is a great place to find a walking group near you with on-site physicians. Lastly, if you need some motivation to get started, here are a few of my favorite quotes…

– “Yesterday you said tomorrow.”

– “If you wait for the perfect conditions, you’ll never get anything done.”

– “No matter how slow you go, you are still lapping everybody on the couch.”

Today is your day to get moving!

Jon Bonnet is a current Sports Medicine Fellow at the University of Florida. Dr. Bonnet completed his Family Medicine residency at Duke University. He is an American College of Sports Medicine certified personal trainer and serves on the board of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. Check him out at his linkedin profile.

How to Create Accountability in Weight Loss

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accountability, Behavior change, change, fit bit, Health coach, healthy living, Lifestayle, support, weight loss

Positive behavior change is more complicated than “getting your act together.” We live in what is called an “obesogenic environment“. What does this mean? Coined by Australian academic Boyd Swinburn, the term essentially means that your environment is acting against you daily in very sophisticated ways in order to make you fail at your new year’s resolution to lose 10 pounds.

For example, to maintain a calorie-burning level of fitness a person should walk about four miles each day, which means about 90 minutes of walking, but to accomplish requires: (1) 90 minutes of free time each day, and (2) a safe neighborhood in which to walk. Right away, you’ve lost a third of the population.

Faced with all these challenges, how do you achieve success? The real answer is that this is a public health issue that everyone should get behind, but even before the battle is won at city hall, there are lots of evidence-based ways to tackle these challenges now.

1. Detox your home. Throw out all the junk food from your home. If necessary, buy healthy versions. This may require that you have a discussion with your family. I had one patient who sat down with her husband and children and said “I need to make a change in my life. We cannot have junk food in the house.” The solution was to put all of the junk food in the house in a separate fridge in the garage. Now personally, I would have preferred that she lay down the law and said no junk food at all, but this was a big step and it made a big difference in her health.
2. Create your own Environment. If you tend to stop at the vending machine to pick up a candy bar on the way to the boss’s office while dropping off your TPS report, try to a) take the stairs to your bosses’ office and b) go through an alternate hallway.
3. Get a Fit Bit: Or another type of fitness tracker! Competition is a wonderful way of creating accountability. The evidence is still evolving on this one, but it seems like regardless of whether they work, they help motivate people to move.
4. Get Support. Having a community of people who are also working on the same goal or who can function as a cheer-leader creates big dividends in your weight loss journey. Weight is more tied to whether you friends are thin, even more so than if you spouse is thin. Check out this Harvard study by a physician and sociologist. Healthy people infect other people with health. I am a big fan of using a health coach, but there are other ways to attack this too. For example
   • Ask a friend to be your buddy.
   • Join a group weight loss program.
   • Join a weight loss network such as sparkpeople.com or any of these 
   • If you own a fitness tracker or use a fitness app, take advantage of the social networking tools
   • Participate in walking programs or similar initiative

Do you have other suggestions for creating accountability? We would love you to share with us!

-DS

References:

1. http://calorielab.com/news/2008/03/16/obesogenic-the-word-the-environment-the-controversy/
2. http://www.unce.unr.edu/publications/files/hn/2010/fs1011.pdf

Creating a Mindset for Successful Weight Loss: Tackling Your Failure Through Behavior Change

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Behavior change, behavioral change, eating, habits, lifestyle, quitting, smoking, weight loss

Lifestyle changes are hard and require continuous committment. While there is a whole field on how to effectively change your lifestyle and “bad habits” using behavioral change there is a common issue I often see in my patients that I would like to share with you.

This is not a moral issue: It is a fact of life that priorities shift from week to week. Having an “I just need to get my act together” view only allows for short term gain because it makes you think of the lapse/relapse as attributed to personal weakness. In reality, unhealthy behaviors are a part of our lives for several reasons, of which determination and personal discipline are a very small part. Having a resolve is only the first step! A time will come (often sooner than you expect) when you will have a crisis (perhaps at work) and find yourself at that familiar “forbidden” place (If your goal is to eat healthy, perhaps you buy yourself a slice of pizza). Now, this is a critical moment. What do you tell yourself during this moment of relapse?

• Scenario 1: you tell yourself “well, I already had one slice, might as well just have 2 more. And oh yeah, I’m clearly not cut out to be a skinny person.” Then followed by the fateful look at yourself in the mirror the next morning. The self-hatred, and the cycle continues. Your exciting journey full of hope just came to a crashing halt.
• Scenario 2: you say, “well one slice isn’t too bad…everything in moderation right?” Believe it or not, this is a hotly debated word. Some might argue that one slice of pizza causes physiologic changes that cause you to crave and eat more and more. Just ask award winning journalist Michael Moss: how much of an addictive substance are you allowed to have? Regardless of how you feel about the issue, you just lost this opportunity to find a way to resolve your craving.

A helpful way to tackle the above scenario is to use Failure as a Problem Solving Opportunity. This is what health coaches do with their clients. As a health coach myself, I have seen this work over and over again. Think about the process. What led you to pick up that slice of pizza? Was it an emotion? Can you think of other ways to deal with that emotion? Do you find that each time you are in a similar situation (maybe it is that damn TPS report), you have to eat pizza to comfort yourself? Is there a way to improve your current situation? Perhaps changing your work space will help to cut the pizza eating cycle.

Remember that failure is part of the process. Tobacco is one of the most addictive substances in the world. To quit, it often takes an individual 7-10 attempts. The key is to realize that every attempt at quitting brings you closer.

– DS

Easy Ways to Boost Your Metabolism

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almonds, boost metabolism, cayenne, chilli, diet, Food, grapefruit, health, metabolism, red pepper, weight loss

The bad news is that your metabolism slows with age. The good news is that you don’t have to give up hope.  There are plenty of things you can do to prevent the slowing of the metabolic process.

It is important to avoid constant, long-term stress and not to skip meals.  Stress and skipped meals slow down your metabolism and causes your body to go into “energy conservation” mode, thus slowing down the calorie burning process.

It’s no news that exercise is the fastest and most effective way of increasing your metabolism since lean muscles consume more calories and increases your basal metabolic rate.  Did you know that certain foods can also boost your metabolism?  Even small things such as drinking water will help to maintain a healthy metabolic rate.  The foods below not only have a lot of healthy benefits, but they will help your body burn more calories and boost your metabolism.

1. Almonds

Packed full of nutrients and antioxidants, almonds are high in protein, omega-3 fatty acids, and fiber.  This makes them filling and requires the body to burn more calories to digest them, thus increasing your metabolism.

In addition to being a great source of calcium, magnesium and antioxidants, studies have shown that a cup of almonds each day can helps to increase your body’s metabolic rate.  Be sure to choose unsalted/unsweetened almonds to avoid preservatives and unnecessary calories.

2. Grapefruit

Grapefruit and grapefruit juice can help regulate insulin levels in body, which is important for controlling body weight.  Weight loss studies have shown that consuming grapefruit or its juice daily (preferably immediately before each meal) can lead to more weight loss.  Avoid grapefruit juice from concentrate, which contains a lot of sugar and often contains artificial sweeteners and additives.

3. Cayenne pepper

Adding this red hot chili pepper spice into your dish will not only give your tongue a kick, but it will jump start your metabolism too. Simply season dishes with cayenne pepper powder to enjoy the health benefits of capsaicin, which is known for its anti-inflammatory properties, as well as its metabolism-boosting benefits.

~NZ