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FIT AND THE CITY - Julia's all about fitness newsletter
Welcome to the first issue of Fit and The City! Wanna be super fit and stay that way for life? Then you should educate yourself about all that is fitness-related. The more you know about and surround yourself with health and fitness, the harder you'll find it NOT to pursue it! Click on any of the seven links below to get the corresponding article. Your comments and questions are welcome. Please email me at Julia@adrenalinefitnessny.com. Also email if this newsletter has been forwarded to you so I can send you future issues.
Six Steps to ABSolutely Fantastic Abs
Countless studies show that excess abdominal fat increases your risk of diabetes, heart disease and a long list of other life-threatening ailments. You might think then that improving one's health would be the number one reason people long for ABSolutely fantastic abs. I hate to disappoint you: What drives most people to work on their midsection is still the prospect of looking good on the beach. And that's OK because, vanity as motivation or not, these people's lives are still likely to be prolonged and their backs will feel a lot better...
1. SPOT-TRAINING, YES. SPOT-REDUCING, NO.
Let's dispel one of the biggest myths about how to achieve a flat stomach: If you just focus on doing a million abdominal exercises, you will have a flat stomach in no time because the abdominal fat will have melted away. No, no, no! You simply cannot spot-reduce (target-burn body fat in one area only) this or any other area of your body. The only way to reduce the body fat around your middle is by combining a sensible diet with fat-burning aerobic exercise. Though you'll probably lose belly fat first, keep in mind that there is no way of directing your body to eat away fat from that particular section before other body parts. In other words, don't despair if you're doing everything right and your arms shrink first; your tummy fat will soon go, too.
2. LIMIT YOUR CRUNCHES.
Despite persistent quotes from Britney Spears (a few years ago...) and a plethora of rappers who all claim their great abs stem from doing a thousand crunches a day, it won't cut it - literally. Obviously you need to do some abdominal exercises in order to achieve a flat, firm tummy - but not as many as you might think. Focus on quality instead of quantity. Abdominal muscles need to be treated like any other muscle group: After you've worked them out and the muscle fibers are broken down, you need to rest them so that they get a chance to rebuild themselves, thus becoming stronger and firmer. Also, unless you do a maximum of three sets of 15-20 crunches daily, you're better off waiting two-three days in between each abdominal workout. Look at it this way: The more you work a muscle (any), the more rest it needs to recuperate. So if you prefer to work your abs only twice a week, how about doing three sets of four different ab exercises, 15-20 high-quality reps each, per workout?
3. WATCH YOUR DIET.
Chances are that a lack of exercise and a sloppy diet have contributed to your excess body fat in the first place. Because you're now working hard to get rid of your fat and shape your stomach, you must also be vigilant about what you're eating. Your diet can easily sabotage all your efforts if you're not careful! Consume low-fat/low calorie foods with a good balance of proteins and carbohydrates. Avoid all processed foods such as white breads, white pastas, and white rice and replace them with 100% whole wheat products, fresh fruits and vegetables. When eating meat, select lean or low-fat cuts. Also, try to eat frequently throughout the day (five or six times is ideal).
4. DO LOTS OF CARDIO.
In addition to eating well you need to make sure you don't skimp on your cardio sessions. Fit in at least three 30-minute cardio sessions a week. If you can find the time to do one or even two more sessions, you'll reach your goal a lot faster. I realize that being crunched for time is a problem we're all facing. The good news is that you don't necessarily have to do all your cardio on the treadmill at the gym. And it doesn't have to be 30 consecutive minutes either; five minutes here, ten minutes there add up. You can squeeze in cardio by walking instead of taking the bus, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, or how about doing 50 jumping jacks each commercial break during your favorite TV-shows? Engage you significant other in lots of fun activity... Get the drift? Be creative!
5. WORK ON INNER ABS AS MUCH AS OUTER.
The primary muscle you work when you do a crunch (the rectus abdominus) doesn't have much effect on flattening the abdomen. In order for it to get flatter, other muscles need to come into play. The transverse abdominus is the major player. It's attached to the rectus on the front of you and your spine in the back of you. When it contracts, it pulls your belly toward your spine. Working your obliques can also help flatten your stomach. You shouldn't stop doing crunches, though. Instead, pay close attention to your form so you can stimulate more muscles. For example, when you contract, pull your belly toward your spine with effort. In addition to having good form, it's important that your ab exercises challenge you. Once you can do 12 or 15 crunches, increase your intensity.
6. STAND UP STRAIGHT.
Even a person with the flattest, tightest abs will appear like he or she could use some ab work if he or she slouches. That's why acquiring proper posture is crucial for being able to flaunt a set of fantastic abs. Correcting bad posture is a truly complex subject, so the following should only be used as general guidelines:
a) Lift up your ribcage by drawing your shoulders back and down, i.e. chest out.
b) Bring your bellybutton toward your spine, i.e. stomach in.
c) Contract your buttocks so that your hips come forward, i.e. squeeze your butt.
d) Move jawbone down and in toward throat while maintaining a long neck, i.e. pretend as if someone is pulling your hair from the middle of your skull upward.
Exercise does a lot more than just keeping you slim and toned. Here are five great reasons exercise HAS to be part of your life:
YOU'LL HAVE MORE ENERGY
This one's hard to believe, but exercising will make you feel more energetic. When scientists at the University of New Orleans asked 42 volunteers to assess their mood before and after a 50-minute aerobics class, most of them said they felt less tense and less tired after breaking a sweat. In a 1997 study, researchers found that a brisk 10-minute walk gave people more energy than eating a candy bar. How can that be? Exercise boosts a hormone that increases energy. And it doesn't take more than a few workouts before strength and the lungs' capacity to provide oxygen to working muscles improve, increasing stamina -- which is enough to make anyone feel more energetic.
YOU'LL BE LESS STRESSED
Just one simple workout can ease stress and anxiety. In an experiment at Indiana University, researchers used psychological tests to gauge anxiety levels in 15 volunteers before and after a 20-minute session on an exercise cycle. The volunteers all reported feeling significantly less anxious during an hour or two after the workout. Exercise enhances the flow of brain chemicals, such as serotonin, that are related to positive mood. Because it also increases core body temperature, it can be as relaxing as a good soak in a hot tub.
YOU'LL HAVE A SHARPER MIND
Exercise can even spark creativity. Researchers at England's Middlesex University tested creative thinking in a group of 63 volunteers -- once after they'd done an aerobic workout and once after they'd sat around watching a video. After the workout, volunteers in the experiment felt more positive and scored higher on creativity.
YOU'LL HAVE HEALTHIER ARTERIES
Physical activity boosts levels of high-density lipoproteins, or HDL, the so-called good cholesterol, by as much as 20 percent. HDL helps rid the body of low-density lipoproteins, or LDL, the artery-clogging kind. Studies show that HDL can even pick up cholesterol deposited in arteries and move it to where it won't do harm. Another benefit to the arteries: The level of fat particles in the blood, called triglycerides, falls by as much as 40 percent after a vigorous workout. Exercising converts triglycerides into fatty acids -- the form in which fat can be burned for energy. You burn stored fat each and every time you work out -- the key to keeping weight off. Plus you lower your level of triglycerides in the blood. And the lower your triglyceride level, studies show, the lower your risk of heart disease.
YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM WILL IMPROVE
The moment you begin exercising, your heart starts pounding and your blood pressure surges, sweeping disease-fighting immune cells out into the blood, where they're able to detect troublemakers like cold or flu viruses. Studies show that people who exercise have 40 to 50 percent fewer sick days than their sit-around-and-do-nothing counterparts.
Strength Training May Reverse Muscle Aging
May 25, 2007
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Strength training may not only make older adults' muscles stronger, but younger as well, a small study suggests.
It's well known that resistance exercises improve muscle strength and function in young and old alike, but the new research suggests that strength training also affects older muscles on the level of gene expression -- essentially turning back the clock on muscle aging.
The study, published in the online journal PLoS One, looked at whether strength training affects the "gene expression profile" in older adults' muscle. Genes hold the instructions from which the body manufactures proteins; gene expression refers to the processes that translate these instructions into proteins.
Analyzing small samples of muscle tissue from a group of healthy young and older adults, researchers found that older and younger muscle tissues differed significantly in their gene expression profiles. The difference indicated that older muscle tissue had impaired functioning in mitochondria -- structures within cells that act as the cell's "powerhouse."
That impairment was reversible, however. After 14 of the older adults underwent 6 months of strength training, the gene expression profile in their muscles showed a more youthful appearance.
"In a very real sense, the muscle was younger," said lead study author Dr. Simon Melov of the Buck Institute for Age Research in Novato, California.
Experts have long known that exercise is good for younger and older adults alike, Melov told Reuters, but the new findings suggest that it can "actually rejuvenate muscle" in older individuals.
The study included 25 healthy men and women older than 65, and 26 healthy adults ages 20 to 35 who had diet and exercise habits similar to the older group. By analyzing muscle tissue from each volunteer, Melov's team found age-related differences in the expression of hundreds of genes -- such that mitochondrial function in older adults appeared "dramatically impaired."
Fourteen of the older adults then went through a strength training program, working out two days a week for 6 months.
As expected, the researchers found that these volunteers boosted their muscle strength, coming closer to their younger counterparts' performance. But their muscle also showed a turnaround in gene expression that Melov described as surprisingly stark.
He said more studies are needed to see whether aerobic exercise, like walking or cycling, has similar effects on muscle -- and whether exercise might reverse molecular aging in other types of body tissue.
For now, the researchers say, their findings show that it's never too late to start exercising.
Martha the Nutritionist says -
Trigger Foods...
Are there certain foods that you can't control your intake of? Once you start, you can't stop? These foods that can lead to binges are often called trigger foods. Common trigger foods include sweets such as cookies, cake and chocolate, salty foods such as nuts, chips, or starchy foods such as bread or pasta. You may find yourself thinking about these foods nonstop - especially if they're in your house. My trigger food is chocolate. There is NO way I could keep a box of chocolates in my apartment and have only one a day. It actually amazes me that some people can do this!Ask yourself these questions:
Once I start eating this food, is it hard to stop?
Do I eat it when I am not even hungry?
Do you find that you think about this food a lot - especially if it's in your environment?
Have I ever eaten it instead of having a meal?
Trigger foods can lead to overeating which may lead to weight gain. Even if you don't have a weight problem, the uncontrolled eating can make you feel out of control and weak.
Here are some suggestions to deal with trigger foods:
1. The first step is to acknowledge that you have a control problem with certain foods. It's unlikely that you'll suddenly learn how to moderate your intake of these foods. I have had many clients come to my office and ask me "How can I learn to have just one?" Unfortunately, I don't have the answer! It's quite likely that you'll never be able to have just one.
2. Don't keep these foods in your house if possible. How many times have you bought this particular food telling yourself that it was for your husband or if company dropped by...but deep inside you knew it was for you? So rule number one is not to keep it in your environment. If you need to buy desserts or snacks for your family, buy something that doesn't trigger cravings or uncontrolled eating. For me, since I love real potato chips, I would buy Doritos for my family instead of chips since I really don't like Doritos.
3. If you feel you can handle your trigger food if it's packaged into an individual serving size, try buying 100 calorie packs, individually wrapped ice cream products, etc. The question is.... can you have just one 100 calorie pack? If not, do not buy them.
4. Since everyone is different, you'll need to consider whether it would be best if you totally avoided your trigger food OR allowed yourself a moderate portion in a controlled environment. For example, if you love pasta but can't stop eating it if you make it at home, consider allowing yourself a pasta entree in a restaurant several times a month. Or allow yourself a real dessert on occasion in a restaurant, but don't keep sweets at home.
5. Pay attention to how your body feels after eating the trigger food in the above controlled environment. If it still sets off cravings into the night or the next day, you're likely better off totally avoiding the food.
6. If you feel really out of control with your eating, you should seek counseling as it can be a sign of an eating disorder.
For more Martha, go to Martha McKittrick
You Feel the Way You Think
As stated in the Five Great Reasons Exercise HAS to Be Part of Your Life article in this newsletter, exercise will make you less stressed, anxious, and depressed. However, sometimes you need more tools to deal with emotional distress. If you aspire to be a truly fit person, you should focus on working on your mental well-being as well. It should be as natural to you as flossing your teeth - if you don't, eventually you'll start having problems with your teeth. Same thing with your mind. The techniques you'll learn in the Fitness for the Mind articles are practical, sensible, and effective approaches to help you master your thoughts and think constructively. They're based on "Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Dummies" and truly work, so do give them a try!
First we'll learn about the CAB technique - a structure to identify, question, and replace unhelpful thoughts using pen and paper. The way you think affects the way you feel. Therefore, changing your unhelpful thoughts is a key to feeling as good as you possibly can, which, in turn, will enhance your life. There are two steps to the CAB technique: one will identify your triggers, thoughts, and feelings, and the other will take you right through to developing alternative thoughts so you can act differently in the future. In this newsletter we'll go over how to fill out CAB form 1, which you can easily create yourself, based on the bold text below:
Date: (The only way to spot dysfunctional behavioral patterns is to keep track of how often you felt a certain way; hence, you need to date and save each form.)
Consequence:
a) Write down your emotion.
b) Write down your behavior.
Activating event:
c) Write down what triggered your feelings.
Beliefs:
d) Write down the thoughts and beliefs that went through your mind.
e) Identify the thinking error for each thought.
EXAMPLE:
a) Mark feels extreme anxiety while at the gym.
b) Mark escapes into the bath room.
c) After some pondering, Mark realizes he felt anxious because he spotted a girl he likes walking toward him. A friend of his told the girl Mark likes her.
d) Mark is convinced there's no chance this girl could actually like him back.
e) Mark's thinking errors (see below) are the following: catastrophizing and black-and-white thinking. Later, when he's settled down and has analyzed the situation, he concludes there's no proof whatsoever for thinking the girl DOESN'T like him. He simply doesn't know what she thinks at all! He now needs to create a Constructive Alternative to his dysfunctional behavior!
Useful suggestions to fill out CAB form 1:
a) Examples of emotions you may choose to list after Consequence include:
- anger
- anxiety
- depression
- envy
- guilt
- hurt
- jealousy
- shame
FILL OUT A CAB FORM WHEN YOU FEEL UPSET, WHEN YOU'VE ACTED IN A WAY YOU WANT TO CHANGE, OR WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE ACTING IN A WAY YOU WISH TO CHANGE.
b) Write down how your behavior changed when you felt your uncomfortable emotion. Behavior people often identify include:
- Avoiding something
- Becoming withdrawn, isolated, or inactive
- Being aggressive
- Binge-eating or restricting food intake
- Escaping from a situation
- Putting off something (procrastination)
- Seeking reassurance
- Getting drunk or taking drugs
- Using safety behaviors such as holding on to something if you feel faint
c) Write down what triggered your feelings. Activating events or triggers include:
- Something happening right now
- Something that occurred in the past
- Something that you're anticipating will happen in the future
- Something in the environment (object, place, person)
- Something in your mind (image or memory)
- A physical sensation (increased heart rate, head ache, feeling tired)
- Your emotions or behavior
AN ACTIVATING EVENT CAN BE ALMOST ANYTHING. USE THE INTENSITY OF YOUR NEGATIVE FEELINGS, RATHER THAN WHETHER YOU THINK THE EVENT IS IMPORTANT, AS A GUIDE TO WHEN TO FILL OUT THE FORM.
d) Write down the thoughts and beliefs that went through your mind. Describe what the event meant to you when you felt the emotion. Example of negative beliefs that seem like facts to you include:
- Here I go again, proving that I'm useless!
- I should've known better!
- Now everyone knows what an idiot I am!
- This proves that I can't cope like normal people do!
HUMANS THINK IN BOTH WORDS AND IMAGES. PEOPLE WHO FEEL ANXIOUS OFTEN SEE CATASTROPHIC IMAGES IN THEIR MINDS. FOR EXAMPLE: IF AN ANXIOUS PERSON FEARS HE WON'T BE LIKED IF HE DISAGREES WITH A CO-WORKER, HE COULD IMAGINE THAT THE CO-WORKER WOULD PHYSICALLY ATTACK HIM AFTER THE ANXIOUS PERSON DISAGREED. THEREFORE, WRITE DOWN THE IMAGE AND WHAT IT MEANS TO YOU.
e) Consider what your thinking errors may be for each thought. This is a key way to become more objective about your thoughts. Questions that you might ask yourself to identify your thinking errors include:
- Am I jumping to the worst possible conclusion? (Catastrophizing)
- Am I thinking in extreme - all-or-nothing - terms? (Black-and-white thinking)
- Am I using words like 'always' or 'never' to draw generalized conclusions from a specific event? (Over generalizing)
- Am I predicting the future instead of waiting to see what happens? (Fortune-telling)
- Am I jumping to conclusion about what other people are thinking of me? (Mind-reading)
- Am I focusing on the negative and overlooking the positive? (Mental filtering)
- Am I discounting positive information or twisting a positive into a negative? (Disqualifying the positive)
- Am I globally putting myself down as a failure, worthless, or useless? (Labeling)
- Am I listening too much to my negative gut feelings instead of looking at the objective facts? (Emotional reasoning)
- Am I taking an event too personally or blaming myself and overlooking other factors? (Personalizing)
- Am I using words like 'should', 'must', 'have to' to make rigid rules about myself, the world, or other people? (Demanding)
- Am I telling myself that something is too difficult or unbearable or that 'I can't stand it' when actually it's hard to bear but it IS bearable and worth tolerating? (Low frustration tolerance)
Now it's time to practice identifying your thinking errors! Only when you feel confident about identifying them should you move on to CAB form 2. If you start practicing today, you'll be in perfect shape when my next part of this article next newsletter comes out in July with the - Creating Constructive Alternatives!
Top Ten Fittest and Fattest Cities in America
(Courtesy of Men's Fitness Magazine)
Top 10 Fittest Cities 1. Albuquerque, New Mexico2. Seattle, Washington 3. Colorado Springs, Colorado 4. Minneapolis, Minnesota 5. Tucson, Arizona 6. Denver, Colorado 7. San Francisco, California 8. Baltimore, Maryland 9. Portland, Oregon 10. Honolulu, Hawaii |
Top 10 Fattest Cities 1. Las Vegas, Nevada2. San Antonio, Texas 3. Miami, Florida 4. Mesa, Arizona 5. Los Angeles, California 6. Houston, Texas 7. Dallas, Texas 8. El Paso, Texas 9. Detroit, Michigan 10. San Jose, California |