Holy Station

Archive for the ‘Fitness’ Category

The weight loss journey can be long and hard and it can be harder when you are talking about fitness over 40. So you need a plan to help you succeed. Statistics will show you that every successful weight loss plan will include a good nutrition plan and a dedicated exercise plan. It sounds pretty simple, but if you just use those two elements weight loss will always seem to be just around the corner. Fortunately, I’ve found that there is more to it and what you need to add. Adding commitment to your plan is the underlying key to success. All of these things can be found in a good program, such as “Fit Over Forty” by Jon Benson.

Fitness over 40 is attainable with a solid plan and commitment to it. It’s a mind set, a life changing choice, and you will need motivation to change. It can be found in the Fit Over Forty program. Besides a great fitness plan you will also get motivation from people who have done amazing things. I know that one of the best ways to stay committed is to hear about great results from other people. People that you can relate to and gain confidence from by hearing and seeing that their own commitment paid off in amazing results. Now that you have a plan to start on your road to weight loss you first must pick your key elements and then a program to build around them.

Your diet and commitment to it is very important. If you are a woman over 40 you probably lead a busy life. So, start with exploring different diet and food choice options that will fit into your busy lifestyle and budget. Your diet must be able to accommodate you when you are out having fun and be easy to follow so that it is flexible enough for everyday. If you are the type of person that does not like salads, for example, then you must find a plan that does not include salad. Don’t include items you don’t really like and add more items you do to your diet plan. Eating what you enjoy will make it easier for you to stick to it.

I have found that at the end of the day the plan can be very simple, as long as you follow some basic rules. These rules must be incorporated into every plan for fitness over 40. The first rule is portion control. As the world ages portion control, quite frankly, has become out of control. Historical comparisons that look at normal food intake from the 1950′s and compare them to today, will show that on average, we all have increased our food intake and our portion sizes. The marketing concept of up-sizing at restaurants and fast food establishments may make us feel we are getting a bang for our buck, but it has put a stretch on our stomach and pounds on our hips.

Think about decreasing your portion sizes by 25% and in turn you will automatically decrease your calorie intake by 25%. If you are unsure about how to make those changes, utilize smaller plates and bowls. Use your own body to determine portion sizes, for example, when eating pasta, your portion size should be no larger than your own fist. A meat serving should be the size of your own palm. It’s not necessary to go out and purchase fancy scales. Weigh scales are helpful when you are always eating at home. But in the event that you are out, utilizing these simple eye tricks can help you in portion control.

The second basic rule is to keep a food diary. Food diaries that are done honestly will bring light to your “real” calorie intake. When I have taken a survey of dieters who have kept a journal, people time and time again are surprised at their total food intake on a daily basis. Try your own experiment and write down everything that you consume on a daily basis. Try it for 7 days and you will be guaranteed to be enlightened about your own calorie intake. Once you have a clear understanding of your intake, you will be able to row your own diet boat. It’s rowing your own boat that takes me to my next point.

Exercise, Exercise, Exercise. Exercise can bring us all instant thoughts of dread and defeat, I’ve heard it all: I can’t, I’m not an athlete, I don’t have time and the list goes on and on. Own your weight loss journey. To do that you need to pick a program that you can stick to and concentrate your exercise goals on such as Fit over Forty. If you have never exercised it can seem impossible to get off that couch and into a regular exercise routine. But you need to approach your exercise program the same as you would any other daily activity of living. All of us have routines that we do everyday, from washing the dishes, making our bed, or watching the evening news.

For fitness over 40 for to succeed, it needs to be the same with exercise. You MUST approach it as part of your daily routine. In order to make exercise a habit, you must make a commitment to 21 days of exercise. These days don’t have to all be in a row, but should be done fairly close together. This will make it part of your routine. It will be tough, but the pay off is well worth it. So, set up a calendar for exercise. You can even purchase stickers to help you stay focused. I know this may sound very basic, but committing to exercise should be basic and it is ofter the simple.

When I was starting on my exercise commitment I set up a regular calendar and star system. On Sundays, I would sit down with my calendar and look to the week ahead. I would pre-plan my exercise moments around my upcoming events. I would then schedule my exercise time the same way that I would set up a hair appointment. Pre-planning for the week ahead, allows you to find the time to make your exercise appointments. If you wait till that day, excuses and poor time management will push your exercise to the next day. The next day never seems to come and then you can not get to your 21 day goal. Then, every day that I fulfilled my exercise commitment, I would highlight it on my exercise calendar with a golden star. When your calendar becomes filled with those golden stars, you will have a natural high and sense of accomplishment. It is such a great feeling!

Another important thing to do is to reward yourself. In order to feel that you are not being deprived you have to do it. Whether it is with food or exercise, everyone must set up a reward system. Since I am a woman over forty myself, I rewarded myself with things that made me feel good about myself. So if you are like me, your system could be that once you have lost 5 pounds, you get a pedicure. Or, once you hit your 21 day exercise high, with your 21 golden stars, you could have a goal prize of a date night , or a new CD. You need to set your own rewards so that you can achieve and derive pleasure from them.

So by paying a lot of attention to picking the right diet plan and using the right exercise plan for who you are now, you will help yourself get to where you want to be. Using helpful little tricks along the way will ensure that you stay away from the landmines of weight loss and that you achieve the ultimate you. Start today and make your own commitment to your own plan for fitness over 40.

Portion Control: Put it On Autopilot and It’s Easier Than You Think

“They Eat What They See:” Double the Portion, Double What’s Eaten”

Between 1977 and 2000, portion sizes increased for salty snacks, desserts, soft drinks, fruit drinks, French fries, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, and Mexican food by 100 calories or more a portion. A few of the “acceptable’ portions more than doubled. Adding only 100 calories a day for a year for a results in gain an extra 10 lb pound of weight.

The 8 oz. bottle of soda was the original size for decades until it was displaced by the 12-ounce can. Many stores now carry only the 20-ounce plastic soda or juice bottles, which contains 2.5 servings of soda. The bottle can top out at 250 calories and contain 65 grams of sugar.

Most of us have a hard time regulating our intake or figuring out what a serving size is supposed to be and end up drinking or eating whatever is in the container or on the plate. A 2004 study, published in Appetite, gave people potato chips packaged in bags that looked the same, except they were presented in increasing size. As package size increased, so did consumption; subjects ate up to 37 percent more with the large bags than with small bags. Those eating the smaller amount of chips stated they were just as full as those eating the large amount.

Almost everyone has some portion distortion:
Overeating due to portion distortion does not just apply just to overweight or obese people. Just about everyone, irrespective of income, age or education has some degree of portion distortion– what they see in front of them on a plate becomes their “normal” portion. Buying groceries in supersized boxes or bags or using oversized plates or glasses only makes the portions greater. Complicating this is the fact that people seriously underestimate the calories in large portions by as much as 30- 50%. Since the amount consumed is proportional to the portion, making these mistakes can cause serious problems. The more people have on their plates — or in their bags of chips or boxes of popcorn — the more they are likely to eat. Even worse is that it does not matter if a person is hungry or not, they will eat the same. Asking people to weigh their food simply does not work for more than a day or two at best.

Calories trump carbs, fats and protein:
Its excess calories that cause everyone to gain weight. There are no such things as good calories or bad calories- they are all same. Too many overweight people are fooled by labels with “low fat,” “low carb,” “light,” No sugar added,” “heart health” and numerous other tricks. Madison Avenue uses these tricks to make it easier to buy foods that we might really not need and have the potential to make us fat. In the end read the label? Calories count

Increases in portion Are NOT met with a compensatory decrease in food:
One might expect that if people eat more during one meal or if they have a snack, even a substantial one they would eat less at the next meal. This is call compensation and it does not happen except in 3 or 4 year old children. Increase portion size does not cause more fullness.

More than 50% of overweight people are habitual plate cleaners and the ‘acceptable’ portion is whatever they see in front of them. What ever is on the plate is the amount they eat and the amount of food that they expect to feel “full.” When the food or drinks happens to be pleasing, calorie rich salty, fatty or sweet food, the intake increases even more. Most people, children and teen included eat with their eyes not their stomach.

Few studies involve portion control:
With the obvious link between increased portion size and the out of control obesity crisis one might have thought that numerous studies would have evaluated the long term difference in weight loss between studies emphasizing portion control, limiting food groups, counting calories or exercise– yet few have been completed. The emphasis has been on the trendier” low carb’ or “high protein” diet plans not on more mundane things as portion size.

Portion Can Be Controlled Easier Than Trying to Limit Palatable Foods or Exercising:
Here are some of the strategies used by individual to control their portion size. Some are simple, while others are more complex. Incorporate as many as you can into you families eating patterns:

Limiting Portion By First Eliminating a Few Very Bad Foods with Impossible Portion Control:
Controlling the portion sizes of pleasurable foods using willpower alone is impossible, especially in times of stress. Intending to eat just a handful of nuts or one scoop of ice cream can result in disaster. Cookies, candies, nut, chips, seeds, cake, donuts and pastries have NO easy portion control, except when bought in 100 calorie packs. Remove the boxes and bags of these foods from the house and replace with small, portion controlled, 100 calorie packs.

Limiting Portion by Choosing Foods with Easy Portion Control:
Some foods simply have easier portion control than others. When everything is equal, chose the ones with easier portion control.

A sugar-free, high-protein bar is a much better choice than a handful of dried fruits, nuts or seeds because the portion is the entire bar. Dried fruits, nuts and seeds may be super healthy snack food choices, but these foods do pose a serious problem with regards to portion and calorie control. After you have eaten that one sugar-free, high-protein bar, the snacking is over. Getting up for a second protein bar takes a lot more effort than reaching into a bag of nuts, dried fruits or seeds for a second handful. Portion control with a small container of yogurt or cottage cheese or, better yet, with low-calorie ice cream bars, is much easier than trying to eat only a scoop of ice cream out of a pint, quart or half-gallon container. Portion control is all about making the effort to eat consciously and make smart choices that won’t set you up for failure.

Watching What Your Buy: Supermarket Tricks to Help With Portion Control:
The secret in portion control starts in the supermarket. Buying foods with easy portion control makes limiting food intake much easier when you come home. I call the foods purchased at a supermarket in bags, boxes or other containers that come with nutritional labels “packaged foods.” When confronted with packaged foods, the simple trick is to choose the foods where the package itself IS the full portion. Remember that portion control starts at the supermarket, not at the dining table. Make things easy for yourself, so you only need to be concerned with portion sizes for one or two items a day, ideally for the amount of protein and carbs you have at dinner. Just because a food is in a single package or container, that doesn’t mean that it is a single serving. Just don’t be fooled into thinking that there is only a single serving in a package that may have two, three, or even five servings.

The Small Plate Movement: Tricking the Mind to Make Less Look More:
American Public Health Association organized the Small Plate Movement in 2008 with Dr Brain Wansink.The goal is to encourage consumers to decrease the size of their dinner plates from 12-inch to 10 inches. A two inch drop results in 22% fewer calories being served, yet it is not drastic enough for most people to only realize. If a typical dinner has 600-700 calories, a smaller plate would lead to a weight loss of around 12-13 pounds per year for an average size child or teen

Limit the variety of foods:
The greater the variety of food, the more you will eat. We all know that after a large meal, there is “still room for dessert.” Limiting your dinner to no more than two or at most three different selections results in less overall eating because of the natural boredom that most people encounter when eating a single food. For example, most people find eating a large bowl of tomato soup boring.

Limiting Portions with Portion Control Plates:
In 2007, Canadian investigator Sue Pedersen followed 130 diabetic subjects who used a “diet plate) to control portion size for 6 months. She found significantly more weight loss and improvement in glycemic control with portion plate users. So-called portion-control plates with names such as the Diet Plate, EZ Weight Plate and Portion Doctor are marked into sections, or divided into compartments, designated to be filled with different types of food. There are large areas for vegetables and much smaller areas for everything else. The theory is that people will eat appropriate amounts when using the plates (some of them originally designed for people with diabetes) and learn to recognize, and reject, inappropriate amounts whenever they’re tempted by them.

When All Else Fails Use Your Hand to Measure Portion Size:
The hand method is used to ensure that you are eating portions relative to your body size. Since you base your meal size comparatively to the size of your hand, men will more likely be eating a larger portion than that of women (lucky devils!). Children with very small hands, need even smaller portions. While this method is only an approximation (nothing can be as accurate as a scale), it helps us to keep our portions of reasonable size, and serves as a good gauge for how much to eat when we’re away from home. Some “Hand Method” Tips:

o A serving of protein should be about the size of the palm of the hand
o Eat a salad that is the size of both hands put together
o Green vegetables should be the size of about two fists
o Starchy items like potatoes or pasta should be served in a portion about the size of one tightly clenched fist.

Putting Portion Control on Autopilot:
Automatic portion control is the goal to helping everyone in the family to lose weight and keep it off. The last thing you want to do is to argue about what is the appropriate size of food portions. Here are some helpful hints. It’s easier to spend a few minutes on portion control than going to a gym for 2 hours:

In the Supermarket:
Look at the label, buy only portion controlled snacks, avoid some really bad ones, buy 100 calorie snack bags. Even if the food is healthy, look for foods with easy to control

In the Kitchen:
Divide the food into 3 sections on 10 inch plate, limit variety of foods to

2 or 3 choices, put all of the food on one smaller plate, place the carbs and protein on the plates in the kitchen. Just reducing plate size can result in a 10-12 lb.weight loss over a year!

On the dinner table:
No serving portions of carbs or protein, only salads or vegetables water for everyone to drink

Use your hand for your portions and your children and teen’s hands for their portions. Don’t expect your kids to clean their plates.

I seem to be more aware or tuned in when it comes to the diabetes disease. I look for situations that are of concern for the diabetes community. What could be of help to someone that has the diabetes disease.

Let me explain.

Here is a quick story. I need to get this off my chest because the telling of this story will hopefully free me from the shackles of the constant images I get about what I saw at one of my lunches at Wendy’s in Secaucus, New Jersey. It took place in April of 2007.

While in the midst of a great salad that I was eating I could not help but look at and see two rather large women making a lot of noise. As they walked to their tables, I noticed that they sat at two tables instead of one. This seemed odd. They were talking to each other like they knew each other. Anyway, as they started eating I saw that they each had these huge bags of food and a large glass of some fountain drink. They both kept reaching into their respective bags and pulled out French fry after French fry. Occasionally I saw them eating some kind of hamburger on a bun.

What fascinated me so much was the amount of French fries these two women consumed. I still think about it to this day

Now I started to think about the Diabetes disease and me.

How could these two women eat so much? What would prompt them to consume so much food? More importantly what could all these French fires and soda do to them? That is the key question as I gazed at them. Having the diabetes disease, my thought was that they were headed for the diabetes disease as well. With eating habits like this and being massively overweight they set themselves on this crash course towards this ailment.

These two ladies reminded me of myself. Here’s why.

Back in the day I used to do the same thing these women did No wonder I am a diabetic now. I used to go to fast food restaurants and fill up on the super duper meals. Looking ahead during the morning to what I would have at lunch would be part of my daily ritual at least two to three times per week. Sometimes I would actually eat sensibly during the week and go to restaurant for lunch and eat a decent meal. But that was more of the rarity than the rule.

There you have my little vignette. Call it the diabetes disease portion control saga if you want. My issue has been about product portions. I like to eat when I am going to eat. Fortunately for me I am eating a lot more salads and foods that will help me with my diabetes disease. And eating normal sized meals as well.

Eating sensibly sized meals is part of what I learned about what I need to do to handle my diabetes disease. Controlling your portions will help you beat the diabetes disease. For other answers, besides portion control, about helping you with the diabetes disease go grab a free e course.

There are any number of reasons to get in better shape, most of which vary by age – they range from getting in shape for a specific sporting competition to wanting to lose weight, to boosting confidence and physical appearance, even doctor’s orders for improving cardiovascular health. Look at the time you spend in the gym as an investment – the more time and sweat equity you spend there, the less you have to spend on things lie statins to drop your cholesterol levels later in life – provided you work out intelligently, working on overall body fitness, and keep track of the factors that impact your health in general.

A good total body workout is only part of the program; it takes planning and preparation to get the maximum benefits, and some significant lifestyle changes with regards to your attitude towards food. While an article of this length won’t be able to cover all the details, it’s enough to give you a high level overview of the core concepts.

First, you need to combine caloric restriction – cutting back your caloric intake a little bit – with increased cardiovascular training. The easiest way to cut back on calories is through portion control; this is the key lesson to Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig, that you learn to see a meal in terms of its caloric value. Next, you need to shift what you eat – move away from heavy carbohydrate foods to ones that involve more protein; don’t cut out fat completely, because fat is what tells you’re full.

Cardiovascular training can be comparatively simple to set up: Just emphasise walking more regularly as part of your daily routine. Park farther away from work or the store, take the stairs rather than the elevator whenever possible. These steps may seem simple, but they’re enough to get you started on roughly 20 minutes of semi-regular exercise per day.

Once you’ve gotten that part of your routine set, it’s time to build on that foundation for total body fitness. You’ll want a program that you can live with; this is a program that does exercises you enjoy. Any specific activity we list should be substituted with something you find enjoyable – if you don’t enjoy it, exercise becomes a chore, and as soon as you can, you’ll skip out on going to the gym.

First, a typical schedule for resistance and weight training tries to go three days a week, regular as clockwork, with a day off in between each of them. On the weight training days, start with about five minutes of moderate cardio workout – run a few laps, or spend some time on the treadmill. After that, stretch to release fatigue toxins for your body to process and break down. You’ll find that doing this will greatly reduce the muscle aches from a good workout.

Next, do core body strength exercises as your first layer of strength building. Core body exercises work your abdominal muscles and your lower and middle back muscles; take them slowly and take them carefully. Because these are muscles that are constantly in use, you tend to not notice how hard you’re working until you’ve somewhat overdone them. The goal here isn’t to get ripped abs; the goal here is to build a foundation of strength, because your abdominals are the muscles that all of your other workouts will transmit their workload to.

Exercises that will build this core body strength include crunches (both with and without a weight held on your chest) and back lifts, as well as high rep count sitting squat presses. When you’re doing 30 to 40 reps on this without feeling much of a burn, you’ve built yourself up to the minimum strength standards.

Once this foundation is set, it’s time to start working on specific muscle groups, usually working with upper body strength first, then lower body strength on the alternating days. The reason for this alternation is because when you’re lifting, you’re breaking down muscle fibers, and you want to give your body time to knit newer, higher density muscle fibers in return. Similarly, when you work out, you should try to eat something heavy in digestible protein within half an hour to an hour after the workout, to help you achieve maximum fitness and health – this gives your body the raw materials it needs to build new muscle tissue, right when it’s looking for it.

Unfortunately, when people dine out at restaurants in the United States, appropriate food portions are not usually an option. It seems like every where we turn people are trying to lure us in with their super sized discounted combo meals. The most important key to losing weight and keeping it off lies in portion control. Recent studies have shown that it’s easier for obese people to follow a portion controlled weight loss program than an increasingly intense exercise program.

It may be difficult to monitor how much you eat, especially when you are out at a restaurant with friends or family and caught up in the moment of socializing. It would be a good idea to share entrees with a friend or order lunch size portions or low fat appetizers for dinner. Ordering soup or salad first will also curb your appetite. Get a to-go box even before you even get your food and immediately put half of your plate in it. If allowed, try ordering from the kids menu, obviously the portions are smaller and it will save you money. Avoid all you can eat buffets and salad bars whenever possible. We feel like we have to eat more to get our moneys worth or try everything then end up with an upset stomach.

There are very simple ways to control your portion sizes at home, also. First, measure what you are eating against the serving size listed on the label and make adjustments. Check out health websites to find the appropriate sizes for each of the food groups. Buy calorie portioned meals or buy in bulk and store your food in containers already measured. Use smaller plates and bowls. Also, avoid watching TV while eating. Research concludes that we naturally consume more when enjoying our favorite TV show. Don’t wait until you’re starving and light headed to chow down because that will lead to overeating. Just relax, eat slowly and savor the different tastes in each meal.

If you’ve been around for half a lifetime and haven’t thought much about your muscle fitness, chances are your middle portion is a bit on the large and spongy side and those soft flabby bits are sagging like cheese slices melting in the sun.

You might even count your blessings that you are not considered one of the 60% of the population that is overweight. But that little bit of excess fat that’s steadily increasing around your waist is a growing concern as you become increasingly aware that your muscle fitness is on the decline.

It’s easy not to worry about it because the change is ever so gradual. You can safely think ‘it’s not too bad yet, there’s plenty of time – I’ll fix it later’.

Often though, later never comes and if it does, you’re confronted with a bigger task than ever – so big that you might even give up before you start. On top of that, while you’re waiting for later to come, your body is weakening and deteriorating and muscle is withering away, further adding to the difficulty of shaping up and improving your fitness.

So the first thing you need to do is:

Decide why it is important to shape up and improve your muscle fitness.

The why is most important because these reasons provide the emotional power that will draw you toward your goal and simultaneously attract your goal to you.

Here are two good reasons for you:

1. Aged health

As you grow older what quality of life would you like to enjoy? Does the prospect of shuffling along or having a stooped and bent posture appeal to you? How about the possibility of brittle weak bones fracturing easily and launching you in hospital for a spell?

Building bone density and strength is especially crucial for women. Bone density is lost at about a percent a year from about 40 onwards. A moderate regular weight bearing program will build muscle and fitness and arrest this loss and probably start to recover some of the density already lost. Don’t wait till later to build bone density.

2. Self-image

While you don’t see increasing bone density you do see the change to body shape after a while. You do see the firmness in the muscles and you do feel the better fitness. There is no denying that generally people look and feel more physically attractive when they are slim and happy with their shape. Also, other people generally regard slim people as being more attractive than overweight people.

The second thing to do is decide what you will do to remove that spare tyre on the waist, those love handles on the hip or that roll over the front of your pants.

Remember, liposuction or other such surgeries will not strengthen bone, build muscle, fitness or develop good habits but exercise will so there’s really only one choice here (apart from the obvious choice of eating correctly).

So in choosing the type of exercise for you keep in mind these few points:

* It must be something you can enjoy doing.

* Start light and slowly and gradually increase the intensity or length of your workout.

* Include stretching, aerobics and weight bearing exercises

* Support and enhance your physical exercises with a good diet.

* Select a convenient regular time to workout so it becomes part of your habit and routine.

* Vary what you do occasionally to keep your workouts fresh and interesting

* Buddy up with someone and help keep each other going.

So there you go if you’ve got a little bit of tummy sag or even a pretty hefty spare tyre it’s not really that hard to remove it. Expend more energy than you consume. Knowing what to do is not rocket science. It’s pretty simple really as outlined above. Don’t wait till later to build muscle and improve fitness or until you’ve got everything right before starting. At the very least get outside and start walking (at a good pace).

You don’t have to get it right, just get it going.