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Mindful Eating Tips

Every February (the shortest month of the year) we run a Mindful Eating Challenge. We already made it through this year (phew)! The purpose is to pick any food related goal/challenge that you feel would benefit you. I always try to give up processed sugar. Others try to incorporate more vegetables or reduce alcohol. Some people try to reduce snacking or only have dessert twice a week. The options are broad. But they are all linked to mindfulness.

What does mindful eating mean?

Trying to eat mindfully simply means that we try to notice anything we can about the food we eat. Maybe that involves being present during the act of eating. Or maybe it involves noticing our process with food—how we plan our meals or how often we think about food during the day. But mindfulness isn’t only about being present and noticing. It’s about accepting and not judging what we notice. Sometimes that can be the tough part. We can be so discouraging to ourselves when we feel we failed. When practicing mindfulness the fact that you even noticed shows you didn’t feel.

Mindfulness is the first step in figuring out […]

Mindful Eating Tips2022-04-01T21:43:03-04:00

Heat up in Winter

If you find yourself feeling cold on these frigid winter days we’ve been having, you have two tools at your disposal all the time that can help you warm up: movement and specific breathing patterns.

Our muscles are efficient little furnaces They are great at heating us up. In fact, when we engage our muscles around 80% of the energy created becomes heat. Only about 20% goes into the muscle movement. To heat up quickly you’ll want to do a few full body moves that use big muscles. For example squats brining your arms over head, jumping jacks, or large marches in place while pumping the arms. Use your whole body, but definitely involve the legs and glutes because they have some of our biggest muscles. You can even simply tense your muscles. Try that with me now. Tense you arms, legs, glutes, abs. I feel that heat right away, do you?

Now, the key to remember when you want to move to heat yourself up is not to do so much. You don’t want to do squats or jumping jacks until you start sweating because then you’ll just get cold again. Try 5- 15 reps of any exercise. If […]

Heat up in Winter2022-02-16T16:39:49-05:00

How Many Steps A Day?

Many of us believe we are supposed to walk 10k steps per day. The truth is that there has never been research to back that up. The number comes from a 1960’s, Japanese ad campaign for the first pedometer. Clearly the campaign worked because we’ve all been believing it ever since.

But now we have three research studies that indicate, perhaps to some people’s delight, that we may not need 10k steps for a substantial benefit. It looks like the magic sweet spot is between 7,000 and 8,000 steps. Upon crossing that threshold people decrease their chances of mortality by all causes by 50-70%.

These studies showed correlation not causation, so it is not evidence that walking makes you live longer, but people who walk certainly live longer. If you’d like to be in the “live longer” group, I’d encourage you to build up to 7k steps per day.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting if you already walk more than that (perhaps you have gotten in the habit of 10k steps) that you should reduce your goal. Increased steps was correlated with even more gains, but the most profound leap in longevity came […]

How Many Steps A Day?2021-11-14T16:40:11-05:00

The No Pain, No Gain Fallacy

We’ve all heard the phrase, No Pain, No Gain in relation to exercises.  It’s a popular expression but it is not true.  Actually, it’s potentially harmful.

 

When we think No Pain, No Gain in terms of exercise we tend to think that either our workout should be grueling, or we should be sore the day or two afterward.  If we aren’t then we presume we haven’t done enough.  The problem is working out and pushing through pain increases our risk of injury.  Once we are injured our whole workout plan can be derailed.  Plus the Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) we feel 24-48 hours after a workout isn’t practical or functional.  We are more likely to get injured then because we have to alter the way we naturally move to work around how sore we are.

 

While you can choose to only do an upper body workout every other day, you can’t not use half your body for a whole day.  We need our arms to pick up our children, reach for something off the top shelf, and open the refrigerator.  We need our legs to go upstairs, get in and out of […]

The No Pain, No Gain Fallacy2021-10-15T16:20:14-04:00

Feeling on edge?

Have you been feeling on edge since mid-March?  Hmmm, I wonder why?  Perhaps you are human.  We’ve been dealing with a lot in the world lately between COVID, loss of work, black lives matter, and a general sense that we don’t know what the future holds or how to bring about changes we may desire.  And, we’ve been going through a lot of it in some degree of isolation—never a good thing for humans.  We are social animals.  Even if you are one of those people that say you prefer cats and dogs to your fellow humans, you need people and support.

Does Rest Still Work?

I’m a big believer in a rest day from exercise, but I’ve found that it hasn’t been an option.  Prior to COVID I could take a rest day.  If I took three or four in a row, I’d start to get antsy. (Matt might use the word grumpy.)  But now, if I don’t exercise one day, by midafternoon I’m not in a good place.  Movement is such a useful tool for me.  It makes me feel better.  It helps my sanity.  Moving boost my spirits.  But perhaps […]

Feeling on edge?2020-06-19T14:16:27-04:00
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