Visualization is a strong tip for success

I am going to share with you one of our absolutely most powerful training tools we use with all of our clients at One-to-1 Fitness. This one tool will take up less than 5 seconds of your time on a daily basis and I guarantee you will have an incredibly dramatic impact on your success. Aptly named we call it a Success Chart. If you have a current calendar handy than I you already have a simplified version of our Success Chart at your finger tips. Here’s how it works.

1)     Set a monthly goal. We all know how goals are important but if you even doubt it for a second I just want you to envision having 15 minutes to get somewhere in down town Toronto, you know it’s not far but you don’t have a road map. Without monthly goals you are as likely to reach your fitness objectives as you are to reach your Toronto destination on time, not very. Make your monthly goal realistic and attainable, something like losing 5-6 lbs or one pant/dress size.

2)     Set a daily exercise and nutrition goal for each week. Again these small goals are critical, but only if they are simple and realistic. So don’t plan to change everything tomorrow, rather simply look at your current lifestyle habits right now and decide what small steps you could make this week. An example might be if you always skip breakfast and then go out for a big lunch your weekly nutrition goal might be to always have something, anything, for breakfast and to pack a lunch a minimum of three days this week. Fitness might be to meet with a personal trainer 1-2 times or complete 3-4 different classes as well as going for a walk at least four days this week.

3)     X’s but not O’s! Here’s the magic. Your Success Chart is one of the simplest and most effective types of journals. Each day you meet your nutritional goal for that day/week you draw a line diagonally through the day. If on that same day you exercise as you’ve outlined for that week then you draw the other line to make the X. At the end of each week if you’re not making progress simply look at how many X’s you have on your chart. We often don’t realize when we are off course until it’s staring us right in the face.

I know this doesn’t sound like the answer to that missing link in your nutrition, it’s not that magic tummy tucking exercise, heck it’s not even a direct plan. Though the Success Chart may be none of those things it can easily outperform them all by providing the most important component of any fitness and weight loss program, rigid, trackable, consistency.

Don’t doubt the power of this tool, trust me and try it, 3-4 weeks of mainly X’s and there is absolutely no way you will not have modified your lifestyle and experienced physical change.

For many people the over-indulgence of sweets and endless snacking during the holidays is not the likely the cause of the weight gain we generally fear. Rather the unlikely culprit is one most people don’t suspect—alcohol, and it has nothing to do with the calories of the alcohol consumed.

Few people realize the full effects of just a couple of ounces of alcohol on their bodies. Alcohol is a nervous toxin and seriously disrupts many functions of the metabolism, namely fat loss. One to two drinks can reduce the body’s ability to burn body fat by more than 70% according to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition[1]. To make matters worse these effects may be sustained for a number of hours after consumption and the more you consume the greater and longer the effect is. As an added bonus alcohol consumption has also been linked to the stimulation of appetite which makes or holiday feeding frenzy even worse.

If you are looking to survive this holiday season without the unwanted extra weight I’m not saying you have to be a social stiff but keep in mind how these things may affect your body and your long term goals. Choose your occasions and activities accordingly and just remember that it’s about balance, everything in moderation. Be healthy and enjoy the upcoming holiday celebrations!

[1] Siler, S.Q., Neese, R.A., & Hellerstein, M.K. (1999). De novo lipogenesis, lipid kinetics, and whole-body lipid balances in humans after acute alcohol consumption. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 70, 928-936

In a time such as this one thing is certainly clear, as a society we’re not taking very good care of ourselves. Our body, the miraculous machine that it is, is designed to protect itself. Due to lack of maintenance many bodies are not meeting this task very well at the moment. Much like our cars we need to provide the proper fuels and regular tune ups.

With all the hoopla surrounding the flu in the world of fitness professionals we are seeing plenty of information re-circulate citing
studies demonstrating the link between moderate exercise and immune system strength and enhancement. Physorg.com began a recent article with the following, “It appears as though exercise pain does have plenty of gain when it comes to
fighting off the severe effects of the flu.”

The studies of five Iowa researches that were discussed in this article explained the results of testing in a group of mice exposed to the influenza virus. Mice that ran on a treadmill regularly for three and a half months had greatly diminished amounts of the virus within their bodies as opposed to the test group. Even a group that exercised for 45 minutes only on the day of infection still experienced diminished effects of the flu.

Another article on sportsmedicine.about.com explained how studies have shown recreational exercisers to report fewer colds once they began exercising.  As quoted from the article, “Moderate exercise has been linked to a positive immune system response and a temporary boost in the production of macrophages, the cells that attack bacteria. It is believed that regular, consistent exercise can lead to substantial benefits in immune system health over the long-term.”

The article went on to explain that even more studies have shown the link between moderate exercise and the immune system. It is believed that exercise allows the immune cells to circulate more rapidly and kill bacteria faster. Once exercise ends the immune system generally returns to normal within a few hours, but when performed on a near daily basis there appears to be a cumulative effect to the immune system.

Now with all this being said I think it’s important to clarify what exactly this means when it comes to exercising the immune system, as the wrong exercise can have the completely opposite effect.

Generally for immune-enhancement the activity performed should be cardiovascular activity performed at a steady pace for the duration. On an effort scale of 1-10 (10 being the most difficult) it should be moderately difficult to a maximum of about a 6-7. Resistance training often has the opposite effect once you are feeling the symptoms of illness or are actually sick. Though resistance training is a very key component of good health when we are otherwise healthy, it will not be of any benefit in boosting our compromised immune system when we are sick. In fact when sick the resources required for recovery of tissues naturally damaged in resistance training may worsen symptoms or further compromise the immune system.

The moral of this story is: maintain good habits and provide regular body maintenance to live a long healthy life. (And yes guys even we need to do cardio on a regular basis.)

Shauna Clark at the Amaryllis Centre was kind enough to provide us with a staff and family class night to introduce many of us to the benefits of Hot Yoga. I’m sure you’ve heard of Hot Yoga by now as it’s become a fairly common buzz word these last few years.

Hot Yoga is just as it sounds, Yoga in a very warm room, usually in the neighbourhood of 37-40 degrees Celsius. Now if the thought of doing any kind of exercise in a room that warm frightens you you’re not alone, both my wife and I don’t generally function well for extended periods in a hot environment. However the heat of the Yoga studio didn’t bother me at all and I am sure you will find the same as long as you drink ample amounts of water prior to your class.

As a fitness professional I’ve referred many clients to Yoga classes throughout the years to compensate for the missing stretching from our North American lifestyles. You see the average adult should really be stretching for 20-30 minutes per day to maintain normal muscle balance and tone. If we did I suspect both Advil and Tylenol would teeter on the verge of bankruptcy. Our lifestyles thanks to chairs, computers, ergonomic everything and long work hours have made pain a normal part of life. Our body is built with opposing pair muscle groups that allow us to perform all of our movement miracles. But as time goes on technology continues to reduce movement in trade for efficiency and we find ourselves only performing a few movement patterns day in and day out. Less but more repetitive movements leads ultimately to pain, exercise and stretching are critical if you wish to enjoy a long, healthy pain free life.

If you dislike stretching as much as the rest of us than Hot Yoga can provide many benefits for you. The heated room really enhances circulation, super circulation leads to much faster progress in developing flexibility and muscle balance. Additionally the elevated body temperature will lead to swift and effective detoxification as well as a major metabolic boost, among other benefits.

As a final word the detail oriented personal trainer side of me feels it’s critical to mention the one drawback to Yoga like most exercise disciplines is that it doesn’t consider you as an individual or you specific movement patterns, though I do find it to be nicely well rounded. Also remember like any discipline not all instructors are equal, we really have a great relationship with Shauna and endorse her facility fully but make sure you feel comfortable with who you’re working with. Besides we know you’re not going to stretch anyways so the best program is the one you will actually do. I don’t believe Hot Yoga should be the only form of exercise you do but do recommend you give it worthy consideration to become a regular part of your total exercise program. You never know you might even see me in a class or two because I don’t like stretching either.

To continue with this frightful math our poor individual now carrying 17lbs of unneeded mass decides to get ambitious upon reading this article and is determined to offset this consumption with exercise to ensure they don’t need to spend the winter months looking for larger pants. Each hour spent at a fast walk on our beloved treadmill burns approximately 500 calories. At 3500 calories a pound all those wondrously sweet morsels have now committed our hero to a mere 119 hours on the treadmill. So book the time off work now or slot your treadmill holiday into your child’s schedule in place of the next summer vacation now. 3 weeks on the treadmill in mid-July sounds like a fun family time for sure.  So all of my horrifying humor aside, Halloween is a tough holiday to provide healthy alternatives for. The very nature of the holiday centres around the immortal words “Trick or Treat” and these days tricks likely don’t earn the respect and admiration they maybe once did. As a “Treat” is pretty much the standard expectation for every goblin and ghoul that graces your steps it’s difficult to have their best interests at heart. The more desirable the treat, likely the worse it is for them and should you opt for a “healthier” treat you are still stuck providing something that is securely packaged which is synonymous with processed and full of preservatives. It really is a lose-lose situation at best.

Now hopefully I haven’t painted myself to be too big a target for all the rotten eggs but on Saturday when all the ghosts and ghouls are gone it’s important to remember that one of the scary truths about Halloween may stick with you a lot longer. As they say a moment on the lips…

A few of my clients smoke, and I get to seehow it limits them while they train. Sometimes they cough or are more quicklyout of breath and feeling increased fatigue. If you smoke you already knowthis, you’ve heard the lectures, you know it’s bad for you. I bet many of youreally want to quit, you may have tried and failed or succeeded for a whileonly to start again. This column is dedicated to encouraging you to try again.

If you are going to succeed at quitting youmust first understand what obstacles make it hard and how to overcome them.

Like any bad habit from smoking to bitingyour nails there is an emotional attachment to the action. Something about thataction may stimulate a certain emotional response. For most smoking is calming.It’s associated with break times, a moment to relieve your self from the stressof the day. This is the hardest obstacle to over come and really the only onethat will require discipline and perseverance. What you need to do is work tomake smoking a negative experience, one that doesn’t carry the same calmingeffect. The best way to do this is make sure you are a consistent smoker. Thismeans if you currently smoke 7-12 cigarettes a day for the next 10-12 days Iwant you to make sure you smoke 12 cigarettes every single day. The processwill really begin when you get to the evening and realize you were busy and nowhave to smoke 5 cigarettes in a row to catch up. You cannot stray from ourplan; you have to create that negative response, that feeling that makes youwish you didn’t have to. If you do this you will have overcome the hardestpart.

Nicotine is an aggressive stimulant. Likeother stimulants such as caffeine or ephedrine nicotine will exude an effect onour body that increases heart rate and respiration. It can provide the feelingof increased alertness or awareness and as a result burn more calories. It alsotends to curb appetite. If you’re interested in weight loss I am sure all ofthis sounds great, but the problem is, it’s temporary. Our body loves tocompensate for this artificial stimulation. This occurs at our adrenal glands.They burn out or slow down reducing the amount of epinephrine andnorepinephrine that they make, cortisol levels increase making you feelfatigued, lethargic and sometimes moody when you don’t have a cigarette. Thebig picture is that your metabolism is no longer functioning up to par losingbodyfat effectively will be extremely difficult, as will gaining much muscle.We need to ease the overstimulation of our body and work to revitalize theadrenals. This is where slow and steady reduction comes in. After those initial10-12 days of smoking consistently it’s time to begin reducing, gradually.Reduce by 1 cigarette every 7 days, and stay consistent still. I know this isslow, but that’s why it will work. To help repair the adrenals you will needthe support of some adaptogenic herbs, I highly recommend Siberian Ginseng andRhodiola for this task. Both have powerful support effects for the recovery ofoverstressed adrenals and numerous health benefits on their own. Watch for thediscussion of Rhodiola in particular in my next column. During the reductionphase a process of cleansing and detoxification will improve how you feel andhow quickly you will be rid of the feeling of withdrawal from the reduction.For this I would recommend you check out an infrared sauna as it will be mucheasier than also committing to a restricted food program in an herbal cleanse.

By this point if you haven’t alreadystarted to exercise, you should. Exercising will encourage metabolic function,sweating will further detoxification and extra water intake will help thekidneys rid your body of the toxins smoking has left behind. Try also to eatmore often at least 5 to 6 small meals per day. If you allow yourself to gethungry you will be more susceptible to the cravings of nicotine or revertingback to previous calming habits. Eating often also continues to stimulate andspeed up metabolism and ultimately fat loss, just make sure you are eatingclean foods, leave the candy bars alone.

When you finally reach the end of thejourney, that week that you get to cut out your last cigarette you should befeeling like a new person. This will ultimately be the hardest part, to let gocompletely. As you are nearing this time I would recommend you sit down andwrite and review two things. First write yourself a set of concise andmeasurable goals, new ways to challenge yourself, new healthy habits toimplement. Secondly I would recommend you review your will because if youhaven’t realized by now you’ve just added years to your life.

Don’t wait any longer, start today bytracking how much you are smoking and get consistent. This plan will absolutelywork if you are willing to make the commitment. For anyone that doesn’t smoke,this is the foundation of any successful fitness plan as well. Consistency andsteady slow modification combined with effective goal setting. You can do it!

If you have ever grown a garden of any kind consisting of any vegetables at all there are usually a couple of truths with the food you grow or produce. When it is first picked, cut, or harvested it usually has a much more vibrant smell than any similar food you buy in a grocery store. When we grow our own food it is also usually consumed within days or, at most, a couple weeks from its harvest date. In both cases this makes the food we’ve grown or produced far fresher than the grocery store counterpart. The fresher it is the more alive it is, the more alive it is the more nutritious it is. This is an oversimplified but very true simple analogy of maintaining high quality nutrition.

Back to the grocery store, as suggested in the paragraph above it would seem I have indicated that even the perimeter perishables are not as full of nutrition or good for you as they should be. The truth is, compared to home grown they are not, but they are far better than anything processed and located on the inner isles.

The more processed it is, the longer the shelf life and the more dead it is. The longer the shelf life the less nutritionally active it is, and the harder our body has to work to extract the little nutrients that remain. What’s more any food processing alters the chemical structure and integrity of the elements of any food we consume. As perfect as our body is, its delicate machinery was not designed to handle these new chemical variables. Like every good learning, living organism our body adapts the best it can, unfortunately this has lead to many ailments we now consider common: type II diabetes, crones disease, irritable bowel syndrome, to name a few.

If you are unaware your body is right now hard at work replacing every cell and tissue in your body. It does so with rapid efficiency on a very frequent basis. In a more graphic sense think of it this way, the very tissue and cells that make up your heart and lungs, working hard to keep you alive as you read this, have been recently replaced. Those tissues are now comprised of the food (raw materials) you’ve consumed in the recent months and weeks. You truly are what you eat, I don’t know about you but I think it’s pretty important to ensure the best raw materials are used when building my heart and lungs. Food for thought.

These physical cues describe a common posture type called Kyphodic posture. Now there is no such thing as perfect posture, there is only the constant effort and awareness to improve or maintain a more ideal posture. It’s amazing that we walk around upright for decades, gravity providing a constant force on our bodies attempting to pull us closer to the earth. You might not notice its effects each day but much like the story of the tortoise and the hare over time the forces of gravity overcome our ability to stand tall the way we did as a child or in younger years.

Kyphodic postural development is greatly influenced by our typical lifestyle. Our life is full of forward motion, full of activity and resistance in front and ahead of us. By completing movements and patterns so much in one direction or in one plane we upset the delicate balance of our muscles. Each time a muscle is used (even for the sake of movement without any significant effort or exertion) it must contract. Each time a muscle contracts it shortens and, unless special attention is given to extending it fully after to the point of stretch, it eventually doesn’t return to its original length.

Short, tight muscles with the assistance of gravity then lead us to the different posture types and those aches, pains and injuries that many assume are an unavoidable by-product of activities of yesteryear.

The truth is most chronic pain is avoidable, and if you are currently experiencing pain (such as regular headaches and shoulder pain) it can quite possibly be eliminated with an effective exercise plan. The simple explanation of how to exercise for these situations is to again look in the mirror. If the ear is forward of the shoulder we need to work to pull it back. You may notice by pulling the shoulders back, lifting the chest, tucking the butt in a little and lastly just slightly elevating the chin that your overall profile improves. You likely also notice that it’s not very comfortable to stand like that for long. Take note of the specific areas that you felt discomfort, that feeling is quite likely your body attempting to fire some very weak muscles. By completing movements for those joints with resistance in the same direction you needed to adjust your profile you can begin to strengthen or shorten the weak muscles. At the same time by completing these patterns you will begin to stretch the muscles you have been shortening daily for years. Hopefully this helps you gain an understanding as to why you might experience headaches, shoulder pain or even pain in other areas. A qualified personal trainer can help you further evaluate and recommend specific exercises to help you improve your posture and eliminate pain.

As these are some of the most prominent health issues facing the general population I think that understanding and being able to easily perform a self-assessment for risk factors could be a useful tool. Sometimes staying motivated or facing the challenges of changing lifestyle habits is more easily faced with a practical measuring stick.

A waist girth assessment can be performed easily with any soft tape measure. It’s preferred for the most accurate result to have someone perform the measure for you. Begin by placing the tape across the navel. Make sure the tape lies flat around the circumference of the waist and is level across the body. Preferably the tape should be placed over bare skin for the most accurate measurement. Avoid the temptation to pull the tape too tight but measuring at the point of the end of a slow exhale would be typical and produce a consistent result.

Be forewarned that this measure will most certainly be greater than your pant size. For some time now many clothing manufacturers have been slowly making their sizes bigger without actually adjusting the “size” to accommodate our growing population figuratively speaking.

So once you are through the initial shock of the measure it’s time to understand what it means. The American National Health Institute suggests that a measure of 35+ inches for women and 40+ inches for men would indicate high risk. It’s also suggested that a healthy waist girth(lower risk) would be less than 33 inches for women and 35 for men.

For every inch in excess of the above low risk suggestion related studies have shown that for every 1 inch increase in the waist circumference in men the risk for:

• High blood pressure increases by 10%
• High blood cholesterol level increases by 8%
• Low HDL cholesterol increases by 15%
• High blood fats (TG) increases by 18%
• And metabolic syndrome increases by 18%