Fitness

Program One…Psychologically Phit!

Anxiety. Worrying. Fear. Doubt. In a time where mental health is running rampant in our society, no time is better than now to stop and take a look at our own inner soul. Sure, most of us reading this article do not suffer from mental “illness”, but honestly, don’t we all have some mental habits that could really stand to being addressed…allowing us to live our lives more freely…and happily?

TRIFECTA FITNESS
By Rachel E. Murray

Whether you’re just starting a fitness program for the first time, or you’re a veteran gym junkie, there are three simple aspects everyone should keep in their routine.

This trifecta of basics, and I’m talking general ‘take-care-of-your-body’ rules, consist of cardiovascular conditioning, resistance training, and flexibility training. Each equally important separately, but together they are essential in building a foundation for an active and healthy lifestyle.

A recent survey before running the Chicago Half Marathon on September 13, 2009 revealed the majority of runners who participated prefer to eat a banana after a race. Does that mean you should throw out your protein bars and feed your post race trail mix to the squirrels? Of course not! When training for a race, competing in a race, or after you cross the finish line, it is important to remember the fact that one must find what source of energy works best for them.

A fortune cookie once said, “Imitation is the best form of flattery” and in a world of fad diets, endless meal plans and health clubs on every corner, imitation is all around. People waste time and energy working towards achieving something they are not. People get so caught up with imitating someone else’s diets, workout regiment and eating habits that so often people fail to realize there is not one answer which works for everyone.

Running is so much more than what meets the human eye. For some, the runner you see pounding the pavement on a brisk Chicago morning is just another person trying to stay in shape, lose weight, or fit into those trendy skinny jeans. They must be crazy all bundled up running at wee hours in the morning as people drive by staring out the windows of their heated car drinking coffee to get that morning rush of energy.

Runner’s high is not a statement; it is not a definition but a feeling that is so extraordinary that the only way to describe it is to experience it. There are thousands of reasons people run yet running is so often labeled first as a form of exercise to lose weight. Running to lose weight is last on my list.

FIT-ING IN YOUR WINTER WORKOUTS
Fitness Tips for a Healthier Holiday Season

No matter how long your holiday wish list is this year, I am pretty sure gaining five pounds is not on it. At this time of year when pumpkin pies are abound, cocktail parties rule your agenda, and last minute holiday shopping resides over your kick-boxing class at the gym… it can be very difficult to keep up with your health and fitness. Here are a few tips to help you improve your body through these weeks of temptation and kick start you into the New Year.

It’s 10:30 Tuesday morning. My oldest has been off to school for a couple of hours and my two younger daughters, 3-year-old Adelina and 16-month-old Ava, are watching cartoons. There are countless toys throughout the floor in the living room, their bedrooms, the kitchen counters look cluttered and the morning dishes fill the sink. If I walk into the laundry room I’ll find clothes that need to be folded and plenty of clothes upstairs that need to be washed. I have two choices: stay and clean or head to the gym. I know better than to attempt to get the house in “order’ before heading out; one thing will lead to another and before you know it the entire day has gone by and getting to the gym becomes bleaker as the evening approaches.

So I decide to leave the house “as is” and make a dash for the gym with my girls. This means letting go of the idea that the house has to be “perfect” before I can leave. I have to focus on how doing my daily exercise is MORE important than having a spotless home. But trying to head to the gym right now means I must get myself dressed, get the girls changed, comb their hair and place them in their car seats in the mini-van in a whopping twenty minutes! Since the child care at the gym closes at noon, I must arrive no later than 11 o’clock so that I can have a solid hour to work out. It’s a challenge but you just have to make the decision to do it. The countdown begins.

The challenge of childhood obesity is all about improving the kid's body composition. Body composition is generally expressed as a "percentage of body fat", and like golf, a high percentage is always bad, and a low percentage is always good.

There are three generally accepted ways to measure body composition. They include underwater weighing which is the most sophisticated, the most time consuming, the most expensive, and almost always performed in an exercise physiologist's lab. A second method, the skin fold technique, involves measuring the thickness of a participant's skin with a caliper. The resulting data is plugged into a formula which produces a percentage of body fat. The third, electronic impedance, is a computerized method that yields similar information.

None of the Accepted Methods are Being Used

All three have their issues, but interestingly enough, none of them are used in our nation's schools to measure kid's body composition. They're all too time consuming and too expensive. School systems lack the funds to do this kind if testing, so they settle for a method known as Body Mass Index, which is just the modern term used to describe the age old height weight charts that have been around since the dinosaur age.

We all know that doing cardio is great for burning calories and is great for working the heart. But it is important to know that there is such a thing as doing too much cardio. In excess, it can become counterproductive. Any cardio that is performed for more than an hour will work against you, as you will start to dip into your lean muscle and start to burn that muscle. Unfortunately there are many women that fall to this trap. Some think they can burn off all their fat by just doing as much cardio as they can. Yes cardio is very important, but it is all within moderation.