Have Fun!

"Inside of me, there is a skinny woman screaming to get out. But I can usually shut the b*tch up with chocolate."

Too many of us associate fitness and exercise with "having to do something that is good for us". When you were a kid, was it painful to run and play? Was climbing trees, playing hide and go seek, or playing games and sports painful? Most likely, it is these types of activities that makes us feel youthful and remind us of the times when we were young.
It is our state of mind that has us convinced that physical activity is a secondary priority in our lives and keep in mind that we often allow our culture to set impossibly high standards for what we should look. No wonder it's easy to be discouraged when you look at those women on the covers of the magazines at the Publix check out counter. Do you know anybody who looks like that? And if you're one of the few who do, are they happy?
Have fun, move, be happy and sweat! If you need some chocolate, give me a call!

LouAnn Good
Fitness Together Fort Myers

The Fix

The American Heart Association quite clearly states that “the risk of heart disease can be reduced through lifestyle changes -- a healthy diet, physical activity and elimination of tobacco use”. According to the heart association, 59 percent of adults who responded to a 2008 national survey described themselves as physically inactive. "We can't expect significant change until it becomes a cultural mandate," said Dr. Leslie Cho, director of the Cleveland Clinic's Women's Cardiovascular Center. "When society as a whole makes conscious decisions to eat better and as a default plan be more active, then we're going to do better."

We do have a choice. We can decide not to smoke, what to eat and what we do. The AHS recommends that for health benefits to the heart, lungs and circulation, we need to perform moderate-to-vigorous-intensity aerobic activity for at least 30 minutes on most days of the week at 50–85 percent of your maximum heart rate. Regardless of what we do, the key is to include physical activity as part of our regular routine. In short, the key is to make a positive lifestyle change.

So it seems that most of us have a choice, either be a victim of our own poor choices or make some changes in our lives that will make life better for ourselves, our friends and families and our country. It is never too late to change your life or a loved one’s life, so take that first step today!

The Cost

Naturally heart disease, any long term chronic condition, can cause ourselves, our friends, and family members a great deal of pain and stress. CVD accounts for more than one-third (35.3%) of all U.S. deaths. More than 151,000 Americans who died of cardiovascular diseases in 2005 were younger than age 65. Heart disease and stroke are also among the leading causes of disability in the U.S. workforce, with nearly 1 million people being disabled from strokes alone.

As our country struggles with the issue of health care and controlling health care costs, have we become our own worst enemy? The cost of heart disease and stroke in the United States, including health care expenditures and lost productivity from deaths and disability, is projected to be more than $475 billion in 2009. It is projected that cardiovascular disease and stroke will cost the United States an estimated $503.2 billion in 2010, an increase of nearly 6 percent. As the U.S. population ages, the economic impact of cardiovascular diseases on our nation’s health care system will become even greater.

The pain and suffering that we endure with diseases such as cardiovascular disease only add insult to injury by contributing to the bankruptcy of our health care system. The greatest tragedy of this situation is that heart disease is, as the AHA says “eminently preventable”.

First the News

The News

First the good news: it appears that the obesity rate in the US has stalled. Now, of course, the bad news: the latest numbers still show that more than two-thirds of adults and almost a third of kids are overweight, with no sign of improvement. Not only are the vast majority of adults overweight, 34 percent are obese; and 17 percent of children are obese. Even the youngest Americans are affected — 10 percent of babies and toddlers are precariously heavy.
According to the American Heart Association, obesity is now recognized as a major risk factor for coronary heart disease, a disease which is “eminently preventable”. Even when people have no genetic or environmental known risk factors, obesity by itself increases the risk of heart disease.
The heart association says obesity and other risk factors, like too little exercise and poor diet, are fueling the expected increase in health care costs associated with heart disease and stroke. "Current statistical data show Americans to be on average overweight, physically inactive and eating a diet that is too high in calories, sodium, fat and sugar," said Dr. Donald Lloyd-Jones, head of the American Heart Association Statistics Committee.

According to the World Health Organization, heart disease is the No. 1 killer of men and women in the United States and in most industrialized countries. So what are going to do about this and will our "war" on this problem look like?

LouAnn Good
Fitness Together Fort Myers

Traditional Diets?

It’s difficult to think of my childhood diet some fifty years ago as “traditional”. But when I see many of the strange foods available in my local supermarket, I come to understand why they say to stay healthy we should shop only at the perimeter of the supermarket and stay out of the isles.
It’s interesting that throughout history many civilizations have developed strikingly different “traditional” diets but diets that nevertheless seem to keep them healthy. Eskimos ate a diet centered on fat and seafood, central Americans ate diets centered on corn and other grains, relatives from northern Maine ate potatoes three times a day, and Masai tribesmen ate more animal milk and blood than I care to think about. These different diets all seem to be centered on local unprocessed foods and generally kept the local population healthy. Western civilization seems to be the exception in that we have created a food delivery system and marketplace that appears to make us sicker than we need to be.
We can blame it on advertising or evil “agri-business”, but aren’t we, as consumers, the ones who make the decisions? Maybe we can blame our marketplace for not providing us with accurate information or intentionally misleading us. The scientific community also can’t seem to make up their minds about what is the best for us.
I believe that most of us know intuitively what is best for us and our families, it doesn’t have to be that complicated. Just as we have been lulled into a lifestyle that reduces our chances for a long and healthy life, we can also make the decision to take the first step to improving our health, our family’s health, and the health of our communities. Research has shown that changing our diets from a typical “western diet” of meat, fats, refined carbohydrates and sugar to a more rational diet based on reduced fats, centered around vegetables, complex carbohydrates and fruits, where meat is used more as a flavoring or a meal enhancement, can rapidly improve our chances of avoiding such diseases as coronary disease, type 2 diabetes, and colon cancer. Think about it, what is your intuition telling you?
LouAnn Good
Fitness Together Fort Myers

Food Rules

Michael Pollan, who has challenged our relationship with food here in the US, has recently come out with a new book. His previous books, “In Defense of Food” and the “Omnivore’s Dilemma” for example, take a good look at our food culture, supply and delivery systems. His latest book, “Food Rules” is a brief (I like brief!) guidebook on what to eat and what not to eat. There’s no heavy food label analysis, no calorie counting, and no complicated or “miraculous” diets.

This is a short (did I mention I like “brief”) and sweet guidebook on how and what to eat. There are sixty four rules broken down into three Parts. The “Parts” pretty much sum up the wisdom contained in this wonderful little book: Part One “What should I eat” (Eat food); Part Two: “What kind of food should I eat?” (Mostly Plants); and Part Three: “How Should I Eat (Not too much).

Put this book on your “short list”, no pun intended, of books to keep around if you’re concerned about your and your family’s health.

LouAnn Good
Fitness Together Fort Myers

Get Back on Track!

It’s that wonderful time of year when we all have eaten more and exercised less. Unless you count walking twelve miles across a parking lot and through a crowded shopping mall as exercise.

Parties and too many reasons to wander off the reservation and break our routines! And did I mention the parties? Is this a problem? No! Just a minor setback, one which should be cherished. Enjoy yourself, but remember that normal life will return (unfortunately sooner than we would like).

All of our habits, good and bad, take time to become established. Some people say it takes 28 days, 40 days, whatever. If you’ve incorporated healthy habits into your life, you know that good habits are easier to maintain once it’s part of your daily or weekly routine. You also know time is your friend when it comes to firmly making those good habits close to permanent.

So enjoy the holidays and celebrate! But don’t listen to that little lazy butt voice in your head that would rather chill out and vegetate long after the holidays and is maybe trying to tell you that you can put off your routine just a few more weeks because you’ve been so busy and you need a break!

See you at the gym!

Procrastination!

How hard is it to get off the couch? Is it human nature? Is it inertia? Is it the devil? Why is it that “bad” habits seem to develop sooo easily and for the “good” habits we often times have to muster up all the determination we have?
One life habit that is often neglected and difficult to start is the habit of daily exercise and training. There are several reasons for this: too hard, too painful or the ever popular, “I'll do it later, when I have time”. Of course if we have a health crisis or look at ourselves in the mirror and suddenly realize that we have 50 extra pounds and the “meal replacement shake diet” ain’t working, the habit of taking care of ourselves may be easier to start. We would probably all advise our friends and family to develop good health habits before the situation becomes critical. The trick is to apply this wisdom to ourselves.
In order for an activity to develop into a habit, such as exercise, it has to be repeated a large number of times. Research claims that any activity repeated for 21 days slowly becomes a habit. I'm not sure of this 21-day deadline, but habits do develop in a month or two if the activity is repeatedly performed. It's not that habits need a large amount of effort and hard work to be formed, there just needs to be the repetition. Habits take time to develop because the "activity" has to be repeated over and over again for it to be stored in our subconscious mind and hence become a habit. The most important reason for the repetition is to give yourself the opportunity to experience the “benefit”. It’s the “benefit” of exercise, which is simply feeling better, that establishes the habit. It’s the “benefit” (or lack of it) that keeps us coming back.
So start a new habit today! Whether it’s an exercise habit, a dietary habit, or an educational habit, establish a goal that you can visualize for yourself and do it!

A New Decade for Health?

The last decade saw improvements in many health areas of the US. Vaccination rates improved, most workplace injuries are down, and death rates from stroke, hearth disease and cancer are dropping primarily from better technology. Despite these gains, we are generally less healthy. Our health care system is focused on taking better care of a population that is increasing less healthy. This is reflected in the problems we are facing with a health care system that is close to bankruptcy.
Despite setting goals ten years ago to lessen the rates of such things as obesity, high blood pressure, cesarean births, and untreated childhood tooth decay, these rates have unfortunately all gone up. Approximately 29% of the population has high blood pressure, 20% of children have untreated tooth decay, cesarean births have increased and a whopping, no pun intended, 34% of Americans are considered obese.
Progress? I think not. How can we, as a nation, control our health care costs and have a manageable health care delivery system when we obviously can’t, as a nation, take care of ourselves? The creation of a healthier decade for our country starts with the person in the mirror.

LouAnn Good