Mindfulness eating with Lynn Rossy

In this episode, we meet Lynn Rossy, PhD.  Her book, The Mindfulness-Based Eating Solution explains how mindfulness eating is the key to weight loss. With thousands of diet books on the market, you would think there wouldn't be a need for another one. Yet one thing stands true: diets don't work.

We may change how or what we're eating, but once we revert back to our old ways, the weight just comes back.  What we should be looking for is something more sustainable.  That's where mindfulness comes in.  Being in the moment with your food allows you to enjoy it more and make sure your body gets appropriate signaling for when you are full.

Lynn has three steps to address health:

1. Diet – Don't bother with a particular diet unless prescribed by your doctor.
2. Scale – Avoid the scale.  It won't satisfy you and is needless beating up on yourself.  Instead, focus on how you look and feel.
3. Goal setting

Mindfulness is about being in the present moment.

There are three components for mindfulness:

1. Intentional
2. Attention
3. Attitude (without judgment)

Approaching food and our bodies without judgment will allow us to get healthy and maintain balance in our lives.

The basics of mindful eating:

B – Breathe and belly check

A – Assessing your food

S – Slow down

I – Investigate your hunger half way through your meal

C – Chew thoroughly

S – Savor

Mindfulness eating allows you to enjoy your food completely, be in touch with your body's signaling, eat less, and feel full and satisfied.  Mindfulness eating takes some practice, but with everything that takes effort, the payoff is significant.  Give mindfulness eating a try and let me know how it went in the comments below.

Links:

LynnRossy.com

Finding mindfulness with Bruce Langford

Breath and breathing for better health and fitness

Baths for health with Paulette Sherman

You Can Run Pain Free | Brad Beer

In this episode, we meet Brad Beer, the author of You Can Run Pain Free.  Brad Beer is a physiotherapist in Gold Coast, Austrailia.  He works with professional athletes and Olympians, along with everyday runners (or wannabe runners) to help them pursue their sports without pain or injury.

What are the benefits of running?

• Cardiovascular fitness
• Increased longevity
• Lower risk of stroke
• Lower blood pressure
• Lower risk of heart disease
• Lower risk of diabetes
• Improvements in body mass index
• Reduction in depression
• Improvement in cognition

Five step method for evaluation of running

1. Discovering the running body
2. Running with great technique
3. Understanding running shoes
4. Hips stability
5. The power of rest

What's your running body?

This first step is critical.

Understand your flexibility

• Floppies – Hypermobile individuals.  Need strength training to protect their joints.
• Flippies – In the middle of mobility.  May need a mix of both strength mobility training,
• Stiffies – Non-mobile individuals.  Need mobility training to protect their joints.

Know your optimal body weight for running.  

If you're carrying too much body weight, you'll be putting too much strain on your joints.  Losing a little weight, even if it isn't body fat, will mean less stress on the body.

Running screen/evaluation

Using a 10 point checklist, a running expert can evaluate your running form.  This checklist looks at the length of muscles, endurance tests, mobility, etc.  You can get the full checklist from the book.

Links

running.physio

The tao of running | Gary Dudney

Health and Fitness Foundations

When I first launched 40+ Fitness Podcast, I posted an episode each Monday for the first ten weeks that was a lesson that touched on each of the health and fitness foundations in my Forever Fitness Personal Training Program.  These are the principles I share with my clients to help keep them progressing and meeting their health and fitness goals.

Commitment

I start with commitment because without it, you'll never see success.  Willpower fails, motivation wains and resolutions are dropped.  When you know your “why” and a vision of what health and fitness looks like for you, you can put these together to make a vow.  This vow paired with self-love makes all the difference.  If you really want it, go past making a decision and commit.

Sugar

We get fat because of sugar.  The average American eats 150lbs of sugar per year.  Sugar raises your insulin, which is the core hormone for fat gain.  The only way to successfully lose weight is to reduce your sugar intake.   Aim for 50 grams or less per day and you're going to see great results.

Success Keys (Persistence, Progression, Patience)

Persistence is what keeps you going, Progression is what keeps the results coming.  Patience is where you're going to face this challenge over the long-term.  Applied together, these three keys are what all successful people have.

Sleep

Our body goes through some very important functions while we're asleep.  Our hormone cycle is driven by our sleep.  Memory development and muscle repair also occur during this time.  You'll want to get 7 – 9 hours per night, but focus on quality rather than quantity.

Water

The liver is responsible for dealing with toxins.  It makes its job easier by pushing the toxins into the fat.  Now that we're losing weight (aka burning fat), we're releasing these toxins and the liver is forced to deal with it.  Beyond not adding more toxins, it is important to give the liver plenty of water.

Our brain, joints and skin all use water to perform well.  If you are dehydrated you're going to look and feel worse.  Your

Plateaus

Our bodies were built to find balance.  For this reason, we will often find ourselves hitting plateaus. You can build in strategies to break through plateaus or avoid them all together.  Periodization can be effective particularly in muscular strength, muscle mass, or endurance.  Or you can look for a way to push past it.  Just don't quit.

Lab Rat

You are a unique individual.  As a result, what works for someone else may not work for you.  Don't be afraid to experiment to find the things that will work for you.  Take the time to educate yourself and then apply and tweak your programming and food.

Fitness Modalities

Recognize that there are different fitness modalities and you should consider most of them.  Focusing on one at the detriment of the others will keep you from meeting your goals or accomplishing your vision.  A few fitness modalities to consider follows:

• Muscular strength
• Muscular mass
• Mobility
• Endurance
• Balance
• Agility
• Speed

Strength

Of all the fitness modalities, the one I almost demand my clients do is strength training.  Strength is the most important factor to being healthy and fit.  Heavy lifting boosts testosterone production (libido) and helps maintain strong bones.

Lifestyle

Once you've seen success, it is important to shift from this being a project to it being a lifestyle.  If you've made good healthy habits, this becomes easy.  Avoid language like diet.  Diets are temporary and when you go back to eating the way you did before, you'll go back to what you were.  Health and fitness is a continuum.  You can always get better.

Health and fitness is a state of being, not a destination.

We are 100! Best of the past.

 

Real Food Fake Food | Larry Olmsted

Today we meet Larry Olmsted, an award-winning food author and columnist.  In his book, Real Food Fake Food, Why You Don't Know What You're Eating & What You Can Do About It, Larry discusses how various foods we are served in restaurants or buy at grocery stores may actually be something entirely different.

There's nothing more fundamental than knowing what you're putting in your mouth. ~ Kelsey Timberman

Fake Food

When you don't get what you think you're buying. This is not a judgement on the quality you're getting. This comes in three forms:

• Something completely different – As in where you order flounder but the actual fish served is tilapia (an entirely different species of fish).
• Inferior version – A worse quality or it is diluted.  This is common with extra virgin olive oil.
• Geographic indications – Despite offering you Kobe beef the restaurant may be serving you beef that is not from Kobe, Japan.

Fish

Nearly 1/3 of the time, a different fish is substituted with another fish.  Sometimes this is where you're served farmed fish that was marketed as wild-caught.  Or it may be an entirely lower standard species of fish.  The more expensive the fish, the more likely it is to be subject to fish fraud.  Nearly all of the red snapper served in restaurants is not red snapper.

As a tip for getting what you're paying for, go to the fish markets on the water.  There you can often see the whole fish, which makes it much harder for you to be duped.

Olive Oil

Good extra virgin olive oil is very good for your health.  This is the top most rating for olive oil and is quite rare.  Studies have demonstrated that the majority of olive oil sold in grocery stores do not meet the standard for extra virgin.  You can order olive oil from online club like Fresh Pressed Olive Oil Club.  It can be quite expensive.  I personally buy olive oil at a specialty retail store, where I'm able to taste it before I buy.

Olive Oil is a fruit oil and as a result, it goes bad quickly.  You should check the harvest date or pressed date.  Good quality olive oil should be used within a year of harvest.  Upon opening a bottle, you should use it within a month.  Knowing the source, so you can make sure you're buying real olive oil.

Links

RealFoodFakeFood.com

 

Caught in the dorito effect | Mark Schatzker

Breath and breathing for better health and fitness

In this episode, we discuss breath and breathing for health.  I'm sure you know that breathing is an automatic function that takes no conscious thought to do, but maybe you should spend more time thinking about your breath and breathing.

The purpose of breathing

When I ask someone why we breathe, they will almost always say, to get oxygen.  This is half of the answer.  We also breathe to expel waste materials, most of which is carbon dioxide.  In fact, scientists now believe that when we burn fat, the byproducts are water and carbon dioxide.  We lose weight through our breath.

Improving your breathing

Even though breathing is an automatic function, most of us aren't doing it very well.  When you're seated and working on a keyboard or using a smart phone, you're collapsing your ribcage and only using a fraction of your lung's capacity.  Over time, this weakens the diaphragm.

When you're lifting weights, managing your breathing is a big part of keeping your core tight and maintaining good form.  You should breathe in as the weight is lowered and breathe out as the weight is moved.  You should never hold your breath during a lift.

Mindful breathing

Mindful breathing can go a long way toward stress reduction.  Chronic stress will keep you from reaching your health and fitness goals.  I use the app Headspace to do a mindful breathing practice.

I will also do box breathing to improve the quality of my breathing.  This breathing exercise involves breathing in, holding, breathing out, holding; all for a count of three.  It is harder than it sounds, but a great exercise to improve breathing efficiency and effectiveness.

Finding mindfulness with Bruce Langford

A funeral for my fat | Sharee Samuels

In her book A Funeral For My Fat, Sharee Samuels chronicles her 100+ pound weight loss over a five year period.

Self Love

One concept that Sharee recommended was for you to write a letter to yourself.  This letter should demonstrate the strength you have and the love you have for yourself.  Documenting this self-love is valuable because you are able to go back and read this letter to yourself when you're down and out.

Find something you love

Sharee also recommends you find something you love.  For her, workout out was a drudgery, and she could never motivate and push herself.  That was until she found Zumba.  She loved Zumba and that helped her stay motivated and on track with exercise.

Know yourself

Sharee is a big proponent in knowing yourself.  She knows she is not one who can handle moderation.  Therefore she can't approach food and have just one chip.  She now focuses on her strength, which is planning.  Knowing yourself allows you to take your own path to health and fitness.

Plateau

Sharee uses an acronym – EFFORT to break through a plateau.

• Exercise – Are you doing enough?  Are you doing too much?
• Food – Are you eating too much?  Are you eating enough?
• Focus – Are you focused on your goal?
• Organization – Planning and setting yourself up for success.
• Rest – Are you giving your body the rest it needs?  Are you resting too much?
• Time – Are you rushing the process?  Do you have realistic expectations?

 

Links:

A Funeral For My Fat

Sharee Samuels

 

Todd loses over 300lbs