Strategies for staying healthy and fit while traveling

It can be difficult to stay fit while traveling, as there are many distractions and obstacles to overcome. However, if you keep a few pointers in mind, it is actually quite easy to stay on track with your fitness routine while on the go.

The main struggle that many people face when traveling is related to food. Airport or gas stations have largely bad choices—cookies, chips, and candy bars. The key is to plan ahead. Bring food with you. If you’re travelling by car, this is easy to do with the help of a cooler. It’s also important to research food options of where you’re traveling. You may even have the ability to cook your own meals in your hotel room, depending on your accommodations.

Another obstacle is working out while on the road. To make sure you stick with your fitness plan, it is crucial that you pack your workout clothes to hold yourself accountable. Do a little research on the hotel gym or local gyms to see what might work best for you. You can always opt to do body weight workouts instead. If you’re a runner, try to find some local trails and enjoy an added opportunity to see the city.

It’s also important to ensure that you’re monitoring your hydration, both for over hydration and dehydration. You need to make sure your body is getting sufficient electrolytes and sodium so that the moisture is absorbed by the body’s cells. If you’re on a long international flight, it’s important to get up every 30 minutes to move and stretch your legs. This will help prevent possible blood clots.

Travelling can be a stressful experience. You can mitigate this stress by recognizing your triggers and finding practices to manage them, such as meditation, getting a massage, or enjoying the outdoors. Make sure you get enough sleep and try your best to mimic your normal sleep ritual at home. By taking these simple steps, you can help to ensure you will stay fit while traveling.

A secret weapon in your health and fitness journey

Health and Fitness Apps

In today’s episode, we explore smart phone apps and their usefulness to support your health and fitness journey.   As background, I found it useful to solicit feedback from a user group in order to get a broader overview into the apps that many people are using concerning health and fitness.

Smart phones are great tools and we can use them to enhance our health and fitness. Many of the apps do continually change and often the functionality in one app is similar to the functionality in another app.

In this episode, we discuss the variety of food and nutrition apps which allow you to track your food intake, calculate and track calories and nutrients.   We also discuss the wide variety of fitness apps, such as those that are specific (running apps), those that provide exercise videos and training guidance.   There are also apps that act as timers for HIIT (high intensity interval training) and Tabata workouts. And let us not forget out mental health, and there are apps designed to guide you through the meditation process or those that provide white noise. While not necessarily apps, we also explore activity trackers that can sync to an app so you can have real time monitoring of your activity levels.

I encourage you to do the research and explore the wide variety of health and fitness apps that are available for your smart phone.

The bone broth diet | Dr. KellyAnn Petrucci

Dr. KellyAnn Petrucci is our guest today for a great discussion concerning bone broth and intermittent fasting. Join us as we explore her new book Dr. Kellyann's Bone Broth Diet: Lose Up to 15 Pounds, 4 Inches–and Your Wrinkles!–in Just 21 Days.

Kellyann Petrucci, MS, ND, is a board-certified naturopathic physician and certified nutrition consultant with a thriving practice in the Philadelphia area. She is also a concierge doctor for celebrities in Los Angeles and New York. She is a regular guest on The Doctors, Dr. Oz, and national news programs, and she is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and MindBodyGreen.

Kellyann uses bone broth and the fasting process to help you burn more body fat, reduce insulin levels and lower inflammation.   She discusses how during a fast with bone broth for nutrition our bodies burn fat faster and experience benefits to the skin.

We discuss how you can set yourself up for success by knowing what to expect when your body experiences changes when adopting a different lifestyle or way of eating, particularly with intermittent fasting.   We explore the concept of building your plate with the right proteins, healthy fats and the right kinds of carbohydrates.   Refueling after a workout with the right foods, eating non-inflammation foods, healthy oils and berries are all factors in building the plate for health and nutrition.

Dr. KellyAnn Petrucci feels that the addition of bone broth to your diet is a healthy addition to your nutrition plan. She discusses the benefits to your energy levels and the positive, beautiful effects on your skin.   You can find out more from her website, Drkellyann.com.

Music: Ben Sound Royalty Free Music

Ayurveda meets western medicine with Dr. Kulreet Chaudhary

Motivate Me | Lynette Renda

In this episode, we talk with Lynette Renda, the successful host of the Motivate Me! podcast.   As a form of coaching, Lynette interviews people who have incorporated a passion into their lives, and she encourages her audience to do the same.

Together with Lynette we discuss the art of motivation.   Motivation is one thing on the health and fitness journey that often plateaus. And when that plateau lasts for a while, it can be demotivating.   So how does Lynette apply motivation to her health and fitness journey?   We talk with Lynette about her number one tool to remain motivated.

A sense of community can be an important part of your health and fitness journey. For Lynette, it has been her number one motivating factor.   In fact, by reaching out you reap the benefits of several motivating factors, such as:

• The bond of shared experiences
• Friendship
• Encouragement
• Accountability
• Shared energy
• Confidence

Continually learning from a community of resources and experts, such as professionals in their field, listening to podcasts and joining social media groups is empowering.   Surrounding yourself and reaching out to others who share the interest will help you persevere in your endeavors.

Lynette Renda’s show, Motivate Me!, is interactive with the goal of having listeners learn from the experiences of others while focusing on helping people create a life that excites and fulfills them.   You can learn more about Lynette Renda through her website (motiatemepodcast.com).

Music: Ben Sound Royalty Free Music

Crack the obesity code

The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss is the new book by today’s guest, Dr. Jason Fung.   In this episode we talk about a variety of strategies to break through your body set weight, or what we often refer to as a plateau.

Dr. Jason Fung completed medical school at the University of Toronto and a fellowship in nephrology at the University of California. He founded the Intensive Dietary Management program in Toronto that provides a unique treatment focus for type 2 diabetes and obesity.

We discuss with Dr. Fung the role of hormones – such as insulin — and how they drive weight gain and obesity. He feels that only by understanding the role of insulin and insulin resistance can we achieve lasting weight loss. If excess insulin, not excess calories, is causing obesity, Dr. Fung feels the clear answer is in reducing insulin levels.

To do this, Dr. Jason Fung suggests the use of intermittent fasting to break the cycle of insulin resistance and to reach a healthy weight.   The Obesity Code outlines five basic steps to establish lifelong habits that will improve your health and control your insulin levels.   Additional information about Dr. Fung, The Obesity Code and the Intensive Dietary Management program can be found at intensivedietarymanagement.com.

Why am I always hungry? | Dr. David Ludwig

Caught in the dorito effect | Mark Schatzker

Today we talk to Mark Schatzker, the author of The Dorito Effect: The Surprising New Truth About Food and Flavor.   Mark is a field reporter for The Dr. Oz Show as well as a radio columnist for the Canadian Broadcast Corporation and a frequent contributor to the Globe and Mail, Conde Nast Traveler, and Bloomberg Pursuits.

We discuss with Mark how food has become complicated. That is because human biology and nutrition are such a complex sciences with many different variables.   Rather than focus on specific nutrients, Mark focuses on flavor in his book The Dorito Effect.

When it comes to our food, we all want flavor. Flavor in our food, however, is undergoing two trends. Whole foods, such as foods we get from farms, do not always have the flavor that they used to, as the heirloom quality has often been removed through generations of breeding and the industrialized nature of our food industry.

We also discuss with Mark how the food industry has mastered flavor technology. Flavor chemicals have changed what we call delicious and drive sales of product, as was the case with Doritos. The food industry is not in the business of making us healthy, it is a business of selling food.   This is where the desire to produce more and the desire to get us to eat more have crossed.

You can learn more about Mark Schatzker, author of The Dorito Effect and Steak through Mark’s website (markschatzker.com). Also, his award-winning journalism has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Best American Travel Writing.

Contact Mark Schatzker at:

• MarkSchatzker.com
• Facebook
• Twitter

Ayurveda meets western medicine with Dr. Kulreet Chaudhary

Get a happy gut | Dr. Vincent Pedre

Dr. Vincent Pedre is a board certified internist. His Integrative medical approach incorporates both eastern and western traditions. He has a holistic, patient-centered philosophy that looks to determine the root causes of illness. He is an expert on healing the body from the inside out with an emphasis on the gut microbiome. Dr. Pedre is also the author of Happy Gut.

Dr. Pedre explains that there is a microbiome within the gut that includes hundreds of species of bacteria. There are also viruses and possibly parasites within the gut that play a role in digestive and overall health. In fact, 80% of the immune system is right along the gut lining. This allows for a bidirectional communication between the immune system and the gut’s bacteria.

In fact, the gut can mimic a war zone depending on what food is eaten. Some foods can trigger inflammation, while others can reduce it. As a result, the key to healing our ailments truly begins in the kitchen, as the types of foods consumed will control the way genes are expressed.

In Happy Gut, Dr. Pedre describes Gut Care, or a process through which your gut is reset to a “clean slate.” In essence, you are feeding the good bacteria and starving the bad. The gut is first cleansed through an elimination diet which cuts out foods that are known to be inflammatory and contain excessive sugar. Cleansing the mind of negative thoughts is also beneficial. Through this process, you are activating the gut’s ability to break down proteins and carbohydrates so the nutrients are absorbed efficiently.  The gut can also be restored through the use of probiotics and prebiotics. And finally, the gut lining is enhanced as a result.

After eight weeks on this program described in Happy Gut, you will have a much clearer picture of how food affects you, allowing you to make better diet decisions. Dr. Vincent Pedre’s program is designed to help people achieve exactly that. To connect with Dr. Vincent Pedre directly, visit www.happygutlife.com or www.pedremd.com.

The gut health diet plan | Dr. Christine Bailey

Music: Ben Sound Royalty Free Music