Posted by: Curt | Under: 40's/fit, 50's/fit, Children/fit, Diet and Weight Loss, General Fitness, Health, Ladies/fit, Prime/fit, Quick Tips, Seniors/fit, Spiritual/Emotional, Sports, Youth/fit | Add Comment
Coke
Most people have no idea how many calories they eat and drink every day. They just eat an drink whatever they want with no concept of what is healthy and normal. Soda, sweet tea, and specialty coffee drinks from Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts can easily add over 1000 calories per day to your diet. That is huge since most people only need 2000-2500 calories/day to maintain a healthy weight. Unfortunately, the excerpt below describes a pretty typical American lifestyle… one that will kill you. I suspect that this lady was also at very high risk for diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. From MSNBC-
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The newest member of the Joy Fit Club, who once weighed 308 pounds, recalls being heavy all her life. Although she considered herself happy and successful, with a loving family and an engaging career, she knew she needed a healthier lifestyle. Her daily intake, primarily fast food, hovered around 5,000 empty calories a day. “I just ate with no rhyme or reason … all day, every day, nonstop.” Billie’s biggest vice was soda; she would drink six 20-oz. bottles of regular Coca-Cola.
More important, Billie realized the impact she was having on her kids. Not only did she set a poor example; she also often felt she couldn’t fully participate in their lives: She couldn’t run, play or do anything but sit with them.
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My advice to all of my friends and family is to wean yourself off of any kind of sugary drinks. There is no nutritional value in these types of drinks and huge risks for most people. Water is the best thing to drink but coffee, tea and other kinds of unsweetened drinks are fine if you like them. It’s OK to put a teaspoon of sugar in your coffee if you need to, but if you need to make it super sweet just to drink it, you should probably find something you like better. Cutting you sugar intake will have a huge beneficial effect on your weight and how you feel. So just do it! Get someone at home or work to take the challenge with you and hold each other accountable. It is a lot easier to make these kinds of changes if you have a partner. Oh and keep your kids from getting addicted to high sugar drinks by not keeping them in the house. Simple and effective.
Posted by: Curt | Under: 40's/fit, 50's/fit, Children/fit, Diet and Weight Loss, General Fitness, Health, Ladies/fit, Prime/fit, Quick Tips, Seniors/fit, Sports, Travel/fit, Youth/fit | Add Comment
Ohno training
I don’t think I will get much work done for the next couple of weeks with the Olympics on all day and night. At any rate, I love watching the speed skating, downhill, luge and bobsledding- really anything where they are racing at high speed. Figure skating I can take or leave, but I usually end up watching it just for the amazing skill involved. There are tons of good videos on NBC’s Olympic site like this one about Apolo Ohno’s training routine. Check it out…
Training Secrets from Winter Olympic Stars
Posted by: Curt | Under: 40's/fit, 50's/fit, General Fitness, Health, Ladies/fit, Prime/fit, Seniors/fit, Sports, Travel/fit, Youth/fit | Add Comment
Squats
MSNBC has a great article from Men’s Health on training techniques used by top Winter Olympic athletes. At the core of these exercises is core exercises! One of the exercises that comes up over and over in many top sports is good ‘ol fashion squats. They are great for strengthening quads, glutes, Hamstrings, hips, lower back and abs. Remember, start small and work your way up. There is virtually no sport that will not benefit from squats. Add in one leg squats for strength and balance and you have a great core workout. There are of course an almost infinite variety of core exercises that you can do, so read the article and build your own killer workout.
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“Take the legs,” he says. “Instead of monkeying around with six different exercises and five different machines, why not just focus on back squats? Do them right, and there’s not much more you need.”
…During the early stages of an exercise cycle, Jason Hartman likes high reps with a short rest between sets, believing that a standard of about 3 sets of 10 repetitions, performed two or three times a week, keeps his athletes from trying to bang too much weight. (Of course, reduce the number of reps if your form begins to suffer due to fatigue.) He also focuses on just a handful of old-school standbys: squats, dips, pullups, power cleans, deadlifts, lunges, and sprints. “That’s it,” he promises. “That’s the secret to becoming an alpha male.”
FDA may update serving size on labels
Posted by: Curt | Under: 40's/fit, 50's/fit, Children/fit, Diet and Weight Loss, General Fitness, Health, Ladies/fit, Prime/fit, Quick Tips, Seniors/fit, Sports, Travel/fit, Youth/fit | Add Comment
Ice Cream
One of the things I constantly remind people about in their quest to lose weight is “serving size”. If you look at the label on any packaged food, the serving size will be listed, such as “2 cookies” or “about 14 crackers”. The problem is that virtually no one in America eats 1 serving of anything. Even bread lists 1 serving as 1 slice. But no one makes a sandwich with 1 slice of bread and most people would naturally assume that 1 serving is 2 slices. If I were to make an educated guess from watching people eat, I would estimate that most people eat at least 2 servings of everything- maybe 3. That would be great if it were vegetables and fruit, but it is usually junk food or high carb, high fat stuff like ice cream. So, this really is a good idea. Knowledge is a good thing and helping people to understand just how much they really eat is important.
But here is the application- if you want to surprise yourself, measure out you food for a few days and calculate the actual calories. Just carry a small notebook with you and write down everything you eat right down to the ketchup you put on your fries (which you should skip). Pretty much every restaurant chain lists nutrition info on their website. You will probably be surprised to find out that you eat about twice as many calories as you think. That is why you can’t lose weight! From MSNBC-
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“If people don’t understand the serving, whatever number they get for fat or calories is misleading,” said William K. Hubbard, a former F.D.A. official who consulted with the agency last year.
Consider the humble chip: most potato or corn chip bags today show a one-ounce serving size, containing a tolerable 150 calories, or thereabouts. But only the most disciplined snacker will stop at an ounce. For some brands, like Tostitos Hint of Lime, that can be just six chips.
In the real world, many people might eat two or three times that, or more. Munch half a bag of Tostitos while watching the Super Bowl and you could take in about half the 2,000 calories an average person needs in a day.
