Patriot’s Day

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Megan

I woke up this morning with a hole in my heart and a pit in my stomach. Like the rest of the world, my heart bleeds for Boston and all of the people who ran or attended the marathon yesterday. Patriots Day IS New England. From the re-enactment of the ride of Paul Revere to the early Red Sox game to one of the most highly regarded marathons in the world, all of Boston unites and comes alive.

I watched the Boston Marathon several times from that very spot on Boylston Street. I have never seen crowds as big or as enthusiastic. Every runner has a story. The first year I watched, I remember hearing about a woman who was running the marathon with a donor heart. An enormous feat in and of itself, but that’s not all. The sister of the girl who donated the heart came to watch. She wanted to see her sister’s heart carry this woman across the finish line. Or the story of Dick Hoyt who for 31 years has run Boston pushing his son, Rick, a quadriplegic with cerebral palsy, in a wheelchair because he told his father when they run, it feels like he’s not handicapped. While not every story is so dramatic, everyone runs with a purpose. As a runner, seeing the elites cross the line in just over 2 hours was awe-inspiring to watch, but the true spirit of the race is in watching the every day folks who probably dreamed of doing this race forever; who spent months if not years training, some raising money for charities to gain entry. All of whom laced up their sneakers early yesterday morning prepared to push their bodies a little further than they had ever been pushed in order to fulfill a dream. Seeing the raw emotion as they cross the finish line literally lifts you up. The atmosphere is incredible. Wall-to-wall people screaming and cheering these runners to victory, be it in 2 hours or 5. To see a day filled with such hope, such emotion, such accomplishment and such celebration marred the way it was is nothing short of heartbreaking.

All morning I felt weighted down. I didn’t want to just go about my day when so many people were hurting, but I didn’t know what to do. I came across a blog (lifelessbullshit.com/keep-running/) asking the same question and what she wrote really spoke to me. I had it in my mind all day and I feel like it gave me purpose. It doesn’t make what happened yesterday go away and it will never make those affected whole, but it seemed thoughtful and constructive. It gave me purpose. This was my favorite part:

What do we do?

You keep going, that’s what. You keep moving forward, because relentless forward progress and the strengthening of our commitment to one another is the best response to senseless violence.

What do you do? You live bigger and love harder. You put a stop to the self-limiting beliefs and the negative self-talk that’s been holding you back, and you go out there and do what you were put here to do. You write the book, start the business, take the trip, learn to paint. You take chances. You use your gifts and your talents to brighten the world, and you tell yourself over and over that no matter how dark it can get, there is always more brightness than darkness. You commit to being part of the brightness.

Fourth of July on the Esplanade, Marathon Monday and Fenway Park… there’s no greater place. Boston holds a special part of my heart. My Dad grew up there so we spent time there as kids. Even as a little girl, I was enamored with Boston. The brownstones, the Red Sox, preppy skirts embroidered with lobsters…I wanted to be a part of it. Two weeks after college I moved there for graduate school and it did not disappoint. It was the kind of adventure that no doubt shaped a big part of who I am today. Come to think of it, I did quite a bit of growing up there myself. So many of the people I met and spent time with in Boston left big footprints. I have so many wonderful memories and adventures. Boston gave me so much. Tonight that is where I send my prayers.

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The Other 23

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Megan

If you work full-time behind a desk, even if you are diligent about working out, new research suggests your lifestyle is considered sedentary. Your risk for cardiovascular disease? High.

Hard to believe, right? Discouraging even. But true.

Health is a lifestyle. 24/7/365. An hour at the gym does not give you carte blanche to sit around for the other 23. You’ve got to be mindful of your activity level throughout the day.

While an hour workout five times a week sounds impressive, if that is all the activity you’re doing, it is not enough. There are 168 hours in a week. You exercise for 5 of them. Less than 3% of your week. Three percent. Excluding your time at the gym, how much are you actually moving? Do you go from your car, to your desk, to your car, to your sofa, to your bed?

Our bodies are designed to move. Unfortunately, our current lifestyle is not.

The average person sits for 9.3 hours a day. And sleeps for 7.7. That’s 17 hours with zero activity. In other words, 71% of the day, you are either lying on your back or sitting on your bottom.

Sitting wreaks havoc on our muscular system, poisons our cardiovascular system and depresses our mood. It expends almost no energy. When we sit, our metabolism slows to a screeching halt. As in 1 calorie per minute. All electrical activity in the leg muscles shuts off immediately and fat burning enzymes slow by 90%. Within two hours, the amount of good cholesterol in the body drops 20%. People who sit all day are 54% more likely to have a heart attack than those that don’t, regardless of exercise.

Sitting puts undue pressure on the lower back and wreaks havoc on our posture. Most of the time when we sit, we slump forward, improperly loading the spine. We round our back, hunch our shoulders and jut out our chin. This translates into weak back musculature, tight chest muscles, decreased shoulder function and tight upper traps. That’s just above the waist. Sitting also shuts off our glutes and shortens and tightens our hip flexors. Horrible position for the body, yet most of us do it for H O U R S. Our bodies tell a story about where we’ve been. So you tell me – what wins out – the hour of healthy movement patterns you train at the gym a few times a week, or the 9.3 hours you spend every day slumped in your chair?

The bottom line: get off your bottom! If your job requires you to be at your desk, besides using a stand-up desk or a treadmill desk, there isn’t a lot you can do, but you can interrupt the cycle. Get up often and take a walk  - outside, around the office, up a few flights of stairs. Do some stretches at your desk. Use the bathroom on a different floor in your office – and take the stairs to get there. Skip the elevator all together and take the stairs when you get to work. On the 65th floor? Get off at 60 and walk the last 5 flights. Meet with co-workers for a walk around the block instead of in the conference room. Walking burns 3 to 5x as many calories as sitting. Not only is it better for your health, but it can be more productive. Often meeting with someone side-by-side on a walk instead of across a table can be less intimidating. Change the culture in your office.

Now take a look at how you spend your time after work. Are you on the sofa watching TV? You’ve got to build in habits that require movement. Do a plank or lunges during commercials. Go for a walk after dinner. It’ll give your food time to settle and the fresh air is good for you. Park far away. Better yet, walk or ride your bike when you can. Get a pedometer and keep track of how many steps you take in a day. You may be surprised. Get competitive with it. Challenge yourself to do 10% more a week for a few weeks. I bet you’ll start to feel better, sleep better, even eat better. Catch up with your friends on a walk or a spin class instead of over drinks. Build activity into your day whenever possible.

In the same way no amount of exercise cancels out an unhealthy diet, an hour at the gym does not give you the green light to veg out the rest of the day. Your body is a finely tuned instrument and it wants to play. Remember recess? A little fresh air, a change of scenery, some running around to get our blood pumping and we went back to our classrooms awake and energized with a fresh perspective, ready to learn.  Just because we are older, why should we not give ourselves the same gift?

A healthy lifestyle is an investment with unmatched returns. It is good for your heart, your energy level, your mood, your self-esteem, your waistline, your skin….the list goes on. Initially the changes may feel hard, but they won’t be nearly as hard as being sick. It’s said we don’t value our health until it’s gone. Don’t wait that long.

Posted in Exercise Tips, Health, Self Improvement | 1 Comment

The KISS Principle

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Megan

In the midst of the chaos that has been the last few weeks, I came across a series of quotes on simplicity. It was an appropriate, timely reminder that inner peace does not exist at the bottom of a to-do list. There will always be “stuff.” By getting rid of the extra clutter and noise in our lives, we free ourselves up to live it.

The more we slow down and un-complicate things, the healthier we become. There is too much noise, too much activity, too many distractions. We try to squeeze too much into a weekend, a day or an hour. At what point is all the rushing around for not? If it is always about accomplishing the next task, we miss the magic in the moments. It is these moments that make up our life. The simpler we keep it, the more opportunity we have to enjoy it. After all, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Here are a few of my favorites:

“Voluntary simplicity means going fewer places in one day rather than more, seeing less so I can see more, doing less so I can do more, acquiring less so I can have more.” ~ John Kabat-Zinn

“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.” ~ Lin Yutang

“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” ~ William James

“I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.” ~ Lao Tzu

“There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.” ~ Leo Tolstoy

“Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury…to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best for both the body and the mind.” ~ Albert Einstein

 

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Why Stress Is Making You Fat

Posted on January 6, 2013 by Megan

You don’t have to be a scientist to know that when you are under stress, healthy eating habits often go out the window. Suddenly you crave comfort foods or find yourself over-indulging as a means of coping with your anxiety. Stress interferes with normal sleep patterns, leaving you feeling groggy. When you are tired, you are more likely to reach for sugary, starchy foods because your body craves immediate energy. While none of those things are good for your health, with vigilance, they can be controlled. What you may not realize is there is much more at play physiologically when your body senses stress. Stress triggers your body’s natural alarm system, calling for a surge of hormones to be released as fuel for the potential danger it perceives. This response is designed to protect you, but when left on constant alert, it takes a serious toll on your health, not to mention your waistline.

Part of your fight-or-flight response, this physiological phenomenon was an important part of survival for many of our ancestors who hunted their own food and often had to escape predators. However, such threats are rare these days. They have been replaced by heavy workloads, financial concerns, relationship conflicts and other complexities of our daily lives. Unfortunately, the body does not differentiate physical danger from emotional woes.  Any form of perceived stress triggers this chemical response.

When the alarm bells go off, your heart rate and breath quicken, stamina is increased and you become more alert. Blood flow to the brain becomes quicker, blood sugar rises to increase energy and blood is sent to the extremities in order to increase their strength.  Your adrenal glands release a surge of hormones, largely adrenaline and cortisol, which enable the body to fight or run.

Cortisol is the body’s primary stress hormone. In small doses, it boosts energy for survival, provides higher memory function, increases immunity and lowers sensitivity to pain.  Cortisol increases glucose in the blood stream and enhances the use of glucose in the brain. At the same time, cortisol inhibits the digestive system and other systems that are not essential for the stressful fight-or-flight reaction. Adrenaline stimulates the brain and body to react. It spikes heart rate, elevates blood pressure and boosts energy supplies.

When your safety is threatened, this chain of events serves you well. In day-to-day life…not so much.

With constant exposure to stress, the body has a hard time turning off its fight-or-flight response. Long-term overexposure to hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline is very disruptive to all of the body’s processes, putting you at increased risk of many health problems.

Increased presence of cortisol in the bloodstream is especially dangerous because it encourages the body to store fat, particularly in the abdominal region in and around the internal organs. Cortisol not only leaves the body feeling hungry, but craving high fat and simple carbohydrates for immediate energy. When cortisol is present, testosterone, the body’s muscle building hormone, is decreased. Decreased levels of testosterone lower the body’s muscle mass, thus slowing metabolism. None of which are good for your bottom line.

Over exposure to adrenaline interferes with regulation of pituitary hormones that influence processes such as metabolism, growth and reproduction. It also increases anxiety, which interferes with learning, memory and higher cognitive functions. Again, not something you are looking to achieve.

Some of the dangers of over-exposure to stress include:

  • Heart disease
  • Sleep disorders
  • Premature aging
  • Digestive difficulties
  • Anxiety
  • Depression
  • Memory impairment
  • Obesity
  • Poor skin conditions
  • Headaches
  • Suppressed thyroid function
  • Lower bone density
  • Blood sugar imbalances

Stressful events are a fact of life. You can not eliminate stress from your life, but you can try to manage it. One way to do this is by taking care of yourself physically and mentally, especially during difficult times. While you may not be a able to change a stressful situation, you can take steps to manage its impact on you. Identify what the stressor is and figure out how you can take control of some of the stress-inducing circumstances. You also need to practice activating the body’s relaxation response. This will help regulate hormones, allowing the body’s systems to resume regular activity. Keep stress in check. Your health depends on it.

Ways to combat/manage stress:

  • Supportive network of family and friends
  • Get plenty of sleep
  • Exercise regularly
  • Practice relaxation techniques such as yoga or meditation
  • Eat healthy
  • Talk to a professional

 

 

Posted in Health, Self Improvement, Stress Management | Leave a comment

Why New Year’s Resolutions May Not Be The Best Idea Ever

Posted on December 30, 2012 by Megan

I have never been a real New Year’s person. With the exception of college football, I would file Dec 31/Jan 1 in the category of “much ado about nothing.” One of those days that get so hyped up that almost no amount of amazingness can live up to the expectations. And suddenly you start the new year disappointed. Or hungover. Regardless, all that pressure on one night is too much! Who cares. Why would you start a brand new year doing something forced or inauthentic because you feel like society says you “should?” Doesn’t sound like a very good beginning to me.

In case you are wondering, I put New Year’s resolutions in the same box. Overrated.

Why? They don’t work. By the end of January, as many as 80% of people have either given up, or worse, forgotten their New Year’s resolutions. January? Mercy! Not exactly good odds, my friends.

New Year’s resolutions are not only forced and inorganic, but the system itself is flawed. We feel pressured into making changes in our lives that we think we SHOULD make instead of ones we are ready and committed to make (hence the miserable success rate). We take all of the things we did wrong the year before, or the things we want to improve upon, and we stuff them into one big list and call it New Year’s resolutions. Maybe it makes us feel better temporarily, but in the long run, I think the failure makes us feel worse.  Plus I think people use their upcoming New Year’s resolutions as an excuse to go nuts over the holidays. A slippery slope.

In order to create sustainable meaningful change you’ve got to be ready.  As in the discomfort of making the change required is less than the discomfort of staying where you are. That kind of commitment can’t be dictated by the calendar.

Most of the things people hope for themselves in the new year are biggies. In order to have a chance of being successful, you have to prioritize. Don’t tackle everything at once. Creating sustainable change takes time. Allow for it. Plan for it. Visualize it and keep it top of mind. Don’t sit around wishing for it. Get up every day and work for it.

Start by drawing yourself a road map. This will require you to take an (honest) inventory of where you’re at and it will force you to identify exactly where you want to end up (otherwise you’ll never get there, I assure you.) Now that you have an understanding of what your journey looks like, break it down into manageable steps, and come up with a game plan. A realistic one – don’t get all idealistic on me – marking yourself down for two-a-days when you haven’t been to the gym in a year. Set up sustainable, measurable benchmarks to reach each week. Keep it simple. Be specific. Think in terms of adding in positive habits rather than taking things away.

If you find this time of year incredibly motivating, far be it for me to get in your way. But if you find it intimidating, stressful or overwhelming, don’t feel pressured into starting something you aren’t ready to tackle. In reality, EVERY DAY is an opportunity to try again, to get it right, to start a-new. How lucky is that? So take the pressure off yourself. When you feel ready, put the pieces in place and get to work. But set yourself up to succeed.

So as December comes to a close, take away the expectations, the pressure and see it for what it is – the start of a new calendar year. Embrace it. Wrap your arms around it. But don’t wait for it. Don’t be less than your best today because you are waiting for Jan 1.

Be happy and be safe. Bring your best in 2013!

 

Posted in Health, Holidays, Motivation, New Year, Self Improvement, Success | Leave a comment

Lots To Celebrate…

Posted on December 21, 2012 by Megan

Happy Holidays From Presidio Fitness!

Happy 7th Birthday Presidio Fitness!

Incredibly grateful for the last seven years and looking forward to what lies ahead.

Posted in Holidays, Presidio Fitness, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Holidays, Stress & Overindulgence

Posted on November 21, 2012 by Megan

The holidays can be the most wonderful time of the year, but they can also be amongst the most stressful.  With all of the hustle and bustle, it is easy to get caught up in the crazy and forget what this time of year is really about. It is a timeout of sorts to reflect and give thanks for the many blessings in our lives. A chance to bring some magic into the lives of those who are less fortunate, and a chance to gather with family and friends. In theory, it is a time to re-charge with our loved ones. In theory….

In reality, it is probably the most emotionally loaded time of year! Where there are family gatherings, there are sure to be personality clashes, un-fulfilled expectations, stress and often drama. And food and drink. Lots of it. It can be a perfect storm.

This year, rather than rattle off the same old tips on how to avoid holiday weight gain*, many of which you already know, I thought I’d take a different approach. After all, of the folks who wake up on January 2nd having a little trouble buttoning their pants, I am fairly certain close to 99% know how it came to be.  So if we know the things we need to do to keep it tight during the holiday season, why don’t we do them? When we overindulge it feels lousy, it isn’t good for our bottom line and often, it’s not even satisfying. So why do we do it?

The emotional turmoil that accompanies the holidays often leads to over-indulging. Whether for comfort, avoidance, or lack of anything else to do, the result is the same. Unwanted inches. Food and drink are the ultimate coping mechanisms. It’ll get us into trouble if we let it.

I believe the healthier you go into the holidays, the healthier you’ll come out of them. I’m not just talking about your body. Strong glutes are a start, but you also need to get your mind right. You’ve got to take care of yourself both physically and mentally. Control the things you can control. Try your best to ignore the rest. That’s all you can do. I am not a psychologist and I certainly don’t always get it right myself, but in the 12 plus years I have been training, I have seen where people get tripped up. Here are a few strategies that should help you survive the holidays with your mind and body in tact.

1. People are who they are.  As much as you may want them to, they probably aren’t going to change ALL that much. So regardless of how evolved you have become over the past year, set realistic expectations for family gatherings. Know what a person’s limits are and don’t expect things from someone that they aren’t capable of giving. Anticipate the eye roll or the critical comments, have a response planned or chose to ignore it, but don’t let it surprise you and certainly don’t let it break you. Arm yourself with a force field that repels negative energy.

2. When your Mom walks out of the kitchen carrying the fried macaroni and cheese she slaved for hours over “just for you,” don’t panic. Politely decline. Never eat just to please the host/hostess! If she pushes the issue (which let’s be honest, she probably will) thank her for all her efforts and explain that you have been working hard to stick to a healthy lifestyle and that includes limiting certain foods. It will probably make people who are eating said dish uncomfortable. Tough. That has everything to do with them and absolutely nothing to do with you so don’t take it on. Better yet, you could tell her in advance. Or if all else fails, tell her you are allergic. Or take a small serving and move it around the plate. Just don’t feel pressured into eating anything you don’t want just to make someone else feel good.

3. Do something active. Preferably outside. It is especially important to carve out time for yourself this time of year. It will energize you, clear your head, put you back in touch with your body and make you feel good. Those little endorphins will most likely stick around for a while. Plus it’ll keep your fitness on track and make “re-entry” not as tough.

4. Take a deep breath. The holidays come but once a year – decide to accept things as they are and do your best to enjoy yourself and your loved ones. Then go do something nice for someone less fortunate than you. It will make you feel good and put things in perspective reminding you just how blessed you are.

5. While you are at it, do something nice for yourself. Pamper yourself – whatever that looks like. Get a massage, buy yourself those boots you can’t stop thinking about, set aside a day or a few hours doing only things that you enjoy. No one deserves a little TLC more than you!

6. We may not be able to pick our family, but fortunately we get to pick our friends. As much as you can, surround yourself with people who nurture, love and support you. People who know you and all your flaws and love you anyway. Let them fill your cup. Set aside time to celebrate and enjoy one another. This way, you won’t come to the table (your family’s table) with an empty cup. Fill yourself up with help from your friends so you go into family gatherings feeling fulfilled and not looking for the support or re-enforcement that, despite best intentions, your family may not provide.

7. For those of you with perfectly functional family gatherings, even you are not immune to holiday stress. Stores are crowded, parking spaces are scarce, lines are long, money is flying out the window and people are rushing around with to-do lists longer than Santa’s. Slow down! Don’t get caught up in the madness. Do everything you can to keep things simple.

8. Most importantly, throughout all of this, if you do slip up, for goodness sakes, forgive yourself. Then step outside yourself and take a moment to reflect and be grateful for all your blessings.

 

*For those of you who need reminding – a brief synopsis:

  • Don’t skip your workouts
  • Plan holiday gatherings around an activity rather than a meal whenever possible
  • Never go to a party hungry
  • Pick a few events to splurge on and keep it healthy for the rest
  • Drink plenty of water
  • Get plenty of sleep

 

Posted in Eating, Health, Holidays, Self Improvement, Stress Management | Leave a comment

Change Your Mindset, Change Your Mind

Posted on October 14, 2012 by Megan

Having trouble gearing up for your next workout? It happens to the best of us. Next time it happens to you, ask yourself why you exercise. If you can’t articulate it in say, 60 seconds or less, it isn’t surprising that you are having trouble getting out the door. Bottom line: when it comes to the gym, if you don’t have a good reason to go, you’ll come up with a hundred reasons not to.

Working out takes effort. It requires energy and purpose. If you don’t feel like you are getting something out of your hard work, or at least moving towards something, the couch is almost always going to be more appealing.  So remind yourself why you work hard and what it is going to help you achieve.

Motivation is the energy that sustains a behavior. Some days, it oozes from your pores, while others, it’s nowhere to be found. You know the feeling. Some mornings you can’t wait to get after it in the gym, while on others there isn’t a Nike poster in the world that speaks loud enough to you to put your gym clothes on. What happens when you just aren’t feeling it?

Change the way you look at it. Don’t think about the work, think about the pay-off. Why do you workout in the first place? Remind yourself. Break it down. Identify a concrete reason that really speaks to you. Something compelling enough to get you to jump out of bed, throw on your running shoes and fly out the door even when it’s dark and cold. Something that makes the gym enticing even when all your co-workers are going to happy hour. Something that pushes you off the couch in the middle of your favorite sitcom’s all-day marathon.

Maybe you workout to manage your stress, to be healthy or to maintain a quality of life, or because the strength you build in the gym fortifies you for the rest of your day. It might be because you want to be faster/stronger/leaner for your athletic endeavors. Or maybe you train because you love the way it makes you feel – your heart beating outside your chest. Because no one can take it away from you. Or because the days you sweat are better than the days you don’t. Or maybe you just want to look better naked. Fair enough. But know what that reason is. It’ll help get you out the door on those days when your discipline is in the red.

Still not don’t want to go? Maybe you aren’t seeing the results you want and you are frustrated or bored. Hire a trainer, try new activities and get re-energized. Join a sports team, find a workout partner or enter a race. Give your workouts a renewed sense of purpose. Stop looking at them as just another thing you have to do.

Chances are your trips to the gym mean more to you than you think. Otherwise why would you spend so much time thinking you should be exercising? Something inside you knows it’s a good idea. Identify what that is. Take some time and do a little soul searching. Ask yourself what your workouts mean to you. You might surprise yourself with what you come up with.

Change your mindset. Every workout is an opportunity to get better. A privilege. When you look at it as such, my guess is you will feel differently about it. Don’t take your body or your health for granted. Workout because you can; be grateful you are healthy enough to exercise and get stronger. You don’t have to, you get to. Plus, you’ll never finish a workout and regret it. Ever.

Posted in Follow your Passion, Health, Motivation, Success | Leave a comment

It’s Your Next Move That Counts

Posted on September 14, 2012 by Megan

Indulged in one too many cocktails last night? Ate an entire pizza in one sitting? We’ve all been there. These behaviors are not ones I recommend, but they happen. No need to apologize, don’t beat yourself up over it or drown yourself in guilt. Move on. That’s right – let it go. It doesn’t matter what you did, it matters what you do next.

Don’t try to make up for it or over-correct. What’s done is done. If you go on an exercise binge or embark on a hunger strike to rid yourself of your sins, you will more than likely find yourself back where you are right now. This type of behavior usually backfires. Thus begins the roller coaster of over and under-indulging. Stop the madness!

Don’t tell me about the cleanse you are starting after the holidays. I don’t much care about the workout regime you’ll begin when you get back from vacation. Or the gym you are going to join. It doesn’t interest me. Tell me instead what you are going to do right now. Today. What’s your next best step? Go for a walk. Knock off 10 push-ups. Make a colorful salad. Drink a liter of water. Phone a friend.

You are one move away from feeling better. Are you going to do something that will make your feel better, or worse? That is the only move I care about. Your next one. Practice building your roads on today.

The difference between people who have lost a significant amount of weight and kept it off versus those that gained it back? One thing. How they dealt with a bad day. The group that kept the weight off started the next day as if nothing had changed – they got right back into their healthy routine. No guilt, no shame, no questions asked.

Every day is a blank slate. A chance to try again. There is no such thing as failure – just action and result. If you don’t like the result, adjust, hopefully learn, and take more action.

No one gets it right all the time. Perfection does not exist. Life is a journey. Things come up, plans and intentions change. You are going to have an “off” day…or week. It happens to us all.

Take your next best step.

How you got here doesn’t matter. It’s what you do next. No excuses. No judgements. Forgive yourself. You won’t ever be perfect, but you can always be productive, healthy and active. There is always something constructive you can do to feel better. Turn the tide. Right the ship.

Picture your perfect life. The job you want, your health, your friends, your family. What do you need to do to get there? Break it down into steps that are small enough to manage, yet big enough to matter. Do those things every day. Life is the sum of all your steps. Stop chasing perfection. It doesn’t exist. Don’t look back. Keep moving forward. What you do next is what matters. It’s up to you.

After all, it’s not how many times you fall, but how many times you get back up that matters.

Posted in Health, Positive Thinking, Self Improvement, Success | Leave a comment

Why Crunches Won’t Flatten Your Stomach

Posted on July 15, 2012 by Megan

No amount of “ab work” is going to flatten your stomach. Ever. Read that again if you need to. If someone tells you it will, they are either lying or misinformed. The reason for your muffin top is not a lack of crunches, I promise you. It is the combination of poor diet and not enough meaningful activity. Simply put, the pudge around your mid-section is stored energy. Calories you consumed, but never used. If you eat more energy (aka: calories) than you burn, your body stores this energy as fat. Often around your mid-section. Unless you make changes to your diet and exercise program, that fat will remain exactly where it is. Crunches or not.

Try as you may, there is no such thing as spot reduction. You can no more pick a spot on your body to lose fat than you can pick a place to add it. No amount of biceps curls will give your arms definition if there is a layer of fat covering your muscle. The reason you don’t have a six-pack is probably not because your stomach isn’t strong enough. It’s that your abs are hidden by fat. The only way to lose that layer of fat is to burn it off. Crunches are not an efficient way to do this. Rather, hit the weights and add intervals to your workout. Clean up your diet while you’re at it.

Abdominal work (let’s call it core from now on) strengthens your mid-section. Period. If you have a strong core and low body fat (aka: less fat covering those hard-earned muscles), you probably have a well defined mid-section. More importantly though, your strong core enables efficient movement, which decreases your risk of injury and increases performance. That’s it. Core work, while important, is not metabolic in nature and does not burn a lot of calories.

When calories consumed out number calories burned, the excess is stored as FAT. To get rid of that fat you must tip the scales. You’ve got to burn more calories than you consume. You would have to crunch for hours to burn anywhere close to the amount of calories you’d burn from strength training and intervals. Plus, you shouldn’t be doing crunches in the first place because of the stress they put on your back.

In addition to diet and exercise, there are other lifestyle changes you can make to whittle your middle. For example, limiting the amount of stress in your life will help keep belly fat at bay. Cortisol, a hormone released by the body as part of the fight or flight response, is the body’s natural response to stress. Stress management then becomes important because cortisol encourages the body to store fat in your mid-section. By lowering the stress in your life, you are also lowering your cortisol levels, allowing you to better manage your waistline.

Keep in mind your body does not differentiate between types of stress – be it environmental, physical or imaginary. While many of life’s stressors are obvious, some are less so, such as lack of sleep. Fatigue puts stress on your body, sending cortisol levels soaring. All the more reason to get your 8 hours! It is also important to practice activating your body’s relaxation response to control the amount of cortisol in your system.

Trimming your middle is not just about vanity – it can help save your life. People who carry extra weight in their mid-section are at a greater risk of diabetes, heart disease, even cancer. This is because abdominal fat is made up of both subcutaneous (lying just below the skin’s surface), and visceral (found in and around your internal organs) fat. While too much of any kind of body fat poses a health risk, visceral fat is especially dangerous due to its proximity to vital organs.

While difficult, losing body fat is not impossible. The key is to workout at an intensity that is conducive to change. Be disruptive. As you age, you naturally start losing muscle tissue. In addition to the gradual decline of daily activity, this change in body composition sends your metabolism into a tailspin. You must adjust your caloric intake accordingly. Adding strength training to your routine will help maintain muscle mass which will help increase your metabolism.

Bottom line: skip the crunches. If it were that easy, there would be a lot more midriffs on display. A beach-worthy belly takes work. Clean up your diet, control portion size, up your exercise, limit stress, take time to relax and get plenty of sleep. Remember, the choices you make today affect your mood tomorrow but show up on your body a month from now. Be patient.

Posted in Eating, Exercise Tips, Health, Interval Training, Nutrition, Strength Training, Stress Management | 1 Comment