That's Fit

About 10 years ago, I stopped drinking soda. I lost seven pounds. The soda eventually crept back into my diet. One year ago, I stopped drinking it again. I ditched sweets too. I lost 15 pounds.

Is there one habit you can eliminate from your diet? A candy dish on your desk you could trash? A morning stop for doughnuts you could do without? A late-night dish of ice cream you could trade for a bowl of fresh fruit? Surely, there's something you can get rid of. Surely, you'll see results when you do.

Fitness magazine asks a few women in their May 2008 issue about small changes they've made in their lives that delivered great gains. One women nixed alcohol for one month. Social drinking was her diet downfall. She'd end up having a dozen beers while mixing with friends, and it always led to snacking on junk food. While this gal says she won't give up alcohol for good, she does plan to minimize her intake, for the sake of her health.

An easy way to lose weight is to include more fruits and vegetables in your diet. Produce is famous for jamming massive amounts of vitamins, nutrients and fiber into very few calories. With most produce, you can consume lots of food for a very low caloric price. More bang for your buck that is!

I ask my personal training clients to try to include at least five meals per week consisting of pure produce. No meat. No grains. Most folks eat at least 21 meals per week, so this five meal plan doesn't deter anyone from getting enough protein. What it does do though, is get them to try new fruits and learn new ways to turn veggies into a meal.

Another benefit to this effort is that by keeping a few meals to just produce, you will more than likely be cutting quite a bit of calories out of the day. Over time, the more you rely on fruits and vegetables for snacks and meals, the more likely you'll be to achieve and maintain your ideal weight.

I'll spare you the entire bra story -- you can read all about it here if you wish -- but suffice it to say that something as little as a bra, a measly $20 bra, can lift a whole lot more than the flesh found right there on your chest. It can lift your mood and your overall spirit. And it can do quite a job at inflating both your body image and your self-esteem. I know because I just got my very own new bra.

I not only got a new bra this weekend. I got a brand new model of bra. I traded in my minimizing bra -- the kind I've worn for years -- for a barely-there-light-push-up bra that has transformed each of my breasts from pancake to perky. It's amazing, the difference, and it makes me want to spread the word: If you're feeling down about your body and need a change, a simple little change, while you whittle away at your weight or firm up your flab, then consider a new bra.

Or forget the bra. Make it a new pair of pants that flatter your behind. Or a shirt that trims and slims. It can be anything really -- a hip new jacket, a sporty haircut, a fresh manicure, anything that puts a spring in your step and a smile on your face. Let's be real here: Big sweeping changes take time. So why not try reinventing yourself before long stretches pass you by? It's easy, I tell you. As easy as my new bra.

Walk, walk, walk. There's so much good news about walking. It's good for the heart, good for the soul, good for fatigue, good for preventing illness and disease, good for muscles, joints, and bones. The list goes on and even includes easing the stress and psychological symptoms associated with menopause.

Walking may not knock out those annoying hot flashes, according to one study, but participants did report that walking briskly for 40 to 90 minutes five days per week helped minimize the overwhelming anxiety and depression that come with hot flashes. Another conclusion: The more women walk, the better they feel.

Score another point for walking.

I don't know about you but for me, regret often is not worth whatever action I've taken that seemed so important in the moment. Sugar gives me a headache, for example. If the urge to eat something sweet sweeps over me and I give in, I'll surely regret it moments after the sugar sinks into my system. My headache won't be worth succumbing to my craving, and regret will plague me for much longer than I'd like.

Regret is OK, healthy even, says Abigail Stewart, PhD., professor of psychology and women's studies at the University of Michigan. Regret is not such a bad thing, reveals Stewart, because it can be used to your advantage.

Women often take action based on their regrets. In my case, my sugar regret causes me to not eat sugar. Taking such action, reports Stewart, causes women to score higher on physical and psychological measures of well-being later in life.

Sorry you missed a recent workout? Or had a bad diet day? Wish you hadn't put off that doctor's appointment for months and months? Don't worry. Don't fixate on your regret. Just use it as motivator for change. You'll be better for the wisdom and self-awareness you gain from making up for what you coulda, shoulda, woulda done.

Regret helps prime you for success. So don't cry over your spilled milk. Instead, mop it up and be happy for the clean slate that lies before you.

Willpower may have nothing to do with your inability to lose weight or stick with that elusive fitness routine. According to Alan Deutschman, author of Change or Die: The Three Keys to Change at Work and in Life, willpower is not so important when it comes to the actual mechanism for change. What's important is finding a relationship with a person or group skilled at showing you the way. It can't be just any relationship, though. It has to be an emotional one with someone who inspires hope and belief, someone who makes you say, "If she can do it, so can I."

Think about the high-powered executive told by his doctor he'll suffer a heart attack if he doesn't switch to a low-fat diet and take up yoga and meditation. Left to his own devices, this man, like nine of out 10 who won't do a thing to change his lifestyle, will ignore medical advice even though the stakes couldn't be higher. But put him in a group setting with others just like him and when he sees his peers eating veggies and chanting yoga speak, he'll do it too. And he's likely to stick with his new ways after a little practice.

The message here is this: If there's something you wish to change but feel stuck, seek out others who intrigue you and make you want to alter your behaviors. Form a relationship with these people and most important, learn from it. Forget willpower, my friends. Find a mentor instead.

I am happy to report that my husband and I have inspired a few people to aspire for healthier diets. I think it's John's very apparent weight loss that gets people thinking, and then asking how exactly it is that he's dropped nearly 40 pounds in the span of six months. In the event you might be contemplating your own diet revamp, here's how we've done it.

We started with three "No's" -- no sweets, no soda, and no red meat. And then we took on a two "lows" -- low calorie and low fat. There's other practices we've adopted along the way, like cutting down on breads, pastas, and other starchy items and abandoning creamy dressings altogether. We also use minimal amounts of butter and try to stay away from packaged foods. And while we've ditched a whole lot of junk from our diets, we've upped our consumptions of fruits and veggies. John has also become a real advocate for flax seed. He'll sprinkle it on just about anything.

That's it. Simple, right? We think so, now that we're over the hump and don't crave the unhealthy stuff we once shoveled in our mouths. We also think you should know this: Our way of eating is by no means temporary. It's not a diet. It's a life change. So we challenge you to not borrow this plan and then return to your old ways once you reach your desired weight. It just won't work that way, and your pounds will inevitably come creeping back. If you practice what we're preaching, you need to practice it for the long run. This way, you'll enjoy both a healthy weight and a healthy body for the long-term.

Daily decisions that seem inconsequential may actually be life-changing choices. Doughnut or apple? Walk the dog or watch TV? Elevator or stairs? The directions you take in the span of mere moments can have an instant effect and can play a huge role in overall health for years to come.

Take exercise. Did you know the health of your arteries improves immediately after you exercise? And diet. While we once thought it took years for the harmful effects of saturated fats to take effect, it's now clear a high-fat meal causes arteries to stiffen right away. Smoking? Your blood pressure is affected instantly when you light up. Now unhealthy decisions don't create catastrophic results in the blink of an eye, but they do plant their seeds and add up over time. This works in reverse too.

Every time you choose to walk instead of ride, put low-fat milk instead of cream in your coffee, and opt for herbs over salt, you're doing your body a big favor. And these decisions will pay dividends in the coming years.

It's never too late to make healthy changes, says Ann Bolger, M.D. at the University of California/San Franciso and Chair for the American Heart Association Council on Clinical Cardiology. Because regardless of your age or condition in life, what you choose to do now will work now. Not only will it matter today, though. It will matter in the long run too.

I don't think this needs much of an introduction -- it's a list of 25 common weight loss mistakes (some of which we make on almost a daily basis!). So read through it and see what small changes you can make to jumpstart your fitness and weight loss goals!

• Having a defeatist attitude from the start. Ever heard about the law of attraction? If you think about failing you'll attract failure. You'll sabotage yourself before you even get started. On the flip side go around believing you're going to succeed? You will!
  
• Starting something you can't see yourself sticking with forever. If you can't imagine doing it for the rest of your life, like a grapefruit diet or Atkins for example, then don't bother. It's about lifestyle choices, not quick fixes.
• Starting something you hate from the start. You may be telling yourself "beauty is pain" and forcing yourself to push onward, but how long is that going to last? Find something you can really get behind and stick with for the long haul.
• Weighing yourself too much. By getting on that scale everyday (or heaven forbid more than once a day) you're letting it rule your mood and control your day. That's just plain messed up. It's just a scale.
• Not drinking enough water. Back to basics is usually a good rule, and this is one of those cases. Drinking enough water can do everything from give your more energy to help you shed puffiness, and it's free, has no calories, and is always available!

We're always looking for fresh and innovative ways to blog about news and trends fit for helping you live a healthy life. Now, thanks to Saturn, we bring a new voice to our efforts with the launch of our That's Fit Weekly Podcast. Each Friday, we'll go from blogger to broadcaster as we discuss topics relevant to pursuing your health and fitness goals.

This week we're in our fifth installment in our Motivation to the Max series with "Motivating Your Mind". One of the ways you can really define your goals is to create a visual picture of the things you would love to have in your life. This week it's "project" time. We'll help you create a powerful tool that is a "must have" if you are sincere about facilitating positive and permanent change in your overall existence. If you don't know exactly where you want to go, what you want to do or how you want to feel in the future, this will do the trick. Get ready. Get set...listen up!

Have comments on our current shows or ideas for future podcasts? Or, do you have a burning health and fitness question you'd like answered on an upcoming installment? Comment right here and we'll do our best to provide the helpful information you're looking for!

There are several ways to receive the That's Fit Weekly podcast: Subscribe to our RSS feed, through iTunes, or just click on the MP3 file link directly below! -- your choice!

Receive That's Fit Weekly Podcast using one of these methods:
[RSS] Add The That's Fit Weekly Podcast feed to your RSS feedreader and have it delivered automatically
[MP3] Download the podcast directly
[iTunes] Subscribe to the podcast directly in Apple iTunes

Host
Laura Lewis

File Format

7:05:00 length, 6.48 MB size, MP3 format (128kbps)

September 14th , 2007 Program: Join us next week to listen to our concluding episode in our Motivation to the Max series. It's called "Motivate Your Life". So what is your "Ideal Day" anyway? This show brings it all together!

If the words "jumpstart your fitness" sound like something that applies to you then what you probably need is renewed motivation. Motivation is the gas that keeps your workout plan moving -- and although it's cheaper than the gas that moves your car (it's free!) the trade-off is that it's much harder to come by. There's no one way to motivate everybody -- heck, there's not even one way that will always work for motivating one same person. It's all about your mood, and your current situation. What helped you drop that last 5 pounds two summers ago may not mean anything to you at all this year, and maybe you've got other things in your life on top of it all that you didn't have to deal with before, like children or a new job.

It's tricky to figure out what's going to trip your trigger and get you moving again, especially when it feels like you've been dieting and exercising forever and you just want to rest. Remembering that being healthy and getting in shape is about making permanent lifestyle changes can help, and if losing weight feels like true exhausting 'work' to you then maybe you need to make some changes on how you're going about it. Not to say it will always be a totally easy piece of cake, but you shouldn't be miserable either.

If you have lots of bad habits (and I think most of us do) it seems working on them simultaneously may be the most effective way to quit, as opposed to working on one at a time. A study was recently conducted with 239 participants to see how different approaches worked to help them quit smoking, reduce salt in their diets, and increase how much they exercised and the group that received counseling sessions for all three areas at once did better (in the long run) than the group that worked on one at a time.

Interesting and good to know, but why do you think this is?

The trend in society has always been toward the bolder and less inhibited, from the changes in swimsuits to what's now allowed on TV -- from generation to generation we're definitely not getting any more conservative! It's a delicate subject for some, as opinions on whether it's good or bad for society as a whole vary wildly.

That being said, menopause happens to all women at some point in their lives, and it's not always a simple or easy change to go through. Of course there's a time and a place for everything, but nowadays it's getting much easier for women to find the support and understanding they need because it's more acceptable to talk about things like hot flashes and mood swings. It used to be so "hush hush" that women were stuck suffering in silence.

I'm still pretty shy when it comes to blurting out personal issues in a public setting (and I'm not going through menopause), but it's nice to know that when I do want to talk about something it's not going to be a big deal or make for some broken social rule. And for those of you who do enjoy announcing "hot flash!" loudly over dinner? More power to you!

My 59 year old, male client Jody showed up to train on Friday, March 3rd with paperwork to validate all of his hard work. Jody's been training with me since December 22, 2006. He showed up at 320 pounds and on March 5th, 2007 he's down to 286 pounds. A spectacular loss of 34 pounds. He's been working out with me or on his own almost every day of the week since, and has adopted eating habits of the fittest. No diets ... just common sense.

Besides wanting to lose lots of weight, Jody and I discussed the goals he had for his life. He wanted to golf without low back pain, sleep free of apnea, fly without seat-belt extenders, sit in bleachers comfortably at the NCAA final four, and most importantly live long and well with his amazing family. Since Jody was a diabetic, I felt it important to point out that he was on his way to earning blindness and limb loss. Jody grimly nodded.

Friday was such a proud day. He had visited his internal medicine doctor and came back with fabulous results. His blood sugar levels had dropped by 60% and his doctor proclaimed we'd worked a miracle. He's almost in the normal range. Jody showed up with his "report card" and we cheered about his results. The doctor seemed to lose any concern about Jody's diabetes. I mentioned how nice it was that he wasn't going to have to worry about shots or blindness. At that point he confessed that before he began training he was waking up with blurry vision! I was shocked. Jody's only comment was that he guessed it was "never too late!"