mistakes-related stories
6 food mistakes parents make
Healthy Kids, Nutrition & Supplements
Got a picky kid? You might even have a picky spouse! Knowing the right ways to help your family members become healthy eaters isn't easy. Every person is different, so hitting on that one solution is always a tough one.So it's a good thing the New York Times is telling us about six food mistakes that parents make. If we see ourselves in some of these, then we'll know where to start.
Join me after the jump to read about the six mistakes and my take on them.
5 nutrition tips for peak fitness
Diet & Weight Loss, Fitness, Nutrition & Supplements
Even if you're diligent about your workouts, if you're lacking proper nutrition, you're not getting as much out of your fitness routine as you could be. It can be hard to always choose the right food, and then, when you try to eat the right food the right amount of time before your workout ... well, it can get confusing pretty quickly.This article on Active.com highlights five common mistakes athletes make regarding nutrition, and you should know that they're not all common sense mistakes. As a matter of fact, I've definitely been guilty of more than one!
Basically, it all comes down to eating well and eating at the proper times. It's not all that difficult in theory, but in practice, many of us eat too much (or too little) in the way of fat and calories. Check out their list for yourself and see just how well you're fueling your workouts!
The 5: Maximizing effort by minimizing mistakes
Womens Health, Diet & Weight Loss, Fitness, Men's Health
With the exception of performing exercises that can lead to injury or over-training, there are none that are wrong, per se. I realize this seems to fly in the face of an entry I just wrote about ineffective exercises, but there is a distinction that needs to be observed between wrong and ineffective.
The goal of any exerciser, whether they are a seasoned workout veteran or an ambitious newbie, should be to get the maximum results possible from the effort they are willing to expend. This is why there isn't any time to waste on ineffective exercises, just as there is no room for common mistakes that can hinder your progress.
Here are five mistakes that exercisers frequently make, serving to reduce the effectiveness of their dedicated effort:
1. Holding On. All too often, you'll see people on an elliptical, treadmill, or StairMaster holding onto the safety railings and leaning onto the machine. Unless you need to hold on for stability purposes, don't. Doing so can lead to back pain over time and also reduces the amount of calories that you'll burn.
2. Swinging. When lifting weights, always maintain proper form throughout the entire movement. If you have to twist, turn, contort, and kip your body to lift a weight, then it's probably too heavy for you. As a general rule, stick to weights that you can lift for at least 8 reps but no more than 15.
3. Only Doing Cardio. By and large, we begin losing muscle mass somewhere around the age of 30. As effective as cardio is at promoting improved circulation, weight loss, and a host of other health benefits, it does little in the way of rebuilding muscle. Not interested in building muscle? Fine. But you may want to know that the more muscle you have, the faster your metabolism will be and the more calories you'll burn. Still don't want to build muscle?
Jumpstart Your Fitness: 10 common workout mistakes
2008 is fast approaching, and with it brand new health, fitness, and weight loss goals. If your New Year's resolution includes working out and getting in shape, or even if you're already in the habit of getting regular exercise, the following list of common workout mistakes could save you some injuries and help you maximize your calorie burn: Mistake: Talking while working out
Some workouts use how difficult it is to talk as a way of measuring exertion, and although that's all well and good it's really not a good idea to keep talking the entire time you're exercising -- save that energy for burning calories!
Avoid these 2 training mistakes
Diet & Weight Loss, Fitness, Men's Health
There are two common mistakes that many resistance training newbies make: 1) Lifting more weight than they can handle, and 2) Not maintaining proper form throughout their set.
With regard to the former, it seems like this is a problem typically relegated to teenage guys. In my post "The 10 People You'll Find in Any Gym," you'll see these guys labeled as the Teen Titans. Basically, their bodies are in a state of rapid change, with the one positive effect of that hormonal upheaval being the introduction of bigger and stronger muscles. Trying to sustain this growth (and to impress a few cheerleaders in the process), these teen guys start hitting the gym. However, things sometimes go awry when they lift weight that is too heavy for them. This mistake leads directly to point #2, as form and technique pretty much get tossed out the window.
To prevent injury, it is imperative that proper form is strictly adhered to. Bending, contorting, twisting and swinging weights and/or your body in efforts to complete another rep is a sure-fire way to hurt yourself. Furthermore, cheating in this manner mitigates the muscle-building effects of the exercise itself.
While I point to teenage guys as being the chief offenders of these two rules, there are plenty of men and women who make these same mistakes. Remember, No Pain No Gain is not really the best tenet on which to base your workout, especially when that pain is coming as a result of damage to your body.
Workplace Fitness: 6 makeup mistakes that will make you look older
Depending on what you do for a living, if you're a woman chances are you wear makeup to work. Very few of us look good or normal with absolutely no makeup on at all, so it becomes a huge part of how we present ourselves to the world. What if that big part of how you present yourself, of how you work to make yourself look better, was actually making you look worse? What if it was adding years to how you look instead of taking them off? What a shame to work so hard to stay a healthy weight and keep in shape only to sabotage yourself with your makeup! Now of course no amount of bad makeup can equal the negative impact of being overweight or unhealthy, but there is something to be said for the magnifying power of how you do your face. You can either magnify the good things or you can magnify the bad things: anybody up for some painfully obvious wrinkles?
Here are 6 beauty blunders to avoid, unless of course you're going for an "antiqued" appearance:
Made a weight-loss mistake? Quick fixes
Diet & Weight Loss, Nutrition & Supplements
Here are some fast fixes for diet disasters for WebMD:
- "I skipped breakfast." Get something in your tummy, asap. Yogurt, fruit and whole grains are best but if all you can get your hands on is a danish, go for it -- just eat healthy for the rest of the day. And make sure to have a healthy snack every four hours to keep your metabolism going.
- "I drank too much last night." Exercise will help with the hangover, I promise. You might need to go easy though. And don't give into your craving for fast food. Have something healthy instead. And never drink on an empty stomach.
- "I supersized my fast food meal." Enjoy it. Splurges happen, just make sure they're not a regular occurrence. Enjoy your splurge while it happens, and do a few extra crunches when you workout later.
Avoiding medication mistakes takes your own effort
Drug interactions are generally checked very thoroughly by doctors and pharmacists, but mistakes can happen. Dosage mistakes can also happen if slapshot record-keeping is used in medical facilities. You'd think that in 2007 this would have been eliminated, but not so.
It's up to you to ensure that no medical or medication mistakes are made in the disbursement of any drugs. Question doctors and nurses, regardless of the ego that may be involved. The slim chance of a mistake can be avoided when more than a single instance of double-checking is performed.
Hospitals don't want to you to know about their mistakes
We've all heard horror stories of medical mistakes made in hospitals, things like surgeries on the wrong body part, surgeries on the wrong person, and of course all kinds of fun things left sown inside people after surgery has been completed. Thankfully, hospitals are required to report these things to the government, but what they may not be required to do is share that information with you, the patient. Some hospitals are fighting making that information public, despite the fact that it's the people's tax money and the people's lives at stake. In Washington, for example, hospitals will no longer be releasing their numbers on adverse events to the public.
That's just plain messed up, seriously.
The 25 biggest weight-loss mistakes
- Having a negative attitude; expecting failure
- Picking a weight-loss plan that you can't follow in the long run
- Being a slave to the scale
- Eating more processed foods than fresh ones
- Not drinking enough water
- Finishing what's on your plate, even though you're full.
- Thinking that pills are the magic solution and not acknowledging that weight-loss is hard work.
What mistake are you making?
Jumpstart Your Fitness: By avoiding these 25 weight loss mistakes
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!
The 11 most common mistakes when training for a marathon
Rookies and old pros alike often make serious mistakes when it comes to preparing and training for a marathon, and surprisingly they're often the same mistakes. Rookies make them because they don't know any better, and the pros make them because they're competitive spirit gets in the way and clouds their judgment. So no matter where you fall on the experience scale, if you're getting ready to run a marathon this summer make sure you're not making these common mistakes:Building self esteem
Diet & Weight Loss, Motivation
We are so used to negative feedback that we are more aware of our weaknesses than our strengths. So it is often hard to enjoy success, no matter how small each success might be. Celebrating your strengths and achievements is a natural process to building self esteem. Learning to recognize that we are human and that we will make mistakes will also help us build self esteem so we all need to learn to forgive ourselves.Self acceptance is required before self esteem can develop. Self esteem is built by experiencing success whether small or large. To build self esteem you need to stop dwelling on your weaknesses and learn to forgive yourself for your mistakes. Beating yourself up is only defeating yourself and your energy is better spent if you build positive thoughts about yourself even when things are not as successful as they can be. Learning to recognize if you are judging yourself against unreasonable standards will help you to know your strengths. So setting goals that you can reach is a good way to set yourself up for success and will continue to build strength in yourself.
A self help exercise is to write down the things you do successfully. Every mistake a person makes can be an opportunity to learn. We can't be afraid to make mistakes, this is how we learn to improve. Persistence and learning from past mistakes will help us succeed.
Medical error 5th leading cause of death in U.S.
Of all the threats we face in the world today (disease, accidents, terrorism, and the list goes on) who would have thought something perfectly preventable like medical errors would earn 5th place on the list of leading causes of death in this country? Transcription errors, adverse drug reactions, and incomplete patient records account for as many as 98,000 deaths in the U.S. every year. The strained health care system is dealing regularly with too many patients for too little staff, which is obviously a dangerous combination, but thankfully there are some moves being made to help reduce this problem. CIS (clinical information systems) are being utilized by more and more hospitals to hopefully reduce errors by providing an easy and reliable resource, but I'm afraid that mistakes will continue to be a problem as long as medical facilities are chronically understaffed and patient loads soar higher and higher.Jumpstart Your Fitness: Avoid the 7 deadly workout sins (plus one extra, for good measure)
I hate to sound like a broken record and reiterate what you've already heard so many times already, but when it comes to exercising, there are rules that apply and it's all too easy to let some things slide when it comes to doing it right and being safe. Working out seems simple enough, and in truth it really can be, but you'd be surprised at how many people make simple errors that end up putting them at risk for decreased results, frustration, and even serious injuries.Honestly I've been known to commit some of these no-no's, namely skipping my warm-up and back in my gym-going days I used to hop into the hot tub right after my workout. Whoops.
So here they are, the 7 deadly sins workout sins to avoid:
