That's Fit

National Women's Health Week kicks off on Mother's Day with the purpose of empowering women to get healthy by taking action. Your health should be a major priority, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office on Women's Health has a few steps designed to help you achieve that. Businesses, government, and health organizations across the United States, hopefully near you, will be taking part in this event.

Objectives of the week are designed to teach women the benefits of:

• Engaging in physical activity most days of the week
• Making healthy food choices
• Visiting a health care provider to receive regular check-ups and preventive screenings
• Avoiding risky behaviors, like smoking and not wearing a seat belt

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.

Just had my tummy tuck one week ago. All is going well -- better than I'd anticipated, actually -- and just yesterday I went with my mom while she picked my boys up from school. I even accompanied them to the park for an afternoon play date. It was great to get out of the house and away from the recliner that doubles as my daytime resting place and my bed. It's where I sit, sleep, write, watch TV, read bedtime stories -- and worry about how all I've gained through strenuous exercise over the past year is about to be lost.

According to my doctor, I can't really exercise for six full weeks. I can walk, and I can gradually add other movements to my routine, but I can't full-out run -- my favorite fitness activity -- for quite some time. This worries me. Will I gain weight? Will I lose my muscle tone? Will I be completely out of shape by the time I lace up my running shoes? It's possible.

What ever will I do?

I love the mini lessons my kids get at school about health, nutrition, and fitness. What they learn is not abundant by any means but when words of wisdom come their way, I'm truly thankful for them.

Yesterday, my first grader came home with his February Weekly Reader. It happens to be Dental Health Week at many schools across the country and so this issue was all about Terrific Teeth. Here's what my grade schooler learned.

Brush
Brush your teeth at least two times a day. Brush the outside and the inside of your teeth. Gently brush your tongue too.

Floss
Floss your teeth once a day. Ask a grown-up to help you.

Get Checkups
Visit a dentist two times each year.

Eat Healthful Foods
Eat foods that are good for your teeth. Drink a lot of milk too.

My preschooler learned a thing or two as well. He even had a dentist visit his classroom and was gifted with a new toothbrush, floss, and a timer so he can monitor how long he brushes. Two minutes is the goal and already, my littlest guy is watching his pink sand drizzle to the bottom of its hourglass while he brushes and brushes and brushes.

If you find you can borrow from this elementary dental lesson, please do. If your kids would benefit from it, please pass it on.

It's Nutrition Week at Danny's preschool. On Tuesday, he and his classmates colored pictures of healthy food items and brought them home in brown paper bags. On Wednesday, Danny learned about his body. At dinner, he told us about his arms, his legs, his face, and more. He wasn't exactly sure how to link these body parts to nutrition but hey, he's four years old. He'll learn.

Thursday's activity had kids cutting pictures of healthy foods from magazines and gluing them onto pieces of paper. Sitting with Danny before I left him in the hands of his teachers, I helped him make his collage. Together we found a few pictures of apples, a glass of orange juice, and some cherries. It was not an easy task.

Finding health foods in magazines is quite a chore. Locating junk food was a cinch. But those few apples? Hard to come by. I guess it's s a sign of the state of nutrition in this country. Cookies, candy, chips, and soda dominate. Fruits, veggies, and otherwise healthful fare are just not as visible. A bummer for Danny who quickly spotted jelly beans, pizza, and a frosted doughnut but struggled to identify something to nourish his body.

Time to do some damage control. I'm breaking out some hand-picked magazines stocked with good stuff -- good for the body, that is.

Congratulations to our Everlast Fitzness Fiend of the Week, Carolyn Kachinsky. Carolyn has literally transformed herself in to one hot mother (of five) in just 24 months! This 45 year old masterpiece of lean muscle gives new meaning to the term "it's never too late". Hopefully she'll send us a photo in her new Everlast tank top. I'm so impressed and inspired by Carolyn. Doesn't she make you want to do better too?

Maybe you'd like to win a smokin' tank from the Big E as well? Wouldn't it be nice to be rewarded for your efforts every now and then? I think you should be. I think you should be my next Everlast Fitzness Fiend of the Week! ....

Congratulations to our Everlast Fitzness Fiend of the Week, Laurie! Laurie has lost an amazing 104 pounds! Because of her efforts, Everlast is dying to reward her with one of their beautiful ribbed tank tops from their Spring Collection to keep her looking gorgeous while she takes her fitness training even further. Can you imagine how amazing it would feel to have lost a whopping 100 pounds (and more)? It must have taken lots of sweat, lots of focus at meal time, and lots of perseverance when she hit plateaus. I'm so proud, Laurie! Hooray for you!

Maybe you'd like to win a smokin' tank from the Big E too? Wouldn't it be nice to be rewarded for your efforts every now and then? I think you should be. I think you should be my next Everlast Fitzness Fiend of the Week! ....

The fitness equipment, apparel and boxing giant Everlast was so impressed with our That's Fit Fitzness Fiends that they're ready to start rewarding people. Not only am I, your loving online fitness trainer, proud of you all, but Everlast is proud of you too!

For the next two months (at minimum), Everlast will be rewarding an Everlast Fitzness Fiend of the Week with one of their hot new tank tops from their Spring collection. They're absolutely gorgeous, totally comfy, and of ridiculously high quality.

I'm thrilled with the grand response from those of you who've already participated as a Fiend, and even more excited to meet the rest of you!Presents aside, the Fitzness Fiend feature is a great way to share much that you've learned on your way to becoming more fit. We've all ventured down so many paths to better health, it'd be a sin not to share our secrets and successes with others!

London Fashion Week may prove quite a disaster this year unless event planners comply with new regulations requiring models to produce health certificates proving they don't have eating disorders and ensuring girls aged 16 to 18 are chaperoned. If these provisions are not made, financial backers may pull their funding.

London's fashion industry was put under fire recently by Beat, the UK's leading eating disorders association. Many say it's important to keep the pressure on the industry -- for the models whose health depends on it and for consumers who need to know the fashion industry is not exploiting anyone as they market products.

What do you say? A step in the right direction? Or a catwalk catastrophe in the making?

It may seem pretty basic but starting Monday, all parents are urged to nudge their kiddos into the outdoors. Why? Because the week of September 24 has been dedicated as "Take a Child Outside Week."

The brainchild of Liz Baird, director of school programs for the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, this week came about after Baird took a neighborhood walk one beautiful evening and noted the glow of television sets coming from nearly every window she passed. So yep, it's pretty basic. Turn off your TVs. And get the kids outside.

Research links a lack of outdoor activity to depression, obesity, and stress in children. Exposure to nature, on the other hand, fuels creativity, builds self-sufficiency, and activates the senses. Don't you remember roaming free when you were a kid? Today's children may not have such fond memories unless we shove them out the door because unstructured outdoor activity is down by half from the previous generation. Let's change that -- and not just for one week.

When was the last time you sat down for dinner (at the table and not in front of the television) with your family? What used to be a regular part of most families' day, is now for many, at best a weekly event. While dinnertime was once one of the best times to sit down and hear about each family member's day, it is now an opportunity to sit and watch TV or catch up on work. I think that with the busy schedules that many parents and kids juggle, it's probably not realistic to expect everyone to eat together all of the time, but it is a nice idea to try to make it work a few times a week.

Why not start this week? It is, after all, National Eat Dinner Together Week. As Marisa McClellan at Slashfood points out, eating together with either family or friends is good for you and is great for helping you communicate with loved ones. So even if your family has got a bunch of activities planned for this week, try to take the time out to eat dinner together and, if possible, make it a regular event at your home.

As your online fitness trainer, I'm giving you homework for the week. No eating after 8:00 PM. Easy enough, right? Late-night snacking is the downfall of millions of people trying to lose weight, so let's all do it together. It may even be an issue for those who don't actually think it's an issue. So start tonight.

Make sure you have a satisfying dinner and then turn your attention elsewhere. Exercise, read, play games, pay bills ... whatever! Just don't chow. Step on the scale tomorrow morning to find out exactly what you weigh, and then step back on the scale a week from now. It'll be fun! It's a short-term test which may lead to long term results. If you lose significant weight this week, you'll know that late night snacking is an issue for you. Continue the late night snacking ban, and you'll continue to lose!

Of course, frequent challenging exercise along with eating healthy is the way to lose weight. Late-night snacking is a unique habit, though, which may be responsible for any extra pounds you're dragging around. Seven days. 8:00 PM. Give it a go, and fill us in on your success!

As a kickboxer and full time fitness trainer of almost 20 years I've become a huge fan of the jump rope. The benefits of jumping rope are infinite: it offers an unbelievable cardiovascular workout which offer the propensity to burn a ton of calories, can increase speed and explosiveness, it's inexpensive, light weight, travels easily. The perfect piece of equipment! I remember long ago when I began fighting, my trainer gave me a rope and told me to 'jump'. Well, I was terrible at it and struggled for a long time to become good at it. Why? I had very little guidance on the skill of jumping rope. My trainer wasn't trying to be mean, he just didn't know the techniques of teaching this skill either.

I think since we all jumped rope as a child, it's assumed we should all just be able to do it now. If you've tried it as an adult, you may have experienced the constant rope kicking, stopping, reshuffling, whipping of the legs, and frustration. How defeating! For years, I have been having my clients jump rope with only the guidance I could give from my experience. Some have had great success, some have had major struggles. Frustrating for me too.

So Friday at the fitness conference I attended, I ran into a man named Buddy Lee. He's a former Olympic wrestler and master of all there is about jumping rope. I instantly approached him because I'm in LOVE with the jump rope. I hoped he'd be able to provide the direction I needed to improve my personal skills and help me break it down for my beginners. Buddy did not disappoint.