Archive for October, 2009
Oct31
Halloween is almost here!
Do you have a plan?
Do the words, Eat-Repent-Repeat resound with you?
Get your strategy together. Pre-decide what you will be doing when the precious little goblins come a-knockin or your own precious pirates return home with their sweet bounty! Enjoy your Halloween and come out on the other side feeling empowered!
This article has been provided, with generous permission, by one of my mentors, Michelle May, M.D. She is a self-proclaimed recovered yo-yo dieter and author of Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat. Fantastic read on having a healthy relationship with food.
“Halloween candy showed up in August (as though we needed to get a jump on our holiday shopping!) and will still be on sale in November. What is the trick to eating what you love when it is everywhere?
Scaring Away the Cravings
Halloween can be a scary time of year for those trapped in an eat-repent-repeat cycle. You seem to be haunted by all that candy in the house, leading to a full-blown candy binge, chocolate hangover, and vows to do better tomorrow.
The tricky part is that labeling the foods you love as evil actually increases their power over you. When what you really crave is “bad,” you feel guilty for even wanting it and deprived because you can’t have it.
The result: You find yourself foraging treats from the pumpkin basket and burying the candy wrappers at the bottom of the garbage can so your kids won’t find out. And what does this say to your kids when they inevitably find out that you’ve been sneaking and stealing their candy? Talk about guilt!
How to stop raiding your kid’s Trick-or-Treat loot!
Minimize your exposure. Wait until the last minute to buy Halloween candy then buy only what you really think you’ll need for the big night. Get the stuff kids love rather than bags and bags of your favorites.
Remember, it’s not your food. All too often we eat whatever shows up–Halloween candy, donuts in the break room, or samples in the grocery store. But you didn’t choose to put it there so stop mindlessly putting it in your mouth!
Get your own. You’ll be less tempted to get into the kid’s holiday candy if stop depriving yourself the rest of the year. Scary, I know.
Share! If you really want some candy, ask your child to share a few pieces with you. Through observation, they learn that it is possible to balance eating for nourishment with eating for enjoyment.
Eat what you love. Skip the sugary kid candy (unless that’s what you love) and instead choose a few that you really love. Set them aside to eat when you really want them (I like to keep mine in a plastic bag in the freezer).
Save room for dessert. If you’re going to eat Halloween candy (you know you are!), then adjust for it. After all, does it really make sense to eat all your dinner to earn dessert?
If you love it that much, act like it! Enjoy those M&Ms one at a time, mindfully without distractions.
Just right! The fun-sized treats are the perfect size for a few mindful bites of heaven. And those first few bites are always the best, so think before you dive in for more.
Eat fearlessly without guilt. We all know that guilt leads to more eating, not less, so let it go.
Don’t torture yourself with exercise. Being physically active feels good and provides numerous benefits for your health; don’t turn it into punishment for eating.
Pass it on. Halloween is a great time to teach your kids how to enjoy a little candy as part of a healthy and active lifestyle.”
Happy Halloween!
Enjoying the journey,
Whitney Cabrera RN, BSN
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Oct27
It is breast cancer awareness month.
Most of us think of breast cancer as a woman’s disease.
It’s not.
Men do indeed, have breasts.
In our country, the ration of women to men with breast cancer is 100:1. This is not an astonishing statistic, unless you happen to be one of the 2,000 men a year that are absolutely shocked to hear the words, “You have breast cancer” from their physicians.
While it is rare, our men: our husbands, fathers, sons, nephews, grandfathers, all need to be aware of the possibility that they in fact can get breast cancer.
I’m fully aware.
My Father has Breast Cancer.
Post a mastectomy, multiple rounds of chemo, and unabashedly changing his diet to a plant based one, he is getting back to normal.
Finally.
We are awaiting the results of his yearly PET scan, and are quite hopeful things are fine.
Here are some facts for you:
Symptoms of male breast cancer include the same as symptoms in women: Breast lump, changes to the nipple or breast skin, or even discharge of fluid from the nipple. The treatment is usually a mastectomy and any combination of radiation, chemotherapy and hormone therapy.
Our men don’t sit for routine screening mammograms. BUT, they should perform routine breast exams, just like you, once a month. Most male breast cancer is found between the ages of 60-70.
Pull your man aside and teach him how to do the following. You could be saving his life.
You DO know how to do this for yourself, don’t you?
Here’s the technique for teaching a man to do a self breast exam:
1. Make yourself soapy.
2. Place your left arm above and behind your head. With the three middle fingers of your right hand, press your breast against your chest wall.
3. In a circular motion, feel small portions of your left breast, going around until you have covered the entire breast and underarm. Make sure you do it slowly.
4. Repeat using your left hand to examine your right breast.
Look for lumps, nipple discharge, or breast changes. Tell your doctor about the changes!
What an encouraging thing it has been this month to see all of the pink appearing on so many products across the country! I even saw Cat Food today in a pink bag! Go Purina! Thank you.
My prayers are with all of the victims!
Let’s get a little shot of blue in with all that pink!
Yours in Health,
Whitney Cabrera RN, BSN
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Oct22
One of my dedicated, hard core Strategic Boot Campers wrote me this morning asking about the “Fat Burning Zone” setting on his treadmill. Ever heard this bit of sage advice? “If you want to lose a few pounds you need to do long, slow, steady-state aerobic exercise.”
Have you ever seen the contestants in a marathon? Yes, some of them are very thin, but if slow, steady-state aerobics was the KEY to fat loss, everyone competing would have very low body fat, and it’s just not so. Some folks training for these races even gain weight.
So, what’s the deal?
Why do people say steady-state aerobic training burns the most fat?
Let’s explore their reasoning:
1. ” It burns calories”. But all activities use calories, even lying in bed. No brownie points for here.
2. “The Fat Burning Zone”. It exists, but not how you think. Here’s the deal. When you exercise at a lower intensity, the body will use about 50% of the energy from fat. While at higher intensity, it may utilize only about 35% of the energy from fat. HOWEVER…at the higher intensities, you will burn WAY more calories in total, making the higher level of intensity a bigger bang for your buck. Work smarter.
The bottom line for weight loss is always expending more calories than you consume.
3) ” Aerobics raises your metabolism”. -False. Metabolism is a reflection of how much muscle you have. Aerobics do not build muscle or maintain it, therefore it will not raise your metabolism.
Did you know that for every pound of muscle you have, your body requires 50 calories every day to maintain it? And that’s just lying on the couch. Add more calories on per day per pound of muscle for every move you make.
Burn those Calories
The bottom line for fat loss is burning calories. You have to burn off more calories than you consume. There’s no way around it, not through carbohydrate manipulation, cutting out whole categories of food or rotating macronutrients.
Aerobic training is not the key to fat loss.
The Key to a lean, fat burning body is Anaerobic Training! I
t burns more calories while you are working out AND for up to 2 days after wards-even while you sleep! (My kind of calorie burning). What a bargain!
Here’s why it works: EPOC-excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. A really simple explanation of this process is that your body has to work extra hard following this type of workout to get it back into it’s normal state.
Here’s what’s happening while you’re showering, eating and sleeping after your workout according to an article from Answer Fitness
” * Replenish energy stores (such as ATP and muscle glycogen)
* Re-oxygenate the blood
* Restore body temperature levels to a pre-exercise state
* Restore pre-exercise breathing and heart-rate levels
All of these processes require the consumption of additional oxygen, as well as energy, after exercise.
In other words, restoring the body to its pre-exercise state is work. And work means additional expenditure of energy beyond the energy consumed to perform that work.”
So here’s another great question:
Is the effect accumulative? If I train the next day and my metabolism is still revved up, will I get even greater results? I don’t know….yet. Science isn’t quite there yet. I’d sure like to think so.
So, there IS a better way to do your cardio to rapidly improve fat loss: Do interval training.
You will drop fat quickly and the recovery intervals and work periods can be forever changed to prevent adaptations. There’s no limit to improvement.
Here’s the bottom line:
Switch from long, slow, steady-state aerobic training to intense, short bursts of anaerobic training to maximize fat loss.
Start slow. Try a 1minute:3minute ratio or 1 minute of work to 3 minutes of recovery. During your one minute of work, push the intensity to your limit! You should be sucking wind and unable to carry on a conversation! During your recovery, do not stop, keep moving, but at a much slower rate to facilitate your body coming back much closer to “normal”. Repeat this 1:3 cycle 5 times for a total of 20 minutes. Get out of the gym and enjoy your day knowing you’ve stoked your fat burning furnace into high gear!
Don’t forget weight training to continue to build muscle and increase that metabolism. Remember, muscle IS your metabolism. You need at least 2 full body workouts a week to maintain.
Hope that helps.
To your rapid fat loss and improved health!
Enjoying the Journey,
Whitney Cabrera RN, BSN
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Oct21
“Engage in 60 minutes daily of vigorous physical activity.” States a panel of experts concerned for our health.
An hour a day?
Really? And just what does vigorous mean?
The authors are talking about the equivalent of walking or jogging at least at a 4-5 mile/hour pace for a whole hour. Not just a leisurely walk around the lake.
This recommendation of one whole hour a day came from hard core science. The scientists on the panel took many factors into consideration such as:
1. Caloric Intake
2. Caloric Output
3. Body Composition
4. Cardiovascular Health
This was their bottom line:
To maintain an advisable weight, a favorable body composition, and excellent cardiovascular health, we Americans really need to be exercising at LEAST an hour a day as well as watching our intake to be sure it’s supportive of our health.
I absolutely agree.
I tell my clients that 5-6 hours a week is the tipping point for making dramatic changes in their body. While expecting people to jump right in and begin with an hour a day is too much; ramping up to it by adding 30 minutes a week is certainly a do able task.
Yes, I agree it’s hard, but it IS manageable.
Now that we know all of this exercise IS necessary, let’s re-phrase our question:
How much exercise do we need in order to see lasting health benefits.
Basically, the more exercise you do, the more you are reducing your cardiovascular risk. (Within reason, of course. Excessive behavior in any realm is unhealthy.)
Next Question:
How much exercise do we really need in order to see at least some substantial cardiovascular benefit?
There are scores of studies documented that you can decrease your risk from 30-50% by exercising moderately for far less than one hour a day. The New England Journal of Medicine reported that women who reported walking at least 2.5 hours a week (20 minutes a day) reduced their Cardiovascular risk by 30%. Now, EVERYONE can do that!
Here’s the bottom line:
If you can work your way up to 5-6 hours of vigorous exercise a week, 3 hours resistance training and 3 hours cardio (or shorter if you do HIIT), then do it. (Try a phase of Strategic Boot Camp. It’s what we do.)
However, be encouraged that by walking only 20 minutes a day, you’ll be helping your heart and your health, but won’t experience any dramatic fat loss.
Don’t obsess! Any movement is positive! Get moving and improve your health!
Enjoying the Journey,
Whitney Cabrera RN, BSN
Strategic Wellness
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Oct16
It’s official! I’m a total Geek!
I had yet another chance to sleep in this morning as we’re resting before beginning another intense phase of Boot Camp on Monday and yet woke early with a sense of excitement! I feel like a kid at Christmas! I get to attend a 3 day continuing education workshop in Tampa and can hardly wait to soak in all of the information!
I mean what’s not to love? I’ll be spending the weekend with positive, fascinating people who live and love what they do, get to dress up (I spend most of my time in sweats and a hat), wear sexy shoes (they’re all laid out), glam up the hair and makeup, actually accessorize AND get an even deeper understanding of how to have the most effective influence on my client’s lives. CEU’s, Workshops, Trainings, Lunch and Learns…they all make me salivate like one of Pavlov’s dogs! What a blessing it is to be able to “work” in an area of my passion! I wonder if they’ll have dark chocolate? And you can bet I’ll arrive with a delicious cup of coffee, (just in case someone forgot the importance of great brew.)
Did you know you can tell a lot about a person by what’s on their nightstand? Currently I have a book by Francis Chan called, Crazy Love, another called, The Advent Conspiracy, a third by Joel Furman called Eat to Live, (you’ll be hearing much more about this later), and the book, Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink, PhD, which is the topic or our conversation today.
We’ve been discussing common obstacles that keep us from living up to our potential, greeting life with fervor and enthusiasm, and gifting our families and friends with our best.
The first obstacle was not getting enough fuel. Hopefully you’ve had a few days now to fit in some good nutrition first thing in the morning. Yes, even if you don’t feel like eating, it’s important to get something in. A smoothie is a great choice in the morning.
Our second obstacle was learning to take ourselves and needs seriously by actually scheduling (and keeping) exercise (and other) appointments with ourselves. Keep working on ways to manage your time. It seems the busiest of people get the most done.
Today we’re going to talk about Mindless Eating.. We generally have a problem with underestimating how much we eat every day. That last couple of bites of Johnny’s PB&J, “tasting” what we’re cooking, grabbing “only a few” girl scout cookies from the pantry. It all adds up FAST!
One of my favorite tools to use with my clients is a 3 day recall journal for their eating. I can’t tell you how many times I have had a Mom who as “been following the nutrition plan perfectly” with limited success to later find out there were some extra eats and treats in the mix. Using that journal religiously keeps you highly aware of every morsel that goes in your mouth, whether you care to admit it and write it down or not.
We spend LOTS of time in the kitchen around tasty food all day! And we eat a lot more of it than we realize! It’s tough to pass up a couple of goldfish here, a couple of goldfish there, and before you know it, you just killed the whole bag!
Ask yourself this question every time you bring something close to your lips, “Will this get me closer to my goals? or lead me further away?” If the answer is the latter, then have an escape plan. Read a book, fold the laundry, call a friend, or better yet, do a 6 minute mini-metabolic workout right there in the kitchen!
Beginners Mini-Metabolic Workout:
Perform each exercise for one minute and move directly to the next without rest. Repeat 2 times for a total of 6 minutes!
1. Jumping Jacks
2. Crunches
3. Squats
Not only will you NOT eat the goody…you’ll be firing up that metabolism!
(It’s the METHOD here, not the actual exercises that brings the results. Try doing mini-circuits like this throughout your day. It all adds up.)
One last thing, I’d like to encourage you to actually take a few minutes each day to be mindful.
Mindfulness consists of paying attention to an experience from moment to moment — Living in the now, without drifting into thoughts of the past or concerns about the future.
How often do you just sit and eat, being aware of your food and surroundings, or sit in the car without the radio on or talking on the phone, actually paying attention to driving?
The evidence is mounting that being mindful increases life enjoyment, the ability to cope with illness and stress, and improve physical and emotional health. Isn’t that what we ALL need?
Hmmm. Something else to squeeze into our busy lives.
An Article in The Harvard Women’s Health Watch from February 2004, included the following tips on how to incorporate mindfulness in everyday life:
* Pay attention to your breathing or your environment when you stop at red lights.
* Before you go to sleep, and when you awaken, take some “mindful” breaths, thinking about the breathing itself instead of allowing your mind to wander over the day’s concerns.
* Find a task that you do impatiently or unconsciously (standing in line or brushing your teeth, for example) and concentrate on the experience.
* Make something that occurs several times during a day, such as answering the phone or buckling your seatbelt, a reminder to return to the present — that is, think about what you’re doing and observe yourself doing it.
* Sit down to eat and enjoy the whole process. Use your senses to experience your meal. See the beauty of the vibrant colors, taste the delicate and bold flavors, feel the texture differences, inhale the delightful aroma.
The Bottom Line::
Keep a Food Journal
Do Mini-Metabolic Workout (or two)
Practice Mindfulness.
~Enjoying the journey,
Whitney Cabrera RN, BSN
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