Make it Work!

Time for New Year’s Res­o­lu­tions! Since you’re here, you prob­a­bly made some fitness-based res­o­lu­tions. We think that’s fan­tas­tic and we want to help you stick with them!

Here are some tips to help you stay on track:

1. Don’t rely on your level of moti­va­tion or emo­tions. Just do it!

EXPLANATION:

Action is gen­er­ally the pre­req­ui­site for moti­va­tion, not the other way around. If you think you need to wait for some inspi­ra­tion before you start your new exer­cise rou­tine and/or nutri­tional plan, you could be wait­ing for a long time.  Many sources sug­gest that new habits take a min­i­mum of three con­sis­tent weeks to form, and some­times longer.

2. Aim low to begin with.

EXPLANATION:

Many New Year’s res­o­lu­tions aim to change way too much, way too soon – and are soon com­pletely aban­doned due to unre­al­is­tic com­mit­ments and goals, as well as due to insuf­fi­cient ‘how-to’ infor­ma­tion. Instead of declar­ing that your goal is to lose 40 pounds, or to triple your strength – start with a tar­get that’s more rea­son­able, like los­ing 3 to 5 pounds in the first month, or per­haps lift­ing weights that are 10 to 20% heav­ier than nor­mal, then pro­ceed from there.

3. If you can’t resist temp­ta­tion, take it out of the kitchen!

EXPLANATION:

Even ath­letes are human beings, and are influ­enced by the five senses – touch, taste, smell, sound, and sight! Prac­ti­cal Fit­ness Tips rec­om­mends remov­ing all ‘bad temp­ta­tions’ from your home – or, if liv­ing with oth­ers, at least remov­ing as much as pos­si­ble from sight. This includes all junk foods, sug­ary snacks, choco­late, alco­hol, ice cream and other sim­i­lar items.

Obvi­ously, if you know in advance that you will be enter­tain­ing guests on a cer­tain evening, there is noth­ing wrong with pur­chas­ing a few items on that day – and a quan­tity suit­able for that evening only – no pur­chas­ing ‘Buy 3, Get 1 Free’ items! If you have noth­ing to ‘tempt’ you in the house in the first place, you can save your­self hun­dreds of calo­ries per week.

4. Don’t be a perfectionist.

EXPLANATION:

Don’t beat your­self up over the occa­sional slip – whether it involved miss­ing a few too many work­outs, or ‘giv­ing in’ to your diet on a Fri­day night while out with friends. An ‘all-or-nothing’ approach can be deter­mi­nan­tal, as life doesn’t gen­er­ally fol­low a con­sis­tent and pre­dictable path – includ­ing in the New Year. Expect to slip-up from time to time, and when it hap­pens, just get right back on track imme­di­ately after­wards. If it makes you feel bet­ter, if you ate or drank too much at a par­tic­u­lar meal (or entire week­end!), sim­ply increase the inten­sity level of exer­cise and con­sume slightly fewer calo­ries dur­ing the next few days – no prob­lem! Focus on your weekly calo­rie con­sump­tion, not just daily.

5. Tell your fam­ily, friends and colleagues.

EXPLANATION:

Speak­ing of ‘giv­ing in’ on a Fri­day night, one way to min­imise such occur­rences is to share your goals with every­body you know. A room­mate or fam­ily mem­ber will be less likely to offer you a slice of cake if they know you’re try­ing hard to reduce your calo­rie intake!

Find some­body with a sim­i­lar goal, and keep one another account­able by check­ing in with each other reg­u­larly to make sure you’re both on-track.

How do you plan to stick to your res­o­lu­tions? Share your advice here!

Source: Adapted from Prac­ti­cal Fit­ness Tips.

25 Little Tips for Big Weight Loss, Part 1

1. Good things come in small pack­ages.
Here’s a trick for stay­ing sat­is­fied with­out con­sum­ing large por­tions: Chop high-calorie foods like cheese and choco­late into smaller pieces. It will seem like you’re get­ting more than you actu­ally are.

2. Get “water-wise.“
Make a habit of reach­ing for a glass of water instead of a high-fat snack. It will help your over­all health as well as your waist­line. So drink up! Add some zest to your six to eight glasses a day with a twist of lemon or lime.

3. Herb it up.
Stock up your spice rack, and start grow­ing a small herb gar­den in your kitchen win­dow. Spices and herbs add fan­tas­tic fla­vor to foods with­out adding fat or calories.

4. Slim down your soup.
Make a big batch of soup and refrig­er­ate it before you eat it. As it cools, the fat will rise to the top and can be skimmed off the surface.

5. Doggie-bag that din­ner.
At restau­rants that you know serve large por­tions, ask the waiter to put half of your main course in a take-home box before bring­ing it to your table. Putting the food away before you start your meal will help you prac­tice por­tion control.

6. Lis­ten to your crav­ings.
If you’re crav­ing some­thing sweet, eat some­thing sweet—just opt for a health­ier snack (like fruit) instead of a high-calorie one like ice cream. The same goes for crunchy cravings—for exam­ple, try air-popped pop­corn instead of high-fat chips. It’s just smart substitution!

7. Ease your way into pro­duce.
If you’re new to eat­ing lots of fruits and veg­eta­bles, start slowly. Just add them to the foods you already enjoy. Pile salad veg­gies into your sand­wiches, or add fruit to your cereal.

8. Look for high-fat hints.
Want an easy way to iden­tify high-calorie meals? Keep an eye out for these words: au gratin, parmi­giana, tem­pura, alfredo, creamy and car­bonara, and enjoy them in moderation.

9. Don’t multi-task while you eat.
If you’re work­ing, read­ing or watch­ing TV while you eat, you won’t be pay­ing atten­tion to what’s going into your mouth—and you won’t be enjoy­ing every bite. Today, every time you have a meal, sit down. Chew slowly and pay atten­tion to fla­vors and tex­tures. You’ll enjoy your food more and eat less.

10. Taste some­thing new.
Broaden your food repertoire—you may find you like more healthy foods than you knew. Try a new fruit or veg­etable (ever had plan­tain, pak choi, star­fruit or papaya?).

Layer it Up!

This is a re-post from Decem­ber 2010. The arti­cle con­tains good info and the com­ments are fun to read. It’s like a time capsule!

BY MARY ELLEN

With the fore­cast tak­ing a turn for the chilly, here are a cou­ple tips on ways to keep warm and work out safely when it’s cooool­l­l­l­l­l­lld­ddd out­side. These tips are cour­tesy of the Mayo Clinic.

Dress in Lay­ers
One of the biggest mis­takes you can make while exer­cis­ing in cold weather is to dress too warmly. Exer­cise gen­er­ates a con­sid­er­able amount of heat — enough to make you feel like it’s much warmer than it really is. Yet, once your sweat starts to dry, you can get chilled. The solution?

Dress in lay­ers that you can remove as soon as you start to sweat and then put back on as needed. First, put on a thin layer of syn­thetic mate­r­ial, such as polypropy­lene, which draws sweat away from your body. Avoid cot­ton, which stays wet next to your skin. Next, add a layer of fleece or wool for insu­la­tion. Top this with a water­proof, breath­able outer layer. A heavy down jacket or vest may cause you to over­heat if you’re exer­cis­ing hard. If you’re lean, you may need more insu­la­tion than some­one who is heav­ier. If it’s very cold, con­sider wear­ing a face mask or scarf to warm the air before it enters your lungs.

Pro­tect Your Hands, Feet and Ears
When it’s cold, blood flow is con­cen­trated on your body’s core, leav­ing your hands and feet vul­ner­a­ble to frost­bite. Try wear­ing a thin pair of gloves under a pair of heav­ier gloves or mit­tens lined with wool or fleece. Don the mit­tens or gloves before your hands become cold and then remove them if your hands begin to sweat. (For boot camp, con­sider invest­ing in a pair of water­proof gloves!)

Do you have any other tips or tricks for stay­ing warm in the cold? Share your ideas by click­ing “Com­ments” above.

IMAGE CREDIT “A Christ­mas Story”

How to Develop a Healthy Mental Attitude When You Run

By Danny Dreyer • ChiRun­ning

In ChiRun­ning, we uti­lize the prin­ci­ple of non-identification to help you in achiev­ing your run­ning goals, whether you are try­ing to start on a run­ning pro­gram, improve your tech­nique, or PR your 10K. Bot­tom line, non-identification requires that you get a grip on your ego. Ego is such a loaded word. Really, it’s not a bad thing. It’s a good healthy part of your psy­che. How­ever, when the ego runs the show, things can go out of whack. Non-identification doesn’t ask you to drop your ego. It just asks you to keep it in bal­ance with other aspects of your self, and espe­cially with what your body has to say.

When the ego makes the choices with­out being bal­anced with the input of your body and being, your work­outs and goals are prob­a­bly out of bal­ance as well. The ego is a two-sided coin. It can either inflate or deflate your sense of self. When inflated, it may demand that you run a 10K in 50 min­utes when your body is really ready for a 56-minute run. This is a recipe for injury.

When deflated, your ego might give in to the nag­ging ache in your knee rather than try­ing just a lit­tle bit more to learn to lean and there­fore not strike with your heels. When your ego is deflated, you give up too easily.

Non-identification is the art of mak­ing healthy deci­sions and of see­ing your­self from a bal­anced place with­out judg­ing your­self. If you are defin­ing your self-worth by how well a run goes–either neg­a­tively or with an inflated sense of pride–then you are iden­ti­fy­ing with how you run. When you are non-identified, you eval­u­ate your run, but not your self worth. You notice what you did well, what you need to improve upon and enjoy the process of learn­ing and improv­ing your run­ning technique.

It doesn’t mean you don’t feel good about your accom­plish­ments. As a mat­ter of fact, when you are non-identified you may feel your accom­plish­ments more deeply, more qui­etly and more pro­foundly. You may take more delight in the smaller things in your life. It also means that you don’t judge your­self too harshly when things don’t go the way you want. The voices of “I’m not good enough, fast enough or strong enough” will never help you accom­plish anything.

Non-identification also means see­ing the big pic­ture of your­self. You are aware of your strengths, your chal­lenges and your long-term goals. This knowl­edge helps keep you on track and keeps you from get­ting side­lined by the many lures of the ego.

To get to a place of non-identification, prac­tice the Five Mind­ful Steps (from Chi­Walk­ing). First, think of the issue about which you need to make a choice, then:

1. Get Aligned — Stand up straight. Feel your spine. Feel your pos­ture straight from your head to your feet (or tail­bone if you are sit­ting). This will give you some sta­bil­ity and a stronger sense of self and focus. Get aligned with your big pic­ture goal. Does this choice fit in with that goal? Get aligned with sup­port­ing your goal in the best way possible.
2. Engage Your Core — You want to lis­ten to “the mind” of your body. To do so, focus your mind on your gut. Lit­er­ally feel the area just below your navel and in toward your spine. Then, engage that part of your body on a phys­i­cal level for at least 20 sec­onds or more. Now, ask the ques­tion regard­ing the choice you have to make. Can you notice how the answer has a dif­fer­ent feel­ing than when you just engage your mind?
3. Cre­ate Bal­ance — Find the bal­ance in your body phys­i­cally by mov­ing from foot to foot until you are bal­anced on both feet. Then move your torso until you find bal­ance in your body. Now, allow your mind to explore your var­i­ous choices. Try them on and look at them from var­i­ous per­spec­tives. Feel what each choice feels like.
4. Make a Choice — From this place of align­ment, core engage­ment and deep bal­ance, you will be able to see your­self and make a choice from a non-identified, but healthy per­spec­tive. Your mind and ego will have had their input, but your body will have been included in the process.
5. Move For­ward — Once you have made a choice. It is always good to take steps to move in your cho­sen direc­tion. It will help instate the choice into your mind and body.

A few other ways to prac­tice non-identification:

• Lighten up. Learn to laugh at your­self. If you can laugh at your mis­takes, you are most likely in a non-identified place where you are not truly judg­ing your­self, and you’re not tak­ing your­self too seri­ously. Life is short. Lighten up and learn to enjoy “what is” to stay healthy.
• Ask oth­ers. Get other people’s opin­ions of what you should do and just lis­ten to their ideas. You don’t have to fol­low their advice, but be open to other perspectives.
• Run for fun. If you’re too seri­ous about your run­ning, event, or goals you will have a ten­dency to get over iden­ti­fied. Make sure you really do run at least one fun run a week and keep it that way–just for pure enjoyment.
• Keep a log. Writ­ing down the results of our work­outs and runs can help you get per­spec­tive and solve any chal­lenges you are facing.

Great run­ning form doesn’t just come from good tech­nique (although it’s a great place to start). It comes from hav­ing a healthy men­tal atti­tude. When you prac­tice non-identification you might not just become a bet­ter run­ner, you might become a bet­ter per­son as well.

Maintaining Fitness Momentum Through Winter

Adapted from Exam​iner​.com

With cooler tem­per­a­tures on the hori­zon, it can be tough to main­tain fit­ness momen­tum that you’ve worked so hard to build dur­ing the warmer months. With a lit­tle prepa­ra­tion and some deter­mined energy, that momen­tum does not need to fal­ter dur­ing the shorter days of winter.

Focus
Stay focused on your goal. That may be a 10k, marathon, bike race, or sim­ply keep­ing up with your kids — what­ever gives you moti­va­tion. That moti­va­tion will be what you draw upon when the couch and a movie with a warm blan­ket are calling.

Sched­ule
Sched­ule in work­out time. There are many the­o­ries about when to work­out, but the most impor­tant thing remains, it mat­ters more that you do it than when you do it. Put it in your cal­en­dar and keep it like you would a work oblig­a­tion. Or, bet­ter yet — sign up for BC4C through­out the winter!

Enlist Oth­ers
If you have a hard time main­tain­ing your com­mit­ment to work­outs, enlist the help of oth­ers. Tell some­one close to you your plan, train with a friend, join a group fit­ness class, or announce it online. Or, bet­ter yet — join the BC4C Hol­i­day Challenge!

Check In
Lastly, check in with your­self peri­od­i­cally. The win­ter can seem long but if you check in with your goals on reg­u­lar inter­vals you can eas­ily get your­self back on track, even if the couch and a warm blan­ket have won out for a few weeks.