Everything is Connected

January’s moti­va­tional shirt is a reminder that every­thing we do in the world, through­out each day, is con­nected to every­thing else. Doing good cre­ates more good.

The back reads: every­thing is con­nected and fea­tures each of the causes we have sup­ported since March 2010:

• Pied­mont Park Conservancy
• Open Hand
• Camp Twin Lakes
• Every­body Wins
• Adopt a Golden Atlanta
• PATH Foun­da­tion
• Kate’s Club
• Get Grounded Foundation

To date, we’ve been able to donate $46,000 to these won­der­ful orga­ni­za­tions — thanks to you and your hard work!

Please post your results and improve­ments from today’s PT test — we want to hear your suc­cess stories!

See you next month — well, really later this month — on Tues­day, Jan­u­ary 31st.

Metabolic Rate 101

This is a re-post from March 2010.

POSTED BY DANIEL

Do you wish for those days when you were a kid and could eat what­ever you wanted with out any repercussions?

We often for­get that while we were being those kids and eat­ing what­ever we wanted, we were run­ning loose through the neigh­bor­hood — never to sit still. As we age, our eat­ing habits and activ­ity habits change, and there­fore so do our waistlines.

We can also thank our par­ents for the genet­ics that gov­ern our meta­bolic rate, but with the right under­stand­ing we can com­bat or enhance their genetic gift. The rate at which your body burns energy is made up of three unique parts:

1. Basal Meta­bolic Rate: Basal Meta­bolic Rate is the energy your body burns by sim­ply just being. Your body burns 60 to 70 per­cent of the calo­ries you ingest each day to breath, move blood, grow hair, repair dam­aged cells, etc.
2. Ther­mic Effect of Food: The Ther­mic Effect of Food is the actual caloric cost of digest­ing food and pro­cess­ing it to energy; mean­ing, your body burns about 10 per­cent of the calo­ries you con­sume each day to digest, store, and use food.
3. Activ­ity: When you move, you burn calo­ries! When com­bin­ing your daily rou­tines with a proper exer­cise pro­gram, you can assure that your metab­o­lism will burn about 30 per­cent of your daily calories.

So how do we improve our aging metab­o­lism? Editor-in-Chief David Zinczenko of Men’s Health suggests:

• Increase our mus­cle mass: Par­tic­i­pat­ing in a fit­ness pro­gram where we increase our mus­cle mass pro­vides more cel­lu­lar tis­sue for our bod­ies to main­tain, there­fore increas­ing our Basal Meta­bolic Rate.
• Eat through­out the day: Eat­ing more than three meals a day will force our bod­ies to uti­lize the Ther­mic Effect — burn­ing more calo­ries through­out the day and often times caus­ing us to eat less.
• Eat pro­tein with every meal: Eat­ing pro­tein with every meal is impor­tant. Not only is it the fun­da­men­tal build­ing block for cre­at­ing mus­cle tis­sue, it takes more energy for your body to break-down and store pro­tein, there­fore increas­ing the Ther­mic Effect of each meal.
• Keep mov­ing: Increas­ing our activ­ity lev­els by incor­po­rat­ing intense car­dio­vas­cu­lar work­outs three to four times a week will, over time, increase the rate our metab­o­lisms burn calories.

Got any tips for increas­ing your metab­o­lism? Share your thoughts by click­ing the “Com­ments” link above this post.

Good Measure Meals Are Better Than Good

BY LAUREN

A big THANK YOU to our friends at Good Mea­sure Meals™ for join­ing us this morn­ing to tell us about the pro­gram, and espe­cially for bring­ing deli­cious meals to share! For those of you that missed it, or want more infor­ma­tion, read on…

Good Mea­sure Meals™ makes it easy to eat healthy and enjoy gourmet food every day. Calo­ries and nutri­ents are bal­anced daily to ensure con­sis­tency. No short cuts by bal­anc­ing by the week or month. All of their menus incor­po­rate the guide­lines of the Amer­i­can Heart Asso­ci­a­tion, the Amer­i­can Dia­betes Asso­ci­a­tion and the Amer­i­can Dietetic Association.

That is just the begin­ning. The Good Mea­sure Meals™ culi­nary dietit­ian works closely with the chefs to ensure the meals taste great. They incor­po­rate fresh pro­duce and USDA inspected meats and never add preser­v­a­tives. Cre­ative recipes devel­oped by the team ensure vari­ety and the right bal­ance of nutri­ents. They update the menus twice each year in order to fea­ture sea­sonal favorites in the Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter menus.

Good Mea­sure Meals™ offers 4 menus. All are on a 5 week rota­tion, ensur­ing lots of vari­ety, and adhere to a healthy bal­ance of 22–25% pro­tein, 27–30% healthy fat and 45–48% con­sis­tent health pro­mot­ing car­bo­hy­drates. All of the meal plans are:

• COMPLETE meals — no need to pur­chase addi­tional side items
• Always FRESH — never frozen or dehydrated
• High Fiber and Low Glycemic
• Low Fat with zero arti­fi­cial trans fat
• Bal­anced daily to ensure CONSISTENT calo­ries and carbohydrates

And the best part yet? BC4C par­tic­i­pants receive 10% OFF all orders from Good Mea­sure Meals™.

Learn more about the meal plan options »

A pur­chase from Good Mea­sure Meals™ is an invest­ment in your health and the health of oth­ers. Fol­low­ing socially respon­si­ble busi­ness prac­tices, Good Mea­sure Meals™ oper­ates as a social enter­prise busi­ness unit of Atlanta non­profit Open Hand. 100% of their prof­its go directly back to sup­port Open Hand’s ser­vices to the com­mu­nity: an invalu­able ser­vice which has helped thou­sands of peo­ple improve their qual­ity of life through bet­ter nutri­tion. For more infor­ma­tion about Open Hand, please visit their web site »

PHOTO CREDIT: Good Mea­sure Meals™

How are you feel­ing after week two? Share our thoughts by click­ing “Com­ments” above this post!

Good for What Ails Ya

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a re-post from last year. There­fore, some of the com­ments are also from last year and may or may not be rel­e­vant to today’s workout.

BY LEIGH

After a cou­ple days at camp you may be expe­ri­enc­ing some sore­ness. While that is to be expected, espe­cially if you are new to a fit­ness regime, there are some things to con­sider to help you through it.

• Stretch: Stretch­ing through out the day helps to keep you loose and lim­ber, as well as increas­ing blood cir­cu­la­tion to the mus­cles. Increase blood flow will accel­er­ate heal­ing and over­time will increase energy lev­els due to the increased accel­er­a­tion. How­ever, If you are afraid you have pulled a mus­cle or have a mus­cle tear, do not stretch that mus­cle it will only get worse.
• Drink: Water that is. Most causes of sore­ness include a build up of lac­tic acid in the mus­cles. Drink­ing water is a good way to flush out that build up.
• Go for a soak: It might sound a lit­tle hokey and/or grandma-ish, but tak­ing an epsom salt bath can do won­ders for your sore mus­cles. You can pick up a box at any drug store.
• The cold treat­ment: Cold show­ers or ice baths get the blood flow­ing through the mus­cles to the sur­face. As men­tioned before the increased blood cir­cu­la­tion helps accel­er­ate healing.
• Don’t stop: Sore­ness should be expected after most if not all of our work­outs. It is one of many sig­nals from your body that you are push­ing your­self and get­ting stronger. By con­tin­u­ing your exer­cise reg­i­men you are rais­ing your bod­ies lim­its and over time less likely to expe­ri­ence sore­ness for the same level of exer­tion. Feel­ing a lit­tle sore should be one of your goals for every workout.

If you are expe­ri­enc­ing some­thing that feels more than just sore­ness or you have incurred an actual injury, try RICE. Though not of the brown, white, or fried variety.

• R: Rest. Take a day or two off to give your­self a break. Try to limit any activ­ity that results in pain.
• I: Ice. Apply ice to the affected area. See icing guide­lines here.
• C: Com­pres­sion. Get an ACE ban­dage and wrap the injured area. Be care­ful not to wrap it too tightly though, you want to make sure the blood is circulating.
• E: Ele­va­tion. Prop that twisted ankle up on some pil­lows. Wher­ever the injured area is, try to get it ele­vated higher than your heart.

Let us know if you have occurred an injury or if some­thing feels awk­ward. There is a good chance that one of the train­ers or even a vet­eran camper may have expe­ri­enced some­thing sim­i­lar. How­ever, none of us are doc­tors or nurses, so if you think it is some­thing seri­ous do not hes­i­tate to get a pro­fes­sional med­ical opinion.

Let us know how you’re feel­ing after Day 2. Post a com­ment by click­ing the “Com­ments’ link above this post!