Best Fitness Blog

...By Karli Taylor

September is Childhood Obesity Awareness month. As families and communities it is our job to keep children fit and active by setting a good example. A great way to make and keep healthy habits is to involve the whole family.

Come up with fun and creative ideas for the whole family. After dinner, rather than watch tv, come up with ideas for physical activity. Enroll the whole family in a fitness class, like tennis lessons, karate, or parent/child yoga. If you don’t have extra money to spend, Fall evenings are great for a family walk or bike ride around the neighborhood.

Eating healthy is one of the most important pieces to the puzzle. Instead of high-calorie foods and snacks, turn to fruits and other healthy foods for something to munch on in between meals. Let your children see you being aware of what you are eating, and involve them in the meal planning and cooking if possible.

In order to cut down on television habits, keep the television out of your child’s bedroom. The American Academy of Pediatrics says that kids from 1 to 5 years who have televisions in their bedrooms watch nearly five hours more TV and videos each week than children without TV, and they are more likely to be overweight.

When all your friends and relatives ask what your child wants for a birthday gift, think fitness. Ask for a soccer ball, baseball gloves and bases or roller blades. These are fun gifts that promote outside activities.

Take your kids with you for a gym workout. If they are old enough to participate, it is worth the guest fee. It is important for your kids to see you fit exercise into your routine.

Even adding basic activity to your daily life can help keep kids healthy. Park far away from the grocery store door and walk, take the stairs rather than the elevator. It is important to instill healthy habits in our kids now. Keep your children healthy and fit, go for a walk around the neighborhood tonight.

Visit one of our Best Fitness Clubs to learn even more about this topic. We have locations in Albany,NY, Tonawanda, NY, Schenectady, NY, Erie, PA, Nashua, NH, Chelmsford, MA, and Drum Hill, MA.

...By Karli Taylor

Obesity has been rapidly increasing in prevalence over the past two decades—in children as well as in adults. Although obesity is a recognized risk factor for type 2 diabetes, hypertension, atherosclerosis, and some forms of cancer, new evidence suggests that obesity may also contribute to or even cause asthma.

Obese patients with severe asthma account for 75% of emergency department visits for asthma. A new study shows that obese adults with asthma are more likely than normal weight asthma suffers to have severe and persistent symptoms, and when obese asthma patients lose weight, there is a notable decrease in asthma symptoms and severity.

Obesity affects the anatomy of both the lungs and airways. Excess mass in the abdomen and chest put pressure on the lungs and the airways restricting the flow of air.

The impact can actually be life altering for children because that extra mass can affect lung growth, resulting in smaller lungs and reduced pulmonary function.

Another possible correlation is that obese individuals breathe at higher frequencies—but with smaller breaths—compared with non-obese individuals. As a result, the muscles around the airway are overworked and over stressed.

With every new study that emerges about the impacts of obesity, it becomes more clear that we have to take a firm stand against obesity.

... By Karli Taylor

I hope you are sitting down for this one: After the age of 20, if you do not add activity to your day or cut calories, you will gain approximately one pound each year.

Now that I’ve gotten your attention, what if I told you that you don’t have to do anything drastic to keep that weight from creeping up on you? Feel better? Keep reading.

If you walked an average of 150 extra steps every single day, you will avoid that weight gain. That is the equivalent of walking for 3 minutes that you would normally be sitting. You can accomplish this simply by pacing your office or home while on the phone or parking a little bit further away from the front door or your office or grocery store.

Can’t find extra time during your average day to sneak in a few steps? You can accomplish the same thing by going to the gym for 30 minutes 10 times a year- yes- a year!

Now, let’s say you don’t just want to maintain your weight, but you’d like to lose a pound every year as you age. All you have to do is double those numbers and enjoy the benefits of virtually reversing the aging process!

The bottom line is simple: weight gain happens slowly over time. SO slowly, that sometimes we don’t see it until it’s too late and we have gained 20-30 pounds. Start being conscious of the amount of activity you do each day, and this sneaky weight gain will never impact your lifestyle!

Food diary ... by Karli Taylor

On my way home from a dinner out during  which I over-indulged a bit too much, I started thinking about writing about diet pitfalls. We all have things that throw us off track, but most of us have DIFFERENT triggers.  This makes it  hard to write a blanket statement about dietary habits or appetite control. The one thing I can make a global statement about, however, is food diaries. Love them or hate them, they work.

Behavior modification weight control is the number one most successful method for long-term weight management. The number one tool used in behavior modification weight control is the food diary. Why is a food diary so effective? In order to lose weight, you must understand your eating habits and what triggers overeating. You cannot assume that we are all overweight for the same reasons. A food diary helps you identify why you are overweight or make poor eating choices.

A food diary turns what is abstract into black and white. You can go back and forth all day long with theories as to why you think you may have gained a few pounds this week- or why you can't seem to lose those last 5. You can make all sorts of justifications and rationalizations, but you can’t deny that which is on the paper. A food diary takes the feeling out of the eating and puts it into a factual format.

Without a diary, you eat without awareness. Our most damaging eating happens when we’re not paying attention. We eat as a reflex to certain situations or emotions. By using a food diary, you can instantly create awareness where before there was none. How many times have you been on the phone while snacking on some chips and soon realized that the entire bag was gone? How many times have  you sat down in front of the TV to watch your favorite television program and realize by the first commercial that you finished an entire box of crackers? By using the food diary, you turn automatic behaviors into conscious decisions.

In addition to logging food intake, you should also log the mood you were in when you ate that food. This type of food diary links the connection between food and mood. A food diary that measures only food intake is missing the most important components of behavior. How often do we eat because we’re bored, stressed, celebrating, etc? These emotional connections to food should be recorded so they can be identified. If you find that you eat because you’re stressed, then maybe your focus should be on finding stress reduction techniques rather than a weight loss program.

The following categories should be included on your food diary:
Food item and quantity: You should write down the type of food as precisely as you can. Don't just write pizza- explain that is was a  frozen double cheese pizza. Also, the quantity is very important. Having a handful of wheat thins is ok when there are 10 in a handful, but I know that when I reach into a box, I grab at least 30 somehow!

Location: Where was the food eaten? The car? Your desk? Your dining room table? We want to track where you’re eating to see how it’s connected to your food choices. For instance, if you are eating in the car, we can pretty much guess that you’re not eating with awareness.

Time Started/Time Finished: Most people who are overweight eat too fast. By tracking the time that you start and finish eating, you can become more aware of if you take time to savor your food or if you scarf it down in a matter of minutes. By now, most of us know that small frequent meals are better than a few large ones throughout the day.

Company: Have you ever noticed that you always make poor eating choices when eating with certain people? Or on the reverse side, maybe you make great eating choices when eating with certain people. It’s important to know how your company effects your eating.

Mood: This is an important one. Our food choices are very often a result of our emotional state, not necessarily our hunger. By having your clients track their moods, they can see connections between how they feel and what they choose to eat.

So when you finish reading this, grab a fresh notebook and start writing with your next mood. If you are not a paper and pen kind of person, try an online food logging website like myapex.com. While online food logs do not have specific spaces for moods etc, there are places to write notes.  If that’s not enough, go a step further and start to blog.  You will be amazed at how effective this is at holding you accountable!!