Advice

For anyone who does decide they want to exercise as part of your diet, listen up:

If this is your first time exercising
or
if this is your first time back exercising (after not exercising for anything more than a week)
please take this advice.

No matter how good you feel, start off slow. Do not go into an exercise program, whether it is lifting, jogging, or jazzercising and start off too hard. Ease into your program. Building up to a good work out should take about a week. The first day go very light. You may feel great the second day, and you may want to do more, but don't. Stay light. After 3 or 4 work-outs you can increase the intensity. The worst thing to do to your body is work it so hard that the next day you have no desire to do it again. The better you feel the more you will want to work out. So start off slow and build the intensity. Believe me, your body will be thanking you in the morning.

Motivation: SHOPPING!

If there is just no other motivation to loose weight, this might be one for many: you get to buy new clothes!

After watching the most recent episode of Project Runway it got me thinking about what people should wear when they diet. The women who posed as models on Bravo’s series Project Runway recently lost a significant amount of weight ranging from 60 pounds to 160 pounds. These women were wearing their favorite outfits from before the weight loss. The designers challenge was to make their large clothes into something new that would fit them. Not everyone has their own personal designer, so what do you do after you lose weight?

GO SHOPPING!!

Once you have lost weight you should be proud of your new figure and want to show it off. Do not wear your old clothes that are probably two plus sizes too big.
The best part of dieting is to feel good about yourself, so once you find yourself putting on your old jeans without even having to unzip them, go out and buy some new clothes that fit you and make you feel wonderful.

You do not want to end up like Kyle Norton from Penn State who was recently in The Onion newspaper for wearing the same clothes for months in a row. In an article entitled “Overweight College Student Announces Plans To Wear Shorts, Sandals for Rest of Year” The Union’s subtle humor pokes fun at Norton’s robust figure and how it has become a chore for him to even change his clothes because he is so overweight. If you have NO other motivation, let Norton’s story be it for you.

Some may just need to be told

Could you really lose weight just because someone told you that what you do on a daily basis is exercise? Recently in the New York Times an article entitled “Mindful Exercise” proves that you can. Two groups of hotel maids (all women) were chosen for this study. One group was told that the work they do for their job is exercise enough. The other crowd was a control and was not told anything. After a month the researchers checked back in with the women. The group that was told they exercise by doing their job lost an average of two pounds and their blood pressure went down ten points. For those maids who were told nothing, the researchers saw no change. Both groups do the same work, yet the women who were told they exercise while at work lost weight. So look on the bright side, just a few house chores like vacuuming and cleaning the bathroom can burn calories. All you have to do is tell yourself you are working out and put some effort into it, who knows, it may help you shed a few pounds.

Same idea, different tune

Videojug has a video on YouTube that explains "How to lose weight the easy way".
Her advice is very similar to mine, but in a video form.
Check it out!

How to stay fit over the holidays

With the holidays around the corner, and snow flurries on the ground, who has the motivation to exercise? This is always the busiest time of year, and easiest time to forget your diet. Here are some ways to stay on track over the holidays and cold winter days.

Diet:
www.foodfit.com is a website that has recipes for holiday cooking that is low in fat. Cooking your own food, with low fat products like extra virgin olive oil and avoiding using fatty ingredients like butter and grease is an easy way to watch what you eat over the holiday. If you are having a house full of people over, you are probably not the only one on a diet. Even if people are not on a diet, healthy cooking is a great idea to keep your diet, and everyone elses, on track. If you are going somewhere else for the holidays, ask them if there is anything they want you to bring, and if so, make sure you make that low fat. The holidays do not have to be an excuse to eat poorly, take the opportunity to try new recipes and make healthy low fattening foods.

Exercise:
Ask for a treadmill, a stationary bike, or a weight set for Christmas. It is cold outside and getting the motivation to layer up to go for a run is hard. Doing some cardio or weights inside is a good alternative. Another plus to working out inside, is you can do it at anytime, (you don’t have to wait for daylight) and you can watch TV to pass the time. It can be on your own schedule and entertaining at the same time.

Kathleen Zelman from WedMD writes a great article with more ideas like these above.

Want to hear about dieting?
Click here to watch "Dieting"
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Quick tips to do at home

Sitting on your couch watching television feeling like a couch potato? Get up, go into your refrigerator, grab a gallon of milk; go into your cabinet, grab a can of vegetable; or go into your bedroom, grab a hardcover novel and that is all you need to have in order to exercises. You only need one item, and any of these types will work. Ready to do some quick, simple exercises?

You can do all of these exercises standing in front of your TV!

1. Hold your item in one hand, extend your hand down in front of you and do ten curl ups with the first arm. Switch arms, do ten curl ups and repeat that three times. This will tone your biceps.

2. Hold your item in one hand straight above your head, bend at the elbow and lower your hand behind your head down to about your shoulder. Do ten repetitions with one hand, switch hands, do ten repetitions then repeat three times. This will tone your triceps.

3. Hold your item with both hands straight out in front of you, at about chest height. Stand with your feet at about waist width apart, twist at the waist and bring your hands all the way to your left, then twist all the way to the right. Do this twenty times, rest (about 30 seconds) then repeat. This will work your abdomen.

4. Hold your item in one hand, stand with your feet at about waist width apart, and straighten your arm by your side. Bend all the down, reaching your arm as far down to the floor as you can go, aiming for the outside of your foot, bending from the waist only. This will work your oblique, the side of your abs.

5. Hold your item with both hands in front of you and stand with your feet at about waist width apart. Get a strong stance with your feet and bend at the knees as if you are about to sit on a chair, holding the item at about chest level. Be careful to sit back when squatting and not to let your knee bend too far over your feet. This will work your gluteus, hamstrings, and quadriceps.

These are just five easy exercises you can do with any amount of weight you can find easily in your house. Next time you are bored watching TV, get up, grab some weight and do some quick exercises, which if done on a regular basis could really give you significant improvements to your physique.

Want to laugh?

One of life's mysteries is how a two-pound box of candy can make a woman gain five pounds.
For this and other jokes about dieting, dieting excuses, and more, visit butlerwebs.com.

What is the Riot?

The ultimate question for this blog is to figure out why everyone is so interested in dieting (myself included). If you google diet, it reads there are 156,000,000 search matches. The United States’ population just reached 303,000,000 and if you google diet there are 156,000,000 search matches related. This totals half the amount of websites for dieting as there are people in the country. If this was possible, you could look at it as if one of every two people in America has made a website that includes the word diet. This of course is not the case but the numbers are surprisingly high. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page you see related links to diet. One link reads how to lose weight. Is everyone concerned about losing weight?

Look at the entertainment industry; it is clear that celebrities are worried about being skinny. From Lindsey Lohan to Paris Hilton, these famous figures are skinny and constantly focused on losing weight. On the home page for E online, the new video up right now is about how celebs quickly slim back down after having a baby. Not only is there an stress on being skinny, but being pregnant, or just having a baby is no longer an excuse to pack on a few extra pounds. There is the constant emphasis on how skinny or fat a celebrity looks in a picture. How can Americans escape the reality of how today’s culture is so focused on being thin? It is all around, on TV, online, in advertisements. While watching The Today Show on NBC one morning, six out of eleven commercials that came on were advertising either a weight loss product or a product that promoted a healthy weight. The constant reminder of the way a person looks is inescapable.

With such a strong emphasis on dieting, it also creates an easy target to make fun of. Jean Teasdale, a writer for the satirical newspaper The Onion, has written an article about her own experiences with dieting. Her story is funny because she faces many of the problems everyone deals with while dieting, which include not being able to stick to a diet, or getting sick of the same old diet everyday. It pokes fun at all these dieters, but reading it makes you stop and think about what dieting has come to. Why are people always focused on losing weight? Do people diet just to say they are dieting to make it seem like they are trying to lose weight? Obviously I do not know, but many people including Jean and myself struggle to understand the ways in which to diet.

Tired?

Can exercising actually make you more tired? If you are an endurance athlete the New York Times article entitled “Sleep After Hard Workouts? You Must Be Dreaming” says yes. This could be a problem for many busy people trying to stay awake at work. The answer? Sleep all day and not go to work? Of course that is not possible, but is there an a practicable answer? If you find your most tired an hour after your workout, plan to exercise an hour before you want to go to sleep for the night, that way it does not interrupt your plans. If that does not work try to take a power nap during the time you feel most tired. If there seems to be no solution that fits your needs, do not give up on exercising. You may be a little tired now but the benefits will last a lifetime.

Fast food is a difficult subject. For families on the go, students and traveling business workers the fast food option is inevitable at times. It is a quick alternative to a home cooked meal. This speedy alternative, however, is a quick way to eat a lot of calories. Fast food chains like Mcdonalds, Burger King and Starbucks give their health information on-line. Subway often advertises their calorie menus at their stores or on-line. This is not enough for city health officials in New York, however. The New York Times’ article “City Tries Again With Labeling Fast-Food Menus” discusses the new proposed plan that would make restaurants with 15 outlets or more across the country have to show their calorie information on their menus.

They want to have this information posted to help obesity. What I do not get, however, is how this will help. The general public knows how bad fast food is for you, yet they still resort to going there. Calorie information is publicized on television and can be found on the internet. If people care about the calories they consume they will not be going to fast food. If they must go to one of these restaurants and want to know the calorie information they will look it up. Once the customer is already making the stop to this restaurant they probably already intend to buy something, so why would the calorie information influence their decision. It is obvious that the more fries or the bigger the burger you have, the more fattening it will be, so who needs a menu to tell them how much more. If this menu is what people want to see then it should be posted, but I do not this it will help obesity.

Fast food is not the only factor in obesity either. If the person’s lifestyle lends itself to ending up with fast food every night then I would say it is the life style that is poor, not necessarily the fast food. Not saying that fast food is not bad, but if you have fast food once in a while it is not going to cause obesity. Obesity starts with bigger issues like genetics or poor habits and fast food adds to these issues, probably does not cause them. There are much greater factors that play into becoming obese. Trying to decrease obesity must begin somewhere, but I am skeptical this step will help much.

Do Research

Before exercising do your research.

Calories:
If your goal of exercising is to burn calories the first thing to do is learn about what a calorie is. Your body needs certain calories. Every diet needs to be healthy and should not be over done. Before starting a diet plan of counting and cutting calories, you should always learn about what you are actually doing to your body and if it will be beneficial.

Exercising:
If it is the calories you are worried about, however, a simple activity such as playing tennis will do the trick. The American Heart Association has a very helpful chart that indicates about how many calories a person would burn doing a particular exercise for an hour. This chart can give insight to how valuable each exercise can be.

Health:
The American Heart Association website is a very helpful site to refer to with other questions about diet and exercise as well. The tips they have are coming from a health perspective, and are all very important to keep in mind when choosing to diet. There are short and long-term benefits of diet and exercise, all of which should be motivation in helping pursue your goals.

Spice up your routine

When you decide to begin your diet plan, while it is good to have a schedule and stick to it, this routine may become boring. To stay motivated and engaged in your exercising plans it is very beneficial to mix it up. If you have decided to do your exercises through buying tapes or dvd’s to watch and work out to that could be best for you. After a while, however, you are going to become a pro at what you are doing and you might not even get as much out of it as before. Some fun alternatives might be:

Invite a friend over:
Be the instructor for the day and do all your favorite exercises while trying to challenge you and your friend.

Go outside:
Set up music and find a place in your backyard or somewhere flat where you can do your exercises in a different atmosphere.

Find other videos:
Dieting has become such a craze that it is so easy to find information. Diet.com has so many quick exercise videos. Take one day, go through many different videos and see what other ideas people have to add to your plan.



Stay creative:
Once you are bored of the same old routine, don’t be afraid to mix up different exercises from different sources to create your own routine. The benefit to making your own routine is that you can target the areas YOU want and you can pick and choose the exercise YOU like. This way when you go to exercise, it is what YOU want to do and can be fun!

Search the web:
The internet has so many websites out there that offer dieting tips, from eating right, to exercising right. Many of these sites can be helpful. Browse few some and one just may spark your interest and may make your diet complete.
A few ideas to start with:
An on-line fitness magazine
WebMd
Diet.com

Training outdoors

In light of recent events, running is on the mind. After the Chicago Marathon was stopped due the excessive heat, runners around the country have been worried about their own race. It would be awful to have been training for years to compete in a race and get stopped half way through. Having just completed my first half marathon, I was certainly dreading waking up that morning to a hot, humid day. Luckily October 13 in Hartford Connecticut was a crisp, cool beautiful fall morning.

While training, athletes should try to accommodate for any condition that they may face. If your event is outside training in the heat or the cold is very crucial. There are many effects heat could have on a person that range from dehydration, to heat exhaustion which could eventually lead to heat stroke. The cold, however, can be just as bad. If you are working hard and sweating, the water on your body could lead to pneumonia. Either way you can prevent your body from getting hurt by the weather just by training in different atmospheres. If you have an event that takes place outdoors where you can not predict what mother nature is going to bring that day, you have to prepare for anything.

The New York Times addresses this issue well with a list of other ways to prepare before a race as well.

Childhood Obesity

Growing up in the 21st century is hard for kids these days. There are so many video and computer games that do not require any movement from the kids that they are becoming very static. Childhood obesity is a growing epidemic that needs to be addressed. With video games, television and motorized toys, children no longer exert energy when playing. It is just as important for a child to exercise daily as an adult. Kids need to get into good, healthy habits when they are young so they can continue the habit when older.

It is a good idea to start children in a sport young because it can be very beneficial. It teaches discipline going to practice everyday, it is a form of socializing and making close friends with teammates, and it encourages exercising, which is always good. If a child is not interested in sports, however, it could be as little as going outside to play jump rope, hopscotch, tag with friends or a walk with younger siblings or a pet for them to get their daily activities more exercised based. In the winter time it is harder when it is cold but some fun options could be to go to a school to play basketball in the gym, go sledding on a huge hill multiple times or find an indoor pool and go for a swim. Kids do not have to exercise hard at a young age, but just being active and doing fun exercises will be beneficial.

In a recent New York Times article entitled Video Game Teaches Kids About Diet- Then Turns Off by Reuters addresses the obesity issue and offers some alternatives as well. There is a new video game available entitled “The Incredible Adventures of the Amazing Food Detective” that teaches kids about healthy eating and exercising. There is also a time limit for this game so that kids are not staying motionless for so long. This is a very good idea and more games should focus on exercising and eating healthy.

YouTube video demonstrates childhood obesity factors

Update

As a continuation to the first post, The Today Show has a great site called Five Secrets of Successful dieters by Elizabeth Somer. This is also an introduction to dieting. The ways in which she breaks it down are helpful. As an addition to the first post, this article can be informative when thinking about a diet.

Getting Started

Deciding that you are going to start a diet may be easy, however, maintaining and sticking to that diet is a completely different story. To begin, some may turn to webMD online, a Shape magazine or advertisements on television from shows like The Today Show. Turning to places like these can be troublesome because there are so many different ideas of how to diet. The key is to choose one that is best for you, even if it is not the quickest or easiest way to lose weight.
If making a decision gets overwhelming, here are some steps you can follow to settle on a diet:

Figure out why you are dieting
-to lose weight
-to become healthier
-for athletic reason
Set a goal, start off small, and make it realistic
-lose 10 pounds in five weeks
-stop snacking in between meals, or no eating after 7 pm.
-pick a race or contest to compete in
Look over your schedule
-plan a diet that will fit in without being stressful or burdensome
Choice a diet that meets your needs
-keep in mind that all diets need some form of cutting back on food and exercising at least three times a week.
Make a schedule and stick to this routine

Once you have a diet plan here are some tips that can help you follow through with your diet:

Get a buddy
-Pick a person who can either follow the diet with you or who can constantly ask how you are doing.
-Chose a person whom you are very comfortable talking to like a spouse, other family member, or friend.
-Make sure this person will keep up with their end and not let you down.
-Chose someone that you do not want to let down.
-Keep checking in with each other throughout the process.
Reward yourself.
-If you go to a party or the movies or something like that, reward yourself with a treat that will fulfill a craving you have.
-Reward yourself at least once a week if you have a successful week following your diet.
-Why? because you need something to look forward to.
Make healthy food fun.
-If you like to usually snack on something crunchy like chips, try eating an apple or celery.
-If you still need a salty chip to fill your craving, grab baked or whole grain chips, they are not that bad.
-If you usually crave chocolate and eat candy, try a chocolate chip granola bar instead.
-When you diet you should not cut out everything you like, otherwise you are more likely to cheat and the diet will not be easy to follow.
Make exercising fun.
-Go for a jog with a friend. If you talk while you are jogging it is a lot harder but makes the time go by much faster.
-If you chose to go alone, grab a radio or television to focus your thoughts on to make the time go by faster.

The biggest thing you have to remember, however, is this diet has to be realistic and work for you. Do not say you are going on a diet and only last two weeks. Creating a routine that is easy to stick to that consists of diet and exercise. Make dieting fun. Do not cut out everything you like, and reward yourself after a good week’s diet. Exercising can be a great way to relieve stress so it should not be stressful to go exercise. Dieting can be very rewarding if you stick to your plan. The process, however, can not be temporary, make a schedule and stick to it. It will feel good in the end.