Recently in Fitness Category

I found this helpful blog post from "Health.com" by Dorothy Foltz-Gray and Beth Dreher on finding your ideal weight. Here are the first two steps: 

1. What's your BMI?

How tall you are, obviously, has a lot to do with whether your weight is healthy--and that's always frustrating for the vertically challenged. At, say, 150 pounds, your weight's just right if you're 5 feet 8 inches tall, on the high side of normal if you're 5 feet 6 inches, considered overweight if you're 5 feet 4 inches, and near obese at 5 feet. To figure out if your weight is healthy for your height, calculate your body mass index (BMI). BMI isn't a perfect measure (see question 2 below), but it's a great place to start your calculations.

Calculate your BMI

Healthy-weight bonus: The higher your BMI, the higher your risk for diabetes. But lose just 7 percent of your body weight (that's about 10 pounds for a 140-pound woman), and you can cut your risk by 60 percent.

2. What's your build?

Line up 10 women who are all 5 feet 4 inches tall or who each weigh 150 pounds, and you'll quickly see why height or weight alone--or even BMI--doesn't always reflect what's healthy. The differences in muscle strength, body shape, and frame size can be astounding.

If you're muscular, your BMI can easily fall into the so-called overweight range because muscle weighs more than fat, says Steven Blair, professor of exercise at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. "By BMI classifications, most football players are obese, Arnold Schwarzenegger is obese, and Serena Williams is overweight. See other surprising celebrity BMIs. The categories of normal, overweight, and obese are useful for research but not always when it comes to the public."

Consider your frame size, too. Insurance companies typically divide their weight charts into small-, medium-, and large-frame categories. At 5 feet 4 inches, wearing 1-inch heels, and fully clothed, what's classified as a healthy weight can range from around 115 to 150 pounds, depending upon your frame. Based on your build, you and your doctor can decide if a too-high BMI is OK for your frame or musculature or if it's a sign that you need to burn some fat--pronto.

Frame-size calculator: The distance between the two little bones on either side of your elbow is used to determine frame size. Hold up your arm at a 90-degree angle with your palm facing your face. Put the pointer finger of your other hand on the bone on one side and your thumb on the other. Then measure the distance between them. Frame sizes are for a women in the 5-foot-4 to 5-foot-7 range.

Distance between elbow bones:
2 2/8 inches and below--Small frame
2 3/8 inches to 2 5/8 inches--Medium frame
2 6/8 inches and above--Large frame

This is a favorite post from my archives on facing your fears (with a little common sense).

Speaking of irrational phobias and obsessions, I learned an important lesson the morning (last month) I was supposed to run the 22nd Annual Bay Bridge Run.

I signed up for the thing at 10 p.m. a few weeks earlier, right after tucking Katherine in with a preschool therapy session (a reading of "The Little Engine That Could" by Watty Piper and Loren Long, and "I Like Myself" by Karen Beaumont and David Catrow) and with no caffeine in my system, thus blanking on my fear of heights, the queasy "I think I have to barf" thoughts that usually accompany a trip to the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

The Bay Bridge Run is a 10K race across the eastbound span of the William Preston Lane Memorial Bridge (its official name), with a shore-to-shore length of 4.3 miles (among the world's longest over-water structures), a horizontal navigation clearance of 1,500 feet (no structure holding you up for that long--the boxer shorts of bridges) and a vertical clearance of 186 feet (if you fall off, you're toast ... a comforting thought during my depression).

This is not a race for those who get squeamish at high altitudes.

I found this great blog post from Craig Harper, one of Australia's most respected motivational speakers and educators from my blogging buddy Talia Mana's "Emotional Eating Carnival" (sounds like cotton candy, but it means collection of blog posts, sorry to disappoint).

Remember this the next time you're tempted to stuff your face with cotton candy, or cheesecake, or nachos, or fried cheese on a stick:

Nothing tastes as good as being in shape feels

I Love food.
Baked cheese-cake in particular.
And lasagne.
And dark chocolate.
Specifically, Lindt.

And I love a hamburger with egg, cheese and onion.
A massive hamburger, dripping with egg and sauce (ketchup for my American friends), covered in a pound of cheese and two inches of fried onions.

If I was hungry and someone got between me and that hamburger, there's a fair chance I'd hurt them.

Badly.

I have food issues.

I'm a work in progress.

People think that because I do what I do for a living (trainer, exercise scientist, educator, etc.) that I have an aversion to anything with sugar, fat, salt or flavour.

Are you kidding?

Let's get one thing clear:
If I could eat five pieces of thick white toast with crunchy peanut butter for breakfast every day, and stay lean and healthy, I'd do it.

No brainer.

Cheesecake every night and stay in shape?
Okay, I'm in.

Yes I love food (healthy food too), and yes I enjoy the odd, infrequent, splurge (oh, the frailty of the human condition)... but what I love more is:

.....being in shape.

I've been fat... and I've been lean.
It ain't a big decision.

And for some people (like me) we need to make a decision.
And we don't need to get all precious and melodramatic about it...

We just need to make the decision.
Soon.
Now even.

Do I want to eat junk (regularly), or do I want to be in shape.

I can't do both.
So I Choose to be in shape.

I'm always talking to people who tell me how deprived they feel when they don't eat their favourite junk foods.

Q. You know why they feel deprived?
A. 'Cause they focus on what they're missing (junk food), not what they're gaining (a leaner, lighter, healthier body).

It's an attitude and perspective thing, not a food thing.

So next time you're feeling a little 'deprived', don't focus on the cake (biscuit, ice-cream, chocolate) that gives you five minutes of pleasure... focus on the body that you live in twenty four hours a day.

By the way, I'm yet to talk to somoene who feels good (emotionally, psychologically or physically) after they have made a bad food decision or over-eaten.

Some practical suggestions:

Option 1.
No junk, get you're head where it needs to be, don't be a sook, enjoy your new body. Have the rare splurge (once a month).

Option 2.
Eat your five small meals per day (35 small meals per week) and allow yourself one meal per week where you eat a favourite junk food (not a wheelbarrow full).

Option 3.
Eat a very small amount of your favourite food daily. The problem is not that we eat a chocolate; it's that we eat forty chocolates. I worked with a choc-o-holic who ate chocolate every day and lost twenty three kilos (50lbs)... because she reduced her intake from plenty ... to two chocolates a day (every day).

To read more Beyond Blue, go to www.beliefnet.com/beyondblue, and to get to Group Beyond Blue, a support group at Beliefnet Community, click here.

I don’t think workout queen Kathy Smith would have stuffed herself like I did at my sister’s farm all week. Her exercise regime is a tad different from mine, but we're alike in this regard: exercise saved our lives!

Here is an interview with her by my lovely editor, Holly Lebowitz Rossi, who is presently vacationing (and no doubt having better success at disconnecting than I did).

Click here to read the entire interview.

It begins ….

In the 1980s, Kathy Smith rose to fame as a workout queen, producing aerobics videos and motivating millions with her fitness classes and techniques. Today, Smith continues to inspire and energize those who want to lose weight and feel fit and healthy. In an illuminating interview, Smith tells Beliefnet's Health editor about how she got healthy in the wake of tragedy, how to start a fitness program, and why a "prayer walk" is sometimes the best exercise you can do.

Did you ever consider designing your workout to match your personality? You think the author of this concept has too much time on his hands? I agree with you. But interesting, nontheless.

"Fine-tuning your workout based on your personal tendencies can help you adhere to a program, and consistency is the foundation for getting fit," says Richard Cotton, a spokesman for the American Council on Exercise and cheif exercise physiologist at myexerciseplan.com (a pretty cool site).

Here is a summary of his four exercise types that I stole from "Vitality," the mailing from that company I vented about back in "PayFirst CareLast."

Type 1: The Introverted Exerciser (Eric)

The introverted exerciser prefers privacy. You like exercising by yourself and using fitness time to collect your thoughts. Activities you may enjoy include walking and jogging by yourself or using your gym's weight machines. Although such self-reliance provides a safe haven, there's a potential downside.

"If you exercise only on your own, you can find yourself exercising inconsistently because you're not accountable to anyone but yourself," says Mr. Cotton.

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