I’m slowly dying as I write this!

No matter what you think of the technological revolution, one thing is for certain … it has us sitting more than ever before. One statistic I read has that 85% of all jobs are “sedentary” or chair based. I can tell you this from my experience, 12 years ago I rarely sat as a part of my work. I was a personal trainer … I was on the floor with clients or helping the front desk staff do what had to be done. The only time I looked at a computer was to check email … as I stood there waiting for the next client. Back then I worked out hard, and even had a herniated disc from doing stupid stuff years ago, but never back pain.

Now I own a company and have many administrative tasks that require me to sit … and sit … AND sit! I have a Macbook to write these blogs, articles, record videos, and be a king of social media. But maybe … just maybe there is a consequence to all this. I still workout, but seem to have more neck and back pain, especially after a heavy day of writing.

I had read the book, Sitting On The Job, a few years back, but maybe I forgot some of the lessons learned. So for all of you who need to hear it or hear it again, there was an article on MSNBC, in the health section, entitled You Sitting Down? It’ll Kill You. For those of you who don’t have time to read the article, because you need to “sit there” and move onto the next project, the quick synopsis is that those who sit the most are more likely to be fatter, have a heart attack or even die.

Elin Ekblom-Bak of the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences said,

After four hours of sitting, the body starts to send harmful signals.

She goes on to further explain how the body’s genes that regulate blood sugar and fat start to shut down.

For all of you who are sitting regularly, you should read the article and see the possible consequences that might befall you. I might also suggest that while you read the article, you march in place … ok, maybe a bit much but it couldn’t hurt … you’ll look silly, but not hurt!

Weigh in on what you think. Leave a comment to let me know how much time each day you sit and whether you notice anything negative from it.

Holiday Stress Buster Tips

In an effort to get you through the holidays without permanent physical or mental scarring, Natasha Atkinson has put together some tips to navigate this year’s silly season!

Natasha has been in the fitness industry for two decades and understands the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. It’s through this commitment to fitness and living a healthy lifestyle that she expresses her passion and gets her clients to reach their full potential. She enjoys training clients of all fitness levels. She especially enjoys working with women to help them overcome the many barriers they face in their pursuit of fitness. Her certifications include Holistic Lifestyle Coach Level 1 and Exercise Coach from the C.H.E.K.Institute, National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) and American Council on Exercise (ACE) Personal Trainer certifications.

With the holiday season underway, most of us are already experiencing some sort of stress. With a little planning we are able to make the season a lot more enjoyable. At every other time of year, we know that sleep, exercise, and a healthy diet are key factors in keeping stress at bay. With the fuss of the season, cooler temperatures, and the temptations of holiday treats, our normal healthy habits go quickly out the window. By just following a few simple tips, you can keep yourself on track and celebrating the new year with a healthier and happier you.

1. Moderation.  Overindulgence only adds to your stress and guilt.  Have a healthy snack before holiday parties so that you don’t go overboard on what you eat and drink. Skip seconds during large holiday parties and enjoy treats in smaller quantities. Opt for fresh fruit, cheese or nuts instead of heavier dips and pastries whenever possible.
2. Sleep. During the holidays, with all there is to do, the parties, the preparations, the shopping, the wrapping, and the cooking, it is easy to pay for the additional time required from our sleep time. Understand most of us don’t get the 7-8 hours we need a night as it is. Sometimes that 20 minute power nap will do wonders for your mind and body.
3. Budget.  Set a financial budget and stick to it. Falling prey to impulse buying and going all out with credit cards will only cause guilt and repercussions in January when the bills come in. You can’t buy happiness with gifts.
4. Prioritize.   It’s okay to say no. You can’t possibly attend every party, social event, buy every gift, visit every relative, and send out cards to a hundred people. Trying to do this only leads to massive stress. Ask yourself: Do I really want to do this? … if the answer is no, then cross it off your list.
5. KISS.  Keep it Super Simple. Don’t try to do it all. Save some for next year. If baking the cookies from scratch will be too much, try store bought cookies and let the kids decorate them, they will have just as much fun. When possible order online, ship item directly to out of town family or have the store wrap the gifts for you.
6. Expectations. We believe we should feel good during the holidays but many of us find ourselves anxious and overwhelmed. The holidays are a time when our schedules and routines change dramatically. Also, our expectations of what the holidays should be very often set us up for failure. Taking a different approach to the season may make a difference. If you change your perceptions, you change your reality.
7. Acknowledge your feelings. If the holidays bring a sense isolation or loneliness to you, consider seeking out community, religious, or other social events they can offer support and companionship. Volunteering your time at soup kitchen or food pantry will offer a rewarding feeling and possible lead to new friendships.
8. Enjoy.  It’s the journey, not just the destination. Find happiness in all of it. People often get so caught up in getting ready for the one day and they fail to realize it’s all the small things that make the holidays special.

We all want the holidays to be a happy time. By having realistic expectations and not overextending, you will keep your stress levels in check. I wish you a “full of joy” holiday season!

Happy New You … NOW!

When I talk to people around this time of year, who are interested in starting a fitness program and losing weight, I hear some interesting reasons about why they’re going to wait until New Year’s to do it. “The holidays are coming and I’m too busy”, “I want to start fresh with a new year”, or my favorite, “I’m going to gain weight through the holidays, so I’ll wait until after to start”. Right! … did you know that only about 12% of people who make New Year’s Resolutions actually keep them?

There are many reasons for the low success rate, but the most important one is that there is no plan put in place. When a plan is developed and effectively implemented, the success rate goes up significantly. But a plan can be developed anytime and get you going at the most important time … NOW, when you are motivated to change! When you come to Longevity and want to start working out, we sit down and develop a plan that gets you started at the appropriate place and level.

If one of your objections is that the holidays are too busy, then what you are saying to us, is even after New Year’s when you get busy, you’re not going to keep working out. We are always busy! And yes the Holidays do put extra pressure on us, but I can tell you without hesitation that the people who find a way to maintain a schedule during this time of year are the ones who do not let the fitness goals slide any other time of year, no matter how busy they get. If you start during a busy time, you are better at planning to get your workouts in and you start at an amount that you can maintain, then increase as the busy times pass.

Externally imposed deadlines never result in permanent change. People who come to us who have an arbitrary timelines to their weight loss goals, follow a pattern of temporary success followed by dramatic failure. If you’re waiting for that cruise, wedding, or that New Year’s resolution, then you’re more than likely to lose the weight for a short term, but then goal will pass or you will get get bored and the weight will come back … and sometimes even more than before. What it takes to sustain your results is to connect the goal to what is really important to you. This may be health, appearance, or what fitness allows you to do and then develop goals that keep you motivated and on task.

For those that think they will just gain the weight through the holidays and then do something about it … you are starting with an huge assumption … YOU HAVE TO GAIN WEIGHT! If you do start exercising now and give some thought to all those holiday events, meals, and snacks I’ll give you an eye-opening revelation … YOU DON’T HAVE TO GAIN HOLIDAY WEIGHT THIS YEAR!!!

Whether you are looking to start a fitness plan or have been exercising regularly, I urge you to take a look now at how you can develop a plan that utilizes the holidays to focus your fitness or weight loss goals to gain even more success in the coming new year. If you need help, you can checkout our specials that can help you be a Happy New You in the Happy New Year!

Exercise and Breast Cancer

At Longevity Studios, we serve clients trying to achieve a vast array of goals. Some of the most inspirational goals are for those clients that are fighting to overcome significant health issues. In this blog, Natasha Atkinson discusses exercising with breast cancer. She has worked with several clients who are survivors of this condition (see testimonial). Working with these clients requires her to be very precise with the exercise program, really listen to their individual needs, and embark a great deal of empathy and understanding. While the exercise helps the body, our trainers are always engaged with their mind and spirit, thus truly assisting to lift them above their circumstance and enhance their survivorship!

Natasha has been in the fitness industry for two decades and understands the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. It’s through this commitment to fitness and living a healthy lifestyle that she expresses her passion and gets her clients to reach their full potential. She enjoys training clients of all fitness levels. She especially enjoys working with women to help them overcome the many barriers they face in their pursuit of fitness. Her certifications include Holistic Lifestyle Coach Level 1 and Exercise Coach from the C.H.E.K.Institute, National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) and American Council on Exercise (ACE) Personal Trainer certifications.

As many of you know, October is breast cancer awareness month. I have been reading the statistics on breast cancer and the numbers are astounding. According to Tricia M. Peters, of U.S. National Cancer Institute (USNCI) in Maryland, who led one study on the subject:

With an estimated 182,460 new cases diagnosed in the United States in 2008, breast cancer is recognized as the most common cancer affecting U.S. women.

As a trainer, I have had the pleasure to work with several clients that have struggled with the surgery and follow up of chemo and radiations treatments. I do say pleasure because these clients come with a different idea of training and a determination that others do not necessarily have. The idea of working out and getting fit has with it the meaning of a real change in nutrition, stress management, and lifestyle … but more importantly, life itself. This change is often overlooked by the general group of people that frequent gyms. I think the word I’m looking for is “awareness”. They come with a new awareness of the quality of life they want for themselves, which makes my job even more rewarding.

Many people do not realize that you can continue to workout while you’re receiving treatments. With a modified exercise program, working out can actually make you feel better. The best exercise program is one that meets you at the level in which you start it and continues to adjust to fit your needs. A regular exercise program can assist with weight gain, maximize body strength, improve body composition, and bone density. This is no different than for the general public. In my observation, what seems to be more valuable to my clients affected with breast cancer is the mental sense of accomplishment that you get from working out. The feeling of determining your own course and putting the control back in your own hands. This strengths the body, energizes the mind, and soothes the soul. All of which, help to offset some of the side effects of chemo and surgeries.

In the fight against breast cancer, exercise does not have all the answers. What it does come down to is that exercise is an integral part of healing yourself and another place to building your community that is going create the environment to boost your cancer survivorship.

Even if you are not impacted by breast cancer yourself, you probably know someone who is. I encourage all women to start activities that could help to prevent it. A reason to start an exercise program is that research has found that exercising more, eating healthier and lowering body fat, could prevent as many as 38 percent of breast cancer cases in the United States alone.

For more information about exercising with breast cancer, or any cancer, checkout the LIVESTRONG website. This site has tremendous amount of information, not just about exercise, but about cancer in general. We support this organization and how it’s trying to help the world!

If breast cancer has affected your life, let us know how by leaving a comment. If you like to contact Natasha, you can through her email, natkinson@longevitystudios.com or by calling the studio at 301-934-8855.

My Colleagues Don’t Like Oprah and KFC

My man, Sean Croxton with Underground Wellness, put a YouTube video out there that is ranting about Oprah’s deal with KFC. The campaign is called Unthink KFC and gives you a coupon for two pieces of grilled chicken, two sides and a biscuit. Not bad!…. FREE food!!! Right?

When you hear some of what Sean has to say, maybe it’s not such a good deal! Take a watch, then go to Oprah’s site and the Unthink site and let me know what you think.

You heard me rant about some of these things, now it’s time for someone else. Go Sean! Let me know what you think about Oprah’s role … trying to help people get free food or getting an easy dollar at our expense?

The No GMO Challenge

For the next 30 days, I am going to focus on not consuming any GMO crops – The No GMO Challenge, co-sponsored by Real Food Media and the Institute for Responsible Technology. I pretty much do this now, but I know I let a few things slide here and there. If you have no idea what I’m even talking about with GMO, you can go to The No GMO Challenge or Genetically Modified Organisms on wikipedia.

An interesting statistic in a press release is that:

Nearly two-thirds of products on supermarket shelves contain unlabelled
genetically modified ingredients.

This makes it very hard to avoid, if you eat process foods. Jeffrey Smith, a leading expert on the health dangers of GMOs, also has some big statements about GMO’s:

GM crops concentrate corporate control of food, increase herbicide use without increasing average yields, endanger food security, are detrimental to sustainable and organic farming, and trap farmers in a cycle of debt and dependence. They shrink biodiversity, harm beneficial insects, damage soil bacteria, contaminate non-GM varieties, and persist in the environment. The presence of self-propagating genetic pollution might outlast the effects of global warming and nuclear waste.

So I hope you help me to raise awareness about GMO’s and do your body some good, by joining the challenge.

Stress Hurts

In preparation for my presentation on stress for the Charles County Chamber of Commerce’s 2009 Working Women’s Day Retreat and the Longevity Studios Seminar, “Stress Mastering Techniques”, I came across this article, Stress So Bad It Hurts — Really.

I like the article because it’s basically a nice-n-tidy summary of how stress starts to affect your body. The body doesn’t care about where the stress is coming from or even if it’s real or perceived. Your body produces a stress response and adds all your stressors up to produce your overall stress level. As a human performance consultant, I have to look at a person’s current level of stress, which we call physiological load, and determine what are the appropriate actions to reduce their load. Most people come expecting to just have exercise thrown at them. When I find people with some of the following stress symptoms, I know it would be irresponsible to just give hard resistance or cardio training, because that would only add to their physiological load.

Stress Symptoms

• Pain of any kind
• Heart disease
• Digestive problems
• Sleep problems
• Depression
• Obesity
• Autoimmune diseases
• Skin conditions, such as eczema

From my experience, I would clarify one thing from the article. Christopher L. Edwards, director of the Behavioral Chronic Pain Management program at Duke University Medical Center, says:

“Stress does not necessarily cause pain, but it exacerbates the [physical] situation that may already be there. It diminishes your ability to cope.”

I have seen a direct correlation between unchecked stress levels and a person’s pain level when they come to see me. Chronically elevated levels of cortisol eventually result in pain. Reducing your overall level of stress is critical for reducing your level of pain.

I like to hear from you about your levels of stress and what symptoms you notice. Until then, relax and take a deep breath!

Young Athletes

I tend to find two types of “kids” coming to me these days. One is not doing much in the way of exercise, and sometimes even movement. For the most part, this is an easy fix. You get them moving … you get them enjoying the moving … and you get them seeing the benefits and they do the rest.

The other group is young “athletes”. These are kids involved in EVERYTHING! If they don’t participate in every sport or activity possible, then they have already specialized. They are a “volleyball” or “soccer” or “baseball” athletes. Some of the trends I am seeing are no off-season, over focus on skill development, over-trained, and over scheduled. These are mini-stressed out individuals!

The problem here is more complicated. They tend to believe that this is the ONLY way that they can succeed. If they aren’t going at 100 m.p.h., then they are going to be left behind. When I tell them about “backing off” their training and using a model of periodization for their training, they look at me like I have more than one head. After all, according to one of them , “if we aren’t doing it 100% one hundred percent of the time, we’re not really doing it!”

I was reminded of this the other day when I saw this short clip - Over Worked Child Athletes & Young Pros – byPaul Chek at the National Strength and Conditioning Association’s Annual Convention.

As a parent, I cringe at what fate awaits them. Burnout … injury … resentment?! If you are a parent reading this, I encourage to take a hard look at your son’s or daughter routine and ask the question, “is he/she going too hard?” If the answer is even close to yes, I suggest you look to slow then down. It will allow them time to grow, recover, and really develop into the athlete that they can be!

It would be great to hear your feedback on this. Some that I have talked to about this, absolutely disagree with me. So how do you feel? Is this the “necessary path to greatness” or the “road to ruin”?

Easter Chocolate

When the Easter Bunny brings your basket this year, it could possibly be full of all your favorites chocolate treats. Since this falls under the 80/20 rule, 80% of the things right and 20% of things being naughty, this could your big 20% chocolate time.

If you want to make it even better though, you may want to encourage the Mr. E. Bunny to contract with some other companies, besides Hersey and Reeses for next year. We know there are more health benefits to dark chocolate, so you may want to focus him there.

If you haven’t tried chocolate covered blueberries, you may want to try some of them. They’re delicious and full of even more antioxidants than just the dark chocolate alone!

For those of you who want an even more exotic chocolate experience with your Easter Basket, you should try the gourmet chocolates from Vosage Chocolates. You will get a truly unique Easter Basket chocolate-fest!

Have a Happy Easter!

Winning The Battle for a Healthy Lifestyle

I’d like to welcome Marty Linclau-Miller to being a contributing author for the blog. Marty graduated from Michigan State University with a B.S. in Kinesiology (sports Medicine). His focus is on functional training and he has an intrinsic motivation to live a healthy lifestyle. Passion for getting the most out of life is what has made him who he is and helps his clients realize their full potential. He knows most of us are not training for sports, we’re training for life. He wants his clients to feel healthy and confident in their abilities. With three years of training and management experience, he is comfortable in helping people of all fitness levels.

After having job titles like Apprentice Carpenter, Subway Sandwich Artist, Door to Door Salesman, and Second Mate, becoming a fitness professional was a bit of a shift in mentality. With my new found profession I realized, that whether I am training a client or watching TV at home, my profession is forever with me. This is a good problem to have. To live a healthy lifestyle in the great United States, one has to be on guard 24/7, 365.

All of my clients are successful in their fields of work and work very hard to do so. Often our biggest hurdle is not getting them to show and work hard at the studio. The hurdle is changing their habits outside of the studio. Every day I see the things my clients are forced to fight against to live a healthy lifestyle. Because they need their food fast, they eat fast food. Because there are bills to pay, they work long into the night and eat too late (or not at all!). Because… (fill your excuse in here)… they couldn’t get their cardio in this week. Because… (find alternate excuse here)… they skipped breakfast… again.

In traveling the world a bit, I have seen many cultures. The Italians, Greeks, and Spanish for example take time every day for siesta. Wouldn’t siesta make finding a healthy lunch easy? Their culture has provided them that luxury. I ask: why are we such workaholics that we can’t even get a healthy lunch? Why has our work become more important than being healthy enough to enjoy our days off…? Having worked my fair share of 50, 60, and even 80 hour weeks I can say that, although a challenge to rival all others, one can be a workaholic and still live a healthy lifestyle.

The point is the only way to truly win the battle against our daily habits is to change our daily habits. The small things make the big difference. Spending 10 minutes to prepare your lunch and daily snacks the night before saves money and the 30 to 45 minutes you’ll need to get to your local lunch spot, eat, pay, and get back to work. Waking 15 minutes earlier allows time for a simple breakfast and ignites your metabolism so you burn more calories all day. Turning off your TV or PC early enough to get the 7 to 9 hours of sleep, recommended by the CDC, allows your brain to store valuable information and your body to repair the day’s stresses. Want some reasons to get more sleep? Check this out these suggestions to get some sleep! Got a problem with eating too many bad snack foods at home? Don’t buy them next time you are at the store. These are a few of the ways to live a healthy lifestyle that have worked for my clients and me. Have you found any that work? Need suggestions to guide you in changing your habits? Post a comment and we’ll work together to fight the battle for a healthier life.

I look forward to hearing from you!!!