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!!!

Fun With High Fructose Corn Syrup Ads

You’re probably tired of seeing me write about High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS), but I got sent the YouTube spoof clip of the HFCS industry ads and had to pass it on to you. First, to give you relevance, for those of you who haven’t seen the ads or just have no idea what I’m talking about, here is High Fructose Corn Syrup Ad 1and High Fructose Corn Syrup Ad 2. It makes everything seem OK!!!

This what I was sent recently - High Fructose Corn Syrup Commercial (Spoof). It gave me a laugh, because it makes everything seem OK!!!

I’ll include this fourth YouTube clip - High-Fructose Corn Syrup Truth, Still Not Sexy, HFCS – because educate is always key. Watch all the clips and then you can make up your own mind … and hopefully laugh about it!

Let me know what side you fall on … sugar or HFCS or Nazi-ism!

Active Transportation Leads to a Leaner Nation

Sometimes the obviousness of the research is …uh…OBVIOUS! Researchers have found a link between the nations that have the highest levels of “active transportation” (biking, walking, or public transit) and the lowest rates of obesity. This was reported on MSNBC in the article, Leaner nations, bike, walk, and use mass transit.

So I know what your thinking, “How could this be? The more we move, the more chance we won’t be fat?!?! What kind of bad science is this?” Well, according to the research, those that used active transportation in Latvia, Sweden, and the Netherlands were 67 %, 62 %, and 52 % respectively. Their rates for obesity were 14 % in Latvia, 11 % in Sweden, and 9 % in the Netherlands. What the heck are they doing over there to only have 9 %?

By comparison, in the U.S., only 12 % use active transit and we have anywhere from one-quarter to one-third of the population falling into the obese range. For those of us who live around the Washington Metropolitan area, as the suburban sprawl make commutes longer and longer, I would agree that we need to move more, but I’m not quite sure we have developed a country infrastructure that supports this.

The county that I live in are now just really getting to the point that bike lanes are readily available and the local area is more setup for active transit. Those that live here, but commute to Washington to work, would have to leave about 3 a.m. to get there on time. Who needs sleep when you can be biking to work for three hours in the morning?

Hopefully, as oil issues become ever more difficult and as the obesity epidemic increases, the new administration will look at developing more of the country’s infrastructure to support active transit and “kill two birds with one stone”.

Happiness is Contagious (Scientifically Proven!)

The Boston Globe reported on December 5th in the article A new reason to be happy: it may go a long way that a study found that our happiness may have extended effects not only to our friends and family, but to people we don’t even know.

Researchers from Harvard University collected data from 4,739 over the course of 2 decades to look at the extent of happiness and their conclusion is that happiness is passed on to more than just your immediate social network. The effect ripples through your extended social network to people who may even be strangers. Just to put some numbers behind this, they say that a happy friend who lives within a mile of you boosts your chance of being happy by 25%, and a sibling by 14%.

Now for many this research is somewhat controversial while for others who look at the way the world works, this falls more under the category of “duh”! If you look at religious or spiritual movements, you’ll see this understanding in place. I had a boss a few years back that talked about our work with developing students and how we were creating a “ripple effect”.

If you want to know more about the ripple effect, you can read about it on Wikipedia. The basic concept is that your intentions and actions you put out into the world spread. They spread outwardly like the ripples in a pond when you thrown in a pebble. At some point, you don’t see the ripples anymore, but they are still there, moving and traveling, to places you may never go and see. Thanks Dave for getting me to understand it!

Even Dr. Nicholas Christakis, a coauthor of the study and a professor of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School, understands the concept:

Your happiness is not just about your own choices and actions and behaviors and thoughts. It’s like there are emotional stampedes that ripple across this infinite fabric of humanity.

While, as most of you who know me really will know, I am not trying to get all “touchy-feely”, but during this holiday season maybe the gift we can give to ours kids …our friends …and the world is a better place in which to live. The first way to start is by clarifying what we are giving to it. To see a little movie on this, you can go to this YouTube video, The Ripple Effect:The Heartbeat to Eternity and give it a watch.

The second step … CLICK HERE!!! You had to know that was coming!

My wish for all of you this holiday season is a life full of joy and happiness!