Showing posts with label fitness. Show all posts

Tuesday, 23 February 2021

How self-talk and one simple mantra helped me achieve my weight loss goals for good

It's that time of year again when people feel they need to lose weight. Here is one way to achieve this:

Speaking to yourself in this way is called “distanced self-talk” and is scientifically proven to help people achieve their health goals.

Photo by Chen Mizrach on Unsplash

By Rachel Hosie

It was a Friday evening in early 2019, and I’d just got home from dinner with friends. I flopped on to my bed, freed my food baby from the shackles of my jeans, and sighed.

I was trying to lose weight. So why had I eaten myself into a state of discomfort? Why did I fill up on tortilla chips and hummus when I knew there was so much more food to come? Why did I have the third piece of bread?

Why couldn’t I just get it together?

After years of overeating, it was a familiar refrain in my internal monologue. But then that voice in my head said something else: You can’t mess this up.

Instead of spiraling, I remembered that the only way you fail is by quitting. Instead, I would learn from the experience, and get back on track.

And that’s exactly what I did, which led me to finally losing weight for good, getting in shape, and building a new, healthier relationship with food and my body.

Reframe ‘failures’ as learning opportunities

For so many people, the barrier to sustainable weight loss is that they think they have to have a “perfect” diet all the time, but no one can do that. So when I inevitably stuffed my face with chocolate one night, instead of beating myself up for “ruining everything,” I told myself that I didn’t.

It was something to learn from. And as long as I got straight back on track, I would still reach my goals and it really wouldn’t make that much difference.

After all, no one gets a six-pack after one salad and no one becomes obese after one box of chocolates. As the months went on during my weight loss journey two years ago, I saw first-hand that this is true: I was working on my overeating tendencies, and while I still succumbed from time to time, it didn’t actually prevent me from achieving my goals.

On days where I went way over the calories I was aiming for, I stopped to think about why I did that. Maybe there was something I could work on. Maybe I’d just think, “OK, I didn’t really need all that food or that fourth glass of wine. But I enjoyed it, and that’s fine.”

Consistency always trumps perfection, and I learned that aiming for 80% consistency with my diet and nutrition was the way to go.

You can’t fail if you don’t quit

Changing your mindset is so important for weight loss success, and any good health coach knows this.

I first heard the “you can’t mess this up” mantra from personal trainer and fat loss coach Jordan Syatt.

Syatt explained to Insider that the reason the mantra is so powerful is that most people never achieve their fitness goals — be that weight loss, muscle gain, or simply feeling better in their body — because they think they need to be perfect to get there.

And when they aren’t “perfect,” they think they’ve ruined their progress and might as well not bother trying, which isn’t true.

“You can’t fail, because the only way you screw up is if you quit,” Syatt said. “As long as you understand that you’re never more than one bite away from getting back on track, then you can’t lose, you can’t fail. And the more you remember this, the more likely you are to achieve your goals.”

‘Distanced self-talk’ helps people reach their goals

According to psychologist and author of “Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It” Dr. Ethan Kross, my mantra is particularly effective because it uses “you” rather than “I.”

Kross told Insider that it’s a lot easier for us to give advice to others than to follow our own advice. So by using second and third person pronouns (like “you” or “she”), we’re able to be more objective and create some mental distance from our own experiences.

“People are better able to follow through with their goals when they talk to themselves using what we call ‘distanced self-talk,’” Kross said.

This was proven in relation to healthy eating in a recent study conducted by Kross and his team.

I’ll tell myself I can’t mess this up forever

I am in a much healthier, happier place now than I was a few years ago. I no longer think of foods as good or bad, or exercise as punishment.

Yes, my body has changed a lot over the years, but what you don’t see in a “before and after” photo is the mental work that’s really gone on.

And that’s part of the problem with fad diets or “quick fixes” — they don’t help people develop healthier mindsets, so any physical change that may materialize won’t last.

I rarely overeat to a point of pain now, but it does still happen occasionally, because I’m only human and food is delicious. And on those occasions, I remind myself that it doesn’t make me a bad person. It hasn’t undone all the progress I’ve made over the years. I just get back on track and keep going.

You can’t mess this up.

Thursday, 4 February 2021

Forget the Gym: Walking Is the Superior Form of Exercise

Walking

Photo from Canva

By Will Self

22/01/2021

The Outside Advantage

I cycle to get around and have increased this since the pandemic, for obvious reasons. I do yoga from time to time, when my ageing frame begins to creak and groan. But I confess: going to the yoga studio is a stretch for me, while gyms have always filled me with an instinctive revulsion. You don’t have to be a communist to appreciate the force of Marx’s observation: “The worker does not make use of the working conditions. The working conditions make use of the worker; but it takes machinery to give this reversal a technically concrete form.” Well, we may not work on assembly lines in factories as much as formerly, but I can’t help seeing the contemporary gymnasium, with its emphasis on training with machines, as a strange sort of nostalgia for that state: working out in lieu of… working.

The great virtue of walking is that it requires nothing by way of equipment. There is no joining fee

There’s this problem with the gym – then there’s that hell described by Jean-Paul Sartre as “other people”. I once visited Gold’s Gym at Venice Beach in California, the legendary location for the film Pumping Iron (1977), which pulled competitive bodybuilding, preening and posing, into public perception. The gym’s manager told me that the most important pieces of equipment in the entire establishment were the mirrors, and laughed indulgently (he was built like the proverbial well-constructed outdoor lavatory) at his clientele’s, and his own, consummate narcissism. But for those of us who neither possess such a hardened body nor are desirous of building one, gyms can be intimidating places – intimidating, and expensive, too.

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During lockdown, people were doing sit-ups, press-ups and even lifting weights in parks and other open spaces, but as soon as the gyms reopened, many disappeared back indoors. I really cannot understand this. To me, the most bizarre sight in the world is someone on a running or cycling machine, rather than running, cycling, or, of course, walking. Most of us, I’d contend, spend too much time either looking at screens (both for work and leisure) or through them, as we commute to work, drive to the shop, or even drive to take exercise. The last of these seems to me another cosmic solecism – and as it’s often the prelude to exercising inside, constitutes a doubling down on the denatured and technologically mediated nature of our contemporary existence. And, with the pandemic unabated, life for many of us has become still more desk-bound, the outside worlds of work, sociality and leisure all collapsing into two dimensions and 26-odd inches.

The great virtue of walking as a serious pursuit is that it requires nothing by way of equipment or specialist kit except the comfortable and hard-wearing shoes you already possess. There are no joining fees to walk, and you certainly won’t feel body-shamed by your fellow pedestrians, many of whom will be pensioners on their way to the shops. Walking is also by its nature spontaneous: you do it all the time, anyway, so why not simply increase the amount you do? The pensioners are strolling to the shops. So can you. And you can do it even if the shops are a lot further off. Which brings me to my main selling point for new-entrant walkers: its immediacy is what makes walking so appealing. There’s no need to locate a venue; you simply get up and walk out whichever door is nearest. I’m fairly rigorous about this aspect of walking, and I think it’s key to the success of the entire enterprise. Indeed, while I can just about accept driving to take a walk in a particularly beautiful or interesting place, for me, the really life-sustaining walks are the ones I take from wherever I happen to be.

15 Home Workout Apps That Actually Work

If I’m in the country, I walk in that countryside. If I’m in the city, I walk in that built environment. And if I’m in Selly Oak on a wet Sunday afternoon in January, then I take a walk in Selly Oak. Walking is the way I bring my mind and body together through being actively in the place I am, rather than trying to avoid it by travelling somewhere else, or blot it out by filling one or other of my senses with quite other environments.

The most conspicuous example of this is music, via headphones or car stereo, so as to make a soundtrack for the film of your life – which is really, when you think about it, creating a giant, imaginary screen around your experience of the world. I know, you’re thinking, “But Selly Oak (or Southampton, or Selhurst, for that matter) is pretty boring on a wet Sunday afternoon in January.” To which I can only reply with one of those exquisitely annoying parental formulations: if you’re bored, it’s because you’re boring. And by “boring”, I mean unwilling to take an interest in anything that doesn’t immediately appeal to you.

Lost Connections

Let me reinforce this with an anecdote. I once went to Easter Island, the most remote inhabited island in the world and one of the most exotic and extraordinary places to boot. The friend I went with was not a walker – though he did have other virtues – but gamely agreed, in principle, to join me for some hikes. The first attempt I made to hold him to his promise was also the last. We had driven to the north end of the island, where there’s an extinct volcano, Poike. It’s an extraordinary sight: an eminence of some 370m, entirely covered in grass, but with two quartz-glinting granitic outcrops on its shoulder, like epaulettes on a military officer’s tunic. We parked our hire car and began walking towards it – the giant, bright-green knoll, outlined by the deep ultramarine of the mid-Pacific Ocean. After no longer than five minutes, my companion – a famous artist – groaned: “I’m bored.” And I struggled hard not to pick up one of the chunks of quartz lying in the grass and use it to bash his brains in.

Which is all by way of illustrating this point: you cannot come to walking expecting some sort of quick fix. This is the ultimate slow activity. Yet once you’ve attuned yourself to the leisurely progress you’re making, you start to appreciate the extraordinary benefits. For one, as you’re not on an A-to-B journey with a specific aim in mind, you really can forget about any reward associated with arrival – such as the endorphin hit beloved of our running brethren – and instead abandon yourself to the pleasures of transit itself. In a car, or even on a bike, the world’s contours are ironed out for you, but on foot there’s a direct correlation between your muscle movements and your senses. The play of the breeze, the sunshine (and, naturally, the rain) on your face and any exposed flesh; the swish of grasses and other herbage against your legs; the smells and the sights – the walker is constantly surveying the territory he moves through with a full 360° panoramic viewing.

Moreover, unlike anyone using mechanised transport, he also has – returned to him, as it were – the foreground, which for most, most of the time, is reduced to a blur. The walker, if he consents not to be bored, has returned to him those vestigial senses of exteroception (the dispensation of objects in the vicinity), proprioception (awareness of the dispensation of his own body), and even interoception – that hearkening to the movements of our internal organs that, for the most part, we repress.

My walking isn’t simply a leisure pursuit – it’s transportation, entertainment, fitness and therapy

Furthermore, the car driver, the train and plane passenger – they all see the world around them as a series of detached views, but the walker is resolutely rooted in that world, his calves aching as he ascends a hill, his knees taking up the strain as he descends. I bumper stickerishly proclaimed above that it’s the journey that matters for the walker, and that arriving brings no special reward, but there’s at least one exception to this. When doing really long country walks – and I’m talking around 25 miles in a day – I find that just before I fall asleep that night, I’m visited with the most extraordinary reverie. I experience the entire day’s journey over again: every stile I’ve climbed and stream I’ve leaped, the whorled windows of cottages I’ve peered into and the muddy furrows I’ve ploughed along.

The first time this happened to me, I was overwhelmed. I had just done 25 miles out from central London and into the Essex countryside. There was the long distance, which, even as I was walking had gifted me a sensual and immediate awareness of the topography, and there was the map-reading, whereby I found myself regularly looking from the three-dimensional territory to its two-dimensional representation, and then back again.

The way we currently navigate using GPS systems places us at the centre of the screen and world. In this way, it gives us absolute location (we can even get a precise grid reference), yet no real orientation. We’ve all had the experience of getting off a train or bus and then wandering about trying to coordinate our movements with those of our little-blue-dot alter ego, so that we can work out where the hell we are. But old-fashioned map-reading, which is the method I’d strongly enjoin for longer exurban walks, entails orienting yourself as a condition of any route-finding at all. This means that the further you go, the more you start to apprehend that that wood must border that reservoir – and furthermore, that the ground rising behind the reservoir must be a spur of that range of hill. It’s this precise interpretation of the landscape (not without reason is it termed “map-reading”) that leads to the astonishing exactness of recall. I retraced that walk into Essex a decade later and found that I could do it without any recourse to the map, such was the detail with which I remembered the first venture.

In Search of Lost Time

Of course, walking without a map is an even more liberating experience. I am not a rambler, or any other species of Gore-Tex-sporting hiker. Don’t get me wrong – I have nothing against them, but their preoccupation with walking in particular places and at particular times is an anathema to me. My walking isn’t simply a leisure pursuit; rather, it’s transportation, entertainment, fitness regime and psychotherapy rolled into one. Apart from the aforementioned sensible shoes, I do take waterproofs with me. The über-annoying and self-satisfied hikers say things like: “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.” And in respect of these temperate and rain-washed isles, they’re most definitely right. However, though adequately equipped to this extent, I often set out with no clear idea of where I’m going to go. This is the dérive – or aimless drift – beloved of psychogeographers, among whose number I’m happy to include myself.

Taking our cue from the Situationists, a group of art revolutionaries who wandered the storied streets of 1950s and 1960s Paris, we see walking as a way of not only traversing space but time as well. Let me explain: once attuned to topography and well versed in the built environment, the walker becomes alert to a different sort of temporality: not the collective hallucination of incremental time displayed on the watches and computer displays that we all look at too much, but the subjective apprehension of our own duration in this world – our fundamental pace, if you like. The French Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (himself no mean stomper) maintained: “We think at walking pace.” And what’s revealed to me when I’m walking and thinking at the same pace is the pace of everything around me – just as when we pass by two tall trees or buildings, their position relative to one another (the parallax view) makes us aware of the angle of our own traverse, so there’s a temporal parallax that enables us to become aware of time not simply as an inexorable river flowing in one direction, but a huge and fluid body of fluxes and refluxes, in which we swim even as we walk.

I realise the above may seem a little verging on the mystical – especially if you began reading this with competitive track walking in mind, so hoping for some straightforward tips on whether you need spiked shoes, and how to avoid wiggling your arse too egregiously. I am, however, in deadly earnest. I sincerely believe that a walker can experience a form of time travel; moreover, that if he understands the environment he’s moving through even a modicum, there’s a sort of letting go that occurs as the metronomic beat of the legs begins to resemble some sort of chant – a physical “om mani padme hum”, if you like. We’re familiar with the free association of ideas, but in these states of walking meditation, I often feel as if I am free-associating places and spaces: seeing where I’ve been in terms of where I am now, and vice versa, such that it no longer matters if I’m boxed in by wet privet in Selly Oak on a wet Sunday afternoon in January.

I would never claim that my sort of walking is adventurous in the way that man-hauling to the South Pole, or rowing the Atlantic is considered to be. But I wouldn’t want that sort of adventure anyway, given that it involves ceaseless and strenuous repetition to the exclusion of all else. Talk about being bored. Instead, for me, the adventure begins every day I set out. I’m confident, even if I’m only walking to a bypass-bound retail park, that I’ll encounter something fresh, new and provocative – rather than just another “new car smell” Magic Tree air-freshener, dangling from the rear-view mirror, like a man caught in a trap.

Monday, 4 January 2021

What you need to know about exercising in the dark

Running

Image: Josh Gordon

Wear reflective clothing and stick to weekly routines and well-lit areas, experts say

Rachel Dixon

Short days mean many of us have no choice but to exercise before dawn or after dusk. But is it safe to run or cycle in the dark? What extra kit do you need? And, most importantly, how do you pull yourself out of your warm bed or off your comfortable sofa? We asked nocturnal athletes and experts for their tips.

How do I keep warm?

Layers are vital: leggings or tights, base layers, a running or cycling jacket and waterproofs. Sam Jones, who is a keen night-time mountain biker, says: “People often forget to layer their hands and feet. You can wear inner gloves and merino socks under thicker gloves and waterproof socks – try Sealskinz or Endura.”

How will I see – and be seen?

At night, you need reflective clothing rather than fluorescent/hi-vis. Fluorescent clothing works by converting UV sunlight into light we can see, so it isn’t effective at night, whereas reflective clothes use artificial light, such as car headlights and streetlights. But Ceri Rees, who founded the Wild Night Run series of night-time trail races in the southwest of England, says you don’t have to invest in a whole new outfit. “You could focus on accessories: reflective wristbands, bumbag and hat.”

Indeed, a study by the Queensland University of Technology, published in the journal Transportation Research, found that reflective strips worn on movable joints (wrists, ankles, knees and elbows) can significantly reduce the risk of a collision with a vehicle at night. The study, based on 50 cyclists and runners in Leeds and Brisbane, found that drivers were better able to identify those with moving reflective strips as people, rather than any other bright object, and discern how far away they were.

Off-road, runners will need a head torch, and mountain bikers will need handlebar and helmet lights. Jasmin Paris, a fell runner who won the 268-mile Spine Race along the Pennine Way in 83 hours, 12 minutes and 23 seconds in 2019, expressing milk for her baby along the way, says a head torch is the most important piece of kit. “I use a rechargeable one and charge it up after every run.”

Rees recommends a reactive torch, which automatically adjusts the brightness based on how dark it is, conserving energy.

Is it all worth it?

Try to think of exercising in the dark as a unique experience, rather than a necessary evil. You are entering “a totally different world”, says Jones, one populated by owls, badgers, hedgehogs and foxes.

Paris says: “Your whole world gets narrowed down to a pool of light in front of you. It is a form of meditation and has lots of the same benefits.”

Ultimately, Rees says: “You can choose to hibernate, or you can choose to defy the winter. There’s something very emboldening about running all year round – you don’t dread the seasons any more.”

How do I stay safe?

A common worry about exercising after dark is personal safety. One option is a runner’s alarm that straps around your wrist and is activated by pulling a chain or clicking a button. Paris says she carried one on runs when she lived in Minnesota for a year, although she never had to use it. She now lives in a village outside Edinburgh and feels much safer running in the hills. “I don’t worry about a serial killer coming to stab me in the middle of nowhere!”

Other safety tips include sticking to well-lit, well-populated areas; varying your route; running without headphones; and using a safety app such as bSafe.

Some say a few nerves are all part of the experience. “Running through a forest at night is very invigorating,” says Rees. “The hair on the back of your neck stands up, and you deal with your personal ghosts and demons.”

Jones adds: “Mountain biking alone at night can feel a bit eerie – you can spook yourself and hear weird noises – but it can also be therapeutic.”

Mountain biking after dark has the potential to be more dangerous but the risks can be reduced by riding familiar trails, using a good set of lights, wearing protective biking glasses and (of course) slowing down. Photograph: iStock

If you don’t feel comfortable exercising – or exorcising – alone, however, Paris suggests going with a dog (“although mine would be useless if someone tried to attack me”) – or a friend. In non-Covid times, you can also find a local running or cycling group to train with and enter a night race or ride. The MapMyRun app has a live tracking feature so you can share your location with a friend for added peace of mind.

Will I get injured?

You may think the risk of injury would be higher in the dark but Rees says there are far fewer injuries on his night run series than the daytime races. “Running at night engages all the senses and the musculoskeletal feedback is more intuitive,” he says. “You feel the ground more and your body reacts instinctively.”

There is little evidence that road cycling is more dangerous at night. According to a 2018 UK department for transport factsheet, most serious accidents take place from 7am-10am and 4pm-7pm on weekdays, and 10am-midday on weekends – when more cyclists are on the roads.

Mountain biking after dark has the potential to be more dangerous – it is harder to see roots that could trip you up or branches that could hit you in the face – but the risks can be reduced by riding familiar trails, using a good set of lights, wearing protective biking glasses and (of course) slowing down.

It can be difficult to judge pace in the dark, though. Rees says: “Your cadence changes; you take shorter steps and it feels like you’re running faster.” This sense of speed was confirmed by a 2012 study of cyclists published in the Journal of Sports Exercise Psychology – it’s all down to “optic flow influence”. In the dark, you can only see objects when they’re close to you, so it feels as if your surroundings are passing quickly, which in turn makes you feel that you’re running faster.

It is always sensible to tell someone where you’re going and take a phone with you, just in case you do twist an ankle or cycle into a tree.

How do I plan my route?

Paris spends six months of the year running in the dark and runs the same routes in summer sunshine or winter darkness. “The only thing I wouldn’t do at night is a technically challenging run, such as along a ridge in the mountains,” she says. Novice night runners may feel more confident on easier routes they’ve recently checked out in daylight.

Rees suggests doing different kinds of sessions in the dark. “Mix your runs up a bit, make it playful,” he says. You could use lamp-posts to do intervals, or “take your shoes and socks off and go round a football field barefoot” (as long as there are responsible dog owners in your area).

He also recommends brushing up on your map-reading skills. “It adds to the satisfaction to plan a route, study it beforehand and look at where you went afterwards,” he says. “Having basic navigation skills boosts your confidence and makes you more likely to go out.” Apps, including ViewRanger or MapMyRun, will help you plan a route and follow it.

Jones says it is easy for cyclists to get lost. “Things look totally different after dark, so consider buying a GPS bike computer and make sure your phone is charged. Start small, with short rides to build your confidence.” And always carry a puncture repair kit – you don’t want to be stuck miles from home at night.

How do I motivate myself?

If possible, exercise at the same time every week, so it becomes a habit, rather than relying on willpower. Paris works full-time as a vet and has two young children, so she runs before dawn. “Once you get into a routine of getting up at 5am, your body gets used to it,” she says. She also recommends laying out your clothes the night before and making a date. “After I had my first baby, I ran with a friend. If we’d arranged to meet at 7am in the hills, I couldn’t cancel – I’d be letting them down.”

Rees says it depends on where your motivation comes from. “If you’re intrinsically motivated, you’ll find a reason to run, whether that’s losing weight, getting fitter or just feeling better,” he says. “If you’re extrinsically motivated, you may need to track your progress on Strava, set mileage goals or train for a race.”

He also has a tip for evening runs when restrictions allow: “I often plan a run that finishes at a pub. I like to imagine having a pint and chat by an inglenook fireplace while I’m running.”

But don’t be too hard on yourself. “We don’t need to be martyrs,” says Jones. “If it’s pouring with rain and blowing a gale, don’t feel obliged to go out – there will be a better night.”

Will exercising before bed stop me sleeping?

Don’t worry about being too wired to sleep. A 2019 study published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology found that even high-intensity interval running sessions in the evening “do not disrupt and may even improve subsequent nocturnal sleep in endurance-trained runners”, while low-intensity exercise “induced positive changes in sleep behaviour”.

Paris ran around Liverpool “in the dead of night” to cure her insomnia as a student, while Jones says he is always relaxed and ready for bed after a night ride.

Okay, a pre-dawn session is going to interfere with your sleep – but you can always compensate with an early night. – Guardian

Monday, 14 December 2020

How to Finally Start Working Out (Even If You Hate It)

Exericse

Must start tomorrow! Have been too lazy far too long!

A guide to getting off the couch, no matter how much you might resist it.

Lifehacker

Dick Talens

Picture by Jonathan Borba

Hating exercise isn’t the same as being lazy. Exercise motivation is a complicated subject, but if getting off the couch is the hardest part for you, we’ve got you covered. Here’s how to finally start working out, no matter how much you might hate it.

There is actually evidence to suggest that your innate enjoyment from exercise may be determined by your genes. Relatively recent research from The Journal of Physiology selectively bred mice based on their predisposition to exercise. After a few generations of breeding (or shall we say inbreeding like Lannisters), brain activity showed that one group of mice found exercise to be rewarding—and thus voluntarily exercised more—while the other group did not.

But of course, people aren’t mice—Peter Pettigrew aside. There plenty of reasons exercise may bore you. Still, it’s hard to discount the fact that genetics play a role. For the unlucky individuals in this pool, this can quickly spiral out of control if you put on weight as a result; you hate exercise, and gaining weight compounds the difficulty of getting started.

More importantly: hating exercise isn’t a moral failure, as many would have you believe. Hell, the treadmill was originally created as a torture device, and you’re no more to blame for hating it than you are for...well...any other torture device.

But as I’ve said before, culpability and responsibility are not the same thing. You can’t help your innate feelings or preferences, but you’re damn well responsible for doing something about it. I’ve found that if there is a laziness of sorts preventing people from exercising, it’s not a physical one, but a mental one—it’s the laziness of considering alternative explanations rather than reducing the problem to sheer “laziness,” showing yourself some compassion, then committing to an actionable plan.

So get yourself in the correct mental headspace, and move forward with the following plan.

Pick the Correct Exercise Discipline for Your Goals

I’ve found this is where people make the biggest mistake. The default activity for anything health related is to start running or commit to an event such as a marathon. “I need to lose weight...I should start running!” “I need to improve my flexibility and back issues...I should join a marathon!” “Man, this rash still isn’t going away...I bet there’s a treadmill sale somewhere!”

There are natural reasons that running is the default exercise of choice. Not only is it super accessible, but society has a bit of a “just do it” mentality, which further implies that you should “just suck it up” and get started. But this is the wrong mindset. It implies that there are few nuances to adhering to your regimen, and failing means that you “just couldn’t do it.” Translation: you obviously “weren’t tough enough” to do something so simple.

In reality, because most people start exercising for purposes of weight loss, running might actually be the worst route to go. It can be a painful endeavor for those considerably overweight and—along with other forms of exercise that focus on the caloric burn—yields a low return on your investment.

This is not to say that running is bad. Do start running if you truly love it (or can honestly see yourself loving it), if weight loss isn’t your main focus, or if you explicitly want to improve your endurance. However, if weight loss is your priority or you just can’t stand running, consider other forms of exercise. Those who are overweight and sedentary will benefit from starting off by walking instead. Even better, consider investing some time into strength training in the gym (if finances permit) or using your own body weight.

Find the Most Important Measurement for Creating That Habit

The best apps are famous for getting users to stick and create habit around using them every day. One of the ways that they do this is through a concept known as activation—the magical “aha” understanding that causes someone to start using a product repeatedly. For example, Facebook’s “activation” is getting seven friends in the first ten days, whereas Dropbox’s activation is uploading your first file.

Thinking of exercise as “sticky” will do wonders for adherence, and luckily we can apply these same concepts to fitness.

When you pick your exercise of choice—be it yoga, running, strength training, boxing, or something else—find the one improvement that will excite you the most. If you take up strength training, this might mean being able to do more pushups in one total set or increasing your favorite exercise, like a dumbbell shoulder press. If you want to get better at running, this might mean a better one-mile time or a better time on your sprint. If it’s difficult for you to come up with a metric, consider using “perceived exertion” on a scale of one to ten. For example, if you start walking more, consider using the total amount of time that you’re walking at a brisk pace until you feel a 7/10 in terms of fatigue.

The concept of activation explains why many group classes, despite their cult-like hype, aren’t effective when it comes to adherence. It’s harder to find your personal definition of “activation” doing something like SoulCycle, or a similar cookie cutter class. Furthermore, you are forced to move at the pace of others in the group, rather than your personal one.

Whatever your choice for “activation,” realize that the improvement might be miniscule at first—an extra rep on your set of push-ups or a few seconds on your mile. But make no mistake, activation is important because it makes exercise “sticky.” It’s not enough to just feel good that you did something. That’s fine at first, but it will only last for so long, especially in those who inherently dislike exercise. Don’t trick yourself into thinking that you’ll eventually love it one day. Hell, even I still don’t.

Activate and Improve

Once you’ve figured out your metric for activation, measure your baseline. Using the examples above, that means seeing how many pushups you can do in one set or how long it takes you to run a mile. Make sure that you use a reasonable amount of effort.

Next, embark on a well-vetted beginner’s program, rather than going off on your own. For strength training, I suggest Starting Strength, Lifehacker’s body weight program, or the Minimum Viable Fitness program that I wrote. For running, I’ve heard many great things about Couch to 5k. Reddit’s /r/fitness subsection has a good selection of beginners programs. Make sure that the program that you select incorporates your metric and exercise for “activation.” Better yet, pick an activation metric that’s already in the program of your choice if you can.

After a week, measure against the baseline that you set, using the exact same conditions. In all likelihood, you’ll see an improvement—if not, treat fitness like an objective problem and figure out what went wrong. This as a concrete win...you improved. This didn’t take weeks or months, but close to a single week. Make sure to celebrate and appreciate that as a newbie, you’ll continue to make week-to-week improvements. Eventually, you’ll realize that success isn’t about following shallow mantras like “just do it”, but rather, moving beyond that mentality.

Monday, 7 December 2020

What Is the Best Diet for PCOS? We Asked the Experts What Foods to Eat

What Is the Best Diet for PCOS? We

Asked the Experts What Foods to Eat:

Nadine Primeau

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a hormonal imbalance that interferes with ovulation, increases production of testosterone and often causes insulin-resistance. Though the condition is incurable, one of the best ways to manage it is through the PCOS diet, which includes healthy eating habits and regular physical activity.

Celebrity trainer and fitness expert star Jillian Michaels knows this first hand. She was diagnosed with PCOS as a teenager and recently discussed how changing her diet made living with the condition more bearable, even keeping symptoms at bay for more than 20 years.

“No fake sugars, no processed sugars, no processed grains—things that drive insulin to the roof,” Michaels told Yahoo Lifestyle in September. “And over time, I pretty much had the situation under control.”

So, how does diet actually affect PCOS? And, if you have the disorder, what lifestyle changes can help you manage the conditions? We asked nutrition experts to weigh in.

PCOS and weight loss

PCOS is an endocrine condition that affects an estimated one in 10 women, but there are many misconceptions about the disorder among both patients and the medical community, says reproductive endocrinologist Jennifer Glueck.

One misconception is the relationship between PCOS and weight gain, she says, “Weight gain does not cause PCOS; PCOS does not cause weight gain.”

But, weight can impact the severity of PCOS symptoms.

“Weight loss is absolutely the cornerstone of treating PCOS because it is important to reduce the insulin-resistance not only to help symptoms but to prevent progression to Type 2 diabetes,” Glueck says. “Just as symptoms tend to get worse with weight gain, they do tend to get better and easier to control with weight loss.”

Glueck counsels her patients to make changes to their diets to reduce insulin-resistance—for example, eliminating added sugars and processed foods, reducing simple carbohydrates and increasing exercise.

Focus on lifestyle changes, not diets

Nutrition and the foods you eat are a “first-line treatment of PCOS,” says registered dietician nutritionist Angela Grassi, founder of The PCOS Nutrition Center.

“Food and the nutrients in food can help fight inflammation, reduce the risk for diseases that people with PCOS are more prone to, like Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and can even improve fertility,” she says.

Light Bulb

Healthy Now Tip

Use oat flour for a high-fiber baking substitution. Even better—you can make it at home on the cheap. Just put rolled oats in a blender or food processor and grind until fine.

But, too much focus on diets and weight loss may be counterintuitive and not sustainable, so Grassi urges her patients to make lifestyle changes to manage PCOS long term.

“What I am finding is that diets don’t work for people with PCOS because of the elevated levels of insulin, which puts them in a fat-storage mode,” Grassi explains. “They may lose some weight but without sustainable lifestyle changes, it can be quickly regained. Weight cycling can potentially make PCOS worse in the long run and impacts quality of life, and could lead to more mood and eating disorders.”

PCOS symptoms vary from person to person, so an individualized approach to nutrition works best.

“I help them develop a more balanced nutrition plan and challenge their distorted thoughts and judgments around food,” Grassi says. “I also help patients to become intuitive eaters. So many of them have lost the disconnect with hunger and fullness because of diets. Helping patients to add in enjoyable movement and finding the right supplements to help them is also part of it.”

What is the best nutritional plan for PCOS management?

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ recommendations for PCOS patients include eating more whole grains, fruits, vegetables, lean meats and low-fat or fat-free milk, cheese and yogurt to lower blood sugar, improve how the body uses insulin and regulate hormone levels.

The academy also suggests eating four to five meals or snacks a day, and not skipping meals. Meals should feature some kind of protein, like nut butters, lean meats, fish, tofu, beans or low-fat dairy. Healthy fats, including olive oil, avocados and almonds, can be incorporated in moderate portions.

Unless someone with PCOS also has a food allergy or intolerance, there is no reason to necessarily avoid specific foods, Grassi says.

“The important thing though is to notice how these foods affect you,” she says. “A balanced plate is a good place to start: half veggies, one quarter protein and another quarter whole grain carbohydrates along with fat.”

This approach prevents glucose and insulin surges and keeps you full longer. She says foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids, like fatty fish and olive oil, lowers triglycerides, androgens like testosterone and overall inflammation.

Exercise reduces PCOS symptoms

Physical activity can relieve many PCOS symptoms. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics recommends 30 minutes of moderate exercise on most days, with strength training at least twice a week.

Research suggests that regular exercise also led to a lower BMI and reduced the risk of depression in women with PCOS.

PCOS-related depression and nutrition

PCOS is an incurable condition. PCOS symptoms—irregular periods, hair growth on the body, acne and sometimes struggles with fertility—require daily management, which can increase the risk of depression and anxiety. Research shows about 40% of women with PCOS experience depression.

As a result, emotional eating is a “big problem” for women with PCOS, Grassi says. Eating disorders, including bulimia nervosa, are more common among women with PCOS, and can impact treatment of PCOS, research suggests.

Also contributing to the anxiety around PCOS and the diet is the overwhelming amount of sometimes-inconsistent nutritional information available. That’s why working with a registered dietician or other health care provider can help you get on track.

“The most common issues are confusion on what to eat,” Grassi says. “There is so much conflicting nutrition information available on the internet, with research showing the majority of it is false. Most people with PCOS aren’t getting enough information from their health care provider on how to manage PCOS and they turn to the internet.”

Find out how Lea Michele copes with PCOS and other celebrities with PCOS.

Thursday, 22 October 2020

7 Things You Need To Do To Have Consistently Incredible Mornings

The Joy of Mornings

What no one’s ever told you about having an incredible day

Katie E. Lawrence

Give a shoutout to Julia Florczak on social or copy the text below to attribute.

Ever since the beginning of time, people have understood what is important about mornings. Rising with the sun, (or before), has been something that people have done for centuries. If you were running a farm, you’d have to rise before the sun came up in order to get all of the work done.

But now, just like back then, mornings still suck.

You only had so much daylight and you had to spend it wisely — the same applies today. Except back then, there were no phones to be distracted by, snooze buttons to post-pone the inevitable time you have to wake up, or screens to mess up melatonin production.

“Every morning, I wake up saying, ‘I’m still alive, a miracle.’ And so I keep on pushing.” — Jim Carrey

How can we return to the ways of those who got so much real work done, and apply what they knew about themselves and the world to the way we do our work today? Here are six of my own answers to that ever-important question:

1 | Don’t check your phone first thing

When you check your phone first thing in the morning, you are caving to an addiction, hijacking any positive and motivating thoughts you might have woken up with, and distracting yourself from the opportunity of time you have to spend in front of you.

“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” — Stephen Covey

If you’re still doubtful, try it. For a few days, don’t plug your phone in beside your bed or even in your bedroom. Take your phone charger out of its socket and move it to the bathroom or the kitchen. Wake up with an alarm clock, and have your morning routine materials set up. You’ll be too tired to go find it, and will, hopefully, end up doing something different instead.

Try it — I bet you won’t regret it.

2 | Implement the miracle morning

Many have called this the Hour of Power, and implement it accordingly. This is an hour, give or take, dedicated to YOU. This time is not for your email, or for creating a to-do list, or for doing menial tasks dedicated to your low energy moments in the afternoon. This time is for you to do the most important work for you — without interruption or input from others.

“Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else.” — Peter Drucker

I have a tracker for my Miracle Morning, and for the entire month of December, aside from a few days I was out of town, completed and checked off the elements of my Miracle Morning every day. The elements, outlined by Hal Elrod in his book The Miracle Morning, are meditation, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, and journaling.

I usually will start off the morning with this outline, doing meditation with the Headspace app, read a list of affirmations from my journal, drink coffee and look over my vision board (both a physical one and a board on Pinterest — I know, female productivity and their Pinterest boards), exercise at my gym, read a chapter from my current book, and journal/plan the day with my bullet journal by Ryder Carroll. Having this structure in the morning had radicalized my days, weeks, and months.

“Remember, the moment you accept total responsibility for everything in your life is the moment you claim the power to change anything in your life.” — Hal Elrod

And if you feel like you don’t have enough time to get these habits done, you might want to check out another post I wrote called You Have Enough Time. Just the act of writing and researching it for myself showed me how much time I have in a cycle of a week not to only get work done and enjoy time with friends, but to spend time alone growing myself.

3 | Track your habits

Every morning, I get up and complete my miracle morning, drink water, make my bed, and post on my business’ social media. All of these are included in a habit tracker at the front of my morning journal.

This way, there’s no question of what I’m supposed to be doing.

I know exactly what I’m going to be doing in the morning, and I get the satisfaction and dopamine boosts from filling out the tracker with my progress and mini-accomplishments.

Make sure that you track your behavior in the morning — that way you get both the satisfaction of checking the boxes, and the awareness of when you’re falling behind on some of your most crucial habits. This habit has been a game-changer for me before 7 am.

[ Read More: How To 10X Everything In Your Life ]

4 | Exercise in some way

I’ve always enjoyed waking up and moving my body in some way, but it wasn’t until I started researching it that I realized how vital a keystone habit it can be in your life.

“Exercise not only changes your body, it changes your mind, your attitude and your mood.” — Unknown

If you’ve never heard that term before, a keystone habit is any habit that helps you to create and maintain more habits with greater efficiency and effectiveness. Working out/exercising in the morning serves this purpose because of how it gets your body started for the day.

“In a 2018 study published in the International Journal of Obesity, 2,680 college students completed a 15-week exercise program. Each week involved three 30-minute sessions of cardio. The students weren’t asked to change their eating patterns. Yet, those who stuck with the program made healthier food choices, like eating less red meat and fried foods. While the study didn’t test for the best time of day to exercise, the findings show how exercise can inspire healthier eating.”
From Healthline’s: 13 Benefits of Working Out in the Morning

Exercise is productive in and of itself, but it can also help you to continue to be productive further along into your morning. Not only does exercising help you to eat better, though. Exercise can help you to build momentum for further harder tasks in the day, inspire you to drink more water, and therefore help your brain to work more efficiently, and more.

5 | Drink cold water as soon as you wake up

When you think about it, water is literally what’s keeping you alive. You are about 75% made up of water, and so when you drink it, you are giving yourself life. If you’re like the average American, you probably wake up tired, sleepy, with a headache, and maybe even some dizziness. When I’m in a stage of the month where I’m particularly addicted to coffee, I most certainly feel this.

“If you have a very hot experience then shock yourself with cold water, it’s very very good for the nervous system.”- Gwyneth Paltrow

What’s interesting, is that those are all symptoms of dehydration.

Let me be the last person to tell you this before you decide to actually do something about it: You wake up every morning in a state of dehydration. You need to do something about it immediately after you wake up. Water helps you to breathe, think, lose weight, wake up, regulate your body temperature, and, dare I say — be productive.

Don’t deprive your mornings of something your body so desperately needs and craves every day.

6 | Wake up at the same time consistently

I’m convinced that we go through miniature traumas every day. Whether it’s a scare while driving, some frightening news, or a jarring statement by a friend, you go through a lot every day. On that note, stop scaring your body by jarring it awake at different times every day.

We get used to what we do regularly.

Be intentional with the time you wake up. One of the key tenants of the lives of the most productive people on the planet is consistency — they do similar things at similar times in similar ways, every day. This doesn’t take away creativity and discipline, it adds to that person’s ability to practice them.

Your body and your productivity benefit when you wake up at the same time. Pick a time that you can wake up on at a regular basis. This will help you go to bed on time every night, and to wake up knowing what time it will be, what the sun outside will look like, and more.

“He that rises late must trot all day.” — Benjamin Franklin

While I’ve fallen out of my habit recently, during the second half of December and the second half of January I woke up every morning sometime between 6–6:30. Not only did I get used to going to bed at 10 pm to make this plausible, but I learned what the sun looked like. My habit trigger wasn’t my alarm anymore, it was waking up to my alarm and then realizing that the sun was right where it needed to be to wake up.

Make waking up less of a painful thing — make it something that marks the beginning of a new, incredible, productive day. Be consistent, and build the habit of waking up at the time you want, all of the time.

Productive people are consistent people.

7 | Eat the frog

Your frog isn’t email. Your frog isn’t outlining something menial. Your frog isn’t something that you’ll do anyway eventually. Your frog is the most important thing to you. It can be urgent or non-urgent, but it needs to be important. While the frog is your worst task, it is also the one that you are going to get the most satisfaction from completing.

“Ordinary people think merely of spending time, great people think of using it.” — Arthur Schopenhauer

Do your BIG THING in the morning. It will get you ready for every other big and great thing you have before you in your day. Best way to keep your morning and your day productive? Start it that way. [Read more here: 5 Ways To Guarantee You’ll Do What You Plan To Do In The Morning]

Good luck, and have a great morning.

Stay tuned for more articles featuring the morning, evening, and daily habits of leaders of the past and of the present. Also, if you’re interested, click the link below to read my new Kindle book, On Purpose: Discovering Who You Are With The Enneagram.

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