Five

(I am not a dietician or a nutritionist.  I have, however, studied fitness nutrition and it is within the scope of my practice to make general recommendations about food.  However, there are more expert experts out there and anyone with deeper needs can and should consult them!)

 

We know when we don’t feel great.  Sometimes we don’t know why.  Here are five food culprits that might be contributing to our malaise.

 

1.     Alcohol.  No, I’m not here to take away your weekly beer or that special glass of wine.  I’m just suggesting that we notice how it affects our sleep and our energy levels.  Those of us who may be menopausal might discover that we have more hot flashes when we drink.  Just think about it.

2.     Water.  This one is where we can, most of us, increase our intake to feel better.  Dehydrated people are grumpy people.

3.     Caffeine.  I know it is easier to get caffeine than sleep, but it’s worth the effort to get the sleep.  Really.

4.     Dairy.  As we get older, many of us find that digesting dairy products is not as easy as it used to be.  Plant-based substitutes may make things more comfortable.

5.     Sugar.  Empty calories.  Inflammatory.  Addictive.  Tasty, but is it worth it?

But why?

Most of us have a pretty good idea about what our less-perfect habits are.  We have that nagging little voice somewhere that keeps suggesting we might want to dust off the weights, or find our running shoes, or reconsider that second piece of pie.  Our problem is not knowing what we should do; it’s doing it.

 

While my clients are working out with me, they don’t have to find motivation.  That’s my job.  (And, really, most of my motivational skill comes from having that Mom Look.)  Sadly, fitness does not happen in a single session, or even a couple of sessions a week.  People who want to make progress need to work out when they are not with me.

 

What motivates people to do their workouts?  Depends on the person.  Some people want to look cute.  Some want to climb mountains.  Some just want to feel better when they wake up in the morning.  The other part of my motivational skill comes from having lots of ideas about where folks can find the right levers to push to get themselves to work out on their own.

 

(This is the part where I pause and strongly suggest that all of us choose positive motivations rather than negative ones.  Shame is not good for us.  Exercise is not a punishment for bad behavior.  In the long run, treating ourselves with love is a much better plan.)

 

So:  I’m here.  I have ideas.  Hit me up.

Feedback

I love food.  I also love movement.  This is good, because healthy people need to eat and exercise.

 

Like all loves, we need to avoid obsessive love of either food or exercise.  We can’t out-exercise poor eating habits and no amount of correct eating can make us fit without getting off the couch occasionally.

 

The good news is that our bodies like to give us feedback.  We do have to listen to them, though, to get the messages.  Sometimes the messages are obvious, like the day after we helped a friend move and our muscles hate us—we overdid it.  Similarly, the day after too much birthday cake, we know we have made a mistake. 

 

Other times, the messages are more subtle.  We’re a little crabby and it’s because our guts aren’t as fond of dairy as they used to be, or we’re kind of stiff and we realize it has been a few days since we remembered to stretch after our workouts.

 

Tune in.  Practice listening to the body and see what happens.

Monday Workout: Go for it

This week we’re doing a pretty straight-ahead workout.  Plenty of compound exercises to burn calories, build muscle, and increase heart rate.  Three rounds.

 

1 leg step ups with weights	30
renegade rows	20
pushups	10
jacks	30
bench press	20
curl	10
(lunge) punches	30
Arnold press	20
brains	10

 

Four Things

Sometimes workouts are not as fun as they could be.  Here are four things to make them more fun:

 

1.     Bring a friend.  Having someone to talk to or suffer alongside helps a lot.

2.     Turn up the tunes.  Loud music drowns out the screaming of muscles, too.

3.     Get silly.  Wear the crazy shirt or the weird hat.

4.     If all else fails and you STILL hate the workout, please try a different one.  There are so many out there!  Keep experimenting!

The one characteristic

If I had to pick one characteristic of a successful workout, it would be… FUN.  Why?  Because we don’t need a lot of encouragement to keep having more fun.

 

Workouts work because we do them, not because they’re the most perfect one ever.  I can design a workout that ensures that every muscle group gets the optimum amount of work.  It might take three hours to complete and a whole gym’s worth of equipment.  A few souls might try it, once, but once would be enough.

 

Now I’m not saying that I habitually design workouts with gaps in them or that none of us should ever do any exercise that isn’t fun (looking at you, burpees!)—I do try to balance the exercises I give to my clients and we all have to do a few burpees—but that we have to work out more than once for it to make real changes.  And to make that happen, the workouts had better be fun.

 

Fun-adjacent workouts also work, once we’re really into the fun bit.  People who love, say, biking, are willing to do some lifting if it means that they can bike better or longer or faster or with less pain.

 

Short version:  start with what you love doing and go from there.

Gloom

So pardon me if I’m a little gloomy here.  I’ve been thinking about death because of family things going on.  And I have some bad news:  there is no fitness routine that will keep us from dying.

 

But it’s not all gloom.  Our workouts make a big difference in the quality of our life as we get older.

 

Left to themselves, aging bodies will lose muscle mass, which means that we get weaker if we don’t exercise.  We also tip our body fat percentage in the wrong direction when we lose muscle, even if our weight doesn’t change.

 

Strong muscles help us have strong bones.  Those same muscles also help protect our bones by keeping us from falling, stabilizing us through life’s many uncertainties.

 

Cardio exercise keeps us happy and keeps our brains sharp.  It’s also often something we can do with friends to keep our connections thriving.

 

We are still going to die, but let’s enjoy every minute up until then.