Outdoor Training on a Sunny Day in May @ Crossroads Fitness in San Mateo

How to Make Quick, Healthy Meals at Home by Diane Lofshult

Nutrition: With just a little planning and preparation, you can feed your family a healthy and tasty dinner even after the most grueling workday.

How many times have you found yourself driving home from work with no idea what to make for dinner—or not even a clue as to what’s in the fridge? These are the times that test our resolve to eat well, and they often leave us making a beeline for the nearest fast-food joint.

If you are the chief cook and bottle washer in your family, take heart: here are some simple but effective tips that will have you whipping up healthy fare at home in the time it would take to have a pizza delivered to your door.

Make a Meal Plan
We all know how important it is to shop armed with a list, but first you need to decide on the specific meals you intend to serve over the next week. Once you have come up with a meal plan, you can determine the particular ingredients and quantities you’ll need to buy for each breakfast, lunch or dinner.

According to Jennie McCary, MS, RD, LD, a weekly meal plan is the key to putting a healthy, balanced dinner on the table night after night. “Knowing what’s for dinner and all that is involved in preparing it means there is one less thing I have to worry about when I walk in the door,” says McCary, a working mom who serves as the wellness manager for the Albuquerque Public School District in New Mexico.

The best time to make a meal plan is right before you go grocery shopping, says Natalie Digate Muth, RD, MD, a nutrition expert for the American Council on Exercise and a pediatrics resident at the University of California Mattel Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles. As a busy mother of two young children, Muth says the 20 minutes it takes her to create a weekly meal plan and shopping list is time well spent. “If you don’t plan ahead, the mental effort to figure out what to make each night and then ensure you have what you need to cook can be a drag—and all the more reason why you end up calling out for pizza again.”

When deciding which meals to cook on what nights, assign the simpler meals to the evenings you know will be most hectic or when activities are likely to run later than your regular dinner hour. Always plan one extra meal each week to serve as a backup in case an essential ingredient is not available at the grocery store. For ideas on what to prepare, the Internet is a great source for quick-dinner recipes; just search for “30-minute meals” or “simple meals.”

Invest in the Right Equipment
One way to take some of the drudgery out of cooking when you are tired is to have the right kitchen tools and keep them in functioning order. “Having up-to-date pots and pans and keeping your knives sharpened make cooking more time-efficient and fun,” says Nicki Anderson, a mother of four grown kids and owner of Reality Fitness Personal Training Studio in Naperville, Illinois. “If your cooking tools are not in top form, you’re less likely to enjoy the process. It’s much like exercise: when you have the best shoes, your experience is that much better!”

You needn’t splurge on expensive gadgets, cautions Jenna A. Bell, PhD, RD, CSSD, a Chicago-based nutrition communications consultant who runs the blog Eat Right Around Chicago (www.chicago.now/eatright). “Keep it simple, and invest in a good skillet, a sharp knife and a pot large enough to boil water for pasta or rice.”

Before you buy any kitchen equipment, consider the types of foods you prepare most often and what tools could make the job easier. “At my house we use a lot of garlic, and having a garlic press makes it a thousand times easier than taking the time to mince each clove of the herb,” says Muth. “We also use our veggie steamer and food processor all the time, so both were well worth the cost.”

Prepare Food Ahead
Experts say you can save considerable time and effort if you wash and dice certain foods as soon as you get home from the grocery store. This simple practice ensures that healthy ingredients are ready when you need them, a process that Anderson and others dub “shop-’n’-chop.”

“If a meal planned for midweek requires a cup of diced butternut squash or carrots, chopping these veggies as soon as you get home from shopping or when you have a free moment during the weekend will make dinner preparation a lot less daunting after a long day at work,” says McCary.

The best vegetables to prep ahead are the heartier varieties, such as squash, carrots, broccoli, peppers, zucchini and beets. To avoid spoilage, McCary advises against washing or cutting more delicate vegetables (like spinach) or herbs (like basil) until right before using them. After you have washed and cut up your produce, save and bag a handful from each pile of veggies to use later in the week for a quick stir-fry meal.

For those who prefer convenience over cutting, Bell recommends buying some veggies, like celery or carrots, pre-cut. “Grocery shopping is enough work, so if you are challenged by that huge head of broccoli, buy it already sliced or diced.”

“Identify what part of the prep process you don’t like,” recommends Sarah Kruse, a certified natural chef, freelance writer and mom based in Mountain View, California. “If you hate grocery shopping, order your staples online or join a co-op that offers home deliveries. If you don’t like the actual prep work, invest in a food processor that chops and dices. If you dislike cleaning up, stick to one-dish meals, like casseroles, or cook several meals at the same time so you only clean up once.”

Meals to Make Ahead
When it comes to deciding which meals to make ahead of time, Bell says, “Think stews, sauces and casseroles, like a veggie-based lasagna, which can be tasty even when cold!” Anderson is a firm believer in cooking meals in batches; she uses any spare time during the weekend to boil or grill a whole chicken, which she uses multiple times later in the week to make a quick chicken Caesar salad; chicken and rice casserole; and chicken and bean burritos. Any leftover side dishes, like boiled potatoes or broccoli, later get tossed into a big pot of soup or stew, which saves both time and money.

Cathy Leman, MA, RD, LD, is a personal trainer and the owner and president of Nutrifit Inc., in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. She suggests that clients make at least one healthy meal each weekend and cook extra portions of the main ingredients, which can then be used as the basis for other meals later that week. “For example, a client might prepare a Sunday dinner that includes a hearty bean chili; a whole grain–based side dish, such as quinoa; and a big pan of roasted vegetables. Any leftover chili can accompany a green salad for lunch on Monday, while the quinoa can be used for a cold quinoa and veggie salad the following night. And the roasted veggies can be warmed up for side dishes all week long or folded into pita bread or a tortilla with hummus for a quick lunch.”

Other Time-Saving Tips
“Appliances like rice cookers, veggie steamers and crock pots are essential when cooking after a busy day, especially when hungry kids are underfoot,” says Kruse. “You can get the rice going quickly, throw some veggies in the steamer and not have to worry if you get called away.” Kruse uses her rice cooker to cook most grains and certain legumes, such as red and brown lentils, and also relies on her crock pot to slow-cook one-dish casseroles and beans while she is out during the day; she even cooks steel-cut oatmeal overnight in her crock pot so that breakfast is ready when her family gets up each morning. Anderson constantly uses her crock pot to cook “everything, from turkey and wild rice soup to pot roast or a hearty chili.”

Cooking healthy meals needn’t be a solitary task. Invite a few friends over to cook this coming weekend and then share in the bounty. McCary gets together with friends each month for an internationally themed dinner; they rotate hosts and everyone brings one or two dishes that yield sufficient leftovers for all of the guests. “Cooking with friends is a fun way to expand our cooking skills and repertoire while we get to taste traditional foods from all over the world,” says McCary. Because the goal is to make enough so that everyone can take home leftovers, remind your guests to bring containers for their share of the loot.

For future planning, Kruse recommends taking notes when a particular dish meets or exceeds your expectations. “If the kids don’t complain about the taste or if something is easier to make than anticipated, write down what worked and why, so you can replicate it.”

The good news is that once you adopt one or more of these tips, you won’t be sorry. “People don’t realize how much easier it really is to cook at home,” promises Anderson. “You just have to shift your priorities a little. Once you get into the groove, you’ll wonder how you ever spent so much time and money eating out.”

SIDEBAR: One Ingredient = Three Quick Meals
Use these ideas as a springboard to create several healthy meals using just a few essential ingredients:

Ingredient Potential Meals Potential Meals
brown rice brown rice chicken and rice soup, Thai rice and tofu curry stew rice, kale and cheese side dish
whole wheat or brown-rice pasta pasta Primavera, veggie lasagna, cold pesto salad with salmon
black beans veggie chili, three-bean salad, bean and corn tostadas
canned tomatoes marinara sauce, tomato and rice soup, salsa dip

SIDEBAR: Essentials for Any Pantry
You will always be able to put together a quick and healthy meal if you stock the following food staples in your pantry, refrigerator or freezer.

•canned tomatoes
•whole-wheat or brown rice pasta
•whole-grain rice
•quinoa
•black or red beans
•low-sodium stock (chicken or vegetable)
•marinara sauce
•olive oil
•sweet potatoes or yams
•dried or fresh mushrooms
•celery and carrots
•garlic
•onions
•frozen veggies, such as spinach or corn
•frozen fruit, such as blueberries

10 Habits That Make You Fat by James Otis

If losing weight were easy, no one would be overweight. Unfortunately, the facts are indisputable: A chili-cheese omelet is more delicious than an egg-white omelet, French fries taste better than side salads and chicken is yummier when battered and fried.

On the other hand, being a healthy weight feels better than being overweight. And a healthy weight is a lot easier to accomplish when the right choices become second nature. In other words, weight-loss goals are more achievable when healthy choices turn into healthy habits.

Write down everything that goes in your mouth.
Nicole Wynne, licensed dietitian and nutritional consultant

Bad Habits 1-3

1) Poor Preparation.

Boy Scouts and healthy eaters have the same motto: Be prepared. Having a refrigerator and pantry stocked with the right foods — lean proteins, whole-grain carbohydrates, fruits, nonstarchy vegetables and healthy fats — means you’ll be prepared to eat what you should when you should. Similarly, entering a restaurant armed with a plan will keep you on the right track when dining out.

Preparation also means knowing your cravings and having healthy alternatives on hand to curb them, says Molly Kimball, a nutrition writer and registered dietitian in New Orleans. If sweets are your weakness, for example, keep fresh fruits or single-serve, sugar-free pudding cups on hand to satisfy your sweet tooth without taking a huge caloric hit.

2) Not Enough Water.

Drinking the right amount of water promotes overall health, from skin, bones and joints to the digestive system, memory and brain function. But Kimball says proper hydration can also help when you’re concerned about weight.

“Fatigue is one of the first signs of mild dehydration,” Kimball said. “A lot of people misinterpret that sluggish feeling as hunger, and they eat to boost energy.”

The impact of hydration on weight loss, however, goes beyond the prevention of misinterpreted body messages. A study published in the November 2008 issue of “Obesity” showed a definite association between increased water intake and increased weight loss. In another study, its results presented at a meeting of the American Chemical Society, researchers from Virginia Tech confirmed that dieters who drink two 8-oz. glasses of water before their three daily meals lose about 5 lbs. more than dieters who do not drink pre-meal water.

So how much water is the right amount? Kimball says the old “64 oz. a day” rule is too one-size-fits-all; different bodies need different amounts of water. She says a good guideline is to divide your weight in half and drink that number of ounces per day. So a 180-lb. person would shoot for 90 oz.

3) Not Enough Protein.

People who get too much of their daily caloric intake from carbs are going to have a hard time losing weight. Kimball recommends including a source of protein with every meal. The body uses twice as much energy processing protein as it does carbohydrates and fat, meaning when you eat protein, your body actually burns more calories digesting it.

Low-fat meats such as skinless chicken, pork tenderloin, lean cuts of beef and ground turkey and seafood are excellent sources of protein. Kimball says you can also sneak protein into your meals in the form of eggs, cheese, peanut butter, nuts, Greek yogurt, or low-sugar protein bars and powders.

Quick Fixes
The switch to a healthier lifestyle isn’t all about profound changes. Wynne suggests a few small fixes that can help lower the number on the scale.

Don’t eat in front of the TV. Having meals and snacks in front of the TV usually turns into mindless calorie consumption — eating not because you’re hungry but simply because the food is there. You’ll find it easier to lose weight and keep it off if you eat while sitting at the kitchen table.

Buy smaller plates. People feel the need to fill their plates. If you get smaller plates, you’ll eat less. Wynne recommends plates that are 8.5 to 10 inches in diameter instead of the larger dinner plates that run 12 inches in diameter and up.

Put down your fork after every third bite. If you eat too fast, you may be full without realizing it. Eat more slowly, and you’ll likely find yourself eating less. Wynne suggests putting your fork down for a moment after every third bite to give yourself a chance to realize when you’re full.

Increase activity outside of exercise. Boosting your heart rate and burning off calories does not have to be limited to official workouts. You can use up a few extra calories here and there by adding small amounts of physical activity to your everyday activities, like taking the stairs instead of the elevator, walking instead of driving when possible or taking your cart for a few extra laps around the grocery store when shopping.

Bad Habits 4-6

4) Too Many Liquid Calories.

Calories that enter your body in liquid form are inefficient calories. They count against your daily total, but they don’t make you feel full. Kimball advises against drinking your calories.

“No fruit juice, soft drinks or sports drinks,” Kimball said.

Instead, drink water, tea or coffee without sugar. If you must have sweetened drinks, Kimball has no problem with sugar-free soft drinks or low-calorie powdered flavored beverages.

Liquid calories often come in the form of alcoholic beverages, and those should be limited, too. If you can’t do without, Kimball recommends sticking with wine, light beer, or liquor with a noncaloric mixer like water, club soda or diet soda. Women should limit alcohol consumption to one drink per day, and men should stop at two.

5) Not Enough Zs.

You don’t even need to be conscious to work on losing weight. Getting the right amount of sleep seems to be a major factor in achieving and maintaining a healthy weight.

A study released in 2006 by researchers at Case Western Reserve University tracked the weight and sleeping habits of 68,000 women over 16 years. The women who reported sleeping five hours or less nightly weighed an average of 5.5 lbs. more than the women who slept seven hours or more at the start of the study.

The reason is hormones, specifically leptin and ghrelin. Separate studies conducted by the University of Chicago and Stanford University suggested that sleep deprivation causes a reduction in leptin levels, while also causing ghrelin levels to rise. High ghrelin stimulates the appetite, while low leptin makes you feel unsatisfied after eating, leaving you hungrier during your waking hours and, likely, heavier.

6) Skipping Breakfast.

It can be hard to make time for breakfast during the rush to get out the door in the morning, but if you’re interested in losing weight or keeping it off, you should make the effort to fit it in. Breakfast kick-starts your metabolism, forcing it to begin burning calories.

But many people simply don’t have an appetite first thing in the morning. Kimball says that’s fine — just make sure you eat something within the first two hours of waking.

She says the perfect breakfast combines complex carbohydrates with protein and a bit of healthy fat. Try two scrambled eggs with a slice of whole-grain toast, a cup of Greek yogurt with a handful of berries and chopped nuts stirred in, or a bowl of oatmeal topped with berries and a splash of skim milk with two slices of center-cut bacon on the side. If you’re usually in a rush in the morning, stock up on low-sugar protein bars and have breakfast during your morning commute.

Bad Habits 7-10

7) Shopping the Center Aisles.

A good basic rule to follow at the grocery store is to do most of your shopping near the four walls.

“The perimeter of the grocery store is what you need to be eating,” said Nicole Wynne, staff dietitian at Women & Men’s Nutrition and Weight Control Centers of Louisiana. “It’s where you usually find the fresh produce, the meats and the dairy. In the middle aisles, you find more of the processed foods you want to avoid.”

Wynne said there are a few exceptions, namely in the freezer section with its frozen vegetables and no-sugar-added frozen fruits and berries, which are nutritious additions to smoothies, yogurt and oatmeal.

8) Poor Record Keeping.

You want to lose weight, and you’ve been trying to maintain a healthy diet, but the pounds are not coming off. The problem may be that you’re eating more than you think. A food diary can be an effective solution.

“Write down everything that goes in your mouth,” Wynne said.

According to Wynne, the act of recording what you consume in a food diary is effective on multiple levels. First, you get the full picture of your daily caloric intake — it’s impossible to forget the handful of candy-coated chocolates you eat every time you pass your co-worker’s candy jar if it’s right there in black and white. Knowing you’ll have to write it down might make you reconsider that late-night bowl of ice cream. Also, once you’ve kept your diary for a while, you’ll probably begin to notice patterns — like a caloric uptick every time you have dinner at your uncle’s house — enabling you to make adjustments for particular situations.

How you record your daily food intake is a matter of preference. Some prefer an old-fashion pen and notepad, while others choose to use one of the many food diary applications available online, such as My Daily Plate at Livestrong.com.

9) No Weights.

You will not achieve your weight-loss goals easily through diet and cardio alone. A regimen that combines weight training and cardiovascular training optimizes the ability to shed pounds.

Studies have demonstrated a significant relationship between resistance training and weight loss. While both weightlifting and cardiovascular exercise burn calories and boost the metabolism, cardio only raises the metabolism during the exercise and for a short time after. Weightlifting, however, increases metabolism during the exercise and for a long time after. This “afterburn” — the continued burning of calories from lifting weights after the training session has ended — can last for hours, even days.

During the recuperation period, the muscle metabolism is still burning energy, and that’s when it’s time to perform cardiovascular activities. Combining low-repetition exercises (weightlifting) with high-repetition cardiovascular exercise will stress muscles in a complementary way to increase the total fat-burning effect.

10) Throwing in the Towel.

Cut yourself some slack. It’s one of the most important things you can do when you’re trying to lose weight. Missteps happen. You succumb to a craving and have an unhealthy lunch. Forgive yourself for it and get back to your plan right away.

“If you blow a meal, it is not a free pass to blow the rest of the day,” Wynne said.

Those who give up for the rest of the day, week, month or year due to a momentary setback will never achieve lasting weight loss. Mistakes happen, and the weight-loss battle is won and lost by how you respond to those mistakes. The best way to do it, Wynne says, is to forgive yourself for the lapse in willpower and move on at once, immediately resuming your healthy lifestyle.

Healthy Habits for a Healthy Life

If you see yourself in any of these 10 habits that make you fat, the best time to start changing them is right now. For every bad habit, there’s a good habit. And the only way to turn healthy choices into healthy habits is repetition. So start shedding your unhealthy habits, and you’ll be shedding pounds soon enough

Clients Working Out @ Crossroads Fitness in San Mateo

Here is one of my clients doing some Outdoor Training on a Sunny Day in May!!

If anyone else would be interested in doing some training like this go to my website www.precisionfitness.org for more info.

Pushing the SLED!! Great Workout!!

Taking out some AGGRESSION on the Tire!!!

Tire Flipping on a Sunny Day!!

Help For Discouraged Clients by Chris Peterson, PHD

Draw on these 5 ideas from positive psychology to keep clients upbeat and motivated.

What makes life worth living? Among the answers are work, love and service. A playful attitude brought to bear on any of these adds to enjoyment and ultimately our judgment that life is being lived well. Health and fitness also make life worth living, as ends in their own right as well as means to other important activities. Again, if our pursuit of health and fitness can be spiced up with some fun, all the better.

While few would disagree with these assertions, matters become complicated when we try to make them concrete. People want to live a worthwhile life. They want to be healthy and fit. But if the way to achieve these goals is unclear, they not only remain elusive, but they become sources of discontent.

For some clients who join a gym or hire a personal trainer, everything goes as planned, and their stories have happy endings. But other clients start discouraged or become discouraged. They may cancel their workouts or go through them half-heartedly, offering up more excuses than repetitions. They may fail to exercise on their own, and their gym memberships may lapse. Discouragement is a vicious downward spiral, resulting in depression and plummeting self-esteem, not to mention ever-decreasing conditioning. The discouraged client becomes a former client, and everyone loses, including you.

The Role of Positive Psychology
Health and fitness professionals are well trained in exercise technique. They may be less well trained in how to work with discouraged clients, and professionals themselves may become discouraged and choose to focus only on clients who are perky and optimistic. The rich only get richer, right?

Not anymore. During the last decade, a new perspective has emerged called positive psychology. Specifically concerned with what makes life worth living, this scientific field has led to practical advice that actually works. Positive psychology arose in response to the past 60 years of science and practice in psychology with its almost exclusive focus on what goes wrong in life—and how to remedy it. Without denying the very real problems that people experience, positive psychologists believe that what makes life worth living deserves its own field of study. Positive psychology does not replace problem-focused psychology but rather complements and extends it.

In this article I sketch ways in which positive psychology can apply in the fitness setting by speaking to the deliberate cultivation of health and fitness as opposed to the mere reduction of problems (e.g., weight loss). I consider in particular five ideas that positive psychology offers for working with discouraged clients.

1. Understand That Pessimism Is Not a Choice
I have spent the last 30 years studying pessimism and optimism. It is abundantly clear that pessimism has terrible consequences—for our feelings, our relationships, our success at school and work, and even our physical health. Optimism, by contrast, has wonderful consequences, the result of an active involvement with the world that pays dividends.

But no matter how frustrated you become with discouraged clients, resist the temptation to blame them for being the way they are. None of them has freely chosen to be discouraged. Rather, their pessimistic stance results from their past. Perhaps they have always been overweight. Perhaps gym classes or locker rooms in elementary school were sources of embarrassment. Perhaps previous attempts to become fit were judged failures.

Keep Talking to Your Discouraged Clients. When you begin working with clients, you speak to them about their health and fitness histories. You ask about goals and past failures in achieving those goals. But too often, these discussions are cursory. I suggest a deeper conversation, not only when training begins but throughout the time you work with a client. As a personal trainer, you cannot be a psychotherapist, but you do need to understand a client’s hopes and fears and in particular why he or she might be discouraged. This information will help you to plan workouts in ways that chip away at the sources of your client’s pessimism.

For example, is the client afraid of looking foolish? Every new gym member to whom I have spoken fears being catapulted off a treadmill, to the snickers of everyone in the vicinity. Many new members—especially men—do not want to lift puny weights in a room filled with seasoned exercisers grunting and grimacing. More generally, no one wants to fail yet again at becoming fit. Not trying provides an excuse that makes sense psychologically if in no other way. A good way to combat fears is to tackle them head-on by asking clients what they fear and then discussing with them how realistic their fears actually are.

Moreover, if you can walk (or trudge) a mile in the shoes of your discouraged clients, your own discouragement will decrease. You will be better able to sustain your own motivation and enthusiasm, both of which can be contagious.

Accentuate the Positive. As positive psychology proposes, it’s not all about problems. Ask your clients what they do well and what makes them happy. You will discover that all clients, whatever their fitness challenges, have strengths and assets in other domains that you can leverage—like a supportive spouse, active children or a deep religious faith. Along these lines, ask your clients about past fitness and health successes. If nothing else, at least these clients hired you, which means they’re not thoroughly discouraged and further—we can only hope—that they have discerning judgment!

2. Make Workouts Fun: Well, Duh . . .
Years ago, I spoke to an expert about middle schools, asking her about the difference between academic courses and extracurricular activities in terms of involving students. Her answer was stunningly simple. “Extracurriculars are voluntary,” she said, “And they need to be fun to succeed.”

Appreciate that for most of your clients, especially the discouraged ones, what they do at a fitness facility is the equivalent of an extracurricular activity in middle school. The gym must be fun in ways that work and home need not be. You are probably healthy and fit, and no doubt you already find the gym a fun place. But take an objective look at a typical gym and a typical workout, and it’s easy to see how neither may seem like fun to a new member. Gyms abound with grim people doing grim things: few smiles, little eye contact and a dearth of laughter. A gym can look like an unsynchronized Maori haka dance—intimidating and unpleasant to the uninitiated. Even the term workout itself sounds grim. Apparently, it originally referred to how a boxer trained—working his muscles relentlessly until he had nothing left (Simpson & Weiner 1989). But boxing is a job, and it is not supposed to be fun. Today’s workouts, if we must call them that, should have a different psychological feel.

How can you make a workout fun for a client? Besides having a playful attitude yourself—a contagious thing—there are some other ideas, suggested by positive psychology.

Create Workouts With Good Peaks and Ends. Consider how people decide that an experience was positive—that is, enjoyable or fun. They think back over it and recall its high points and how it ended. Their memories are surprisingly unaffected by the rest of the experience. This finding is captured by what is called, for obvious reasons, peak-end theory (Kahneman 1999). As a trainer, you should build in good peaks and good ends if you want your clients to decide that their workouts were worthwhile. The other parts can be quite ordinary.

A workout peak is not a joke that you tell. It is an accomplishment that the client feels good about—and upon which you heap praise. To make sure that peaks occur, choose appropriate exercises (see the next section, on flow). A good end is a concluding exercise that is a success for your client, again upon which you heap praise.

3. Devise an Engaging Workout
All of us are familiar with the psychological experience of flow, even if we do not know it by that name. Flow is a state of total engagement, of being in the zone and one with the activity (Csikszentmihalyi 1990). Time passes quickly. Self-consciousness vanishes. Flow is exhilarating, and it leaves us wanting more. If workouts produce flow, the motivation problem is solved.

You need not leave flow to chance, because positive psychologists have mapped out the conditions for its occurrence. Flow occurs when the skills one brings to bear on a task meet its demands. If the demands are too great, a person becomes overwhelmed and anxious—discouraged. If the demands are too little, a person becomes bored—again, discouraged, although in a different way (Csikszentmihalyi 1990).

Match Up Skills and Demands. The experience of flow does not depend on one’s overall skill or expertise. It simply depends on the match of skills and demands, and therefore anyone can experience flow. Of course, as skills develop, demands must change as well. As a professional, you need to tailor each workout in a way that makes flow likely. Know a client’s skills, and choose exercises accordingly. Change the exercises as the client becomes more skillful. Good trainers already structure workouts in these ways, but having an explicit strategy based on actual research can help fine-tune your approach.

4. Frame Progress in a Positive Way
Part of your ongoing conversations with a client should be about goals and how to mark the client’s progress toward them. Research shows that goals are motivating, but not all goals are created equal (Locke & Latham 1990). The goals that actually lead to change are difficult and specific. What are derisively called DYB (“do your best”) goals are not useful.

That said, a difficult and specific goal like losing 45 pounds is daunting, and if you and your client fail to elaborate on such a goal, you will see little progress. Break a daunting goal into manageable parts, like losing 1–2 pounds per week or month, and note or celebrate the accomplishment of each smaller goal.

Diversify Goals and Praise Successes. Weight loss is a typical goal, but it should not be the only one. Work with your client to set other goals as well, increasing the likelihood that something will always be going well (see the sidebar “What’s in a Goal?”).

A simple comment like “You couldn’t do that when you started!” can make all the difference in the world for a client prone to discouragement. Praise of course needs to be specific and sincere. Someone who is pessimistic may not be skilled at too many things, but detecting insincerity is among them! Appropriate praise that implies to the client that further improvement is possible and indeed within his or her control will undercut the pessimistic beliefs that produce discouragement.

5. Remember That Other People Matter
I often say that the major findings of positive psychology can be summarized in three words: “Other people matter.” This is true with respect to our happiness, our accomplishments and—obviously—our good relationships with other people.

Matter to Your Clients and Make Sure They Matter to You. You cannot control other people at your gym, but you can control yourself, and you can matter to your clients. There is a trainer at my own gym who is fit and vigorous. I think he has lots of muscles, but I don’t actually know because he wears the baggiest clothes imaginable when working with his clients. He makes sure he trains no one in the vicinity of the fittest or most attractive members of the gym or in front of an unflattering mirror. And he takes the time to introduce his clients to others at the gym—employees and clients alike—and to establish common ground between his clients and these other folks. “Oh, you’re both from Chicago,” he might say. “Talk about Da Bears.”

Make a point of helping your clients establish good, or at least friendly, relationships with others in your fitness facility. Whenever possible, team clients up with workout buddies (see the sidebar “Workout Partners Make a Winning Combo”). These connections will make the gym a more welcoming, social place, even for discouraged clients. And that may make all the difference.

SIDEBAR: What’s in a Goal?
When I first began an exercise program, my only goal was to lose weight, and I fixated on a specific number and let the scale dictate how I felt.

Progress was slow, but then my personal trainer asked me why I wanted to lose weight. I spoke about wanting to be more flexible and able to get in and out of my car when it was parked in tight spaces. I wanted to carry my luggage through an airport without pausing at every other gate to catch my breath. And I wanted to buy a shorter belt! Once I had articulated these goals, I had additional ways to mark my progress toward fitness, and I was able to succeed at them. I did lose weight, but it was the good feelings resulting from the accomplishment of my additional goals that sustained me.

One of the most useful conversations I had with my trainer was about “good” pain and “bad” pain. Workouts can leave you sore and fatigued—that’s “good” pain, and it indicates that a workout has been successful. “Bad” pain is sudden and acute, and it indicates that an injury has occurred. With this distinction in mind, I had yet another positive way to judge my progress, no matter what the scales might say.

SIDEBAR: Workout Partners Make a Winning Combo
One of the best strategies you can use with clients, discouraged or not, is to arrange exercise buddies or workout partners for them. It is not enough to recommend that their workouts become social. You need to make it happen, and good things will follow. Statistics on gym membership renewals suggest that couples are more likely to renew membership than singletons; families are more likely to renew than couples; and those whose workouts necessarily involve other people—like playing racquetball three times a week—are the most likely of all to remain gym members (Esquerre 2006).

Sports Massage by Tim Paine

How do the physical, physiological and psychological benefits of sports massage translate into measurable benefits to the athlete in terms of performance levels for both training and competition?

Massage is an important means of helping muscles recover from fatigue. By increasing blood and lymph circulation, waste products resulting from exercise are removed more efficiently and the supply of nutrients to the muscles is enhanced. This may help recovery and speed up the training adaptations, thereby helping to prevent overuse.

Helps Prevent Injury

One of the most important benefits of sports massage is the prevention of injury by helping to maintain healthy muscles. If an athlete, for whatever reason, has a tight muscle, this may compress the blood vessels embedded within it and restrict the flow of nutrients and oxygen to the muscle so that they are not able to function at optimum levels. This may increase the chances of suffering injury – either as a result of overuse, as described above, or a more serious traumatic injury such as a muscle tear. For example, in contact sports where agility is an important means of defense, a player with slower reaction time might suffer an injury from an unexpected tackle or impaired coordination.

Promotes Healing

Since an injured person is usually less mobile, his metabolism and the associated healing processes naturally tend to slow down following acute trauma. Sports massage stimulates these processes by warming the tissues, dilating the blood vessels and increasing blood flow, so that the capillary walls become more permeable. This allows better transportation of elements to the affected tissues and removal of waste products from the area, thereby speeding up the repair process. The correct techniques used after the acute phase may also encourage better alignment of new scar tissue in the direction of existing muscle fibers.

Restores Mobility

Massage helps restore flexibility to the muscles and joint range of motion by reducing muscle tension caused by the body’s protective mechanism following injury (see section on musculoskeletal imbalances below). This induces relaxation, and separates muscle fibers and adhesions caused by injury or occurring in unusually tight – or relatively inactive – muscles. Once muscles become relaxed, they are more susceptible to other means of lengthening.

Promotes Confidence

By helping an athlete relax mentally, you will also have a positive effect on his confidence and his preparation for competitions. This relaxed state and sense of wellbeing may also reduce tension and anxiety.

Musculoskeletal Imbalances

Maintaining healthy muscles helps prevent injury, but it is not sufficient to address problems with individual muscles or muscle groups without looking at the body as a whole. This is because parts of the body do not work independently without affecting other areas.

Not only does our muscular system function in a coordinated fashion, requiring specific levels of contraction from a wide variety of muscles to perform complex movements, but these same muscles also have many direct links between them via the fascia.

The skeletal and muscular systems are often referred to as one system – the musculoskeletal system – because of the way in which the bones and muscles interact and function together. The various parts of this system are interdependent: a muscle contraction in one area will have an effect on the state of tension in many other muscles, tendons and ligaments throughout the body. Likewise, a weakness or undue tension in one part of the system will inevitably have an effect on the rest of the system. For example, if an athlete strains the rotator cuff muscles in his shoulder playing tennis, the body may respond by increasing the tension in those and surrounding muscles in order to limit movement and protect the area from further injury. This is one of the body’s protective mechanisms.

The problem at this stage may be minor, so the athlete continues playing on a regular basis without treatment. As he does so, however, he starts altering the way in which he strikes the ball – this may be an unconscious action due to the tightened muscles in the shoulder, or it may be a conscious action to avoid discomfort. As the tension continues and the striking action alters, secondary effects begin to take place: muscles in the shoulder and back start working to compensate, posture may be affected, and in the long term, the athlete’s gait may change.

The effects of musculoskeletal imbalances are as follows:

Increased strain on muscles, tendons, ligaments and bone
Changes in soft tissue development
Changes in skeletal development (for chronic imbalances)
Reduced flexibility and range of motion
Muscle wasting or atrophy
Changes in strength
Changes in reflex actions
Changes in conscious action
Discomfort or pain
Changes in emotion
Poorer posture
Poorer performance
Some causes of musculoskeletal imbalances include the following:

Environment: Does the athlete have an office job and sit at a desk all day, or does he spend many hours driving? Even a simple act such as carrying a bag over one shoulder can start off minor imbalances that can become chronic.
stress: Emotional stress (as opposed to physical) often translates into tight muscles and postural problems. Persistent stress can also lead to weaknesses and problems in other body systems, often resulting in some form of illness.
Type of physical activity: Very few physical activities are well balanced. Most favor one side of the body, which will set up imbalances. You usually find the favored side of the body is stronger and has more muscle bulk. This can also lead to poorer range of motion in the affected joints.
Posture: Postural problems often result from secondary causes, such as environmental factors (see above). However, they may be due simply to development of bad habits. Check how your client sits and positions himself.
Hereditary: Sometimes, for all of the checking and history taking, there simply may not be any satisfactory explanation for imbalances; the problem may have existed since birth or developed through infancy.
Illness: Anyone who has endured even a short period of bed-rest due to illness is likely to suffer after effects. Apart from feeling fatigued, the muscles may have weakened, atrophied and stiffened due to inactivity, all of which may affect an athlete’s posture and gait.
Injury: Traumatic injury has many effects on the human body. In short, muscles that remain inactive will start to waste or atrophy. They will become inflexible, and the muscle fibers and connective tissue will soon shorten.
How long do imbalances take to develop? This varies according to both the cause of the imbalance and the area(s) of the body affected. Some imbalances may develop gradually over many weeks, months or even years. Others can occur in much more dramatic fashion.

Not all imbalances need to be corrected because people do not generally fall apart from minor imbalances. The sports massage practitioner needs to try to determine whether an imbalance is having any ill effects or whether trying to correct them – particularly after a long period – will cause more problems. After all, if a client appears to have been carrying an imbalance for a long time, his body may be very well adapted to coping with it.

Imbalances are often extremely subtle in their early stages and test the powers of perception and palpatory skills of the sports massage practitioner to the full. The sports massage practitioner must therefore always keep an open mind to all possibilities while using these skills. The gravity of the effects of such imbalances may not always be apparent, either to the client or the practitioner – so careful questioning, examination, palpation and assessment are needed (often over a series of sports massage sessions) before a clear progression becomes more obvious. In particular, any observations and changes must be written down.

When a sports massage practitioner is fortunate enough to provide treatment on a regular basis for someone who is engaged in regular activity, the task of assessing and treating minor imbalances becomes an important part of the training program. In these instances, the athlete may be very aware of his physical being and function. The practitioner will also become highly attuned to the athlete and play an important role in honing the athlete for enhanced performance.

Low Fat Diets & Heart Disease by Justin Smith

Low-Fat Diets Paradoxically Increase Triglycerides

Fats in the bloodstream are known as triglycerides. A higher level of triglycerides in the bloodstream can increase the risk for heart disease. High levels of triglycerides are also a very common feature of diabetes and diabetics are up to five times more likely to have heart disease than non-diabetic people.

For many years, an idea has perpetuated that eating fat will cause the level of triglycerides in the blood to increase. However, when we look at the scientific evidence it is clear that this is not the case. In fact, at least eleven dietary trials have found that a low-fat diet causes the level of triglycerides to increase (1-11), and no studies have found that increased dietary fat increases triglycerides.

Initially, this may seem to be a paradox, however, what these and other studies reveal is that dietary fat is not the villain it was once thought to be.

A low-fat diet will inherently involve the consumption of a large amount of carbohydrate. Guidelines from the British Nutrition Foundation actively encourage people to substitute foods that contain fat for foods that are carbohydrate-based. What is often over-looked is the effect that a low-fat / high-carbohydrate diet has on blood glucose levels.

Figure 1 compares the effects that a high carbohydrate diet has on blood glucose levels with the effects of a high protein and fat diet, during a 24 hour period (12, 13). It can be seen that the high carbohydrate diet causes wild fluctuations in blood glucose and much higher levels of blood glucose overall. It is worth pointing out that the carbohydrate content of the high carbohydrate diet used for this analysis was around 55 percent – this may be considerably lower than the carbohydrate content of the diet that many clients may be following.

Why is this so important? Well, high blood glucose is a serious situation that the body has to rectify as a priority. High levels of blood glucose causes circulatory problems and damage to the inside wall of blood vessels. A high level of blood glucose triggers the release of the hormone insulin, which is required to lower blood glucose concentrations.

Insulin enables the body’s cells to use some of the glucose, but if there is too much glucose the excess is converted into fat (triglycerides). This explains why low-fat /high-carbohydrate diets increase blood triglyceride levels.

Figure 1

Low-Fat Diets Lower ‘Good’ Cholesterol
High Density Lipoproteins (HDLs) are commonly known as ‘good’ cholesterol. In fact, HDLs are not really cholesterol. Yes, they contain some cholesterol, but they are more accurately described as a bundle of proteins, fats, cholesterol and vitamins.

The general structure of a lipoprotein is shown in Figure 2. The fact that HDLs carry other molecules and not just cholesterol, brings into question the whole idea of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ cholesterol. Lipoproteins carry a wide range of substances to and from the cells of the body; it is far too simplistic to designate HDLs and LDLs (Low Density Lipoproteins) as good or bad respectively. This is discussed in more detail in my book $29 Billion Reasons to Lie About Cholesterol.

However, assuming that HDLs are ‘good’ cholesterol and a low level of HDLs increases the risk for heart disease, as is purported currently; it is of interest that a low-fat / high carbohydrate diet drastically reduces the level of HDLs.

A large number of dietary trials have confirmed this correlation between a low-fat / high-carbohydrate diet and low levels of so called ‘good’ cholesterol (1,2,4,6,8,9,11,14-16).

This feature of a low-fat diet has been known for some time, but has not been communicated to health professionals or the general public – possibly because there are huge commercial interests in, and profit to be obtained from, the wide range of low-fat foods that are currently heavily promoted.

In reality, the level of HDLs is reduced when the level of triglycerides is high. A low level of HDLs is likely to be part of the overall condition or syndrome rather than being causative in itself.

Figure 2

LDL Particle Size
Another metabolic abnormality that is influenced by diet is related to the actual size of LDL particles (or ‘bad’ cholesterol). This issue is not related to the level or number of LDLs within the bloodstream, but is associated with the diameter of the LDLs that do exist.

The properties of LDLs change considerably as they become smaller in size. Smaller LDLs have very different effects when compared with larger or normal sized LDLs.

When heart disease is present, fat and cholesterol do not simply clog-up the arteries. Rather, tissue damage occurs beneath the inside wall of an artery and a process of inflammation commences. When LDLs are smaller in diameter, it is thought that they can pass through the inside wall of an artery more easily. Smaller LDLs can more easily become oxidised and cause further tissue damage. In fact, there are at least eight different potential mechanisms whereby LDLs can become dangerous when they are reduced in size (17).

It is now widely recognized that smaller LDL particles are associated with a greater risk for heart disease (18-20). By contrast, larger LDLs are associated with a longer life (21).

Interestingly, a diet that is higher in saturated fat actually increases the size of LDL particles (22,23) and a low-fat / high carbohydrate diet leads to a smaller LDL particle size (14,24-26).

Saturated Fat and Cholesterol

There is a misconception that saturated fat in the diet will cause cholesterol levels to increase and in turn, increase the risk for heart disease. This misconception probably started with Dr. Ancel Keys. Dr. Keys tried to show that blood cholesterol levels are high in countries where people eat lots of foods containing saturated fat. In 1958 he described this ‘connection’ by plotting the data for various countries on a graph (27).

However, just in the same way as other published work by Keys, he had omitted critical data from the graph in order to support his idea. It is now well-known within the scientific community that at the time Keys published his paper, data was available for additional countries that did not appear on his graph, and if these countries were included, the data would have shown no connection at all between fat intake and blood cholesterol levels.

The misconception that saturated fat causes cholesterol levels to increase has fueled the popularity of the low-fat diet. However, the fact is that there has never been any convincing evidence to show that saturated fat in the diet increases cholesterol levels.

There is also a distinct lack of evidence to support the idea that cholesterol itself causes heart disease – as have been discussed in other articles.

How Much Carbohydrate?

Armed with the above information, a logical question emerges concerning the optimum carbohydrate intake compared with protein and fat. This, of course, depends entirely upon the individual person. It is not so much a question of too much carbohydrate per se, but more appropriately, too much carbohydrate for the individual person.

Each person has their own optimal macronutrient ratio as a function of their Metabolic Type®, lifestyle, and exercise levels. This can be thought of in the context of a radio dial where each person has to ‘tune-in’ to their own optimal macronutrient ratio. This radio dial analogy is illustrated in Figure 3.

Suffice to say that if a client has the collection of metabolic abnormalities described in the summary box above, we can be quite sure that their carbohydrate consumption is currently too high for them – the reduction of dietary carbohydrate and the addition of an appropriate exercise program can improve these abnormalities significantly.

What is Fitness Psychology? by Nate Miyaki

Hit the weights a few times a week, walk more, don’t eat crappy food, control your portions, drink more water, etc., etc. We all have a basic idea of what we should be doing right? So why don’t we actually do it? Bookshelves, websites, and infomercials are full of the hottest new diet and training programs that are finally going to get you results. Trust me, it is not the diet or training programs that are the problem — it’s you.

There is a huge disconnect between what we know we should be doing and what we actually do. How long have you actually stuck with a program before searching for the next best thing, an easier way, etc.? And how consistent were you with that program?

I’m going to let you in on a little secret that the fitness gurus don’t want you to know. Most programs — if they are at least somewhat based on basic physiological principles and get people to be more structured — can get you decent results. While some are more efficient than others, and us fitness geeks can argue over the superiority of one program to the next, the truth remains that they all can at least partially help you reach your goals.

If that’s the case, than why are so few people getting results and so many more people are still overweight? The reason is most people aren’t following the programs consistently enough. Lets be honest, there is more than enough information out there in today’s fitness industry. People would better be served focusing on the motivating factors that are going to help them stick to a plan (whatever that plan may be) rather than trying to find the latest, greatest fad diet or training protocol.

That’s where fitness psychology comes in. Fitness psychology borrows principles from sports psychology and behavioral psychology to help individuals reach their physique goals. This is a huge aspect of fitness that is often overlooked by trainers, nutritionists, and medical professionals. You can give someone the best advice in the world, but if they don’t follow it than the advice is meaningless. The more I become involved in this industry, the more I believe that psychology is the most important piece of the puzzle.

The value of sports psychology is recognized in the athletic realm. The 4th quarter, the 9th inning, the last round, the last set, the final 100 meters; its heart, determination, drive, will power, and mental strength that separates the champions from the rest of the pack. At the top levels all athletes have superior physical skills, it is those who master the mental side of the game that consistently triumph over the competition. A strong will can conquer over superior skills any day — it happens all of the time.

Sports psychology is an established scientific field that deals with the mental aspects of athletic competition. Professionals use techniques to make sure athletes are mentally prepared for competition. They use techniques such as goal setting, mental visualization, and motivational strategies to ensure athletes perform up to their peak potential.

Most people are less concerned with performance and are more concerned with appearance. They don’t need to beat any competition (unless they are bodybuilders and figure athletes), they just need to overcome their own personal roadblocks to losing fat and looking good. But trust me when I tell you there is a huge mental component to the “fitness game”, perhaps even more so than in athletic competition. If you are not mentally prepared to achieve your physique goals, you will not be successful. It takes a strong will to be consistent with fitness training and nutrition regimens.

I wish it were as easy as just waking up one day, deciding to get in shape, and then “boom”, magically it happens. It certainly is not. If it were that easy everyone would be in shape. What’s easy is skipping a work out when you’re not feeling up to it or work gets busy. Its easy to cheat on your favorite foods when you’ve had a stressful day. A little more jiggle with your wiggle doesn’t seem so bad when a bowl of ice cream is staring at you right in the face waiting for you to make your move.

You need strong motivating factors to help you stay the course. Just “wanting to get in shape” or to “lose some weight” is not enough to get the job done. Fitness psychology can help you look inside yourself to find the real, personal reasons that will motivate you to do what most people can’t, or won’t.

We all need to spend less time looking for external solutions (trainers, nutrition books, internet gurus) and start looking for internal solutions to our health and body composition problems. You know fish and vegetables is a better choice than burgers and fries, but what’s going to motivate you to make that choice.

The importance of finding true motivating factors can be demonstrated with some extreme examples. Lets say I put a plate of your favorite food in front of you. I don’t care what it is — pizza, lasagna, burgers, ice cream, etc. Lets also say I held a gun to your head and said if you eat that food today I’m going to pull the trigger. Guess what? You’re not going to be eating pizza today.

There are some people who have an extreme food allergen to peanuts. Just being around nuts can cause extreme reactions, even death. You know what those people don’t do? They don’t eat peanuts.

Obviously we don’t want to have to resort to extreme measures to get the job done. Fitness psychology can help you find what personally motivates you in your every day life. Like with fitness training and nutrition, you can’t just take a haphazard approach. You need structure and professional guidance to learning effective mental strategies for success. Don’t just write it off as a bunch of BS. Spending some time learning fitness psychology principles can make the difference between achieving long term, permanent results and spending years spinning the wheels, getting nowhere, and/or yo-yo’ing back and forth

The Cost of Obesity by Carole Carson

One out of two Americans will require treatment for diabetes or prediabetes-at an annual cost of $3.35 trillion-less than 10 years from now, according to a report issued by UnitedHealth Group. Will the rising cost of medical care, whether paid individually or collectively through government, trigger a change in behavior? Will individuals trim their bodies to fatten their wallets? 


While the diabetes report with its startling statistics is making headline news in the United States, a less dramatic but no less useful report is providing insight into worrisome health perceptions and unhealthy behaviors of our northern neighbors.

The percentage of Canadians who are overweight or obese has risen to 60 percent, slightly less than the United States’ rate of 68 percent. And like the children in the United States, Canadian youth are getting fatter: one in four is overweight or obese compared to one in three in the United States.

But unlike residents of the United States, Canadians have enjoyed publicly funded healthcare provided either free or at minimal cost. As healthcare costs have risen in Canada, however, the financial burden has started to shift from the government and employers to individuals.

In 2005, Canadian residents paid for an estimated 20 percent of their healthcare costs, with employers and governments picking up the balance. According to projections in a 2007 Sun Life Financial healthcare and benefits trends report, in 2015, individuals may be responsible for as much as 34 percent of healthcare costs, and this number will continue to increase.

Can a Strategy of Prevention Work?

The most obvious way to keep healthcare costs from continuing to rise is through prevention of illness. Not only does prevention ensure optimum health for individuals, it is also the key to affordability for individuals, employers and the government. Less obvious, however, is how to encourage individuals to make daily choices that result in optimum health.

In an effort to understand the health perceptions and behaviors of Canadian residents, Sun Life Financial, a Toronto-based international financial services organization, undertook a study of nearly 4,000 Canadian residents, ages 18 to 80. The respondents were asked 45 questions on topics ranging from current behaviors to barriers preventing healthy choices.

Participants were asked to note which of six healthy behaviors they engaged in:

Exercised 30 or more minutes each day
Stayed away from tobacco
Ate 7-10 servings of vegetables and fruit each day
Received seven hours of sleep nightly
Felt in control, were coping
Maintained a healthy weight
The study of the respondents engaged in three or more unhealthy behaviors. For example, they didn’t exercise, they didn’t maintain a healthy weight and they smoked.

The study also found that 81 percent of those surveyed believe that common diseases are completely or mostly preventable. Yet despite this belief, almost two-thirds (63 percent) have adopted a pattern of unhealthy behaviors. Their actions indicated a major disconnect between behaviors that are in their best interest and behaviors that increased their health risks.

When asked who was responsible for their choices, 96 percent of the respondents accepted some responsibility; however, most felt the responsibility was somewhat shared in varying degrees with their employer, the government, and their doctor or healthcare provider.

The question then arises: if the respondents knew their behaviors were not healthy and that they had the primary responsibility for the choices they were making, why not change? Why not simply adopt healthier behaviors? The majority (61 percent) cited a lack of willpower.

When respondents were asked to cite their resolutions, the majority of the goals involved improving their health. But the level of follow-through was impressively low: 8 out of 10 respondents had not kept their resolutions. Why not? Once again, 76 percent cited a lack of willpower as the cause.

In addition to analyzing responses, researchers also sought to categorize the respondents into five health profiles:

Overconfident: These individuals tend to be young males who underestimate their health risks.
Overextended: These individuals are burdened with responsibilities and have little time or energy left for their own health.
Health achievers: These individuals meet or exceed the requirements for healthy behaviors.
Resilient: These individuals are seeking to adopt healthy behaviors despite obstacles, such as a chronic medical condition.
Inhibited: These individuals underestimate their own health and tend to place responsibility for their wellness on others, including medical professionals.
Within the entire group, however, less than half of those surveyed (45 percent) made health the number one priority, citing shortages of time, knowledge and money as barriers toward a healthy lifestyle

When does health become a priority?

Given the insights from the study, I asked Lori Casselman, assistant vice president, group benefits, at Sun Life Financial, to share the latest ideas on how attitudes and behaviors can be shifted so that health becomes a priority. How can willpower be strengthened? Casselman cited two significant ways to influence employee choices.

First, new education and lifestyle change tools are being implemented that rely on technology. In increasing numbers, high-performing companies are relying on e-learning programs and social networking tools to encourage healthy behaviors among employees.

Second, employers find that incentives increase participation in programs promoting healthful behaviors. Incentives are provided in a variety of ways, from gift certificates to weekend getaways, health spending account credits to gym memberships. Because of the success of incentives in increasing participation, the use of incentives is growing dramatically.

Can these and other tools shift the behavior of the majority of employees? Will financial incentives, lifestyle change programs and education be sufficient to strengthen individual willpower? Or is the issue more deeply rooted than that?

In explaining why some people succeed in making changes and others fail, Dr. James Gordon, author of Unstuck, asserts that “It’s not that some people have willpower and some don’t. It’s that some people are ready to change and others are not.”

Is Dr. Gordon’s discerning insight on target? Because if he is right, in addition to focusing on how to beef up individual willpower, we also need to figure out how to encourage entire communities in Canada and the United States to get fit and lose weight while medical care is still affordable.

Focusing on community programs rather than individual efforts can produce large scale shifts in values.

As a community fitness organizer, I know that pioneering technology used for weight loss and fitness events in geographic communities can be applied to corporate communities. Support for the corporate programs is also available through online groups. Both efforts can create synergy by shifting the focus from individual effort to group effort, from personal willpower to teamwork and accountability.

For the majority of us, if we trimmed our bodies, we would ultimately fatten our wallets. But to achieve maximum leverage with the greatest number of individuals in the shortest possible time frame, we’ll have to move beyond personal financial rewards. To overcome won’t power with willpower, we need to go beyond individual effort and tackle the issues of fitness and weight as a community, whether that community is physical, geographic or online. And we need to execute this shift quickly, while medical care is still affordable.

Mindfulness & Weight Loss by Kelly McGonial, PhD

Research supports the idea that being mindful of what we eat and how we move makes a difference in how much we weigh.

Imagine this: you’re staring at your favorite forbidden food—the one thing that threatens to topple your diet. You pick it up, studying its color, shape and texture. You lift it to your nose and welcome its tempting aroma. Finally, you take a bite and savor its taste.

In any other moment, you might be feeling guilty for giving in. It could even be the start of a binge. But not tonight. That’s because the food isn’t forbidden—it’s an assignment. This is a weight loss group, and you and all the other participants have brought in your trigger foods. Chocolate, potato chips, doughnuts, you name it. You’re learning how to experience these foods in the moment, without judgment and without guilt. You’re learning to notice whether foods that promise sweet satisfaction actually deliver anything more than a greasy aftertaste. And you’re learning how to handle cravings for these foods without freaking out or falling apart.

Welcome to mindful eating, a growing trend designed to address both the rising rates of obesity and the well-documented fact that most diets don’t work (Katan 2009). A growing body of research reveals how this approach can support weight loss and improve health.

Mindless Eating
In an ideal world, the natural cues of hunger, fullness and pleasure would guide us toward what the body needs, and our knowledge of nutrition would steer us toward our long-term health goals. In reality, what we eat is shaped by countless cues outside our conscious awareness, and even the best food plan can be derailed by stress.

The result? Mindless eating: what, when and how much we eat runs counter to both the body’s true needs and our own health goals.

Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell University Food and Brand Laboratory, has made his career pointing out the mindless (and often mind-blowing) mistakes we make when choosing what, when and how much to eat. Wansink’s research has shown that our food choices are typically influenced by many factors that we don’t usually pay attention to, such as room temperature and lighting, how much the people we eat with consume, whether we are watching television, how visible snack foods are, the variety of food choices at a meal, and even the shape and size of plates or cups (Wansink 2004).

In one of his best-known studies, Wansink gave moviegoers at a Philadelphia theater 14-day-old popcorn instead of a fresh batch (Wansink & Kim 2005). As rated by the participants themselves after the movie, this popcorn was nasty stuff: stale, soggy, verging on disgusting. But did the moviegoers storm the popcorn stand demanding refunds? No, they ate it up. And if they were given a large container instead of the medium size, they ate 34% more. The unsuspecting participants made their eating choices based on external cues (container size, the sound of others eating) and the expectation that the popcorn would taste good. They even ate about 60% as much popcorn as those who received a fresh batch.

This may be an embarrassing finding for the popcorn eaters, but it’s one to which few of us are immune. Even eating “experts” are susceptible to the power of external cues, as demonstrated by another of Wansink’s studies (Wansink, van Ittersum & Painter 2006). Eighty-five faculty, graduate students and staff at the University of Illinois department of food science and human nutrition were lured to a buffet-style ice cream social. Unbeknownst to them, half were given bowls nearly twice the size of the other bowls given to attendees.

Did bigger bowls lead these nutritional experts to load up on extra ice cream? Yep. They served themselves and ate 31% more ice cream than those given small bowls. And if they were also using a larger serving spoon, they served themselves 57% more than those using small bowls and a smaller serving spoon. But most interesting, those with small bowls and those with large bowls estimated that they had served themselves the same number of ounces. The experts were unable to consciously adjust their estimates, because they were unaware that bowl and spoon size might be influencing their consumption.

Why are we so easily influenced by external factors? According to Wansink, most of our eating decisions are automatic. To demonstrate this, Wansink asked people to guess how many food-related decisions they make each day (Wansink & Sobal 2007). Consider the question yourself. Do you have any idea? If you’re like most people, you don’t: participants guessed an average of 14.4 choices. In reality, when the participants carefully tracked their decisions, the average was 226.7. That’s more than 200 choices that participants were unaware of initially. And without awareness, it is hard to listen to the body’s wisdom or make conscious choices.

From Mindless to Mindful Eating
According to Susan Albers, PsyD, author of Eat, Drink and Be Mindful (New Harbinger 2009), mindless eating is a major factor in weight gain and a saboteur of weight loss. “In many cases, it’s not the meals we eat that cause weight gain. It’s the snacking, the mindless eating while watching television, when we’re on autopilot and not really aware of what we’re eating.” And it’s not just the environment or distractions that trigger automatic eating. Emotions play a big role. “The majority of food decisions people make have nothing to do with hunger. They have to do with stress, anxiety, sadness or frustration.”

This is where mindfulness comes in. Mindfulness is the process of paying attention, both to inner cues (thoughts, emotions and sensations) and to your environment. When applied to eating, this can mean the difference between one more failed diet and lasting change you can live with. “When clients address their mindless eating, they often naturally lose weight,” Albers says.

Albers breaks mindful eating into three components:

Mindful Eating in the Moment. This means getting rid of distractions like reading, watching television or eating on the go. It also means being aware of the sensations of eating—really tasting, smelling and enjoying the food as you eat it. Finally, it means knowing what it feels like to be hungry or full, and learning to honor those signals. “Mindless eaters have so lost touch with the feeling of fullness. But with practice you start to realize, if I eat any more, I’m not going to feel good. ”
Nonjudgmental Awareness of Eating Habits and Beliefs. Albers encourages her clients to keep a food journal to get a clear sense of their eating habits, and to pay attention to habits like where they keep food in the house or office and how they go about food shopping. It’s also important to notice how you talk to yourself about food. “Be mindful of the voices in your head, the messages Mom might have given you about food.” Common self-defeating beliefs include not wanting to waste food, putting foods into black-and-white “good” and “bad” categories or trying to show people you love them by sharing rich comfort foods.
Nonjudgmental Awareness of Environmental and Emotional Triggers for Eating. A bakery case full of French pastries may trigger a craving that was not there a moment ago. That craving has nothing to do with the body’s true needs and everything to do with the eating environment. A mindful approach can help you become aware of the difference between hunger and craving. And when you are aware of your personal triggers, it is easier to avoid them or to pause and make a conscious choice. Stress is another common trigger for overeating, but it’s not just negative feelings that trigger mindless eating. “Positive feelings can prompt automatic eating, too,” Albers says. “You want the happy feeling to continue, so you celebrate with food to hold on to the joy.” Mindfulness can help you recognize when you are eating for emotional reasons and can allow you to develop other strategies for self-soothing or celebrating.
Mindfulness-Based Weight Loss Programs
Mindfulness-based weight loss programs are a recent arrival to the scene, but research suggests they have much to offer chronically unsuccessful dieters. One such program is the Mindful Eating and Living (MEAL) program at the University of New Mexico Center for Life Integrative Medicine Specialty Clinic.

MEAL was developed by Brian Shelley, MD, who noticed that standard mindfulness-based stress reduction programs were changing participants’ eating behaviors. He wondered whether a mindfulness program focusing specifically on eating could help people who were overweight or obese and trying to lose weight.

The MEAL program is 6 weeks long, with a weekly group meeting and practical homework. Each meeting consists of sitting meditation, gentle yoga and walking meditation. However, participants also engage in mindful eating exercises and discussions about food, hunger and weight.

Shelley says the program’s success lies in its ability to address specific issues that would not come up in a general mindfulness program—topics like foods that trigger binges, how to shop mindfully for food and how to deal with environmental pressures to overeat. “The MEAL program provides a cohesive group that shares the same overall goal, and mindfulness is the bridge from goal to action.”

The program uses experiential exercises to help participants apply mindfulness to everyday eating decisions; for example:

eating a single raisin (or other simple food) slowly, exploring its visual appearance, smell, texture and taste
eating typical trigger foods, like potato chips and cookies, mindfully, to distinguish between expectation and experience of enjoyment and satisfaction
noticing the effect of drinking water on hunger and fullness
sharing a potluck meal where each participant brings one healthy item and one less healthy item, and everyone practices making food choices and leaving food on the plate.
As reported in 2006 in Complementary Health Practice Review, participants in the MEAL program experienced reductions in binge eating, anxiety and depression, as well as an increase in self-acceptance (Smith et al. 2006). Statistical analyses showed that the decrease in binge eating was most strongly related to participants’ greater self-acceptance.

This first study of the MEAL program did not look at body mass index (BMI) or weight loss. However, a second study, reported in 2009 in the journal Explore, found that obese women lost a moderate amount of weight during the program (Shelley 2009). At a 1-year follow-up, the women had sustained an average weight loss of 10–12 pounds. They also showed improvements in two important health indexes: waist-hip ratio and C-reactive protein, a marker for inflammation in the body. The weight loss was comparable to that of a control group, who participated in a weight loss support group led by a physician, a nutritionist and a psychologist. However, the changes in waist-hip ratio and C-reactive protein were greater in MEAL program participants than in those enrolled in the traditional weight loss program.

Mindful Movement
For people who have been ignoring their bodies’ signals through chronic dieting or mindless overeating, mindful movement can provide a much-needed opportunity to reconnect with the body.

One recent study examined how a yoga-based mindfulness program can support the health of obese women who struggle with binge eating (McIver, McGartland & O’Halloran 2009; McIver, O’Halloran & McGartland 2009). The 12-week yoga program included postures, breath awareness, relaxation and meditation. No instructions or rules were given around what, when and how much to eat. Participants attended one 60-minute yoga class per week and were encouraged to practice at home for 30 minutes a day. They were also given instructions for mindful eating as a meditation practice and were encouraged to eat mindfully whenever possible. The women kept daily journals, recording their emotions, thoughts and experiences with food, weight and exercise.

When the researchers analyzed these journals, they discovered several key themes. At first, the mindfulness practices were a little disturbing. Participants became aware of issues—such as eating in response to anxiety or realizing that they had neglected their bodies—that had been present for some time, but had not been clearly looked at. Gradually, however, these insights—and the related discomfort—became a catalyst for change. By the end of the 12-week program, many of the women felt liberated from these patterns. As a whole, the group reported less binge-eating, higher self-esteem and a more positive body image. The group also showed statistically significant decreases in BMI as well as hip and waist measurements.

The program also changed participants’ minds about exercise. Most walked into the study viewing exercise as an unpleasant punishment. Yoga offered a new way to think about moving their bodies, and many found themselves enjoying exercise for the first time in their lives. The researchers quoted one participant as reporting, “[Yoga] makes me feel better, rather than it needs to be done in order to be better.”

The Power of Mindful Compassion
Ask people what the number-one barrier to a healthy weight is, and guilt probably won’t top the list. But guilt—along with shame, self-criticism and disappointment about minor diet lapses (“Oh no, I ate a cookie!”)—is one of the leading causes of major lapses (“What the hell, I might as well eat the whole box.”). Appropriately dubbed the “what-the-hell effect” by dieting researchers, this cycle turns a manageable setback into self-defeating sabotage (Heatherton, Polivy & Herman 1990). Although it contradicts our instincts, a better way to deal with setbacks is to be easier on ourselves, not harder.

Mindful approaches to health and weight loss emphasize self-compassion. This means accepting your current weight and body as it is, even if you have goals to improve your health. It also means forgiving yourself for setbacks and not falling prey to the what-the-hell effect. To the uninitiated, self-compassion might sound like excuse-making. But research shows just the opposite: self-compassion increases a sense of personal responsibility, without the typical guilt of self-blame (Leary et al. 2007). When you don’t have to deal with feeling bad about yourself, it is easier to get back on track.

Several studies demonstrate the importance of self-compassion in supporting healthy eating and weight. One such study looked at whether a single message of self-compassion could interrupt the what-the-hell cycle among restrained eaters (Adams & Leary 2007). Female college students who had previously filled out questionnaires about restrained eating were invited to participate in a “taste test” study. They were asked not to eat for 2 hours before the experiment. The taste test started with drinking a full glass of water to induce a feeling of fullness. The women were then asked to eat an entire doughnut, a forbidden food for most dieters.

After eating the doughnuts, half of the participants received a special set of “self-compassion” comments from the experimenter. These comments acknowledged that participants sometimes felt bad about eating doughnuts in the study. The experimenter urged the women not to be hard on themselves and to remember that everyone eats unhealthily sometimes. These comments were designed to tap into three elements of self-compassion: mindfulness (recognizing any feelings of guilt), self-kindness (not being hard on yourself) and common humanity (recognizing that everyone indulges). Other participants received no such comments before moving on to the next part of the taste test.

The participants were then given three large bowls of candy (fruity, chocolate-mint and peanut butter–chocolate). They were asked to rate the taste, texture and appeal of the candies, eating at least one piece from each bowl, and as much as they liked. After the taste test was finished, participants answered a survey about the study that included questions about feelings of guilt, shame, loss of control and self-compassion. The researchers left the candy out while participants answered the survey, and some of them continued to eat.

The results were impressive: the brief reminder to be compassionate toward themselves interrupted the typical what-the-hell effect in highly restrained eaters. Highly restrained eaters who did not receive the compassion comments ate almost three times as much candy as those who were reminded to be compassionate. The researchers pointed out that the compassion condition essentially turned restrained eaters into mindful eaters: they showed the natural and healthy response of reducing caloric intake after the small indulgence of the doughnut.

Other research, including studies of an approach called “Health at Every Size” (HAES), has shown that self-compassion improves the long-term health of people who are overweight or obese. The HAES approach starts with acceptance of the body as it is now, whatever its size and shape, and with taking care of it through physical activity and good nutrition. By asking participants to create health, not lose weight, the process of change becomes more about self-care and self-love than about self-control and self-hate. As Deb Lemire, president of the Association for Size Diversity and Health, explains, “Self-hate does not perpetuate self-care. If shame worked, there’d be no fat people.”

The philosophy behind HAES is simple: the body knows what it needs, and diets ask us to ignore those signals. In the long run, trying to override or ignore the body backfires, leading to weight gain and worse health. The HAES program strives to turn lifelong cyclical dieters into mindful eaters. Instead of setting up strict rules about good foods and bad foods, HAES helps participants realize—through mindful attention to how they feel when they eat different foods—that some foods serve their body’s needs better than others. “When you see deep-fried food, it smells good, and your mouth might go, ‘That would taste good!’ But if you pause, and listen with the whole body, it remembers what you feel like after you eat something deep-fried,” Lemire says. “Then it’s not as difficult to choose not to eat something that will make you feel sick.” It’s not about being “good” and avoiding what’s “bad”—it’s about being good to yourself and your body.

The HAES approach also encourages participants to know through direct experience—not numbers on a scale—whether what they’re doing is improving their health. According to Lemire, “If you are not successful in losing the goal number of pounds, you feel like a failure, even though you have succeeded in doing a wonderful thing for your body.” So rather than focusing on weight loss, HAES asks participants to pay attention to energy level, how well they’re sleeping and broader indicators of health, including blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol.

In one study of the HAES approach, 78 obese women who were chronic dieters participated in either a HAES intervention or a standard behavior-based weight loss program (Bacon et al. 2005). Both groups met weekly for 6 months and were followed for 2 years. HAES participants showed significant improvements in depression and self-esteem. They also became less susceptible to guilt-induced loss of control around food, and despite having not lost any weight, they showed positive changes in cholesterol and blood pressure. In contrast, the traditional dieting group lost weight but regained it, felt worse about themselves and did not maintain initial diet-related improvements in cholesterol and blood pressure.

Other research on the HAES approach has shown that gradual, modest weight loss can occur, even without a focus on restricting food intake. A 2009 report in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that two-thirds of overweight or obese women who participated in a 4-month HAES program weighed less at a 1-year follow-up (Provencher et. al 2009). How much weight a participant lost was related to two key changes: decreased susceptibility to environmental and emotional triggers of overeating, and more flexible, self-compassionate attitudes about weight and food control. The more mindful participants became, the more likely they were to lose weight.

Making Mindfulness the New Habit
Mindfulness is a powerful tool for creating health, but it’s not a quick solution. The mindful eater must learn to make conscious choices, again and again, that go against the loudest messages and the most convenient options in our society.

This may seem daunting at first, but proponents of mindfulness argue that it is possible. “I’m optimistic and hopeful, because I see it everyday,” says Albers. “It would be nice if the environment made it easier to be a mindful eater. Every day we’re struggling against fast food, packaged food and the need to multitask. It’s hard at first, but once you get the hang of mindful eating, it gets easier. The more you do it, the more natural it becomes, and mindful eating becomes the new habit.”

SIDEBAR: What Is Mindful Eating?
Mindfulness

is deliberately paying attention, nonjudgmentally;
is a practice that encompasses both internal processes and external environments;
is being aware of what is present for you mentally, emotionally and physically in each moment;
cultivates, with practice, the possibility of freeing oneself of reactive, habitual patterns of thinking, feeling and acting; and
promotes balance, choice, wisdom and acceptance of what is.
Mindful eating involves

allowing yourself to become aware of the positive and nurturing opportunities that are available through food preparation and consumption by respecting your own inner wisdom;
choosing to eat food that is both pleasing to you and nourishing to your body by using all your senses to explore, savor and taste;
acknowledging responses to food (likes, neutral opinions or dislikes) without judgment; and
learning to be aware of physical hunger and satiety cues to guide your decision to begin eating and to stop eating.
Someone who eats mindfully

acknowledges that there is no right or wrong way to eat, but rather varying degrees of awareness surrounding the experience of food;
accepts that his or her eating experiences are unique;
is an individual who, by choice, directs awareness to all aspects of food and eating on a moment-by-moment basis;
is an individual who looks at the immediate choices and direct experiences associated with food and eating, not to the distant health outcome of that choice;
is aware of and reflects on the effects caused by unmindful eating;
experiences insight about how he or she can act to achieve specific health goals more attuned to the direct experience of eating and feelings of health; and
becomes aware of the interconnection of earth, living beings and cultural practices and the impact of his or her food choices on those systems.