According to Vegetarian Times, approximately 7.3 million Americans consider themselves “vegetarians” and 22.8 million more
say they follow a vegetarian-inclined diet. The American Dietetic Association supports this diet, citing appropriately planned vegetarian diets as healthful, nutritionally sound, and helpful in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.
Think vegetarianism isn’t for you? It’s not as difficult as you might think, and the health benefits are significant.
Vegetarian diets are plant-based and consist of vegetables, fruit, grains, beans, nuts, and seeds. The diet is absent of animal products, including meat, poultry, seafood, fish (and sometimes dairy). While there are many varieties of this diet, these are its main categories:
Most vegetarians eat healthfully, which makes weight control easier for them. Doctors have long advocated that a healthy weight lowers the risk for disease. This diet is also known to promote more physical activity and exercise, which also actively lowers the risk for disease.
A vegetarian diet includes colorful fruits and veggies, which are loaded with antioxidants, known to prevent many types of cancers. Because it’s nutrient-dense and high in fiber, the diet lowers the “bad cholesterol” that causes heart disease. The diet is also low in cholesterol and saturated fat, which helps to control blood lipid levels, an indicator of heart disease. What’s more, the plant-based protein in the diet lowers the risk of kidney dysfunction, kidney stones, and osteoporosis. Osteoporosis occurs when calcium is excreted in the urine from excessive protein.
Many vegetarians worry that they may not get enough of certain nutrients, but truth be told, meat-eaters miss many of these same nutrients, too. Healthy options for a vegetarian include fruits, veggies, whole grains, beans, essential fats like olive oil, flax seeds, nuts and seeds, avocado, peanut and other nut butters.
The Vegetarian Food Pyramid can offer some guidance for those new to the plant-based diet.
People often become vegetarians to lose weight and eat “healthier.” Keep in mind, however, that one can still eat unhealthily on a vegetarian diet, so it’s worth taking the time and effort to reap its rewards.
What’s your favorite vegetarian recipe? We’d love to read it!
It’s hard to exaggerate the important of heart health when almost 600,000 million Americans die of heart disease every year. Even individuals who are apparently fit and healthy can be caught unawares by a diagnosis, so let’s take a look at the steps you can take today to give yourself the best chance at a healthy heart now and in the future.
Courtesy of hometestingblog.testcountry.com
Step 1 – Know your numbers and risk profile: Schedule a doctor’s appointment and a blood test to learn the important numbers (risk factors) for heart disease, such as your blood pressure, cholesterol level, fasting blood glucose level, and BMI.
Having multiple factors for heart disease increases your risk exponentially, and some factors, such as age, gender, family history, and race, can’t be controlled. However, knowing where you stand on the others will help you take the appropriate action; according Dr. Philip A. Ades of Eating Well, treating any one risk factor effectively halves your likelihood of developing heart disease.
Step 2 – Quit smoking (or better yet, don’t start): It’s easy for non-smokers to cite all of the negative effects of this habit as reasons to “just stop,” but they may not understand the seriousness of the lifestyle change required to quit. If it’s been a while since you have reviewed the risks associated with smoking, check them out here, and work with your doctor to develop a plan to quit.
The importance of the remaining steps cannot be understated, as they directly impact all of the remaining heart disease risk factors:
Step 3 – Adjust your diet if necessary: Making a conscious effort to reduce intake of saturated and trans fats, added sugars and sodium, and excess calories in general greatly reduces your risk for heart disease.
Some of the best ways to do that? Eat less heavily processed and refined food and substitute with more whole grains, fruits and vegetables, and lean proteins (including fish, nuts, beans, and lean meats). Keep a close eye on portion sizes of snacks and meals to lower your chances of overeating, and drink alcohol in moderation. For more healthy diet and nutrition tips from Midtown, click here.
Step 4 – Exercise more (or at the very least, sit less): Losing weight (or lowering BMI) is just one potential benefit of regular exercise. Consistent daily and weekly efforts to get up and move will help you become healthier, stronger, and more energized, and just 10 minutes of activity here and there can make a big difference.
Courtesy of www.bbc.co.uk
Once you begin consciously moving more, try adding more traditional exercise to your routine a few days per week for just a few weeks. Experiment with different activities until you settle on one that works for you. Your body and mind may not react positively right away, but if you don’t give exercise a real chance (which means a consistent effort), you will never experience the real benefits.
Step 5 – Stress less: While we hold out hope that someone will develop a “magic pill” that will banish stress from our lives forever, managing stress remains one of the most difficult aspects of our lives. Work and family commitments alone are enough to overwhelm our calendars and our worry threshold for the month. You can try to sleep more, take more time for yourself, and clear your schedule, but it’s not always possible to do those things.
So what can you do? It may help to start by identifying the centers of stress in your life and how you feel about them. Observe what happens to your mind and body when you experience stress. Knowing what causes your stress in the first place can help you gain new perspective and create coping strategies that will reduce stress and its consequences. It takes patience and practice, but you and your heart are worth it.
What are you doing to improve your heart health?
All parents want what’s best for their kids. They want them to be the smartest in the class, or the fastest on the team. They give them time, money, support, encouragement, and love, all to help them be the best they can be. For many families, this is especially true when it comes to fitness and sports.
But before plowing into hours of practices and training sessions with spring sports right around the corner, it’s important for parents to ask themselves, “Are my kids working out too much, or not enough?”
According to research done at the University of Michigan, exercise is key to combating the obesity epidemic, especially in a nation where 15% of all children are estimated to be overweight. However, it’s also possible to push kids so hard in organized activities and athletics that they run the risk of injury and mental/emotional fatigue.
So, how do we determine what’s really best for kids?
Existing research isn’t too much help here. Many studies have been done on childhood fitness, and many sets of guidelines have been published. According to Harold Kohl, an epidemiologist from the University of Texas, there are at least 27 sets of official guidelines from various organizations without a lot of data to back them up.
For example, we don’t know why 60 minutes is more sufficient than 30 or 45, how play time or unorganized activity fits into the picture, or how individual differences impact the results. Fortunately, the experts do agree on a few things:
So what does this mean for families? Children spend a lot of time being told what to do by parents, teachers, peers, and the media. Maybe it’s time to include our children in the decision-making process, and in turn, teach our kids to listen to their own bodies.
Whether they choose to participate in organized athletics or unorganized activity (“just play”), they stand to gain the benefits of building and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, without risking physical or emotional burnout. Activity can contribute fun, creativity, new skills, teamwork, and personal fulfillment to a child’s life.
And if “the single best activity you do is the one you will do”, let’s allow our kids to choose how to become the best, healthiest, and happiest, they can be.
What sports and activities do your kids enjoy most?
February is here and with its arrival comes the opportunity to evaluate the success of health-related resolutions. If you’ve resolved to lose weight in 2012, and find yourself struggling, here are three tips to set you back on track.
Start a Food Diary
One of the tips you hear most often to help you change your nutritional lifestyle is to start a food diary. But what does that mean really? And why is it helpful? Won’t it be depressing to see everything you’ve eaten?
Allow me to de-mystify it for you. Here’s why you need to keep one:
1. You become accountable for what you are putting in your mouth. I don’t ask my clients to write a food diary just to yell at them about everything “bad” they ate. It’s not about “bad” and “good.” It’s being honest about what you’re eating and seeing where you can make small changes in your everyday nutrition that will add up big at the end of the month and year.
2. You recognize emotional triggers or habits that you’ve created. I like to see why my clients are eating what they are eating. This may sound silly but we don’t always eat for energy. Maybe we snack in front of the TV at night or always order dessert when we have lunch with our mom. These are habits and triggers that affect our better judgment when it comes to nutrition.
3. You realize why you are starving before dinner and snack on chips while you cook. It’s important to note what time you wake, eat, and go to bed. How soon you eat breakfast, how often you eat, and when your last meal is before you snooze are important. If you wait too long to eat your next meal you’ll be starving and end up snacking on an entire meal before you sit down for dinner. Or you’ll stop at a fast food drive thru. Both habits are not good.
Here’s an example of a thorough food diary:
7:30 a.m. – Woke up
8 a.m. – 1 apple, 2 tbsp. peanut butter, 1 glass water, 1 cup coffee w/1 tbsp. cream (breakfast, hungry)
10 a.m. – 1 Kashi bar and water (140 calories) (a little hungry before workout)
12 p.m. – sandwich w/2 slices of 35 cal bread, low-fat mayo and reduced sodium turkey lunchmeat (3oz.), 1 serving fat-free pretzels and ¼ cup hummus, water (lunch, hungry)
12:30 p.m. – 8 Hershey kisses, water (needed chocolate 
)
2 p.m. – 1 cup grapes, 2 slices provolone cheese, water (snack, hungry)
3 p.m. – 1 apple, small bottle Coke Zero (hungry)
5 p.m. – spinach salad w/craisins, blue cheese, mushrooms, candied walnuts & balsamic dressing, water (starving, had to go to Whole Foods)
8 p.m. – one glass red wine, one small 96% lean hamburger w/o bun, one handful M&M’s (wanted wine and chocolate, hubby made dinner)
10 p.m. – bed
This was my food diary for a day and I was totally honest! Times, exactly what I ate, why I ate what I did, and when I went to bed. So try one for a week, even better two weeks, and see how you do.
Include a Fruit or Vegetable in Every Meal and Snack
These pure and clean foods add more vitamins and minerals with the least amount of calories than any other food. With all of the fiber, water and nutrients that occur naturally in fruits and veggies, you’ll feel fuller longer and will have better health overall. Pair them with lean protein for a well rounded meal or snack. Apples and peanut butter, pears and walnuts, broccoli and low-fat cheese, or baked potatoes and salsa all add up to feeling satisfied without a ton of fat and calories.
Pay Attention to the
Calories You Drink
The calories in fancy coffees, pop, juice, protein shakes, smoothies, and alcohol are all included in your calorie total at the end of the day. You can eat great, sticking within your calorie limit, but a Starbucks frappucino and two glasses of wine can add over 350 calories to your total. Over a week’s time, that’s ¾ of a pound. In a month’s time you have almost three pounds! Yikes!
So stick with water, black coffee and tea, and diet drinks, and count those special drinks as a meal to stay on track.
Which of these tips has worked best for you?
Do you have a dress or suit you want to fit into this weekend? Are you sick of that bloated feeling?
With some easy changes to your every day diet, you can lose those last few stubborn pounds.
Jenny Maloney, Registered Dietitian at Midtown Chicago, shares her expertise.
Instead of two or three large meals, eat smaller portions throughout the day to keep your metabolism working. This will allow you to burn more calories.
Try to eat no larger than about a fist-size of each type of food on your plate.
Enjoy fruits, veggies, and whole grains, and avoid sugar and white flour. When presented with a choice in grains, opt for the whole grain version, such as whole wheat bread, brown rice, whole wheat pasta, beans, oatmeal, whole grain cereal, and whole grain crackers. Fiber takes longer for your body to break down and will keep you satiated until your next meal or snack.
Not only does processing take out the nutrients from many nutrient-rich foods, they often contain hidden sugar, salt, and fat. Try for all fresh foods instead.
Reducing sodium will eliminate bloating. Sodium is found in most processed foods. Eating fresh fruits and vegetables cuts down on your salt intake. Salt dehydrates and causes our body to retain water, giving you that bloated feeling. Drink more water and less diet sodas and coffee, as these drinks dehydrate you.
By following these nutrition tips, you’ll eat healthier, which can decrease bloating, give you more energy, and hopefully lose that extra water weight gained by eating heavy food and processed food.
When are you getting started?
One of the most common New Year’s Resolutions is to improve health.
Unfortunately, most New Year’s Resolutions are also doomed to fail.
In the interest of saving you time in route to your destination (the body of your dreams, we hope!), let’s examine some of the most common exercise mistakes to determine whether you have what it takes to succeed.
Mistake #1: Doing Too Much, Too Soon
If it has been a while since you’ve exercised, or you have been exercising inconsistently, your body isn’t going to respond well to a strenuous program right off the bat. Choose a schedule that you can stick to (e.g. one hour per day, three times per week), and begin at an intensity level that feels challenging, but not debilitating. Make sure to incorporate adequate time for a warm-up and cool-down.
Mistake #2: Forgetting Proper Technique
When it comes to resistance training, technique is the difference between getting results and getting injured, or not seeing any improvement at all. It starts with proper posture, which means keeping the core engaged (imagine how you would brace yourself if someone was about to punch you in the stomach), and standing tall with a neutral spine, shoulder blades pulled back, and head lifted.
Courtesy of Denverpost.com
Also, make sure you know the purpose of the exercise you are about to perform. What muscles are working? What is the proper range of motion for the exercise? Is this the most effective way to target the muscles I want to work?
If you don’t know the answers to these questions, it’s time to talk to a trainer or instructor, or do some research on your own. Time spent now on learning how to do the exercise correctly means less time to your goal.
Mistake #3: Choosing Quantity Over Quality
If doing an hour of cardio means walking on a treadmill while you catch up on the latest episode of Law and Order and you barely break a sweat, then that hour didn’t do a whole lot to help you improve your fitness (the same concept applies to doing a lot of repetitions with almost negligible weight). Working out should feel challenging, and the good news is, challenging yourself appropriately will lead you to the results you want in less time.
Courtesty of Workoutequip.com
Mistake #4: Always Doing the Same Thing
Don’t worry; you don’t have to give up cycling if that is your favorite workout. Just make sure that you are changing your exercise intensity from time to time (alternating hard days and easy days, or increasing resistance over time), and maintaining a balanced program. That means incorporating cardiovascular, strength, and flexibility training.
Now for the Number One resolution-killer
Mistake #5: Ignoring the Truth
Make sure you are answering the following questions honestly:
If the answer to these questions is “No,” or “I’m not sure,” you may be setting yourself up for failure. Give yourself your best chance at fitness this year – avoid these detrimental mistakes, create and stick to a plan, and go for it!
What are your fitness goals this year? What steps are you taking to achieve them?
Why do we care about trends? Researchers study them, writers report them, teachers teach them, and tweeters tweet them. Although there are many advantages to being “in the know,” one of the most important reasons to pay attention to trends is that they can help us prepare for and adapt to changes ahead.
Over the past six years, the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) has identified trends in the fitness industry with their ”Worldwide Survey of Fitness Trends” (you can view the full 2012 survey text here). Come January 1, some of the most popular resolutions will be health- and fitness-related, so let’s get a jump on meeting our goals by looking at what the 2012 fitness trends mean for us.
Educated, certified, and experienced fitness professionals are the core of a rapidly expanding industry. In spite of tough economic times, consumers still place a lot of value in getting and staying healthy. The fitness industry has responded to this need by employing qualified trainers and instructors.
What does that mean for you? You can breathe a little easier knowing that you can trust your fitness professionals to lead you in safe and effective workouts, helping you reach your goals faster and giving you more bang for your buck.
Strength training is here to stay. Having been near the top of the trends list for several years, strength training is the first training “type” on the trends list, accompanied by personal, core, functional, and group training.
What does that mean for you? Since most of us sit at a desk all day, adding a little weight-bearing exercise such as resistance training can help improve our energy levels, mood, and overall functionality. Expect fitness centers to continue to update equipment and training options to facilitate strength-training programs that meet the needs of all types of exercisers – a stronger body is yours for the taking!
No one will be left behind. Training options are becoming more population-specific, with new programs being tailored to the aging Baby Boomer population and the fight against childhood obesity (just to name a few). Your fitness professionals are trained specifically to work with a variety of individuals from athletes to people fighting obesity or other diseases.
What does that mean for you? The fitness industry is actively trying to meet you where you are to help you get the most you can out of an exercise program, regardless of your goals or fitness level. In other words, you don’t have to start off looking like Jane Fonda to make exercise a part of your life.
It’s all about energy. Zumba, boot camp, and spinning are growing in popularity. These group classes are high-energy and fun, and put the emphasis on pushing your physical limits.
What does that mean for you?Releasing stress through dancing, high-intensity training, and cycling will leave you feeling strong, accomplished, and ready to tackle life’s challenges. You just have to be willing to give them a try. And although not “trending” anymore, Pilates fans shouldn’t be worried that their favorite class is going to disappear; only time will tell whether these new arrivals and old favorites will continue on as actual trends rather than fads.
The key this year is to work with Midtown to customize a fitness program that will leave you feeling refreshed, rejuventated, and (hopefully) like you had a darn good time.
Now that you know what’s to come in 2012, it’s time to use this information to start doing something that will work for you.
Your 2012 motto shouldn’t be “once I meet my goal, I’ll be happy.” Instead, how about you take a chance on what the industry is giving you and say “it’s time to give myself knowledge, revitalizing energy, and a sense of accomplishment, and add some more fun to my fitness routine.” Now that’s a reason to work out today.
What do you think of these trends? Have you already tried any of these fitness programs or plan to in 2012? What are you going to do differently in your workout routine this year?
Jenny Maloney is a Registered Dietician and NASM- and ACE-certified personal trainer for Midtown. An expert in improving health and fitness through proper nutrition, Jenny shares tips for eating wisely this holiday season.
Most people gain weight during the holidays. If you don’t lose the added weight, you could gain 25-50 pounds in five years! This weight gain is mainly due to the high-calorie, high-fat foods that traditionally go along with holiday meals — and too much of it.
Why not try to make healthy and smart choices that will help you to maintain or even lose weight?
Here are some tips to keep weight gain to a minimum while still enjoying yourself this season:
What’s your tip for enjoying the holidays without overindulging?
Now that we are smack-dab in the middle of the holiday season, you might feel like the size of your to-do list rivals Santa’s “Naughty v. Nice” one. Fortunately, having less time doesn’t mean we have to sacrifice fitness.
Let’s take a look at a few ways to trim your workout time (and your waistline) along with your Christmas tree.
Courtesy of moveablesuccess.net
Circuit-style weight training and combination moves: Instead of resting between sets, perform exercises one after the other to effectively rest muscle groups without losing time. Work opposing muscle groups back-to-back, such as chest and back, or alternate upper and lower body exercises to ensure adequate recovery time.
You can also combine upper and lower body moves, such as a squat with a biceps curl. Just make sure the “up phases” of the exercises are done at the same time to maximize effort. And here’s an extra benefit - the lack of rest in this style of training gives you a little cardio boost!
Interval training: You may think interval training is just another buzz word fitness professionals and heart rate monitor aficionados throw out to make you sweat more, but the cardiovascular benefits of this training method are proven. The basic idea is to increase your effort to near-maximum exertion for a period of time, followed by a recovery period.
For example, perform one minute of running (or stair-climbing, or jumping rope, or spinning, etc.), followed by one minute of walking, or some other lower-intensity version of the same exercise. You can also intersperse cardio moves (high-intensity interval) with strength-training moves (recovery interval). Make sure you adequately warm-up and cool-down when performing this type of training to help the body adjust to the intensity.
Courtesy of examiner.com
Creative Combos: Get creative by completing your workout and your holiday to-do list simultaneously. Power walk while shopping at the mall. Do squats or hold a wall-sit while putting finishing touches on your decorations. Dance, lift cans, or do push-ups on the kitchen counter while cooking. Practice abdominal contractions while driving in the car. Choose a new exercise for each of the 12 days of Christmas. It’s up to you!
Bonus Tips: Stick to a plan and use your time wisely. If you want to continue your structured workout, try to find uninterrupted time by turning off your cell, or doing your workout while your kids are at school. If it’s too hard to find a set time, break up your workout by starting your day with a brisk walk or core work. Get in as much as you can in the time you have, but don’t forget your cool down.
Any activity you do this season will add up to help you trim your waistline (or at least hold off the effects of that extra glass of egg nog). So what are you waiting for? Get excited for your new plan and get ready for a new you come January!
Have you changed your workout routine because of the holidays? What are you doing differently?
The holiday season can be a time of great joy, but also of great stress. There are gifts to buy, parties to attend, and a general sense of busyness permeates our lives.
Yoga is a great form of exercise for stress relief, a way to center ourselves, and to become more mindful of the true meaning of the holidays celebrated this time of year.
Marlene, yoga instructor at Midtown Overland Park, recommends the following five yoga poses for stress relief:
1. Triangle
Feet: a wide stance and parallel, right foot should be at 90 degrees and left foot slightly facing in.
Arms: place your right hand on your shin or if you can all the way to the floor and extend your left arm up bringing your arms to a “T” shape.
Breath: Take 5 deep breaths. Come up slowly and repeat on the other side. To finish bring your feet parallel.
2. Side Angle
Feet: face your right foot out and face your left foot in. Bend your right knee until it is just over your right ankle. Check to see if your right thigh is parallel to the floor.
Arms: Place your right arm down by your ankle, and reach your left arm by your left ear to create a long line of energy from your left heel through to your left fingers.
Breath: take 5 breaths, come up slowly and repeat on the left side.
3. Half Moon
Feet:with your right foot turned toward the right, bend your right knee and place your right hand in front of your right pinky toe. Lift your left leg and extend both legs.
Arms: lift your left arm up bringing them to a “T” shape.
Core: engage your core and legs. Energy should flow from the center to your fingers and toes.
Breath: 5 breaths and come up slowly and repeat on the left side.
4. Tree
Feet: lift your left foot to your right ankle, knee or inner thigh.
Arms: start with your palms together near your heart. Once you are steady, lift them above your head.
Core: engage your core and lengthen from your fingers down through your tail bone.
Breath: 5 breaths and repeat on the other side
5. Head of the Knee
Feet: sit on the floor with your legs extended. Bend your right knee into your left thigh.
Arms: inhale and extend your arms up, exhale and fold forward keeping your hips grounded.
Breath: take 5 breaths and inhale as you come up. Repeat on the left side.
What’s your favorite stress-busting yoga pose?
