@ReversingAging: Staying Fit: Staying Fit. Extending Life Expectancy A study from the National Cancer Institute finds that peop… http://t.co/Lj8wlsxElL
Staying Fit – Extending Life
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Category Archives: exercise
Being Healthier is Easier than You Think
7 Habits of Highly Unhealthy People
by Alexander Heyne
There are a number of reasons why many of us fail to take control of our health.
Everything from time, lack of quality information, and motivation play a roll in our success or failure.
But there’s another set of lesser-known reasons why you aren’t as healthy as you’d like: the thoughts in your head.
Below I’ve profiled the top seven bad mental habits I see over and over, and how you can fix them.
#1 The belief that success is left to a special few
Some people seem to have this concept that people who end up really successful, healthy, and happy, are just the lucky few.
When you ask them how Mozart, Tiger woods, or top sports athletes are born, they’ll tell you something like “Oh it’s just their genetics, they were born that way.”
Say you have the goal of wanting to go from 50 pounds overweight, to fitness model. There are numerous dramatic stories like this on the internet.
But what if your mind is constantly telling you “Oh those people are just unique. They are the 1% who have willpower and discipline like no other human being.”
Chances are you won’t even do anything, right? You won’t get started.
Now what if I told you that I met someone who achieved the goal you want to achieve. And what if that person told me “Nope, I wasn’t born special, I just learned what I had to do, and spent 1-2 hours every day for two years doing it.”
Suddenly your mind expands and you begin to wonder: “Hmm, if an ordinary person can do it, maybe I can too.”
In fact, there have been numerous books on the subject, such as Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World Class Performers From Everyone Else and The Talent Code.
The conclusions of both books?
In the vast majority of cases, talent is created and forged every day, not born. This is as true for Mozart as it is for Tiger woods.
My point is this: it’s important to know that the people who succeed at changing their health, building a business, or improving their personal life are not special – they just take committed action.
#2 Thinking that your life, and thus your success, health and relationships are all outside of your control
One of my favorite quotes of all time comes from The Alchemist and goes something along the lines of this:
The greatest lie in the world is that, at some point, your life is run by factors out of your control.
You can always change.
It’s sort of like another saying: you can’t control what happens to you in life, but you can control your response.
This is extremely apparent today, where people are losing their jobs left and right. The vast majority of people end up complaining and saying, “There was nothing I could do.” Really? Nothing?
You couldn’t have been pro-actively meeting people, or bringing new ideas to the table, or taking on larger responsibilities to make yourself more indispensible?
The same is true of your health: some people act as if they are powerless to the food industry, or can’t fight their genetics.
“Oh, heart disease and cancer run in my family.” And apparently that’s all the justification we need to go eat junk food every day.
There are two ways to look at your health.
The first sounds a lot like this: “Oh, everything causes Cancer these days! Forget it, I’m just going to eat what I want.”
The second sounds like this: “My health is a priority and I’m going to do whatever it takes to figure out how to get healthy.”
You could read hours worth of success stories, of people who successfully reversed their genetic predispositions to obesity, heart disease, or cancer.
Just look at Jack Lalanne – one of the most famous health icons of the 21st century. Lalanne’s dad died young from a heart attack, but Lalanne lived to be 96 years old – and if you saw videos of him in his 90’s, he looked to be about 75.
The more you believe that you are incapable of change, the less likely you are actually going to take the action you need to improve your life.
#3 Thinking that sticking to a diet is all a matter of willpower
This whole laziness / willpower thing has unfortunately become the default belief in the health industry.
People that are unhealthy or overweight are viewed as lacking “willpower,” and those who are healthy are viewed as having lots of it.
I think that laziness is mostly a myth. It’s not that you can’t stick to a diet because you’re lazy, it’s because you have bad habits.
Habits happen automatically. That’s why we feel powerless against them.
One of the most important things I tell clients when I work with them is that it’s not a matter of willpower – it’s a matter of turning small changes into big habits.
For any of you who have tried fighting sweet cravings, you know that willpower is a weak soldier to fight the battle.
It’s pretty much impossible, and there’s a good body of research showing that sugar cravings function a lot like drug addictions and even affect the same receptors in the brain.
Would you ever tell a drug addict to just “fight” the cravings?
No, of course not! That’s why I challenge you to not view dieting as a willpower game – you will almost inevitably lose.
Instead, imagine if you picked one bad habit – and spent 30 days re-wiring yourself. Imagine what your health and life would look like after 12 of those (one year)?
#4 Trusting some new health expert on blind faith, rather than testing out the advice
It seems like every year there’s a new M.D. proposing some huge diet solution that will help save humanity.
Right now it’s the Wheat Belly diet. Diets aside, there are obviously some really good ones, and some really bad ones. But there are very few that endure and last.
For whatever reason, the health industry is filled with people who think they’ve “cracked the code” and at which point, the know-it-all hat comes on.
A friend of mine recently lost 50 pounds doing nutrisystem – so he began preaching the gospel of nutrisystem (despite the fact that a year later, he regained 60 pounds).
People seem to forget that there is one system that really works for everyone: experimentation.
Ignore the M.D. credential on most diet books. Ignore the rave reviews. Ignore all the junk and advertising.
If Dr. Zee has a new program that’s supposed to help people with arthritis, and you’ve got arthritis, try it and see what happens long term!
If Dr. Zoo has a “revolutionary, break-through” program for combating sugar cravings, just try it out before you begin preaching the gospel.
If Dr. Zed has a newly scientifically verified program for combating allergies… just try It out and see if it works for you!
If Dr. Zoy has a program guaranteed to make you healthier – get a blood test before and after and see the proof.
Once upon a time, I used to believe that there really was one universal human diet. But after having worked with so many people, I’ve realized that people respond very differently to the exact same foods, diets, or programs.
So, start experimenting! Don’t put your faith in the latest fad, or even someone with credentials. People still have beliefs and opinions – regardless of the M.D. next to their name. Trust results.
Read the rest here: http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/the-7-bad-habits-of-highly-unhealthy-people/
Benefits of Exercising Outdoors
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Their First Long Bike Ride
The Perfect Weight-Loss Goal
by Markham Heid
Go big or go home. Setting the bar high when it comes to weight loss could help you drop more pounds, finds surprising research in the Journal of Health Psychology.
A Dutch survey of overweight and obese dieters found people who aimed to lose more than 10 percent of their total body weight shed more pounds than those who targeted a 5- to 10-percent drop. Also—contrary to some popular weight-loss beliefs—dieters who set more-ambitious goals were no more likely to feel discouraged by their results than people who chose modest targets, the study shows.
While trying to lose weight, you’re probably pursuing other important life goals like earning a promotion at work, making time for friends, or being a better parent or partner, says study coauthor Emely de Vet, Ph.D., of Wageningen University in the Netherlands. If you set a timid weight-loss goal, you’re telling yourself you don’t need to work very hard to be successful, and so you’re less likely to divert resources like time and energy away from those other activities, de Vet says.
But when you aim high, you signal to yourself that more effort will be needed to reach your goals, and so you’re more likely to focus time and energy on losing weight, she adds.
http://news.menshealth.com/the-weight-loss-goal-you-should-set/2013/05/04/
What Helps and Hurts Your Brain
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How Much Exercise Will It Take to Work Off a Burger? Menus May Soon Tell You
by Alexandra Sifferlin
More restaurants display calorie counts on their menus, but what if they also informed you what it would take to burn off those calories?
It’s one thing to know how many calories are packed into a meal you’re about to eat, and quite another to fully appreciate what your body does with them. That’s been clear since cities like New York mandated calorie counts on fast food and restaurant menus so consumers would have a better idea of what they were eating. Despite the added information, studies haven’t shown that the counts led people to eat less. In fact, some surveys found they prompted people to order more food. So caloric information, it seems, doesn’t have much impact on eating behavior.
Better strategies are clearly needed, so researchers Dr. Meena Shah and Ashlei James from Texas Christian University tried another approach — replacing the calorie counts with the number of minutes of brisk walking a person would need to complete to burn off what they just ate.
The researchers chose brisk walking since it’s a physical activity most people can do, and can easily fit into their day, as opposed to running or jogging. “We did the study specifically in younger adults. The reason why we chose young adults is because they exercise more than older adults and we felt that they would relate to it more than older adults,” says Shah.
The scientists recruited 300 men and women ages 18 to 30 and randomly assigned them to order lunch from one of three menus: one that was calorie-free, one that included calorie counts and another labeled with the minutes of walking needed to burn the calories in the food. All the menus had the same food offerings, including burgers, chicken sandwiches, chicken tenders, salad, fries, desserts, soda and water.
The participants who were provided the walking information ordered and consumed fewer calories compared to those who ordered off the menu without calorie labels. However, as with some previous studies, there was no difference in the calories consumed between those who ordered off the menu with calorie count labels and those who were not provided with calorie information.
Read the rest here: http://healthland.time.com/2013/04/24/are-you-willing-to-walk-for-that-burger/
Alexandra Sifferlin @acsifferlin
Alexandra Sifferlin is a writer and producer for TIME Healthland. She is a graduate from the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism.
Lose Weight Faster
by Jessica Girdwain
Double dip to lose weight fast. Tackling diet and exercise goals at the same time produces better results than focusing on one before the other, says a new study in Annals of Behavioral Medicine.
Researchers split inactive people with poor eating habit into three groups: one that started an exercise program, then a diet a few months later; another that dieted first, then exercised; and a third that initiated both. A year later, the third group was the only one that still met guidelines for exercise and healthy eating.
The findings challenge common weight loss advice to work on one healthy habit at a time. But making both healthy behaviors a priority from the beginning helps make sure one doesn’t slip off your radar, says lead researcher Abby C. King, Ph.D., a professor at Stanford University’s School of Medicine.
The key to success is small, gradual changes, says King. For example, use a pedometer to log more steps than you did the day before, and add one more fruit a day (or nix the chips with lunch). You’ll be able to build on your initial changes in the later weeks to achieve bigger goals—and results, King says.
http://news.menshealth.com/are-you-losing-weight-wrong/2013/04/23/
5 Steps to Loving Exercise or at Least Not Hating It
Here’s a great article that might help you jump start your exercise routine.
