Posts Tagged ‘fitness’
Posted on: November 6, 2013
Join the November Pushup Challenge!
Pushup Challenge! How many can you do in a month?
Email me at andreammusic@gmail.com to join our Google Doc to track your progress!
No, I’m not married. But I listen to a whole lot of Dr. Jenn Berman on Cosmo Radio, so in my head I am pretty much a licensed psychotherapist. Counts, right?
I see posts with the theme “Before saying ‘I do'” a lot in financial and child-rearing realms, but what about with our health? With the growing health problems, processed food intake, and sedentary lifestyles, our pre-marital discussions may need to branch into exercise and nutrition visions for our relationships. 
American media tends to show us as packing on the pounds after marriage, but we can change that status quo. It’s not just a sitcom stereotype, it’s a dangerous cycle to begin after tying the knot. Popping the question shouldn’t mean popping cookies into your mouth. Once you’ve caught the big fish, it doesn’t mean you need to stuff yourself- and the fish. “Fat and happy” needs to be replaced with “fit and happy.”And once I’ve written one too many cliche’s, I should probably not write another.
As spring crawls slowly in among this 30-something degree weather, wedding bells will chime, chilly, but as planned. Before making the commitment, it may serve you well to discuss plainly how you will handle your future health as husband and wife:
1. When can we start? In “for better or for worse,” a healthy lifestyle maximizes the better. Discussing food and activity with your partner affects the amount of years you spend together and the quality of those years. The earlier you start, the earlier you will turn your lifestyle choices into habits that keep you together longer. If you are planners, plan to have a conversation and enhance your life together as soon as you can.
2. Where do we see ourselves? You may have an ideal image of yourself, but what about as a couple? Make visions for yourself as a couple to maintain a healthy weight and muscle mass. Visualize yourself in 5, 10, 25 years, making healthy snacks for yourself and your children, packing nutrient-filled lunches, bike riding as a family, and playing with your grandchildren with great health.
3. What do we like? Define your preferences : He may be into football, while you are a yogi. You’re a vegan, she’s a steak lover. With a plethora of healthy activities, you and your partner can find common ground. Try brainstorming activities you both find fun: cook together, go jogging or walking, or invite new activities like hiking or skiing. If you prefer to be healthy separately- so be it. Get creative, make it fun. Some couples work better with a little competitive tension. If you are competitive, race eachother. Make bets. Start a competition: set aside two jars. Put money in your jar for every workout you do, and money in your partner’s jar for every time you slip up with junk food. (There are other ways to spice up bets and competitions, but we’ll keep it P.G. here).
4. Set goals: How can we make it attainable and sustainable? Choose goals that are just out of reach enough that they offer a challenge, but not so far that they are unrealistic. If you know you don’t go to the gym even when you pay $50/month, then pick at-home exercises to do every day (see last week’s article for ideas). Make them specific and sustainable by choosing specific exercises and amounts: we will walk 2 times a week; do 15 pushups together 4 mornings a week, go for a bike ride 3 weekends a month. If you start with a small challenge and stick with it, you can adhere to the program and build on it.
5. How can we support each other? Talk about how you will hold eachother accountable. Make a promise to each other to take joint responsibility. If your partner joins a recreational league, go to the games. If one of you is struggling with overeating or snacking mindlessly, ask for gentle reminders or that your partner try to distract you through talking or entertainment. Share articles with eachother, pick healthy recipes. At the very least, make sure you are not sabotaging your partners efforts, i.e. through negative comments or keeping snacks in the house. Understand that your partners success is your success.
6. Tie it to your budget. Every cautionary advice article will tell you that money is the #1 cause of marital stress in most surveyed married couples. Realizing that your choices have a direct impact on your health will free up a large portion of your budget. Go over your prescription costs (real, or base them on your parents’). Chances are, some family issues are preventable. Unhealthy lifestyles lead to sickness. Sickness leads to doctor bills, prescription costs, hospital bills, and even larger grocery bills (in the case of overeating). Clean eating reduces disease, and exercise and flexibility training strengthen bones, reducing osteopenia. Eating out is also a huge source of calories and a big chunk out of your wallet. Check your budget for ways you can save money AND get healthier, like cutting out sodas, packing lunches for work, and choosing vegetable based meals. Eating nutritious foods is not more expensive. (Visit any Trader Joe’s and you’ll agree).
6. Commit! Just as you have chosen to commit to each other, decide to commit to a long, healthy, and happy life. Stick to your habits as a couple, and they will become easier for you as you create new activities and family traditions geared toward clean eating and fitness.
Congratulations, and here’s a virtual toast to your long and healthy marriage!
The Problem With Cheat Meals
Posted on: September 17, 2012
The body can be either like a well trained puppy or a defiant, mischievous child.
Choose your highest vision of yourself, and train it well.
Chances are you have conditioned your body to expect you to allow it some pretty unhealthy behaviors. If so, chances are even higher that those behaviors don’t exactly line up with your ideal vision of yourself. Just as a dog expects a treat after a walk, for example, your body is obedient. It remembers how you have treated it, not only in physical manifestation (i.e. excess fat is there to pop out and say, “I remember how you ate!”) but also in neural connections (i.e. false hunger cravings, like, “after dinner, we want dessert.”). Now, get ready for the big stick of responsibility here — you taught it that. I promise you, after a vitamin-efficient serving of vegetables, your body doesn’t want white sugar-laden dairy lard. That isn’t a natural response.
Have you ever seen comics about training a dog? The one where it says, Week 1: Dog is not allowed in bedroom or kitchen, and Week 5 ends with the dog eating at the table and sleeping on your pillow? That is precisely what happens with your body. Letting it do something sporadically is confusing. Saying you want sexy abs and those little back dimples is contradicted when you allow the behavior of fiending on “just one (aka 3)” pastries at work. All your actions- no “little” exceptions- should line up with your declared goals.
But.. I DESERVE it, don’t I?
Ah, I knew he’d come out. Let me introduce you to your inner child. No, not the playful, reminiscent, joyous, lighthearted child. THIS child is not our friend. I call mine “The Brat.” My Inner Brat does not want me to be the epitome of health and fitness that I want to see myself as . The inner brat wants me to stuff my face with sugar, fat, and simple carbohydrates despite not being hungry and having no nutritional value. My inner brat did not want see me conquer emotional eating. It likes you when you are not at your highest potential because it gets what it wants. It wants to keep you the way you are so it can keep complaining, stay undisciplined, and never reach your goals. It is essentially the way your ego self-handicaps you from becoming the real you. Your body will go along with him at first, mimicking him by sending you false hunger symptoms. But it quite literally is all in your head, in your neural connections that you have solidified by giving in to The Brat. If you sit silently and listen deeper than the whining of your brat, you will realize your body sits quietly and needs nothing.
The best way to approach this is by patting the little brat on the head, taking reigns and realize YOU know what’s best for yourself, just as a parent knows what’s best for its child. A parent wouldn’t let a child run out into the street– why would you let your Brat decide the fate of your health? Your body is the victim here. Your body knows when it is being neglected, mistreated, or judged unfairly. Love it, and show it you care for it by making fit, clean decisions.
Giving in “once in a while” to habits that go against your goals sets your mind-body connection to random. Aligning your behavior patterns with your highest goals in mind sets you up for success. Aligning your actions with your best self is the simplest way to health- and your best you.
Take Home Practices:
“Am I doing this to cope with something emotionally?” or “Is it my body that wants this, or is my inner brat just used to getting it? Does it make me closer to my goals?”
“What are the excuses I’m telling myself right now?”
My favorite: “What would my ideal self do right now?” (e.g. “What would my personal trainer self do?” “What would my health guru self do?”)
Suggested Reading:
“How Successful People Think” – John C. Maxwell
“Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul” – Deepak Chopra
Headstrong Health: The Psychology of Getting Fit 