I don't want to be a fat rat!

This week’s challenge is one that we haven’t tried in previous rounds. It involves time restricted eating. The idea is to restrict your eating into a certain period of time, usually being 12 hours. So you look at the clock when you eat your first bite of food for the day (or drink your first swig of juice or smoothie) and again at the time you take your last bite in the evening and it must all occur within a 12 hour window. During the other 12 hours you don’t take in ANY thing but water.

Recent studies done on mice showed that if they ate throughout the 24 hours of a day they showed increases in obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and Cancer. Strangely the study showed that it did no matter WHAT or HOW MUCH they ate but WHEN they ate was crucial. Mice in the study that ate the same food but were on time-restriction had 28% less body mass and 70% less fat. Now of course the quality and amount of food you eat matters. But time restriction alone has a huge impact on health.

·       The mice studied in this program when put on time restricted eating had an increase in lean body mass which was caused by an increase in Nicotimamide Ribose, which creates more NAD. And more NAD gives more ATP. ATP is the main energy source of our body and boosts our energy level. In addition time restricted eating increases endurance, increases brown fat tissue and increases mitochondria activity.

I know this is probably sounding super scientificy (made up word) but this is interesting stuff. If you are interested in more information listen to this podcast or do a google search. There is a lot of information on these healthy living strategy.

http://podcastnotes.org/2016/07/11/time-restricted-feeding-and-its-effects-on-obesity-muscle-mass-heart-health/

·      And you may be interesting in downloading an APP that can be helpful in your goal to eat less hours each day. The APP is mycircadianclock.org

·       So starting Wednesday make a plan to do what you can. For our competition if you can restrict ALL eating to a 12 hour period you can claim our 5 daily bonus points. If you can restrict it to even less hours per day even better. And as always please contact me if you have health issues that do not allow such restriction. I often provide alternate challenges to those that cannot participate in our challenge for the week. Happy to do it.

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Weekly Challenge- More balance in your fitness routine

I’m not sure about you but in most areas of life I have my favorites. I love fish tacos, Fixer Upper, long walks, stretching in Yoga class and Jack Johnson music. Unfortunately it isn’t always the healthiest to exclusively enjoy our favorites. 

I suspect as we have begun this round of competition that you are already settling into a favorite work out routine. It might be walking, or strength training or perhaps a favorite work out class. But it is vital to our total health and fitness to vary our work outs. 

The Mayo Clinic shares that we should include ALL of the following in our fitness plans. 

Aerobic fitness

Aerobic activity, also known as cardio or endurance activity, is the cornerstone of most fitness training programs. Aerobic activity or exercise causes you to breathe faster and more deeply, which maximizes the amount of oxygen in your blood. Your heart will beat faster, which increases blood flow to your muscles and back to your lungs.

The better your aerobic fitness, the more efficiently your heart, lungs and blood vessels transport oxygen throughout your body — and the easier it is to complete routine physical tasks and rise to unexpected challenges, such as running to your car in the pouring rain.

Aerobic activity includes any physical activity that uses large muscle groups and increases your heart rate. Try walking, jogging, biking, swimming, dancing, water aerobics — even leaf raking, snow shoveling and vacuuming.

For most healthy adults, the Department of Health and Human Services recommends that you get at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity a week, or a combination of moderate and vigorous activity. The guidelines suggest that you spread out this exercise during the course of a week. You can even break up activity into spurts of 10 minutes.

You can also try high-intensity interval training, which involves alternating short bursts of intense activity (around 30 seconds) with subsequent recovery periods (around 3 to 4 minutes) of lighter activity. For example, you could alternate periods of brisk walking with periods of leisurely walking, or include bursts of jogging into your brisk walks.

Strength training

Muscular fitness is another key component of a fitness training program. Strength training can help you increase bone strength and muscular fitness, and it can help you manage or lose weight. It can also improve your ability to do everyday activities. Aim to include strength training of all the major muscle groups into your fitness routine at least twice a week.

Most fitness centers offer various resistance machines, free weights and other tools for strength training. But you don't need to invest in a gym membership or expensive equipment to reap the benefits of strength training.

Hand-held weights may work just as well. Resistance bands are another inexpensive option. Your own body weight counts, too. Try pushups, pullups, abdominal crunches and leg squats.

Core exercises

The muscles in your abdomen, lower back and pelvis — known as your core muscles — help protect your back and connect upper and lower body movements. Core strength is a key element of a well-rounded fitness training program.

Core exercises help train your muscles to brace the spine and enable you to use your upper and lower body muscles more effectively. So what counts as a core exercise? A core exercise is any exercise that uses the trunk of your body without support, such as bridges, planks, situps and fitness ball exercises.

Balance training

Balance exercises can help you maintain your balance at any age. It's generally a good idea for older adults in particular to include exercises to maintain or improve balance in their routine exercises. This is important because balance tends to deteriorate with age, which can lead to falls and fractures. Balance exercises can help older adults prevent falls and maintain their independence.

However, anyone can benefit from balance training, as it can help stabilize your core muscles. Try standing on one leg for increasing periods of time to improve your overall stability. Activities such as tai chi can promote balance, too.

Flexibility and stretching

Flexibility is an important aspect of physical fitness, and it's a good idea to include stretching and flexibility activities in a fitness program. Stretching exercises can help increase flexibility, which can make it easier for you to do many everyday activities that require flexibility.

Stretching can also improve the range of motion of your joints and may promote better posture. Regular stretching can even help relieve stress and tension.

Ideally, you'll stretch whenever you exercise. If you don't exercise regularly, you might want to stretch at least two to three times a week after warming up to maintain flexibility. Activities such as yoga promote flexibility, too.

Cover all the bases

So as you continue to refine your overall exercise plan you should include all of these elements. It’s important to incorporate aerobic fitness, strength training, core exercises, balance training, and flexibility and stretching into your exercise plan. It isn't necessary to fit each of these elements into every fitness session, but factoring them into your regular routine can help you promote fitness for life.

And so your challenge for this week is to include at least 10 minutes of any of these other elements (those you may have been neglecting) in your daily exercise sessions. (NOTE: For exercise bonus challenges you can earn just 30 bonus points as I always give you the Sabbath off) This does NOT have to be an additional 10 minutes added to your regular 60 minutes- instead it can be 10 minutes of your regular work out devoted to one of the other types of exercise. Switch it up ladies! 

Berry Delicious

Here we go with our first food related weekly bonus challenge and it’s going to be a total treat.

Yes you are going to have to eat BERRIES every day this week to earn your daily bonus points. While I would love you to eat 3 servings of berries a day our bonus challenge is going to require you to eat at least ONE SERVING (which is ½ cup) of berries each day to earn the daily bonus points.

Also while I realize here in Florida we are already starting to see fresh local berries they may not be available or affordable in your area. Feel free to use whole frozen berries if you can find them with no added sugar. Berries are great with oatmeal or yogurt, in smoothies, or just by themselves. They are natures superior treat.

Antioxidants
Berries are potent sources of antioxidants that essentially act like little bodyguards protecting cells from damage, which can lead to premature aging and disease. But antioxidants are also linked to weight control. Some exciting new research from the University of Florida found that people who consume more antioxidants weigh less, even when they don’t eat fewer calories. Blood sugar regulation.

Belly fat fighters

In one animal study rats that consumed two percent of their diet as blueberries had dramatic results after 90 days—significantly less belly fat, lower blood fats, lower cholesterol, and improved blood sugar and insulin levels.

Fiber
Berries are a terrific source of fiber, another key factor in weight control. Research has found that for every gram of fiber we eat, we eliminate seven calories, so consuming the recommended 25 to 35 grams daily could cancel out nearly 300 calories, enough to result in a 30 pound weight loss in one year’s time. Another study in Brazilian dieters found that over a six month period, each additional gram of fiber resulted in an extra quarter pound of weight loss. Raspberries in particular have the best ratio of carbohydrate to fiber. Of their 15 grams of carbohydates per cup, eight are fiber. In addition to weight loss, berries have been shown to boost bone density, maintain healthy vision, protect against the sun’s UV rays, slash the risk of cancer and Parkinson’s disease, fight infections, and keep your brain young. Pretty powerful stuff!

TWO FAVORITES

Strawberries in particular have been shown to reduce blood sugar and insulin levels after meals. Scientists believe that a key antioxidant in strawberries blocks the activity of an enzyme responsible for breaking starch into simple sugar, which means fewer simple sugars are released into the blood stream, lowering the blood sugar and the corresponding insulin response. This is key for weight control because insulin shuttles excess sugar into fat cells. Metabolism boosters

Raspberries have been shown to contain a natural substance called ketones, which are similar to capsaicin, the compound that gives hot peppers their fire. Animal studies have found that raspberry ketones prevented an increase in overall body fat and visceral fat, the deep internal belly fat considered to be most dangerous due to its relationship to an increased risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and certain cancers.

"I love to eat vegetables! They are delicious and make me feel great! "

Welcome to another round of Healthy Living Challenge. If you have not already done so read the RULES and FAQs tab on this blog to help you prepare for our first week. If you are new to the competition please join myfitnesspal.com and friend 3 ladies to give you support. And each week come to this site (hopefully by Sunday-remind me if you don’t see it by then) to read the weekly bonus challenge for the week to come. Here is our first challenge.

I think that sometimes if people could read our minds they would be shocked at our negative thoughts about ourselves. Isn’t it crazy that we can be so kind, loving and tolerant toward others; giving them the benefit of the doubt, easily forgiving their flaws and shortcomings and really thinking they are great despite it all and not offer ourselves the same generosity of spirit. I imagine most of you can relate to self-critical thoughts concerning talking too much, saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing, forgetting things, not accomplishing enough, personal appearance etc. etc. etc.

Well we are going to work on that this week.

Several years ago I decided to train for and run a marathon. I have never loved running but just really wanted to do it. At some point during my months of training I noticed how much I had begun to dread my daily training runs. My thoughts were something like “I am so tired. I am just dreading running today. I have so much to do I really can’t afford the time to run. Oh it’s going to take so so so long. When am I going to do it? I just don’t want to do it. I am just dreading it.” I must have heard some things at that time about positive thoughts and mine surely weren’t positive. So I decided to try it out. I RAN these thoughts through my head, “I’m going to feel great after I run today. I always feel such a sense of accomplishment after my run. Look at that person running. I can’t wait until I find time for that today. Wow my run is going to be awesome.”

So what seems crazy to me was I didn’t actually believe any of the thoughts I was forcefully running through my mind but somehow my brain didn’t know that. I actually began to look forward to my daily multi-mile run. (And yes I went on to complete the marathon and no I never learned to like running).

In simple terms, affirmations (sometimes called “self-affirmations”) are positive sentences that you repeat to yourself. When you first start saying these phrases, they might not be true. Often, they are designed to reflect what you want to be true. Over time, the consistent repetition of daily positive affirmations helps to reshape your beliefs and assumptions about yourself and the world around you. This reshaping gives you a more positive perception of who you are and where you stand.

Wow that is powerful. So I would like to first imagine yourself at the end of this 8 week competition. You have followed the program valiantly. If you made a misstep you got right back on track. You are feeling healthier, looking more beautiful, enjoying more energy and really just doing awesome. Your friends and family are noticing and are proud of your accomplishments. You made a wonderful start to 2018.

Now what you need to do to earn the 5 daily bonus points this week is:

1. Visualize your amazing end result after we have completed this competition

2. Write a daily affirmation concerning your new healthy habits or the results of living them.

3. Share the affirmation with your partner and/or repeat it aloud several times each day.

OK ladies- positive thoughts, positive actions, positive results GO!

And feel free to share your favorite affirmations as a comment on this blog.