Our New House in Oro Valley
Speaking of moving, my latest stressful event was a relocation from one Tucson house to another (that’s why my posts have been so sparse lately)! When our offer was accepted and the closing loomed within 30 days, my first instinct was to forget about going to U.S. Masters Swimming nationals later in the summer. After all, I wasn’t going to have time to put in the training, right?
After further consideration, I decided that keeping the championship on the calendar would keep me focused so I would put in the miles I needed not only to do well in my events, but to stay more calm and upbeat as we underwent the stress of the move. And sure enough, its been working. I have maintained consistent training habits and have managed to deal with all of the box packing and carrying as well as repairing and installing various things at our new house without bursting into tears. OK, well I did kind of lose it once when I looked at my old closet floor after I had loaded several boxes and there was still a ton more and I wondered how I had accumulated so much stuff and where I would possible put it all! I do know that had I not been swimming almost daily it would have been a whole lot worse.
Below are some tried and true strategies to help you succeed when stress strikes:
1 – Plan your workouts in advance. Put these scheduled times in your handheld device like every other appointment and stick to the schedule without fail. Pack your gym bag the night before so you are ready to go.
2 – Set a goal. What do you want to accomplish shortly after this difficult time to keep you from missing a workout? It could be an athletic competition, a charity walk or run, or a vacation that requires being physically fit.
3 – Enlist the support of a friend or family member. In the case of our move, I encouraged my husband to go to the gym while I did something around the house so he didn’t feel he needed to miss workouts to do something for me. He always encouraged me to attend all my morning swimming workouts as well. I even trained the day the movers came to pick up our furniture! Be sure to offer encouragement to those close to you when they are under stress so they won’t fall off the exercise wagon.
4 – Release your frustration in the water or as your feet hit the road instead of out on other people. Notice how well it works. When your workout has helped you to cope with stress and deal better with frustrating situations, take note. When your day goes well, you will want to do it again. And people won’t want to hide from you whenever you are under duress.
The next time your work or personal life becomes crazy, don’t let go of your exercise routine. Keeping consistent will have a way of grounding you so the difficult time doesn’t seem as rough. If you have to relocate like I just did, being fit can come in handy. If I didn’t have great muscle tone, how would I have ever handled the packing, carrying, painting, hammering, drilling, backwashing, and trimming that needed to be done? Now if you will excuse me, I have to install another towel bar.
While vacationing in Ohio, it seemed perfect to stop what I was doing (drinking tea) and write about staying active while traveling. Its almost 9 a.m. here and I am happy to say I have already walked 20 minutes and been swimming for an hour. The Worthington High School Pool is just minutes from the house, so I slipped on my tennis shoes before dawn and walked there to join the high school swim team for practice. Afterwards, I walked back home, had a bowl of oatmeal and now here I am writing this article.
Clients often tell me its difficult to stay active on vacation. I say its a piece of cake. When you maintain your exercise routine, you adjust quicker to time changes, feel happier and more energetic, and good about yourself for staying on track. I make it a habit to always plan what I will do to stay in shape before the trip even happens.
Before travelling to Ohio, I emailed the Worthington Swim Club coach and asked him if he would mind if a Masters swimmer joined his group for practices. When he gave me an affirmative answer and the schedule, I was all set. All I had to do was have the gumption to get up at 6 a.m. every morning, the equivalent of 3 a.m. in Tucson. So far so good.
I also get a lot of residual exercise spending time with my family. One morning I took a 15 minute jog with my daughter. Yesterday, we played Marco Polo in the pool and took an hour-long evening walk along the Olentangy River. I even spent an hour or so pulling thistles out of my mom’s garden. Ouch! My days have been activity-filled. It is a great feeling to know that when I go home to Arizona, I will be in even better shape than when I left.
Another strategy I use for staying active on trips is to plan the trip around a competitive event. I recently wrote an article on this topic (featuring other people like myself who thrive off of this type of travel), which will appear later this year in American Fitness.
I often compete in the La Jolla Roughwater swim and the La Jolla Shores 5K so I can enjoy La Jolla and also get out there and race people. Later this summer I will compete in the U.S. Masters Swimming Long Course National Championships in Puerto Rico. After a few days of pool swimming races in Puerto Rico, I will top off the week with a one mile open water swim and then fly to Granada where from our hotel’s beach, you can swim for miles and still stand on the bottom! I know already I will be swimming every single day of vacation.
If you’re a fitness instructor like me, you can take a trip and teach classes at the same time (check out fitbodiesinc.com). Last summer I took my family to an all-inclusive resort in Cancun and paid very little because of the two hours I spent teaching classes daily. There are places all over the Caribbean where you can have a fabulous time on an active vacation.
So if you’re making a list of excuses of why you can’t keep moving, why don’t you pitch that in the trash and write up an activity agenda. Here in Ohio, swimming will continue to be on the daily agenda as well as walking and the occasional jog. And who knows. Maybe the kids will be able to talk me into getting on the trampoline again for seat wars. I’m not 18 anymore. But I can pretend.
Far too often people cope with stress by reaching for a piece of candy or a cookie. Others can’t stop at one or two and end up eating the whole bag or box. Hardly ever are the foods people reach for to calm themselves healthy (when was the last time you reached for a carrot stick when your boss chewed you out?) Usually, people grab items loaded with salt, sugar and/or fat. Once the thrill of the binge ends, the net result is guilt and low self esteem. If this sounds all too familiar, below are some suggestions for how to reduce your stress level without expanding your waistline.
The first step is to put a halt to using food as a stress reliever. When you need to relax, try some of these other tools and stay clear of the refrigerator until you feel calm.
1 – Step outside for a long walk, preferably someplace quiet where you can feel in-tune with nature.
2 – Slip into a warm bath. Make it even better by pouring in some of your favorite bath oil, reading a favorite book or listening to music.
3 – Put on your gardening gloves. Touching the earth and plants can be very soothing.
4 -Write down your thoughts without worrying about grammar or punctuation or writing it so someone else would want to read it. Sometimes just unloading what’s on your mind without having to censor it can do wonders for your stress.
5 – Engage in a favorite hobby. Whether you like quilting, knitting, painting or working with clay, just indulge in some quality “me” time.
Adopting a different strategy to cope with stress may be difficult for awhile. The sacrifice will be well worth the effort, though. Once you get in the habit of using non-food methods to decompress at the end of the day, you will feel more relaxed than you ever did before. Not to mention that you will feel much more in control of your weight and your life.
Running elevates heart rate, improves bone density, and keeps us feeling positive. In addition, running demands no inflation of tires, no special equipment and can be done almost anywhere. The only downside of running is the trauma on our bodies.
The impact of striking the ground repeatedly places a lot of stress on the feet, shins, knees, and hips. Runners can reduce the incidence of common injuries such as Iliotibial Band Syndrome, Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction, achilles tendonitis, knee problems, and hamstring and other muscle strains by taking a few simple precautions.
1) Wear footwear appropriate for your arch height and runnng style (its best to get fitted at a running store by someone who can do a proper evaluation) and replace shoes when cushioning has broken down (shoes are usually rated for X amount of miles).
2) Gradually increase intensity during each workout. Be sure not to start out too fast.
3) Increase intensity and distance gradually. Beginners might start by alternating between walking for a minute and jogging for a minute for a total of 15 minutes the first week. Fitter individuals could start with a mile jog, gradually increasing distance by a half mile to a mile per week. Listen to your body! It will tell you if you are doing too much too soon.
4) Avoid running on shoulders and other banked surfaces, which will put undue stress on the hips and knees on one side of the body. I ran on a shoulder in a half marathon once and my knee hurt very badly for two weeks afterward.
5) Integrate cross training into your program. Low or non-impact activities such as swimming or cycling are ideal.
6) Stretch and use a foam roller to lengthen the IT band post-run. It tends to shorten and contract during and after running and cycling. When this band of connective tissue gets too tight, it causes pain on the outside of the knee and hip. To stretch, lay on back, legs extended. Place yoga strap under right foot, extending leg up and gently stretching over body toward the left. To roll, position yourself on your side over foam roller and roll up and down the outside of the thigh. Avoid rolling over the knee joint or the hip bone. A soft roller will work best. I purchases a green one from OTPT that works very well.
7) Stretch hip flexors, hamstrings, quadriceps, IT band, and low back after every workout.
If your running style is awkward, hire a running coach or pick up a copy of Danny Dreyer’s Chi Running. His book offers great suggestions on how to adjust your posture, foot strike and running style so it is less traumatic on the body.
Are you ready to get out there and enjoy your workout? I know I am. I’ve got to don my running shoes now, too, before it gets too hot. Tucson in June is hot, hot, hot!!
If you’re like most of us, you want to maximize the number of calories burned during each and every workout. That way, sampling a thick slice of chocolate cake at your neighbor’s luncheon or sharing a bottle of wine with your spouse at dinner won’t lead to guilt or extra weight around the mid-section. But how many calories do you really burn when you swim, run or lean on that weight machine and chat with your friends (if you do the latter, we need to talk)?
The number of calories you burn depends on the type of activity in which you are engaged, your weight and how vigorously you engage in a given activity.
First, the bad news. If you weigh 200 pounds, you will burn more calories than a 150 pound individual during any given activity, even though both of you are doing the same amount of work. Yes, ladies—it’s an unpleasant fact of life that you can’t eat as many calories as your spouses without paying the piper.
The good news is that you burn more calories when you work harder, so you can make up for the calories you’re not burning by being female by exerting more or engaging in a more challenging activity. For example, if you walk at a 3 mile-per-hour pace, you will burn only 210 calories per hour, but if you step it up to a 4 mile- per-hour pace, you will burn 318 calories instead.* To increase calorie consumption even further, you could walk longer than an hour, faster or engage in a more vigorous activity, such as running.
Running receives the highest accolades when it comes to calorie consumption. According to the Fitness Partner Connection website (www.primusweb.com/fitnesspartner), a 140 pound individual will burn 572 calories per hour running an 11.5 minute mile and 891 calories running a 7 minute mile. Swimming (up to 700 calories/hour), jumping rope (636 calories/hour), the stair step machine (572 calories/hour), stationary rowing (540 calories/hour) and bicycling (up to 636 calories/hour) are other big calorie burners that are less traumatic on the body than running.*
Calories are most efficiently burned by performing continuous exercise for a long duration, such as running, swimming, cycling or walking. With running or walking, you can use miles per hour to calibrate calories burned. Fitness classes such as step aerobics, low impact aerobics, water aerobics and dance can also qualify as good calorie burning activities, but it is harder to estimate caloric expenditure during these activities since the amount of effort participants put into classes varies dramatically.
When you take a class, the number of calories burned is dependent on how quickly you are moving, how many risers are under your step, how much arm and leg motion is occurring with each step. So try to make the most of each class, focusing on each movement to maximize caloric expenditure within limits comfortable for your fitness level.
In addition to regular workouts, you can maximize calorie consumption throughout the day by merely choosing anything that involves motion over idle activities. Instead of watching TV, opt for pulling weeds in the back yard. Instead of dropping into a chair at a party, stand up and mingle.
Unless you have unusually high metabolism, exercise is not a carte blanche to head for the all-you-can-eat buffet table. In reality, the 500 calories most of us burn during an hour workout won’t allow for much extra food on the plate. However, if diet stays constant as activity is increased, this daily deficit of 500 calories can have a huge impact on weight over time. Burning an extra 500 calories per day (a 3500 calorie deficit is required to lose one pound) can lead to a loss of one pound in a week, four pounds in a month or a whopping 48 pounds a year!
As we age, maintaining a healthy weight or losing unwanted pounds becomes more challenging, but being overweight doesn’t have to be a foregone conclusion if a proper balance of exercise and healthy diet is established.
* Calorie consumption examples are from primusweb.com/fitnesspartner and are based on a 140 pound individual.
You would think that someone drinking a diet soda would tend to watch his or her weight and eat light. Unfortunately, many people drink diet sodas while consuming amounts of high calorie food. What is it about certain situations that trick people into eating more than necessary? Its something that food companies count on, that American desire to eat big portions. Take for example those foods labeled “light,” “low calorie” or “healthy.” You go through that package faster than a “normal” package of food and then you have to buy another one sooner, right?
Studies have repeatedly shown that people tend to eat larger quantities of foods they perceive to be healthy and/or low in calories than those without a similar label. This, in fact, could lead to someone having two bowls of “light” ice cream instead of one small bowl of regular ice cream or a half dozen “low fat” cookies instead of three regular ones. When you look at total calories, a large quantity of any item, healthy or not, is likely to tip the scales in the wrong direction. This is NOT healthy for you.
Make it your goal to not fall prey to that voice in your head saying “its healthy so go ahead and have as much as you want.” Send the food company executives running into the boardrooms, scratching their heads and wondering why people are taking so long to get back to the store.
Limit your consumption of any food item to one serving, rather than allowing yourself a carte blanche to eat as much as you want just because the food is supposed to be healthy. Then it will be your wallet, not your waistline that will be expanding.
Many recent articles have discussed the health risks associated with too much sodium added to our foods; high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke. Because of these risks, the FDA is working to regulate manufacturers so that they reduce the amount of sodium added to foods. The recommended intake is 1500 mg or less, the maximum healthy amount is 2300 and the average American intake 3400 mg according to an April 21 Associated Press release.
Since I consider myself to eat a very healthful diet, I found it an interesting exercise today to add up the sodium in my diet today and discovered that sodium was hiding in foods I never imagined.
Breakfast (pre-swim workout)
Cup of English breakfast tea – 0 mg
English muffin with raspberry jam – 269 mg
1 cup of XOOD sports drink – 105 mg
Breakfast 2 (post-swim)
1 cup oatmeal – 0 mg
1/2 cup milk – 120 mg
1/2 cup strawberries – 0 mg
Lunch
2 string cheese – 400 mg
1 whole wheat bagel – 400 mg
1 cup raspberry yogurt drink – 100 mg
Dinner
Bowl of Split pea soup – 690 mg
1 cup Mushrooms/asparagus – I added the salt – probably 500 mg
Doesn’t this sound like I did well? Truth is, my daily sodium intake is slightly over the 2300 recommended healthy maximum at 2315 mg even though I believed I was eating very healthfully. I learned a lesson, never imagining that salt would be present in yogurt or milk!
The moral of the story? Read your labels carefully and make sure you aren’t getting more sodium than you bargained for. Eat close to the source and avoid processed foods laden with hidden sodium.
Far too often, my more senior clients arrive at the gym in open-toed or street shoes. I typically ask them, “Why aren’t you wearing the right shoes?” Often the response is “These shoes are really comfortable.” I empathize with them. Comfort matters. And these people grew up in an era when comfortable exercise shoes were hard to come by and the idea of wearing them might strike them as unpleasant (as does the idea of me listening to my teenagers’ hip-hop music in the car instead of my favorite and familiar 70s and 80s tunes). Believe it or not, “gym shoes” really can feel great on your feet if you select the right pair. Not to mention the fact that proper footwear protects you in more ways than one.
Wearing a closed-toe shoe in the gym is imperative because bare toes are very vulnerable to the drop of a dumbbell (by you or someone else) or the end of a piece of equipment (surely I’m not the only one who has broken a toe more than once at home in bare feet)? A shoe with proper cushioning and support minimizes trauma on muscles and joints and reduces post-exercise discomfort.
A shoe worn for lifting weights need not be as “high tech” as one worn for impact activities such as walking, jogging or step aerobics. A weight lifting shoe should cover the entire foot, enable comfortable movement in all directions, and offer enough cushioning and support so the floor doesn’t feel too hard beneath your feet (low back and lower extremity joint discomfort often indicate inadequate cushioning).
If you run or engage in other high-impact activities regularly, you should buy very high quality (expensive) exercise shoes. Also buy the best footwear if you wear your shoe soles unevenly. A reputable sporting goods or running store won’t recommend a shoe without first having someone observe you walking or jogging on a treadmill, measure your arch height, and study your posture. Try on the shoe to make sure you get the proper fit (sizes vary from brand to brand), wearing your normal socks and orthotics.
Shoes worn for activities that include lateral movements, such as step aerobics and tennis, should provide lateral support so they don’t “roll over” when you move side-to-side. Running shoes are a poor choice because they are designed exclusively for forward movement. I prefer owning two pairs of shoes—a pair for running and a separate one for aerobics—over buying a once-size-fits-all “cross-training” shoe which doesn’t work optimally for either activity.
Exercise shoes should be replaced regularly. Once the cushioning in a shoe is broken down, it fails to do its job of protecting you. Get in the habit of replacing shoes every six months or about every 350 to 400 running miles to avoid unnecessary injury and pain.
There is a comfortable shoe out there waiting to be found. So when the shoe fits…buy it (and then wear it)!
Stepping in Cancun (This is a mock class with my daughter in the background - I don't let my students step barefoot).
To me, one of my responsibilities as a certified personal trainer and group exercise leader is to demonstrate to partipants and clients the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. That means following the ACSM guidelines for health aerobic and strength exercise to maximize my cardiovascular and musculoskeletal health and eating healthy so I stay within healthy weight limits.
I’ll be the first to admit that class participants have spotted me at the grocery with beer and ice cream in my shopping cart and that it made me feel a tad guilty. I will tell you that there were also healthy foods in there and that my diet philosophy is moderation, not obsession. At least one person a month usually asks me if I only eat raw vegetables, as if to look good you have to starve. Not! I eat whenever hungry and have maintained a weight 10-15 pounds less than when I was younger and trying all kinds of crazy diet plans. Experience and education have taught me that the best “diet” is one that includes a balance of the major food groups (with an emphasis on fruits and veggies) and minimizes processed foods high in fat and preservatives.
I most often go askew in good example setting with my athletic endeavors. As a nationally ranked competitive swimmer and occasional triathlete, I train numerous hours weekly in addition to teaching 7 or more fitness classes. I have to remind myself periodically that fitness is my career, whereas competitive athletics are only a hobby. When I keep my priorities in order, my competitive events and training don’t adversely affect my work. The only two injuries I’ve ever had (a rotator cuff tendinitis and a sacro-iliac tendinitis) both occurred, not because of a fitness class, but because of training or competing outside of class. Especially now that I’m in my late 40s, I have to be more prudent than ever training and spend more time warming up, cooling down and stretching.
Below are things I’ve seen instructors do or heard about from class participants (they just love to talk, talk, talk, about us in the locker room) that are worth aspiring NOT to do:
1 – Instructor comes to class carrying a Big Gulp of soda. A water bottle would be better…
2 – Instructor tells class about getting drunk in a bar the night before. Keep it to yourself…
3 – Overweight instructor tells class she gained 20 pounds on month-long vacation. Again, keep it to yourself…
4 – Instructor arrives to class obviously sick (coughing, sniffling, etc.) If at all possible get a sub, but I know from experience sometimes this is nearly impossible and someone has to teach the class, right? OK, so in a pinch, take some really good cold medicine first?
5 – Instructor arrives to class slightly limping (Yes, this has been me after a half marathon or a couple of weeks ago when I challenged my husband to a 3 mile race – I’m still working on my area of weakness 
) But what I and you should do is follow that RICE formula we preach to others and get someone to cover until the injury’s better.
6 – Instructor wears baggy clothes and constantly talks about how fat she is when she’s practically wasting away. Silence! It will make your class participants feel bad about themselves when someone so obviously thin or underweight is so self-critical.
7 – Instructor wears clothing that is ripped, dirty or too revealing. Fitness attire should always look neat and professional (one time I arrived to class wearing a red-rimmed Nike Vomero on the right foot and a blue one on the other – Oops).
As fitness professionals, we have the opportunity to be living examples that exercise works – it makes you feel great, look great, and have a better quality of life. By “practicing what we preach,” we enhance our influence and our credibility.
Many people tell me they can’t stand to workout an hour a day because its “too boring.” Mindless exercise is boring. Bringing your brain into the picture is a quick way to make training engaging instead of dull.
If I’ve planned a 3000-yard swim, I can either get in the pool and plod out 120 mind-numbing lengths of the pool or I can pre-establish a workout with specific intervals and objectives to keep my mind engaged throughout.
Occasionally, I’ll do a long swim so I can contemplate something going on with my life and try to come up with a solution, but I woud be bored to death if I just got in and used my brain for nothing more than counting lengths of the pool (kind of like singing 101 bottles of beer on the wall).
Every time I get in the water, it is with some specific purpose. Maybe I want to achieve a certain time on a set of 100s. Or to negative split a set of 200s (swimming the second half faster than the first half). Or to step down a set of 3 500s (first one slow, second one a little faster, last one really hard). When I attend a Masters swimming workout, our coach sets up the workout for us and then I just mentally plan goal times for different parts of the workout.
I also often think about one specific element of my swimming while swimming a set. Perhaps it might be getting a good pushoff on every turn, keeping my head lower when I do breaststroke or avoiding that crossover I sometimes get with my right arm on freestyle. The entire workout, my mind is engaged and there is a mind-body connection going on. When you just try to force the body do an activity in which the brain is in no way involved, you get boredom.
I bet you’re wondering what I think about watching T.V., listening to iPods, and reading or listening to books on tape while exercising. My answer? That depends. If you want to do some long steady state exercise and aren’t concerned with “correct form,” it won’t hurt anything to do it some of the time. But I think its worthwhile to spend at least some time each week tuning into what is happening with your body.
I advocate not “tuning out” while doing a sport such as swimming that requires a lot of skill. I also think its JUST PLAIN CRAZY to go out road biking with a headset on. While road biking, you should watch for objects and obstructions on the road in front of you and be alert to other drivers, cyclists and pedestrians. You can also track your speed, heart rate, and distance to make your ride more stimulating.
Below are a few before/after workout makeovers
1 – instead of that same old 3 mile run (treadmill or outside)…. Put on a heart rate monitor and run 5 minutes to warm up and then finish the run with 2 minute easy intervals and 2 minute hard intervals. Make sure your heart rate doesn’t go higher than is safe for your age and cardiovascular health.
2 – instead of that same old X distance run outside….Put on a heart rate monitor and do random intervals. Warm up five minutes and then sprint until you get to the fire hydrant, the next corner or some other land-mark determined distance and then do a recovery jog in between each hard interval. This way you will get more engaged with your surroundings.
3 – instead of that same old boring 45 minute walk (treadmill or outside)…Go ahead and put the iPod on, but put songs of different tempos in sequence so you can walk to the beat of the music. Some songs will have you walking faster, others at a slower interval.
4 – instead of that same old boring 45 minute walk…Recruit a friend (or family members) to join you, walk your dog (or someone else’s), or go to a state or national park for a change of scenery.
5 – instead of a mile swim….400 yards (8 lengths) warm-up, including different strokes and drills you like and some kicking with a kick board. 12 x 25s (1 distance per stroke, 1 fast turnover, 1 combine distance with speed x 4) 3 x 200s (negative split – second half faster than first) 6 x 50s (any stroke – step down 1-3, 4-6). 50-100 easy.
6 – instead of 45 minutes on a stationary bicycle….Buy or use a spin bike instead. Put songs on iPod that are good for hill climbs, sprints, and out-of-the seat jumps and jogs. Miix up the workout with a combination of these. Monitor heart rate and make sure to insert active recovery intervals.
I’ve spoken to open water swimmers who say they rarely get bored while swimming for hours in the ocean. Why? Because there is too much to think about, they say. Keeping your mind engaged in every aspect of your activity can make workouts much more interesting. Have a fun and productive workout week. Now that I’ve shared my thoughts, I look forward to hearing about YOUR favorite ways to beat boredom in workouts!