Cookie-eating vs. Walking it off

Sunny asked a few friends recently, "Are you Trading Your health for a “Treat”?  The resounding answer was "I don't think so. I can eat dark chocolate every day because it's good for me and I'm so active.

While walking to burn a few extra calories is good, it's even better to limit the incoming cakes, cookies, etc.  Did you know that even a tiny Tootsie Roll has 25 calories?  And who eats only one...usually it's 3-4, so you'd need to do 10 minutes of power walking just to burn off that trip to the candy bowl.

What about a single dark chocolate cookie -- how much damage can that do?  Well, the Nantucket cookie seen here has enough calories to sustain a 20 minute jog to and from the park!  Can you really take that jog every time you hit the bag at the office meeting?

Pepperidge Farm® These cookies are American Classics

Nantucket™ Dark Chocolate Cookies

Nutrition Facts*
Amount per Serving (serving size) = 1 cookie

Calories 130	Sugars 8g
Total Fat 6g	Protein 1g

“It’s not the one cookie; it’s the one cookie you eat everyday” said my training client, Jess Grass.  When I see that she's gaining back the weight she worked so hard to lose, then I know she's giving in to the sweet treats too often.   You don't have to go sugar-free everyday, but she and many others should try it for just a single day or two and see how many calories we save.

I went sugar-free for 5 days in September and it was eye-opening.  There's sugar hidden in so many foods!  Ketchup, salad dressing, and simple breads, not even "sweet" breads.  My boyfriend asked what I was doing and if I was somehow anti-sugar.  “I’m in favor of sugar” he said, and three of his friends quickly agreed.

But if I can do without sugary treats, I will save a lot of the fall and winter excess from ever piling on.  And that will keep me in summer-weight range and happier, longer than any Nantucket cookie can make me.

Small meals and Your appetite

Appetite tells us when to eat, and when working well, how much to eat or when to stop. It works well when we eat natural, filling foods at a slow and measured pace. But it doesn't work so well when processed and calorie-dense foods rather than nutrient-dense foods take center stage. Given today's culture and conveniences, in just 10 minutes you could scarf down a variety of foods to satisfy hunger. For example, it's easy to feel full after eating two whole carrots (150 calories) or you could get a similar satisfaction from eating a jumbo-sized box of fries (1,150 calories). Either way, the appetite is satisfied but with a very different calorie and nutrient content.

Meal timing also plays into appetite. Eariler and frequent smaller meals are easier for the body to use as fuel during exercise. It makes sense for most people dieting to lose a weight to 25% of their daily calories in a larger breakfast. This controls appetite and reduces hunger throughout the day, resulting in lower overall calorie intake. Meals every 3-4 hours will also require more energy to digest than the traditional 3 meals per day format. There is also evidence from weight loss studies that suggests that people usually eat less overall when they eat often, so it's a win-win.

Finally, developing a healthy appetite using frequent, small meals should be easy and appetizing. Consider a few high-nutrient, very satisfying appetizers. This list of 5 foods have at least two high-satiety foods that can fill you up on healthy combinations. Eat one about 10 minutes before your next meal to fill up early, or have 2-3 as a meal combination for fullness. These recipes were recetnly published in Triathlete Magazine (See triathletemag.com article by M. Fitzgerald from May 2009).

These all come it at about 150 calories. Try a few!

Spinach & Avocado/Tomato Salad

1 cup Spinach + 1/4 cup Avo's and Tomat's

with 1 tsp olive oil dressing

Crackers & Low-Fat Cheese

4 whole wheat crackers + 1 oz. cheese

Lentil Soup

1 cup as prepared by Amy's Organics or homemade

Asparagus & Almonds

4 spears steamed + 1/8 Almond slivers and Parm Cheese

Baked Fries with Rosemary

1/2 cup of potato slices baked at 450F for 30 mins

with olive oil spray and rosemary and S&P before baking

Falmouth, Cape Cod Weekend

Getting outdoors is great fun, especially with fit, fun friends. When friends Pauline and Ulandt asked if we -- my boyfriend Matthew and best friend Terry and I -- wanted to join them on Cape Cod, I asked "what should we bring?". Bikes, running shoes, googles and wetsuit, or all of the above!

Weekend activities on land and sea:

• 1 mile ocean swim, sans wetsuit -- yes the water was cool but warm enough!
• 1 hour paddle on a duet kayak into the bay near Green Pond
• Coastal area bicycling with Matthew and even Terry too (yes!)
• 7-mile run along inlets and bays with Ulandt and Matthew
• another 1+mile ocean swim, this time with a wetsuit and with another triathlete guy
• a final long ride 35+ miles bicycling back to Plymouth for the Commuter Rail

More about the weekend in a personal blog posting here.

Mid-day quick meal

It's all too common to rush through lunch. I used to do it while I was a scientific consultant; I still do it now as a trainer. Sometimes clients keep me too busy at the gym, and a quick 45 minutes at home is all I have to prep, eat, and dash back to the next client.

Summer is a prime time for veggie-based lunches. Today lunch was heavy on the zucchini and light on the bread. I used cottage cheese and deli turkey as my primary protein sources because that's just what I was in the mood for. The simple sandwich was about the same size as the bowl of microwave-steamed zukes/tomatoes/parsley/parm. In total this was about a 600 calorie lunch. Some of the chilled extra veggies later made a nice afternoon snack.

Eating on the patio is a great way to enjoy healthy food in the summer!

Sunny's Top 5 Nutritional Tips

I check labels and make informed choices about what and when I eat. But nobody's perfect, and sometimes I slip up ... a lot. See my Saturday log and how bad it got? I used to log my diet daily, even hourly to see what my hunger triggers and relievers are. Now I think a little longer term and have come up with 5 tips for better nutrition.

Here are my top 5 tips to drop 5 pounds with fewer calories and minimal hunger:

1. Drink water. 2 liters daily, at a minimum. Start with a tall glass 12oz before every meal and another glass with snacks. Add more water by drinking every 5-10 minutes while working out whether with cardio or with strength. Yes, you'll pee more but you'll also feel full more quickly and feel hunger less often.
2. Get green. Rethink snacks and look for veggie options like cucumbers with s&p or mustard, leafy green salads, steamed broccoli with a sprtiz of lemon. These are not on the shelves at CVS or Shaw's so you'll need to use pre-pack your snacks. Invest in ziploc baggies which microwave easily and small plastic boxes that won't leak.
3. Grains keep giving. Complex carbohydrates are slow burners that are perfect workout fuel. Whole grain bread and barley or whole grain couscous salads will leave you full for hours, especially if eaten with a tall glass of water. The darker, chewier, and less processed grains are best. Try cooking a new/old grain like quinoa today!
4. Nix sugary snacks. Fruity yogurt, begone! Unless you add the blueberries yourself, you're getting more corn syrup and sugar than goodness from fruit-included yogurts. And check the labels on so-called diet or nutritional bars also. Rice and cane syurp are common additives that only add quick-burn sugar to your diet. Use sparingly if at all.
5. Keep one treat. In all things, balance -- if you too strict, you'll likely really fall off the wagon quickly. Follow the above guidelines 90% of the time and indulge a little, daily with your free 10% of the time. If you allow for a little 100-200 calories "fudge" factor you can more easily keep the rest of your diet squeaky clean.

That's the recipe for contentment and success! I use this to drop 5 pounds almost every summer and usually within just a few weeks. It takes cooking and packing meals, plus snacks, and several large water bottles, but it's very doable. You don't need to write it all down, but it helps -- just keep it real and honest. It's that hard look in the mirror that makes us able to see what's real, and grow from it.

Drop me a note at sunny@sunnydayfitness.com if you want to know more about a nutritional lifestyle for weight loss or healthy weight maintenance. I look forward to hearing from you!

SunnyDayFitness - July Bootcamp

Exciting news! I am proud to announce that Bootcamp at Fresh Pond starts tomorrow with a few friends from my website and Facebook Page for SunnyDayFitness.com website fan page.

Here's a preview of the location where we'll be running

After a Warmup featuring dynamic, fun drills like "Monster Walks" and "Crazy Feet" we'll progress to what I call "The half-pond run". Participants will choose which direction to run -- Right (Red 1.6 miles) or Left (Blue 1.0 miles) for a longer or shorter warm-up jog/walk/run. Hopefully everyone will be up for the running, but we'll see!

Then we'll move into Drills and Games, like "soccer runs" and "capture the flag". Next comes P & P's -- code word for drill combos that people love to hate: Planks and Plyometrics. Then comes the triple threat for the arms - Pushups, Jumping Jacks, and Dips. Finally, we'll end with Stretches and a walk back to the cars or bikes where we start the rest of our day. All this in just one hour, once a week, and for only $10-12 per session. Sounds fun, doesn't it?

SunnyDayFitness can Revitalize your Life -- click here to see Sunny's card and contact her today with your questions.

Defying the laws of Aging with Exercise

"We all probably know of at least one senior citizen who seems to defy the laws of aging and remains in top physical shape well beyond their peers. We also tend to dismiss this person as genetically gifted or just unusual. However, research, and more and more seniors, are showing us that this doesn’t have to be the case. Many of the declines in fitness with age are due to lack of use, not just the normal aging process.

While it’s true that as we age we have to work harder than the young, a lot of the declines that we attribute to aging may be reversed with fitness training."

Above RaeLee Elder, 77, exercises wearing a T-shirt that expresses her positive outlook on life.

Over the past two years, Senior Journal.com has published the following among many headlines and research findings about benefits for senior fitness training:

Strength Training Is an Antidote to Muscle Loss In Elderly
Resistance or "strength" training has repeatedly been shown to be a safe and effective method of reversing sarcopenia, or muscle loss, in the elderly. The condition actually starts around age 45, when muscle mass begins to decline at a rate of about 1 percent per year. Scientists funded by the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) have been studying the factors involved in gradual muscle loss since 1988.

Boomers, Young Seniors Can Extend Life With Minimal Exercise
A new study gives people in their 50s and 60s another reason to get off the couch and be physically active — especially if they have conditions or habits that endanger their hearts, like diabetes, high blood pressure or smoking.

Elderly Women Should Worry More About Exercise Than Weight
Elderly women should worry more about exercising than about controlling their weight in order to prevent their physical decline, according to a study done at the University of Pittsburgh and recently published in Preventive Medicine.

Exercise also Improves Memory, Balance, Emotional State/Mood, Quality of Life, Bone Density, and even Skin Healing among Elderly. How many more reasons does one need to get active, stay active, especially in their retirement years. Time is on your side if you keep your body healthy and moving!

Source: http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/olderathletes/a/seniorfit.htm
Photo: MARK CROSSE / THE FRESNO BEE
http://www.fresnobee.com/907/story/1274482.html

Journal article: Age-related Changes in Marathon and Half-Marathon Performances

I've often wondered just how much age slows down an athlete. Cycling and running may seem like "a young person's game" when aging world-class athletes and Olympians over 35 are written off as contenders for first place. However, competition for many age-group prizes (based on 5-year or 10-year age brackets) remains fierce as aging athletes compete against one another.

But how much do aging marathon and half-marathon runners really slow down? A group of German researchers quantified the "age effect" a few years ago in the International Journal of Sport Medicine. Their answer surprised me: age is not statistically significant at all for age groups in the 20-49 range, and in the 50-69 age range each passing decade correlated to only a 2-5% loss in speed. Just 30 seconds per mile or less for a 2-hr half-marathoner!



Such a small effect from age surprised me and reassured me that age isn't everything. In fact, it's very little. The ability to exercise and dedication to training is the key factor in the older athlete's success. As the researchers conclude their abstract: Lifestyle factors have considerably stronger influences on functional capacity than age is supported by these findings from physically active and fit elderly.

Reference: http://www.thieme-connect.de/ejournals/abstract/sportsmed/doi/10.1055/s-2006-924658