What you should know when the scale makes you say WTF
It’s that time of year when millions of us renew our focus on health and lifestyle changes we want to make for the coming year. Whether you choose to go on a diet, start exercising, exercise more, or some combination of new habits, the start of a new year is a great time to approach your goals with enthusiasm and vigor.
As with any goal, you’ll need to measure your progress. For those interested in losing weight, the bathroom scale often becomes a torture device — one that can make or break your day in a matter of seconds.
As a fitness coach, I ask my clients to weigh themselves daily. I like to see how their bodies respond to various stressors like training and sleep and to changes in calorie consumption. Plus, research generally agrees daily weighing leads to greater weight loss than less frequent weighing. …
Hint: intermittent fasting helps, and you don’t need to give up carbs
You may have heard the term metabolic flexibility recently. The concept isn’t new, but the idea has gained more traction on popular websites, as being metabolically flexible is becoming a key marker of health.
Metabolic flexibility’s formal definition is the ability of an organism to respond or adapt according to changes in metabolic or energy demand, as well as the prevailing conditions or activity. That’s a lot of scientific speak to say metabolic flexibility is how well your body can switch from using carbohydrates to fats for energy depending on what you’re asking from it at the moment (i.e., …
#6 something called optic flow
By this point in our evolutionary history, we all know walking is good for us. Yet, many of us still leave this fundamental component of health up to whatever we manage to squeak in while walking around the house, to and from work (if that’s even happening), or while running errands.
We may think we counteract the amount of time we spend sitting with a 30–60-minute gym session, but our bodies weren’t designed to sit all day and then push as hard as possible for a brief amount of time.
According to a study in Diabetes,
The average non-exercising person may become even more metabolically unfit in the coming years if they sit too much, thereby limiting the normally high volume of intermittent non-exercise physical activity in everyday life. …
Learn how metabolism works and what (if anything) you can do
It’s easy to talk about metabolism like it’s some mysterious code you can crack. Drink more green tea! Take this pill! Boost your metabolism with these five fat-burning foods! Buy my multi-level-marketing coffee, and you’ll see pounds melt away!
The truth is metabolism is far more complicated, and there’s still a lot scientists don’t know about the biological process of producing and burning energy. Most products intended to “boost” your metabolism are the modern equivalent of snake oil.
Here, I’ll break down what scientists know and don’t know about metabolism and how that knowledge translates to the world of weight gain and loss. …
What research says about balancing the risks of sedentary behavior
Find yourself sitting for countless hours a day? Perhaps you have a job that ties you to an office chair for hours on end. Working from home doesn’t help (at least for me), as now the walk to the breakroom or bathroom is mere steps away. Regardless of the numb feeling in your butt, we can do something to offset the negative consequences of sitting too long.
A metanalysis published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine analyzed nine studies from four countries that followed 44,000 participants for 14 years. …
Why fears over a “twindemic” remain unfounded at this point
Scrolling my social media feed, a video came up from our pediatrician. In it, he said something that stopped me in my tracks. He has seen zero (yes, zero) flu cases in his office so far this season.
According to the CDC, in the U.S., flu activity peaks between December and February, although activity can last as late as May. Here it is mid-January, and my kids’ pediatrician isn’t the only one noticing a lack of sick patients in his waiting room. Many physicians are breathing a sigh of relief after fearing the worst this Fall.
Dr. Anthony Fauci of the U.S. National Institutes of Health in September warned about considerable concern as we enter the fall and winter months and into the flu season that we’ll have that dreaded overlap (meaning COVID and flu). We began hearing the world “twindemic.” …
How you can get the scale moving again
It doesn’t matter how much weight we have to lose; we all hit the dreaded plateau at some point. You’re doing everything right. Maybe you have the occasional “cheat” meal here and there, but all in all, weight loss has been going along steadily.
Then, bam! A slap in the face. The needle refuses to budge any further. It may last days to months, and it usually comes when we are in the home stretch of reaching our weight loss goal.
According to Medical News Today,
Research shows that weight loss plateaus happen after about 6 months of following a low calorie diet. …
If you’re sick of hearing the Peloton gospel, your friends can’t help it.
It’s finally 2021, and there’s no getting around it; enthusiasm for the Peloton isn’t going anywhere. It’s much like the early days of CrossFit. Those who join the club can’t shut up about it.
Writing about what feels like my obsession for the bike that goes nowhere feels self-indulgent. Still, with Peloton’s explosive growth, I realize I’m not the only one who finds herself a reluctant convert to the world of digital fitness and at-home workouts.
Medium publication Marker notes,
$3.9 billion: That’s the total revenue Peloton expects to earn in 2021 — nearly twice as much as it earned in 2020. In November, the at-home fitness startup reported eye-popping year-over-year sales growth: 232% for the first quarter of its 2021 fiscal year. …
How the NFL is appealing to a younger generation and why it has to
When my 11-year-old son came running in the room to tell me the Chicago Bears vs. New Orleans Saints game was on Nickelodeon, I thought he was joking. Surely not? Since when has the classically self-important game of football been associated with the likes of SpongeBob Squarepants and slime?
I’m a football fan, although it’s been a frustrating few years supporting my favorite team, the Denver Broncos. …
You can’t build a house with only a hammer…
Progressive overload is one of those terms you’ll see thrown around the fitness community without much explanation behind it. It’s a simple concept, but it’s easy to get wrong. And if you ignore progressive overload, you’ll plateau and waste a whole lot of time and effort in the gym.
First, progressive overload means gradually increasing weight, frequency, or the amount of work from one training session to the next. It doesn’t apply solely to lifting either. Endurance athletes also get better by gradually pushing their bodies to do more over time, whether with distance, speed, or both.
Progressive overload is what helps us get better at exercise, grow stronger, and gain muscle. We go from having to walk during a mile run to eventually running the whole thing. When I started deadlifting, I could pick up 125 pounds. Now I can lift 225. …
