Something New

Spring is here!! With the first day of Spring finally grazing us with its presence, there is a hint of cabin fever in all of us. Although there is no snow on the ground, there is still a chill in the air, and I know we are all eager for the warmth to come back. The sunshine, activities outside that don’t require wearing layers and layers of clothing, flowers and trees blooming. This is one of the times that I actually like change. Most of the time I try avoid it at all costs because it is uncomfortable and challenging, but the changing of the seasons I love! On the subject of change I would like to throw out a challenge to try something new this spring. With the weather getting warmer there are a lot more activities that are about to become available, I know we all have our favorites and tend to stick to those. But how do you know if you like something or not unless you are willing to try? In trying new things you may find a new hobby or love of yours! Now activities that I am suggesting are the type that will get you moving and active. But what is there to do you might ask; well let me help you with that. 

We live in a part of the state where we are close to many outdoor recreational treasures, there are so many new sites to see and experience. We have the Tetons and Yellowstone at our finger tips and if you haven’t been there lately or at all PLEASE take the time to do so, the beauty and the trails are endless and well worth the sort drive to behold all that they offer. Many of the trails and hikes are not difficult, they are as easy as walking the green belt that we have here, only difference is instead of seeing cars drive by you may see a buffalo or geyser shoot off. 

But we have many options closer that get you outside in the sun and moving such as...

Golfing – we have three golf courses here in Idaho falls, I am no pro that’s for sure but it is always fun for me to just hit the ball (or the grass when I miss) and it gets you walking around.

Green Belt Loop – Like I mentioned earlier we have a beautiful paved walk way by the river, grab a friend and go for a run or a brisk walk down by the water and enjoy the fresh air.

Kelly Cayon – many go there to ski in the winter but have you gone there to do some mountain biking? Don’t have a bike you say, there are bike shops in town that rent them. And it is an activity that the whole family can do.

Frisbee Golf – Something closer to home, Freeman Park has a great Frisbee golf course set up. Regular Frisbee's work just fine, and again it gets you walking and being active and you can do it with just two of you or a whole group!

Batting Range -Can you handle the fast ball? Put your batting skills to the test at the Field of Green Batting Range.

Sports – The city offers numerous team sports for adults and kids just head to the parks and rec web page and take a gander and what you might like to try. https://www.idahofallsidaho.gov/534/Parks-Recreation

Racing – Racing season has just begun and whether it’s your first mile or 5k or you may want to try your hand at your first long distance race there are plenty of options to choose from in this area, just put on your running shoes and start preparing. You may even catch the racing bug and find yourself signing up again and again

The point is there are so many options and new things to try to help you get active or stay active. I know it’s hard at first, but like anything in this life some of the hardest things turn out to be the greatest blessings! So have some courage grab a friend and try something new!

Getting ready for Summer

It’s almost spring and we all know what that means! Summer is just around the corner - YIKES!!

For most of us that means, hiking, swimming, camping, trips etc… the list can be endless BUT if our bodies aren’t ready we won't be able to enjoy those activities as much.  It’s not that you need to go to a gym 5 days a week and spend countless hours working out.  It’s also about enjoying life.

Do you know what it takes to be ready for Summer or what that looks like?   No? Well it’s about adding small increments of activity into your daily life,  Here is a list of some ways to become more active:

 1 - unplug yourself from your electronic devices

 2 - take the stairs as much as possible

 3.- park as far away from the front door as possible

 4 - cleaning either your house or garage

 5 - purchasing a pedometer to keep track of your activity

 6 - have walk meetings or book clubs or just a walk with your family

 7 - drink plenty of water, even adding more fruit is a nice addition

 8 - stretching or yoga

 9 - pick a hobby that you enjoy - whether it’s painting, woodworking etc…

10 - get plenty of sleep

The best time to start is NOW!  Otherwise, when Summer is here you’ll be wishing that you started sooner.

Never Be the Same

So when I was in my late 20's I remember standing in my Sugar-Salem home looking out the kitchen window at the beautiful Grand Tetons. This is something I did often and wasn't out of the ordinary.  However, on this day, it was different. On this day, I remember thinking  and actually saying to myself, "I don't ever want to climb the Tetons." I also decided I didn't want to run a marathon and a few other things.

Hmmm...fast forward a couple years and you will find me atop the Grand Teton. One of the four times I climbed it!  It was an experience that changed me and the direction of my life.  I learned so many things as I took each footstep with my fellow climbers and my vision was expanded beyond my belief.  I was stretched in so many ways. I pondered my mortality in a whole new light. I was inspired and given insight to Who I Am and my purpose.  As I stood on top of those 13,770 feet of magnificence...I knew I was changed...forever!

Fast forward a few more years and you find me running my first 100 mile race...The Pony Express 100! One of three 100 mile events I would do in a calendar year.  Mind you, I had still not run an official marathon at this point. As I camped with my crew the  night before the race and we stood by the fire, I knew something big was about to take place.

The next morning as I toed the starting line, a myriad of emotions filled me. Was I really about to do this? What was I thinking? Excitment beyond measure. 100 miles?!  YES...one step at a time. Again each step brought insight, wisdom, several potty stops behind tiny bushes, growth and perspective...just to name a few.  I learned to depend on my crew, who showed up for me in the most beautiful and unexpected ways.  

As I prepared to cross the finish line, I watched the sun rise for the second time and I knew I would never be the same! Standing at the finish line I could hear the sniffles of my beautiful crew and I felt their love for me and also knew, they would never be the same. 

Since that time several years ago I have made and taken opportunities to Never Be the Same.  In those various experiences I had moments of great fear and intense doubt.  I wondered what the hell I was doing and why I continue to choose to do such things. For me its about limits and testing my mettle and knowing I can do hard things...and in those hard things...I am changed forever and am never the same.

People often ask what I am most afraid of when they hear I am doing a long race or going to a forgein country or whatever crazy thing they think I'm doing.  While the distances present a certain concern, my answer almost 100% of  the  time is, "what  I am most afraid of is what I am going to learn about myself." Hands down, bar none, the scariest thing for me.  Why?  Because I might just find out I Am Way More Amazing than I ever thought I was and I might just have to be responsible for that knowledge.   

So my question to you as we move forward in this year is...Are You ready to Never Be the Same?  It's a biggie and we all say yes, but really...are you?  What things, events or activities are you holding back on? Where are you waiting for a little more preparation? Where are you waiting for the "right" time or to have "enough" money? My friends...the time is now!

Stop waiting and wondering and allowing the scary stories to grow bigger in your heads.  Take action! Do the scary thing and sign up now, have the hard conversation now, trust in yourself...Now! Create a different story. Create a different life...where you actually get what you want, because you just go for it.

I am forever grateful for all those rocky steps that took me to high places and far off finish lines.  I am forever changed and I look forward, still with some trepidation, to more finish lines and the  journey of growth with each step.  Will you join me?

Adventure awaits and is out there for the taking! Get your brave on and take it!

I look forward to seeing the stronger you at the top!

Until Next Time...Go BE Great!!!

Jennifer J. Saunders

ButtinGear, Reiki Energy Therapy

Intuitive Life & Transformation Coach

Ace Certified Personal Trainer

Behavior Change Specialist

Everyday Super Hero!

Maintaining Consistency

     “Move It to Lose It” Participants, we are officially in our last week of the challenge! Can you believe 8 weeks has flown by already?!
      We hope that, as time has flown by, you have found a new rhythm and consistency to your exercise routine. Maybe it’s getting up early, staying late after work, spending extra time on your days off, or maybe incorporating more exercise in throughout your day. However you added more exercise to your day, we applaud you! It’s not easy to make changes and create a new routine, but we hope you are well on your way at this point.
   
     So the question now becomes how do I maintain this new consistency and not fall back into old habits? Check out the tips from “wiki how” below for some guidance!
   
     1. Use critical visualization. Visualization, though it may sound silly, can actually aid you a lot if you use it properly. You want to use realistic visualization that considers the obstacles and set-backs that you may face.
          a. Daydreaming can also be useful, as long as you limit your time doing it. Give your mind time to range freely each night before you go to bed. This can help you process and assess situations, and help you to keep your consistency and goals, because you'll come up with ways to get past the potential obstacles that might keep you from gaining this skill.
          b. Meditation can help control your mind, and you'll need to control your mind (and all its urges) if you want to remain consistent. Try to practice meditating for at least 15 minutes each day. Sit somewhere quietly and breathe deeply. As you breathe focus on your breath. If you find your mind straying, direct your attention back to your breath.

     2. Plan for failure. Everyone fails. It doesn't matter how dedicated you are, how intelligent you are, how prepared you are, you aren't always going to succeed. You have to be willing to entertain that possibility and figure out what to do if you don't succeed. How are you going to handle failure?
          a. A lot of times the reason people fail to maintain their willpower and their consistency is because they haven't planned for failure. Individual failures mean little to your overall success (for example, getting to the gym and realizing you forgot your workout shoes. Can you work out in the shoes you already have or is there something else you are able to do without your work out shoes?).
          b. Plan for your setbacks and failures. From here forward, maybe you plan to keep a spare pair of workout shoes in your car so you always have a pair.
          c. Consistency doesn't equal perfection, remember. For example, yes it is important to workout most days of the week. However, life sometimes gets into the way, sometimes you're sick, sometimes you simply don't exercise. If you start beating yourself up for not exercising, you'll make yourself less rather than more likely to be consistent.

     3. Increase your motivation. If you don't stay motivated you won't make those changes in your life that allow you to be consistent. You'll fall back into old, less good, patterns of behavior, instead of sticking with the new patterns you're trying to create.
          a. Don't tell yourself "I'm not motivated" or even "I'm not feeling motivated today." The more you skip days when you're trying to instill new patterns of thought in yourself, the less likely you are to succeed. Instead, tell yourself "I'm going to practice being motivated today even if I don't feel like it." If you're having a difficult day and you don't want to, for example, do any exercise; do less than you normally do. If you exercise for an hour, cut that down to half an hour. You never know, maybe once you are at the gym, you feel better and end up doing an hour anyway.
          b. Don't try to do too many things at one time. This has been mentioned before, but it's worth repeating. Sort your different goals out one or two at a time. If you're trying to get into shape, you're going to burnout quickly if try to make too many changes at once.
          c. Remind yourself why consistency is important to you. What is it you're trying to accomplish by being consistent? What happens if you fail to be consistent? Keeping these things in mind when you're trying to accomplish your goals and be consistent.
               i. The 5 Why’s
                    1. Try this exercise out to help you narrow in on your reasoning for doing what you are doing and wanting to stay consistent with it.
                    2. First, write down your long term goal or reasoning for doing what you are doing.
                    3. Then, ask yourself “Why?” to this statement. Write down your answer.
                    4. Then, using your new answer, ask yourself “Why?” to this statement. Write down your new answer.
                    5. Continue to repeat this process until you have asked yourself the question “Why?” 5 times.


     Ultimately, consistency really is key! No matter if you are doing yoga, running, CrossFit, Zumba, or any other form of exercise. What is important is that you find something you enjoy to do and stay consistent with it. Consistency provides results!
     If you are struggling, please feel free to reach out to HFA, as we would love to help you, wherever you are at in your journey. Also, keep your eyes peeled on our Quarter 2 challenge, coming soon!
     Best wishes from the HFA Team on your consistency journey!


Until next time,
Hayley Earley, BS, CSCS, Pn1
hearley@mvhospital.net

What is Fatty Liver Disease?

Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD)

What causes fatty liver Disease? NAFLD occurs when fat cells build up in the liver, which cause health issues ranging from a low functioning liver to permanent scaring called Fibrosis that slowly take over the liver.

Like most of us, I believed that the only way I could damage my liver was by drinking alcohol. But I was wrong. Today 25% of the adults in America are living everyday with NAFLD. Six million kids, 10% of our countries children are living with NAFLD. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is the leading cause of chronic liver disease in both adults and children.

Symptoms can include fatigue, weakness, weight loss, loss of appetite, nausea, abdominal pain, spider-like blood vessels, yellowing of the skin and eyes (jaundice), itching, fluid build up and swelling of the legs (edema) and abdomen (ascites), and mental confusion.

Causes of NAFLD are more likely to be

· High cholesterol

· High levels of triglycerides in the blood

· Metabolic syndrome

· Obesity, particularly when fat is concentrated in the abdomen

· Polycystic ovary syndrome

· Sleep apnea

· Type 2 diabetes

· Underactive thyroid (hypothyroidism)

· Underactive pituitary gland (hypopituitarism)

Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis is more likely in these groups:

· Older people

· People with diabetes

· People with body fat concentrated in the abdomen

Mostly we know that NAFLD is lifestyle preventable. Here are a few ideas that is implemented in your daily life can alleviate symptoms and even reverse fatty livers.

· Cut out all high fructose corn syrup from your diet. ...

· Reduce or eliminate starch. ...

· Add some good things to your diet to help heal your fatty liver. ...

· Improve your metabolism through exercise. ...

· Use the right supplements. ...

· Eat detoxifying liver-repairing super foods


For more information on implementing these habits into your life contact a HFA trainer at ghouston@mvhospital.net. We would love to help you find the healthiest you.

Reverse Dieting - No More Low Calorie Diets

Since we began the “Minute to Win It” challenge in January, you have started exercising more, right? I hope you have been working to increase your minutes of exercise each week. But, one thing I want to make sure you are also doing is eating enough to support your higher activity levels.

Simply put, energy in versus energy out is important.

If you take in more energy than you expend, your weight will go up.

If you take in less energy than you expend, your weight will go down.

If you take in just as much energy as you expend, your weight will stay the same.

So, what do you do if you are no longer eating enough to support your activity levels?

Eat more at the end of the day to “catch up” to your energy expenditure? NO.

Let yourself stay at a deficit of 1000 or more calories? NO.

Low calorie diets are something that people believe they have to do, in order to lose weight. This is a misconception. Instead of eating a low number of calories each week to help you lose weight, we want to build up your caloric intake to where it should be, to where you do not have too much of a caloric deficit, based on your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). This is a slow and detailed process; you cannot just start eating larger amounts of food immediately. What we are talking about today is called reverse dieting – where you slowly build up your caloric needs over time. 

Instead of getting to the end of the day and needing 500 more calories after you have already eaten dinner, you slowly increase your daily calories over a long period of time to make sure that your body becomes adapted to the new demands. When you reverse diet, you not only adapt to the demands of a new diet well, but you start to get over the feeling that you need a low calorie diet to lose weight. Because guess what? You can still lose weight and/or reach your goals while reverse dieting.

While reverse dieting, instead of instantly eating the prescribed amount of calories and shocking your body (causing you to feel bloated, miserable, and overfull), you’ll simply add 150 calories to your daily calories for 4 weeks. If you are currently eating 1200 calories per day, you would eat 1350 calories for the next 4 weeks. After the first 4 weeks, add another 150 calories, and so on, until you reach the caloric intake you should be at. Keep in mind, the more you’re undereating, the longer it will take to reverse diet.

To help you in this process, I recommend tracking your daily intake, and more specifically your macronutrients. When doing this, write everything down with pen and paper, or a food tracking app like My Fitness Pal.

If you are currently undereating, adding hundreds of calories to your diet can be hard on your metabolism, body, emotions, and mental state if you do it too quickly. That is why reverse dieting is a better answer.

Do you know how much you should be eating based on your activity level and personal profile? If so, are you eating enough? If not, it is time to reverse diet.

If you don’t know how much you should be eating, or where to start, email me at mharris@mvhospital.net and I can help you get started.

Until next time!

Miranda Harris, NSCA-CSCS, ASCM EP-C

mharris@mvhospital.net

OUT OF THE NORM

Happy February, another month closer to spring!! Last month we had an incredible amount of participation in our “Move it to lose it” 1st quarter challenge! Keep up all the amazing work that you are doing!! But with five weeks under our belt you may feel like you are starting to hit a slump and maybe starting to drag a little. The New Year has come and gone and sometimes our motivation and enthusiasm for a new healthy life style goes with it, especially if you have been doing the same exercises or the same routine all this time. Well have no fear some new exercise are here! It is hard to get to the gym every day we know this, and it has hard at times to have that motivation when the couch and Netflix are calling your name, but here are some new fresh ideas of exercises that may not be as common that could be fun to try. Studies have shown that mixing up your exercise routine helps fight those plateaus that hit every now and then!

Aerial Fitness


At first, when I heard about aerial fitness classes, all I thought about was circus performers… but then I realized this: Have you ever seen an aerial circus performer who appeared to be out of shape?


It builds & requires strength, stamina. It can seriously build your balance, increase your flexibility, and it looks like a ton of fun.


HIIT THE COURT


Have a basketball or volleyball court nearby? Make it your personal gym with this super-effective high-intensity-interval-training (HIIT) plan from Andrea Metcalf, celebrity fitness trainer and host of Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

How it works: Use the outline of a basketball court (or a similarly sized court) to perform the three fat-burning drills below.

Sprints (5): Sprint from one end of the court to the other, running forward and then jogging back backwards. Repeat 5 times total.

Lateral hops (30): Jump over and then back along the full court line, facing forward the whole time. Do 30 hops total (1-2 lengths of the court)

Side shuffles (6): Do side shuffles the full distance of the court and back,. Repeat 6 times total.

The entire workout should take about 15 minutes and will have you sweating buckets!


CROSSFIT ON-THE-ROAD

Take your CrossFit workout outside with any of these CrossFit On-the-Road Workouts that use very little equipment.

Workout 1 (5 Rounds)
5 Pushups
10 Sit ups
15 Squats

Workout 2 (5 Rounds)
10 Burpees
20 Bench jumps
30 Pushups
40 Squats
50 Lunges

Rock Climbing

I love rock climbing. It’s one of the best arm/back/forearm workouts in existence, you get to feel like a cool cat when you reach the top of the wall, and all climbing routes are graded so you can level up the challenge as you get stronger/fitter/better. It’s a fit nerd’s dream!

Dancing

Ever tried serious swing dancing? You’ll be sweating within ten minutes. How about hip hop? Drenched in sweat, and sore as heck the next day. Zumba? Tango? Flamenco? You’d be surprised what you can sign up for and what will elevate your heart rate.

Martial Arts

Be honest. You watched The Matrix, you heard Neo go “I know Kung Fu” and you wanted to be able to one day say the same thing. Whether it’s Kung Fu, Muay Thai, Tae Kwon Do, Karate or Capoeira, there’s a martial art out there that will make you feel like a ninja.

Play video games that make you be active

Wii Tennis, Wii Fit, Just Dance on Xbox Kinect, and whatever games actually exist out there; I am not the most knowledgeable with video games. OK, and DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) counts too. I know an hour of that is exhausting!

Don’t be afraid to mix it up and try something new, get out of your comfort zone and out of the norm. You never know you may find a new love!!