The silly season is upon us.

It is the Christmas crunch and health and fitness gurus are writing articles on how to survive the silly season. I don't want to write an article about how you should do it, I do want to write about things I do, have done, that work for me. You may take some ideas from here and you could apply it to your silly season.

I keep a food diary and I have talked about this in the past in articles. I am sure some of you still don't keep a food diary and have no desire to start. That is your prerogative but I have found that keeping one allows me to not only track my energy needs and intake but educate myself about what foods I eat. You may argue that good quality food choices are enough but what if you think something is good when in truth it isn't. For example a food diary can help you understand that a granola bar is really a sugar bar with oats. If you prerecord your meal you are also more likely to stick to it. Further more alcohol can loosen our appetite morals and we begin to just eat whatever. A food diary I have found makes me more disciplined.

I use the food diary to see how my energy bank account is looking for the day and something looked at even less the week. Off course sometimes I go over my calories during the season, I can't preempt everything I will consume. I don't get pedantic about that and if I take note of the week I remain under overall. I still however try to get 5 serves of vegetables and 2 serves of fruit a day this will aid in my training quality.

I do apply a rule to myself if I find myself asking if I need or want to eat something I just say "meh" shrug my shoulders and don't eat it or say "no thanks". If I have to ask I probably have had enough. If I get someone pushing me to have more I always ask if they are having more this helps me redirect away from me eating and puts that person on the spot. The big one is booze, alcohol, poison I will try to have 1-2 glasses of water before and after drinking this helps keeps me hydrated and avoid a hangover. It also keeps me quite full and reminds me to drink a little less as often people can get carried away in the silly season. I like to drink in moderation and bear in mind that it does have limited value nutritionally to me. Yes there are benefits of moderate alcohol consumption but moderate can quickly become a bender.I also plan ahead I will not drink and drive as it is just stupid really.

I keep to a plan for training as well. I don't try to train away poor food choices because I do put conscious effort into making good food choices. I do write my training plan for six weeks to incorporate more caloric usage in my training which allows me to chase longer harder sessions as I do have more time due to holidays and more available energy.

More importantly this season I will take the time to let go and relax. I do have a plan for training and eating but if I miss a session on a day due to other commitments I don't get worried. I have seen people get anxiety about it ,hell I've been one of those people but more importantly I take the time to be thankful for what I have. I stop and just observe and listen, I feed my well being. Commonly I hear that we should appreciate things and people everyday but I live in the real world and it is not everyday I appreciate and grasp what I have around me. The final thing is I appreciate what I give more then what I get and this is from a material point of view. My partner and I enjoy giving good gifts and we strive to find things that will add value and meaning to those we give. If we don't get something material it doesn't matter what matters is we gave. Enjoy the silly season take a moment stop and breathe it in and appreciate it and those around you.

You don`t have time for you?

Currently I am preparing to open my own practice for Exercise Physiology and allied health. Off course this has taken me a lot of time as I am undertaking a small business course while  working. I am hoping to have a bricks and mortar practice open soon but I also hope to do some online programming. If anyone out there is interested please contact me. Now this brings me to my next point which is health and fitness goals are similar to business goals.

I know a lot of you out there a skeptical but the one thing connecting both business and our health goals is time. Society as a whole is becoming more time poor each and every day. We are all struggling with  work long hours, having families and sometimes it seems hard just to keep our heads above the preverbal water.  Which leads me to my next point, by far the biggest excuse I hear from people is, “I just don`t have the time to exercise”. This is often followed up with,” I don’t have time to eat healthy I just grab whatever”. Sometimes in life this can be true. I am sure you all expected me to get on my high horse but life can get in the way of our goals. What I am truly worried about is do people really know what is taking up their time? 

             Even while being time poor there a many options for those trying to improve health. The first option is as simple as keeping a food dairy. Often when people ask me about food dairies I ask “do you check your bank account?” Almost always  yes is the answer. So off course then I ask why don’t you track your food? This may lead to various excuses many which fall into apathy and lack of knowledge. For me it is simple, if you track your bank account why don`t you track your food. Aren’t both these aspects equally important to you? For well and truly over a year now I have been keeping a food diary. With all the advances in technology it has become a lot easier than most people think. If you have enough time to  watch TV at  night then you have enough time to do this. 

And to those few who say I don’t even have a few minutes each day to keep a food dairy, I say start a time dairy. Built of the same premise as a food dairy a time dairy can help expose the everyday activities that is sucking up your time and stopping you from reaching your goals. TV is just one example of a time thief you may discover if you keep a time diary. I am interested to know what things come up for you. You may even find you have great time usage, or that certain things can be increased. Like in business “if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it”. Our time is precious if we can achieve our goals and dreams by using our time better shouldn’t we? Post in the comments below your biggest time thief.

Had a gut full.

How is your gut health? Wait, what? Your diet could be effecting your gut health which could really be effecting your overall health. I have been reading for some time about progression in knowledge of gut health. To be honest it is amazing, we a learning more and more each day. Rather than me writing a post about it. Catalyst a show devoted to exploring science has done a great two episode look into gut health, gut bacteria and the possible future and implications.

http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/catalyst/SC1302H005S00

http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/catalyst/SC1302H006S00

Whats the best thing for weight loss.

“What`s the best thing for losing weight?”, I have heard this question so often and most likely it is the question you want to have answered. First let me backtrack I have spent a great deal of time learning about the body, working out and most things to do with health and fitness. This will culminate in a Masters in Exercise Physiology soon to be completed in the next month.  I am also a qualified P.E teacher and a training competing athlete. I have worked with people from high level athletes to the little old lady that needs to be able to lift her grocery`s.  Of all of the things that dominate the world of health and fitness, obesity is the biggest of them all (no pun intended).  

So back to the question “what is the best thing for losing weight?” this is a broad question and I’ll assume that you want to lose body fat and look and feel better.  Losing fat mass and being healthier ,because that is what we should aim for is a matter of behavior change. Right now you say so “how do I do that?” Behavior change is a complex thing but I will aim to simplify it for you. Firstly lets break it down, what is weight gain is caused by? Often weight gain is due to eating too much making poor eating choices and a lack of physical activity. So what do we do about that? Well something I am passionate about is keeping a food diary. 

First though let’s look at this more logically for example a man eats 1800 calories a day and exercises for 30minutes he burns 200 calories. He then goes and eats a chocolate bar that`s 241 calories.  It becomes a little bit clearer that what and how much we eat makes a bigger impact to our waist line then most exercise an average person may undertake. There is an old saying “you can`t train away a bad diet”. Now let me make this clear this isn`t a license to not exercise in fact diet and exercise go hand in hand. In this post though I am focusing on keeping a food diary.  A couple of extra reasons to keep a diary includes a recent study that lasted for six months published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found those that kept a food diary lost twice as much weight as those that didn`t. Furthermore keeping a food diary has been shown to increase the chances of losing the weight and keeping it off. A food diary can also provide insight into what you eat and what is really going into your body. So should you keep a diary in a note book? Well you can but my advice is to use technology. There are literally dozens of apps and programs for computers that are simple and effective.  These apps and programs are often free and provide easy to access food databases and information displays. Often you will find that they will be able to track food intake and exercise. The two I have had experience with is Myfitnesspal and Mapmyfitness programs. These are both accessible on multiple platforms and are free. 

Let me start with Mapmyfitness I started using this to log both my food and my exercise  and it has an easy to access menu and is easy to navigate. I found it a little bit less user friendly for the food diary portion and this was the main purpose for me to use this app. The exercise section though is great. It contains a lot of different choices and allows you to put in many selections of activity.  Something that is handy is the ability to take on fitness challenges that can often be set in your local area. How? Map my fitness has the ability for you to map a route that you take and it can tell you cool statistics like your elevation and ascent. Of course a big factor in weight loss is support and this app has the function to share your achievements with your friends and support network. 

But what about Myfitnesspal well I have been using this app for a few years now and I think it`s great. It is simple and effective. Mapmyfitness tends to be a bit overwhelming at times and for those that are used to in some degree to using a smart phone or computers this will be easy to use. The data base is quite large so more often than not you can find the food or brand you are looking for. During set up you set your weight goal and activity levels as well as the usual information. You can also choose how many meals you have and what nutritional information you see. The drawback I have found is the exercise portion is lacking a little bit. The choices of exercise are limited and though it calculates the calories burnt it can be quite off in either direction.  I tend to use a heart rate monitor to get around this and more on this in the future.  My fitness pal is redeemed by being able to input your own recipes and share your diary with other people if you wish. For me I have always advised using myfitnesspal because it is simple to use. The results for people I have worked with are always positive when they use myfitnesspal as part of their weight loss. 

A few other things though when using either program you should measure your food so you’re accurate and try to keep notes. Make using it a habit as this will take discipline but you will be rewarded much like exercising with discipline. Believe it or not keeping a diary makes you more aware and responsible and more likely to achieve you S.M.A.R.T goals. Lastly if you are thinking I don’t want to choose you can always use booth. Both programs can now be linked so you have the best of both worlds. So visit www.myfitnesspal.com and www.mapmyfitness.com now and improve your health now. Only you can achieve your own goals, no one can do it for you.