Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Just Step Out the Door

Appraising Your Success

The end of the week is a good time to review the past week of your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals for the week, then next week, focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently.

How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll experience all of these feelings!

Topic of the week - Just Step Out the Door

Last week I wrote about challenging your body. For some people, the challenge is just getting out the door.

My friend Kimarie said that if she can simply get herself out the door, she'll exercise: run, bike, walk, etc.

For others it's a matter of putting on their shoes: if the running shoes are on their feet, they'll go for a run, or at least for a walk.

FlyLady.com suggests setting a timer for 7 minutes and walking away from your house. After the timer goes off, turn around and walk home, and you've exercised about 15 minutes. It's a start. As your endurance builds, increase the amount of time on your timer.

That reminds me of my build-up to ab exercises: I'll start with the number of crunches I can do and add one, every day. Ideally, I'll start at the beginning of the month, so it's easy to know how many to add. For example, July 1 = 30+1=31 . . . July 15 = 30+15=45 . . . July 31 = 30+31=61, etc.

The point of all these examples is to start where you are, and just do it! That you exercise at all is the most important point.

Look for another topic next week, and keep living the SWEET Life!

Suzanne
Weekly Encouragement history: http://sweetlifeweekly.blogspot.com/
The SWEET Life of Suzanne blog: http://thesweetlifeofsuzanne.blogspot.com/
Website: http://livingthesweetlife.net/

P.S. If you want to stop receiving these Weekly Encouragement emails, simply reply with “unsubscribe” in the subject line.

Copyright © 2008 Suzanne Fong. All rights reserved.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Challenge the Body

Appraising Your Success

The end of the week is a good time to review your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals, then focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently. You need a plan, not a hope, in order to be successful. If your plan isn’t working, it’s time to revise your plan.

How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? If so, that’s great! Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll continue to experience all of these feelings! If not, know that by living the SWEET Life, you will feel all these great feelings!

Topic of the Week – Challenge Your Body

I’ve exercised consistently and even changed my workout, but I haven’t seen positive results. What’s going on? Whenever I feel this way and whenever I start to feel sick or stressed out, I focus on living the SWEET Life. Am I really living the SWEET Life, or do I just think I am?

For instance, I changed my workout and am biking a lot more. Sometimes, I’ll bike 10+ miles/day, which, I think, is a good workout. I’m often pulling a 100-lb. trailer of kids and their stuff, so isn’t that a workout? At the same time, however, my 10 miles is broken up into smaller segments throughout the day. That’s an excellent way to build up exercise for those who are not used to it. But, for me, it doesn’t challenge my body the way that riding 10 miles straight would. I’m exercising; I’m going through the motions, but my new exercise plan is not challenging my body.

I’ve heard moms of toddlers question their weight gain or lack of weight loss, saying they get a lot of exercise chasing their toddlers around. However, their bodies are used to chasing toddlers around, so they aren’t challenging their bodies.

It’s been referred to as a plateau. People mid-weight loss will hit a plateau where they stop losing weight. Why? Their bodies have adjusted to the diet and exercise program and have modified their energy consumption (i.e., metabolism) accordingly. They need to change their workout to challenge their bodies.

The problem for me is that it’s often easier, these days, to piece together parts of a workout than to find the time to complete a full, challenging workout. However, if I want to have positive results, I need to make the time to challenge my body.

Look for another topic next week, and keep living the SWEET Life!

Suzanne
Weekly Encouragement history: http://sweetlifeweekly.blogspot.com/
The SWEET Life of Suzanne blog: http://thesweetlifeofsuzanne.blogspot.com/
Website: http://livingthesweetlife.net/

Copyright © 2008 Suzanne Fong. All rights reserved.

Monday, June 2, 2008

Swimming!

Appraising Your Success
The end of the week is a good time to review the past week of your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals for the week, then next week, focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently.
How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll experience all of these feelings!

Topic of the week - Swimming

Ah, summer is coming and so is pool-weather! It’s so wonderful to dive in and feel the sensation of weightlessness as I glide through the water. I love the cool water rushing through my hair, cooling my scalp, on a hot day. I’ve been getting into the water a lot lately, and it’s really got something for everyone.

Yes, yes, I know; the hardest part for many women is just getting into a swim suit. Having grown up by the beach, I’m so used to wearing a swim suit that I don’t feel uncomfortable wearing one. Wearing a swim suit is 80% confidence, 20% having the right suit for your body. Every suit doesn’t work for every body, but every body can find a suit that looks great. And if you want to look at it from a different point of view, there’s always someone else at the pool who looks worse than you do in a swim suit!

Swimming is a great, low-impact, cardiovascular exercise. It uses all the major muscle groups: legs, abs, arms, chest and back. Because of the controlled breathing required, it’s excellent for the cardiovascular system. Furthermore, water’s buoyancy makes it easy on the joints. You can swim laps, use a kickboard, or take an aqua aerobics class. You can also take lessons to improve your swimming form. If you really get into it, you can join a master’s swim group. Even just hanging out in a pool or hot tub, playing with your kids, socializing with friends, or relaxing alone, immersing yourself in water can be great Exercise or wonderful Tranquility.

Look for another topic next week, and keep living the SWEET Life!

Suzanne
Weekly Encouragement history: http://sweetlifeweekly.blogspot.com/
The SWEET Life of Suzanne blog: http://thesweetlifeofsuzanne.blogspot.com/
Website: http://livingthesweetlife.net/

Copyright © 2008 Suzanne Fong. All rights reserved.

Monday, May 26, 2008

BBQ Season!

Appraising Your Success
The end of the week is a good time to review the past week of your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals for the week, then next week, focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently.
How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll experience all of these feelings!

Topic of the Week – BBQ Season!

Memorial Day Weekend is the unofficial beginning of the summer and barbeque season. That conjures up images of hot days, grilling meat, hanging out with friends, and drinking beer. Ironically, I don’t think meat and beer are great on a hot day because they are filling and heavy. I’d much rather have a cool salad and lemonade (with mango rum) on a hot day, but those aren’t the images we have when thinking: bbq. Because bbq’s generally involve lots of meat and beer, how can we enjoy ourselves at a bbq and still live the SWEET Life?

First, a little aside: always wear sunscreen. Apply it 30 min. before going out in the sun and reapply every couple hours.

Now, back to bbqs:

SLEEP: Hanging out in the sun, eating heavy foods, and drinking alcohol make us tired, so sleeping after a bbq is not a problem.

WATER: It’s very easy to get dehydrated at a bbq because you are outside in the sun, drinking alcohol. Try to alternate beer with a glass of water or drink a cup of water every hour you are there.

EATING: This is what a bbq is all about! I always try to bring either fruit or vegetables to a bbq because those are usually lacking. Some easy things to bring are a green salad, a fruit salad, veggies sticks & hummus dip, veggies to grill, or corn.

In order not to go overboard on eating at a bbq, especially at a potluck bbq, it’s important to have a game plan. You don’t want to feel deprived or “dieting”, but you don’t want to regret what you eat either. If it’s a simple bbq with 4-5 dishes, I’ll take a little scoop of each and enjoy my meal. On the other hand, if it’s a potluck and there are many delectable dishes to choose from, I have to set stricter limits because eating a scoop of 10-15 dishes is a huge amount of food!

1. I don’t limit fruits and vegetables, because no one got fat eating fruits and vegetables.

2. I limit myself to one serving of meat, which means I might have to select from a variety of them. What’s a serving? A serving of meat is the size of the palm of your hand. If it’s tough to decide which meat, I’ll eat one I haven’t eaten for a while. (I do that at restaurants, too.) I might take a half-serving of a couple meats instead.

3. I limit myself to a couple servings of grains, like one hamburger bun, a few slices of French bread, or a scoop of pasta salad.

4. I don’t really think of dairy and bbq, but I do like cheese on my burgers. Cubes of cheese or a cheese plate with French bread or crackers is common at some bbqs, but I remember that a one-inch cube of cheese is a 1 oz. serving and about 100 calories! I need to pay attention to how many of those I’m popping in my mouth!

5. All the unhealthy stuff: I’ll eat a couple bites of anything that looks really appealing. However, I don’t take a little of everything “just to be polite” and I don’t eat anything that doesn’t taste good on the first bite. It’s amazing how much we eat just because “it’s there.” Remember: you are not a garbage disposer!

EXERCISE: Bbqs don’t involve any exercise besides putting fork to mouth, and since they tend to be calorie-heavy meals, it’s a good idea to burn off some calories ahead of time. If you decide, instead, to burn off the calories after the bbq, with all that protein in your body, you are ready for a good strength-training workout.

TRANQUILITY: Bbqs are all about tranquility: hanging out with friends and being outside on a beautiful day are great ways to release stress and relax.

Welcome to bbq season! Enjoy!

Look for another topic next week, and keep living the SWEET Life!

Suzanne
Weekly Encouragement history: http://sweetlifeweekly.blogspot.com/
The SWEET Life of Suzanne blog: http://thesweetlifeofsuzanne.blogspot.com/
Website: http://livingthesweetlife.net/

Copyright © 2008 Suzanne Fong. All rights reserved.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Weekend Getaway

Appraising Your Success
The end of the week is a good time to review the past week of your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals for the week, then next week, focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently.
How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll experience all of these feelings!

Topic of the week – Weekend Getaway

Last weekend I took a weekend getaway with a group of women to Sea Ranch, on the Mendocino coast, for four days. I introduced the SWEET Life to them, to make it a SWEET Life Retreat. What a great retreat it was! With the emphasis on “treat”! It was a group of six women, all wives and mothers. Did we live the SWEET Life?

Sleep: We slept a lot, staying up late, but we had no husbands snoring, no kids interrupting our sleep, and no alarms to wake up to. Some of us also napped during the lazy afternoons.

Water: We each brought our favorite cocktail, and we had a lot of Happy Hours. In addition, one woman brought and made sure we all drank a lot of water. There was also juice, sodas and lots of “weekend” coffee. I call it “weekend coffee” when it is drunk for relaxation and enjoyment, rather than for the caffeine jolt.

Eating: We brought a lot of food to cook and tried new recipes. We enjoyed cooking and experimenting with food, without kids under foot asking for snacks. We ate a lot of good, healthy food, but we also ate lots of cheeses and chocolate and chips. In addition, it was one woman’s birthday, so we had a cake for her.

Exercise: I brought my resistance bands to lead the group in some exercises, but we didn’t end up using them. Everyone was quite content to sit around the house, enjoying the spectacular view from the living room of the whales migrating north with their babies. At the same time, we were situated perfectly between Gualala Point Park and Walk-On Beach, 1½ miles from each, which is a nice walking/running distance. On our walks along the coast, we saw lots of whales, and there were seals hanging out on the rocks near our house. We also saw many sea lions, various types of birds, squirrels, deer, and people walking their dogs. In April there are tons of wildflowers, all shortened versions, due to the wind, of flowers I’m used to seeing.

Tranquility: It was a weekend of tranquility, above all else. We watched the view from the living room. We talked about all sorts of topics that are usually interrupted by children’s needs. We wandered along the cliffs, watching the waves crash on the rocks. We read “fluff” magazines and looked at catalogs of items we’ll never purchase. We definitely had a lot of tranquility.

In the end, I definitely recommend and encourage everyone to take a weekend getaway at least once a year. You’ll return a rejuvenated, SWEET person, ready to greet your family with wide open arms and big hugs. Ready to tackle the world again.

Look for another topic next week, and keep living the SWEET Life!

Suzanne
Weekly Encouragement history: http://sweetlifeweekly.blogspot.com/
The SWEET Life of Suzanne blog: http://thesweetlifeofsuzanne.blogspot.com/
Website: http://livingthesweetlife.net/

Copyright © 2008 Suzanne Fong. All rights reserved.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

“I don’t want to bulk up.”

Appraising Your Success
The end of the week is a good time to review the past week of your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals for the week, then next week, focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently.
How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll experience all of these feelings!

Topic of the week
– “I don’t want to bulk up.”

As a Personal Trainer, I hear this from most women. Of course, we don’t want to bulk up. Recently, I came across Muscle & Body magazine, “Official Magazine of the Arnold Sports Festival” with a cover photo of the man himself, Mr. Universe, Gov. Schwarzenegger. Granted, I would not be the Personal Trainer of choice for anyone interested in bodybuilding. However, there was an article about the basics of bodybuilding, so I read it, thinking I should know how to bulk up in order to know how to advise people not to bulk up.

If you want to bulk up:

  • · You must eat more calories than you burn. Eat until you feel full, beyond feeling satisfied.
  • · Drink your calories: milk, juice, sports drinks, protein shakes, meal replacement bars, etc. are all great ways to add calories to your daily intake.
  • · Eat a lot of protein. You need to eat 1-1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight. That’s a lot of protein. The magazine was upfront in saying that people can’t eat enough protein, which is why body builders drink protein shakes!
  • · Take supplements. Body builders need creatine and extra vitamins C, E & B-complex, in addition to those mentioned above.
  • · Work out each muscle group once a week and only 2-3 muscle groups per workout. Yes, I was surprised to read this one.
  • · Do 3-4 different exercises per muscle group and “crazy eights.” Crazy eights are 8 sets of 8 repetitions. The famous bodybuilder Vince Gironda created the concept, which is very successful for bodybuilding.
  • · Focus on the concentric phase, which is the “hard” part of the movement, when you are “concentrating” the muscle fibers together. The easy part of the movement, is called the eccentric phase.

Lessons Learned:

  • · If you want to slim down, you must eat fewer calories than you burn throughout the entire day. Eat until you are satisfied, but not stuffed.
  • · If you want to slim down, drink water so that you don’t add liquid calories.
  • · If you want to slim down, eat some protein. It makes you feel full longer than other types of foods. More importantly, it’s a basic building block of nutrition. Keep it lean and eat it from a variety of sources: chicken, eggs, fish, nuts, soy, beans, cottage cheese, pork, beef, etc.
  • · If you want to slim down, don’t base your diet on supplements, protein shakes and meal replacement bars. Instead, eat a wide variety of nutritious foods.
  • · If you want to slim down, do strength training 2 or more times per week, using a variety of major muscle groups each time. Strength training once a week is torture to your body; it’s like starting over every time you work out. Doing it at least twice a week, you’ll see your body become concentrated. You’re building muscle, which is small and dense, and increasing metabolism, which allows you to burn off fat, which is big and soft. Just make sure your muscles get 48 hours rest between strength workouts.
  • · If you want to slim down, do 1-2 different exercises per muscle group and 3 sets of 10-15. Some people do 1-2 sets of 10-15, but that doesn’t challenge your body very much. You’ll see better results if you do at least 30 total repetitions. If you feel it takes too long, do as many as you can in one minute without stopping.
  • · If you want to slim down, focus on both the concentric and eccentric phases of the movement and get as much range of motion as possible. These will help develop long, lean muscles.
  • · If you want to slim down, do cardio, too. That wasn’t mentioned in the articles I read, but it’s what most people do the most of anyway. Cardio, as the name cardio respiratory implies, develops your heart and lungs, and it burns calories while you are doing it. Shoot for 30-60 minutes, 3-5 times per week.

In addition, some recommendations for gaining muscle mass also hold true for losing fat mass:

  • · Eat 5-7 times per day, paying attention to total calorie intake.
  • · Eat whole grains and fiber.
  • · Eat healthy, unsaturated, fats
  • · Take a multi-vitamin daily.
  • · Drink 8-10 cups of water daily.
  • · Warm up at the beginning of every workout.
  • · Use moderate to heavy weights. Lift enough weight so that by the time you’re done, you’re pooped out.
  • · Stretch. A lot of people skip this or only do a couple cursory stretches; however, it should be a definite component of your workout, not an overlooked one. Besides helping with overall flexibility, stretching helps make your muscles long and lean. It also releases the lactic acid that builds up in your muscles during a workout, which helps prevent muscle soreness.
  • · Take a day off a couple times a week.
  • · Change workouts now and then.

In the end, the main contributor to bulking up is eating more than you burn off, so learn your lessons above and don’t bulk up.

Sources:

Orsi, K. (March 2008). Crazy Eights. Muscle & Body. Vol. 3 issue 3. p. 92-99.

Team M&B. (March 2008). Bodybuilding 101. Muscle & Body. Vol. 3 issue 3. P. 22.

Look for another topic next week, and keep living the SWEET Life!

Suzanne
Weekly Encouragement history: http://sweetlifeweekly.blogspot.com/
The SWEET Life of Suzanne blog: http://thesweetlifeofsuzanne.blogspot.com/
Website: http://livingthesweetlife.net/

Copyright © 2008 Suzanne Fong. All rights reserved.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Hot Days, Cold Foods

Appraising Your Success
The end of the week is a good time to review the past week of your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals for the week, then next week, focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently.
How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll experience all of these feelings!

Topic of the week – Hot Days, Cold Foods

I’ve had this idea for a cookbook for a few years, but I’ve never found it or anything similar in a bookstore. I may have to write it myself, although I am not a recipe-creator; I am a recipe-follower. The cookbook I want is: Hot Days, Cold Foods, a cookbook for those days, like Saturday, that are so hot that you don’t want to cook or create heat in your kitchen.

There are certain requirements for these recipes. They can be cooked, as long as they don’t create a lot of heat in the process. For example, cooking in the microwave doesn’t create heat in the kitchen. Ditto for a rice cooker, slow cooker and other self-contained, small appliances. The stove and oven, of course, create a lot of heat in the kitchen; however, a toaster oven doesn’t generate a lot of heat. Moreover, something that can be prepared quickly on the stove won’t heat up the kitchen too much.

Most picnic cookbooks or outdoor cookbooks don’t meet my requirements because they include things baked in an oven, like scones, roasted or broiled meats or vegetables, casseroles, pizzas, or things cooked on the stove, like boiled eggs, pastas, potatoes, or vegetables; or soups.

Williams-Sonoma has a lovely book, “Complete Outdoor Living Cookbook”; however, the recipes don’t make me think of outdoor living at all! Finally, I read the introduction to find out that the idea is “eating with the outdoors as the backdrop.” Well, shoot, my kitchen table is near a window; just about anyone’s got the outdoors as a backdrop!

Some hot days, cold foods are obvious. Marinated salads, cold sandwiches, and sushi come to mind. Also, eggs cook quickly on the stove. Sandwiches are infinitely diverse by changing sliced bread to a pita, tortilla or other type of wrap, bagel, focaccia, roll, croissant, etc. Sandwich spreads can go way beyond mustard and mayonnaise to hummus, pesto, barbeque sauce, pickle relish, salsa, salad dressing, and specialty mustards or mayonnaises. Vegetables can include much more than lettuce and tomato, like cucumber, roasted peppers, avocado, sun-dried tomatoes, olives or tapenade, etc. All of this, of course is in addition to the usual array of meats and cheeses. The same is true of salads. After choosing your salad base, be it lettuce, spinach, potatoes, pasta or macaroni, couscous, rice, bread chunks (for panzanella), etc., there’s an unlimited variety of salad vegetables, meats, cheeses, dressings, etc. to combine together.

Other hot days, cold foods require a little thought. For example, couscous is great because you only boil a little water, and then turn it off, so the stove is only on for about 5 minutes. In addition, sweet potatoes, sliced, or Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into chunks, are great grilled. There are also waffles, which cook in their own machine. Moreover, build your own burritos don’t create a lot of heat because you can cook thinly sliced meat quickly on the stove, heat refried or black beans in the microwave, and cook Mexican rice in a rice cooker. Another idea is a “leftover salad” with last night’s leftover meat, veggies, and starch, chopped and tossed with oil and vinegar. For example, I made one the other day with leftover: grilled sausages & asparagus, microwaved acorn squash, and couscous; tossed with Trader Joe’s Lemon Dill sauce. They were all “hot days, cold foods” the night before, and became a delicious all-in-one lunch salad the next day. In addition, the night before, you can marinate salads or meats to grill the next day. You can also make coffee the night before and refrigerate it; then drink it iced with breakfast.

Grilled foods are included because that’s the one time many husbands will volunteer to cook. Personally, the idea of cooking on a hot grill outdoors in the heat sounds like a double disaster to me, but I’ll plan an entirely grilled meal, if I know my husband will gladly cook it. That meal could include any grilled meats; a variety of grilled veggies, and starches might include grilled potatoes, sweet potatoes, garlic bread, etc. I try to be creative and put as much on the grill as possible so that I have less to cook myself!

If you have any ideas for hot days, cold foods, recipes or cookbook suggestions, please let me know. I’d like to have a repertoire of choices to have and to share when these hot days come around!

Source:

Williams, C. (ed.) (2002). Complete Outdoor Living Cookbook. Menlo Park, CA: Oxmoor House. p. 11.


Keep living the SWEET Life!

Suzanne
Weekly Encouragement history: http://sweetlifeweekly.blogspot.com/
The SWEET Life of Suzanne blog: http://thesweetlifeofsuzanne.blogspot.com/
Website: http://livingthesweetlife.net/

Copyright © 2008 Suzanne Fong. All rights reserved.

Monday, April 7, 2008

Skinny-fat

Appraising Your Success
The end of the week is a good time to review the past week of your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals for the week, then next week, focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently.
How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll experience all of these feelings!

Topic of the week - Skinny-fat

I learned the term “skinny-fat” recently, referring to people who are skinny but out of shape. Supermodels and actresses fit into this category, as do most men, it seems. “Skinny-fat” probably refers to most of the thin people we see on the street, considering Americans penchant for fast food and a sedentary lifestyle. Fat people hate them for being naturally thin, but they are not necessarily fit. They don’t necessarily have a faster metabolism than the rest of us, just as overweight people don’t necessarily have a slower metabolism than the rest of us. However, “skinny-fat” people succeed in the most important component of maintaining weight: the number of calories consumed equals the number of calories burned.

So the question of the week is: Are “skinny-fat” people living the SWEET Life? Let’s see . . .

Do they get 7-8 hours of Sleep per night? There is a lot of research showing a connection between lack of sleep and weight gain, which is why Sleep is an important aspect of the SWEET Life! Therefore, my guess is that “skinny-fat” people sleep enough.

Do they drink 8-10 cups of Water per day? Dehydration causes the body’s functions to slow down and work inefficiently, including metabolism. Ample hydration helps all the body’s functions run smoothly and efficiently and prevents you from retaining water as a survival mechanism. Therefore, I’d say that “skinny-fat” people drink enough water to keep their metabolisms running smoothly.

Do they Eat a balanced, healthy diet? They may or may not eat well. Most Americans don’t eat a balanced, healthy diet, despite the huge amounts of food available to us. Most importantly though, “skinny-fat” people don’t eat too much; they eat only as many calories as their bodies burn off.

Do they Exercise? “Skinny-fat” people don’t exercise. If they did, they would be “fit” not “fat.”

Do they have Tranquility? Since research shows that chronic stress causes weight gain and slower metabolism, I would say that “skinny-fat” people have their stress under control. They have Tranquility.

In sum:

Sleep – yes

Water – yes

Eating – maybe, maybe not

Exercise – no

Tranquility – yes

Surprisingly, diet and exercise, which most people think of as the keys to weight loss and staying skinny, are the two aspects of the SWEET Life that “skinny-fat” people are least likely to do! I must say, I’m very surprised by these results!

Sources:

· Google search for “lack of sleep and weight”:
http://www.google.com/search?q=lack+of+sleep+and+weight&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

· Google search for “stress and weight”:
http://www.google.com/search?q=stress+and+weight&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

· Inch-aweigh.com: Why drinking water really is the key to weight loss:
http://www.inch-aweigh.com/water.html

· Natural News.com: Healing with Water:
http://www.naturalnews.com/003202.html

Look for another topic next week, and keep living the SWEET Life!

Suzanne
Weekly Encouragement history: http://sweetlifeweekly.blogspot.com/
The SWEET Life of Suzanne blog: http://thesweetlifeofsuzanne.blogspot.com/
Website: http://livingthesweetlife.net/

Copyright © 2008 Suzanne Fong. All rights reserved.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

The Fatosphere

Appraising Your Success
The end of the week is a good time to review the past week of your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals for the week, then next week, focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently.
How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll experience all of these feelings!

Topic of the week - The Fatosphere

I happened across an article in the New York Times online about the Fatosphere, a term I’d never heard of. Apparently, blogs about fat acceptance are becoming very popular, and overweight people are finding solidarity in the blogs of others who are overweight. It was interesting for me to read about it because it’s a foreign concept to me to accept myself being fat or to encourage others to remain overweight. I’d have no Personal Training clients if I were overweight, and I can’t see overweight people wanting to use a Personal Trainer if they wanted to maintain their weight.

The article made me think about the relationship between the fatosphere and the SWEET Life. I’ve never called the SWEET Life a weight loss program because the program is designed to be a balanced, healthy lifestyle, appropriate for everyone. However, I’ve always believed that if you were overweight and started living the SWEET Life, you would lose weight as a side effect. So are these people in the fatosphere living the SWEET Life? Let’s see . . .

Do they get 7-8 hours of Sleep per night? Well, research shows that overweight & obese people tend to have more problems with snoring, sleep apnea and other sleep problems, so they may not be getting a good night’s rest.

Do they drink 8-10 cups of Water per day? I have no idea, but my guess is that they do drink ample fluids; however, they might be fluids with calories, sugar, caffeine and other unhealthy ingredients.

Do they Eat a balanced, healthy diet? They may or may not. Although overweight people have all sorts of reasons why they are overweight, the main reason is that they consume more calories than they burn off, whether they consume a balanced, healthy diet or not.

Do they Exercise? Of course there are overweight people who exercise, even those who exercise a lot. However, the fact remains that Americans, in general, are sedentary and don’t even exercise the minimum that is recommended by the American Heart Association and American College of Sports Medicine, which is 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise, 5 days a week.

Do they have Tranquility? Good question. I would think that anyone who is content with his/her life has Tranquility, regardless of his/her size.

In sum:

Sleep – no

Water – yes

Eating – no

Exercise – no

Tranquility – yes

So, I would say that overweight people are like the general population, who follow a couple aspects of the SWEET Life easily, one intermittently, and a couple with difficulty.

Sources:

· About.com: Sleep Disorders: Does Losing Weight Really Help? http://sleepdisorders.about.com/cs/diet/a/talk_weight.htm

· American Heart Association: Exercise and Fitness: http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=1200013

· Fatosphere Blog: http://fatosphere.blogspot.com/

· In the Fatosphere, Big Is In, or at Least Accepted: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/22/health/22fblogs.html



Have a SWEET week!

Suzanne

Copyright © 2008 Suzanne Fong. All rights reserved.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Spring Has Sprung – Have you?

Appraising Your Success
The end of the week is a good time to review the past week of your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals for the week, then next week, focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently.
How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll experience all of these feelings!

Topic of the week --Spring Has Sprung – Have you?

Daylight Savings Time means it’s lighter later, which gives us more time for outdoor exercise! The wonderful spring weather is a reminder that now is the time to tone up your body for summer’s skin-revealing clothing.

Shorts & short-sleeved tops show off your calves, thighs, biceps, and triceps. To tone those muscles, you’ll need to do a variety of exercises. Do heel raises for your calves. Any exercises that cause you to bend and straighten your knees will tone your thighs, like leg extensions and curls, squats, or lunges. Any exercises that cause you to bend and straighten your arms will tone your biceps and triceps, such as bicep curls and triceps extensions.

Sleeveless tops reveal your shoulders, in addition to your arms. Add any kind of exercise where you lift your upper arm, such as overhead presses, front raises, and lateral raises to tone your shoulders.

Tank tops, spaghetti straps, halter tops, etc. also show off your chest and upper back. To tone those muscles, you need to do exercises where your arms are up at shoulder height and you are pushing them forward (for the chest) and pulling them backward (for the back). For example, you can do flyes and reverse flyes or chest presses and high rows.

Swimsuits additionally reveal your hips, glutes and abs, which means you need a full body toning workout. However, the most important thing you need, in order to look good in a swim suit, is confidence. I’ve seen overweight women look great in a swim suit because it was the right suit for their body, in a great color for their skin tone, and they had a lot of confidence wearing it. I’ve also seen women who had good bodies but didn’t look very good in swim suits, mostly because they lacked confidence, although swim suit style and color also played a role.

Therefore, start springing into spring, toning up, and building confidence in yourself, your body, and your swim suit.

Suzanne
Weekly Encouragement history: http://sweetlifeweekly.blogspot.com/
The SWEET Life of Suzanne blog: http://thesweetlifeofsuzanne.blogspot.com/
Website: http://livingthesweetlife.net/

Copyright © 2008 Suzanne Fong. All rights reserved.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Adding More Food Groups to Your Meals

Appraising Your Success
The end of the week is a good time to review the past week of your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals for the week, then next week, focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently.
How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll experience all of these feelings!

Topic of the week– Adding More Food Groups to Your Meals

I try to eat from 3-5 food groups in each meal and at least 2 food groups per snack. Here are some suggestions how to add more food groups to your meals and snacks:

Breakfast is more difficult than other meals, but I still try to include 3 food groups. For example, cereal with milk and fruit, toast with peanut butter and juice, or a fried egg sandwich: egg, cheese and toast.

Lunch is a great time to eat all five food groups in one meal. For example, a turkey and cheese sandwich with a piece of fruit and a handful of baby carrots or cottage cheese (protein and dairy) heated on cooked pasta (it’s like a healthy alfredo sauce) with a small salad and piece of fruit.

For snacks, I try to eat at least two food groups. There are different possibilities depending on whether I’m home or out of the house. Out of the house I have non-perishable snacks, such as peanuts, crackers, pretzels and raisins (or other dried fruit). At home, there’s carrots dipped in hummus, apples slices spread with peanut butter, yogurt and fruit, pretzels dipped in cottage cheese or cheese and crackers.

Dinner is my last chance to catch up on any needed food groups. I make sure to include at least protein, grains and vegetables, which are all typical dinner foods. Adding fruit can be done by adding fresh or dried fruit to a salad or having a fruit salad for dessert. Dairy can be added by topping chili, noodles or other foods with cheese or by adding yogurt to your fruit salad for dessert.

It’s not difficult to add more food groups to your meals; it’s just a matter of thinking about it, and sometimes getting creative.

Have a SWEET week!

Suzanne

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Weekly Menus

Appraising Your Success

The end of the week is a good time to review the past week of your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals for the week, then next week, focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently.
How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll experience all of these feelings!

Topic of the week -- Weekly menus

Spending half an hour a week planning your menus for the next week is a great way to eat healthier all week long. I start with two pieces of paper: one for dinner menus and one for groceries. The following is what works for me:
Menus:
1. I write the days of the week, spaced out, down the left side of the paper.
2. I write any plans I already have that will affect dinner next to the days they will occur.
3. Of the days without plans, I pick three days when I will cook dinner.
4. I choose two days when we will have leftovers.
5. I choose two days when I will cook something quick & easy, like frozen meals, boxed or packaged meals, or pasta served with jarred sauce.
6. I check my pantry, fridge and freezer for what dinner foods I already have, such as frozen meat, frozen dinners, rice, potatoes, pasta, etc.
7. From there, I start to fill in my menus of what quick & easy foods I could make. If I don’t have much, then I add some quick & easy meals to my grocery list.
8. Using what foods I already have as a start, I decide what meals I will cook this week. I make sure my dinners include protein, grains and vegetables. Adding dairy and/or fruit is a bonus.
9. In addition to writing my cooking menus on my menus paper, I add whatever ingredients I will need to my grocery list.
10. To my grocery list I also add any breakfast, lunch or snack foods we need.

I don’t get around to doing this every week, but when I do, my entire week runs more smoothly. I never wonder what we’ll have for dinner tonight, and my family eats healthier all week long.

Have a SWEET week!

Suzanne

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Creating the SWEET Life Habit

Appraising Your Success
The end of the week is a good time to review the past week of your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals for the week, then next week, focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently.
How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll experience all of these feelings!

Topic of the week – Creating the SWEET Life Habit

If I had to say one word about living the SWEET Life (instead of 5 words), it would have to be “consistency.“ Follow through is the key to success. To know what the SWEET Life stands for (i.e., Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise & Tranquility) is the first step. To adapt the SWEET Life to your own lifestyle is the second step. To create the habit of living the SWEET Life is the third step. This is where consistency starts to play a role because creating a habit is, necessarily, following through regularly.

How do you create the habit of living the SWEET Life? How do you get consistency? Start by making “good constraints,” which are good, little rules to live by. These little rules should have a time associated with them to work most successfully. Here are some SWEET Life examples of “good constraints:”

Sleep: I go to bed as soon as I got home from work (9:15 p.m. or 10:00 p.m., depending on the day). I constrained myself to the fact that as soon as I leave my house for work in the evening, my day at home is done; there’s no evening time at home after work, only bedtime. The good part is that I slept better.

Water: I fill a pitcher in the morning with 2 quarts of water with the “constraint” of finishing it by the end of the day. The “good” part is that I have a limited amount of water sitting there looking at me all day, beckoning me to drink it.

Eating: Simple observations tell me that (1) people eat too much, and (2) what they eat isn’t nutritious. At the same time, people feel a diet is extremely constraining, which is why they don’t last long. I view it in the opposite way. I don’t call it “diet” I call it “eating,” the point being to EAT, rather than restrict your eating. That said, my “good constraint” is to eat mostly nutritious foods. The “good” is that there is a huge variety of nutritious foods. The “constraint” is that they have to be nutritious.

Exercise: My “good constraint” is that I plan to exercise first thing in the morning Monday through Friday, and I go to the gym with a friend a few times a week. The constraint is that I have to be home before my husband goes to work. The “good” thing is that by the time I eat breakfast, I’ve already exercised and don’t have to think about it the rest of the day. However, if I don’t workout every weekday, I can still workout on the weekends.

Tranquility: My “good constraint” was that my girls took naps every afternoon. That was “good” in that it gave me time to relax and do my own thing, but I was “constrained” by the time they woke up. My problem now is that I need a new “good constraint” because my older daughter is out-growing her nap.

Another benefit of the “good constraints” is that they are, by nature, limited. For example, I feel free not to exercise both weekend days because I’ve already exercised 5 days a week. I feel free to eat a piece of chocolate every day because I know that almost everything else I eat is nutritious. I feel free to wake up extra early to get stuff done because I already got a full night’s sleep.

Think about what “good constraints” will work for your personality and lifestyle. Then, you can create the habit of living the SWEET Life. It takes time to create a new habit, and some parts of living the SWEET Life will be easier than others. Persevere and be consistent, and you will be living the SWEET Life!

Sources:

Maymin, Senia. (March 1, 2007, 11:59 pm) Create New Habits: The GOOD Constraints. Positive Psychology News Daily, NY. http://pos-psych.com/news/senia-maymin/20070301137

Pollan, Michael. (January 28, 2007). Unhappy Meals. The New York Times Magazine. http://www.michaelpollan.com/article.php?id=87

Have a SWEET week!

Suzanne

Monday, February 25, 2008

Tranquility through the Back

Appraising Your Success
The end of the week is a good time to review the past week of your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals for the week, then next week, focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently.
How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll experience all of these feelings!

Topic of the week –Tranquility through the Back

What is the importance of Tranquility? Of course, there are detrimental health effects of chronic stress, but on a day to day basis, does it really matter if we get 30 minutes of Tranquility? It’s a matter of build up, or lack thereof. Having no time to relax one day won’t have much of an effect on you, but as that stress builds over the course of a few days or weeks, it will negatively affect other aspects of your life and SWEET Life as well.

The other day I had one of the few massages I’ve ever had in my life. I felt like I was rushing around all morning in order to do everything I needed to beforehand. Rushing in order to relax is strange, huh? The massage was wonderful. Ed focused on the areas of my back that had been giving me pain. I felt like he spent forever working out the kinks in my back. If I typically get tranquility every day, why was my back so tight? I felt so much more relaxed afterward. The worst part of a massage is always getting up afterward, instead of just sleeping on the massage table. Unfortunately, my girls didn’t sleep that afternoon, so I was right back into mommy mode afterwards.

At the same time, there are similar, free methods of relaxation. A nice hard back rub feels great, too, as does a big back scratch. I often give my family back scratches in the morning when they wake up. It gets the blood flowing and helps them wake up. Also, as I always say, “Everyone loves a back scratch in the morning.” You can also hop in a hot tub and have the jets blasting your back. One newer trend is foam rollers. You can put the roller on the floor and roll your back along it, either vertically or horizontally. Rolling either direction feels great, and you control the amount of pressure and specific areas of pressure yourself.

Take care of your back; it’s what holds you upright!

Have a SWEET week!

Suzanne

Saturday, February 16, 2008

SMART Goals, BAT Goals, and SO on

Appraising Your Success
The end of the week is a good time to review the past week of your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals for the week, then next week, focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently.
How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll experience all of these feelings!

Topic of the week - SMART Goals, BAT Goals, and SO on

SMART Goals are:

· Specific
· Measurable
· Achievable
· Relevant
· Timely

By setting a SMART Goal, including explanations of how your goal fulfills each aspect of SMART, you are likely setting a goal you can succeed in. Think of what a SMART Goal would be for you to achieve within the next 4-6 weeks. That amount of time is long enough to make a difference, but not too long that you’ll lose motivation. If your main goal will take longer than 4-6 weeks to accomplish, then decide on one step towards your goal that you can achieve within 4-6 weeks.

BAT Goals stand for Be Able To. Setting goals that you will “Be Able To” do is one way of ensuring they are SMART goals. It shifts the focus from an abstraction to an ability.

& SO on

One problem that hampers many of us from achieving our goals is that we merely set them, without considering how to accomplish them. It is essential to clarify the Steps to our goals. What steps do I need to take, how often, where, when, etc. all need to be considered in order to clarify the steps to success. In addition, we all have Obstacles, which is why we have goals that we need to accomplish. What is important is to identify our Obstacles and figure out ways to work around them.

It seems like a lot to consider: SMART goals, BAT goals, Steps, & Obstacles. It’s enough to make you want to give up the whole idea of having goals. However, once these initials steps are taken, following through is that much easier because all of the thought has been done. You only need follow-through!

For example, my new goal is to strengthen my core. Specifically, to Be Able To do the Body Reading Exercises that I learned last weekend in a workshop (which makes it Timely). I want to be able to do them easily and correctly (which makes it Measurable). It’s Achievable within 4-6 weeks because I already have a certain amount of core strength, and it’s Relevant because I’ve had lower back pain recently. The Steps are to do new ab, chest and back exercises that I learned in my workshop last weekend, five times a week. I’m also going to change my computer chair because I think it’s contributing to my back problems. My Obstacles are needing more time to do more exercises and adjusting to using my stability ball as my computer chair. I can work around those obstacles by getting up a few minutes earlier, knowing the value of having core body strength and by pumping up my stability ball in order for it to be high enough for my computer keyboard.

Go ahead and try it! Daylight Savings Time, St. Patrick’s Day, Spring Equinox, Easter, and Spring Break are all in about a month, in case any of those are Relevant Times to Achieve a goal. Make a plan, then follow your plan. You can do it!

Have a SWEET week!

Suzanne