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Jan 18 2016

How To Use Facebook For Weight Loss

The Dirty Little Secret To Use Facebook For Weight Loss.

How many minutes (or hours!) do you spend on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media websites? Do you know that social media can be used to keep you connected to a community to support your weight loss goals?

Social media used to be reserved for connecting with others, sharing pictures, and staying up-to-date on the latest news, but now researchers have found it may also help people lose weight.

In a recent study, scientists observed 22,400 people who were taking part in a large, international online weight-management program. They focused on about 5,400 people who participated in the program for at least six months and who posted their weight loss progress at least twice during the study period.

According to researchers, the most significant factor linked to weight loss was a person’s level of social networking. Over the six-month period, those who did not have any friends in the online community saw a 4.1 percent decrease in their body weight while those who were more active in the community saw a greater decrease.

People in the study with 2 – 9 friends saw a 5.2 percent decrease and the people who were in the largest cluster of friends within the network saw a 6.8 percent decrease in body weight. Those who had a high number of friends – and whose friends also had a high number of friends – had an 8.3 percent decrease in body weight.

The lead study author, Julia Poncela-Casasnovas of the Rovira Virgili University in Tarragona, Spain, explained the findings.

“It makes sense that social connectedness is related to any goal people try to achieve. It can be AA [Alcoholics Anonymous], or just joining a gym with friends, or quitting smoking. Any of these behavior-modifying endeavors are more likely to succeed if you have some kind of social support.”

Twitter’s analytics team revealed that an average of 15,000 tweets about weight loss alone are posted each day.

Brie Turner-McGrievy, a health researcher at the University of South Carolina, conducted a study to see if there was a connection between tweeting about weight loss and actually losing weight.

Turner-McGrievy, along with a team of researchers, studied 96 overweight and obese people who were interested in losing weight and used Twitter as one of their social networks. According to the study, the researchers found that engagement with Twitter was associated with greater weight loss.

But several studies have raised concerns over the use of social media and its effect on body image. Seeing images of models and thin ideals can lead to comparing our own appearances to them, which can result in body image dissatisfaction.

A recent study conducted by Florida State University and published by the International Journal of Eating Disorders found that a group of women who were asked to browse Facebook for 20 minutes experienced greater body dissatisfaction than those who spent 20 minutes researching a specific topic online.

Dr. Phillippa Diedrichs, senior research fellow at the University of West of England’s Centre for Appearance Research, says that research supports the link between social media and body image concerns.

“The more time spent on Facebook, the more likely people are to self-objectify themselves.”

Although social media can contribute to body dissatisfaction, it can also promote health if used the right way.

Christy Brissette, a dietitian and nutrition media expert, encourages people to focus on what your body can do and what you’re doing for your health rather than how your body looks.

Social media also fosters community and support towards achieving a goal. According to a Northwestern University study, dieters who used the community-supported benefits of social media lost more weight than their less-connected peers.

In the study, online dieters used a website and app called CalorieKing to access weight-loss tools and log their meals. Those who checked in regularly and “friended” other members lost 8 percent more body weight after six months.

Another study from the Dominican University of California found that 70 percent of study participants who reported their progress to a friend each week completed their goals successfully, compared to 35 percent of those who kept their goals to themselves.

Although looking at certain images and comparing yourself to a perfect ideal can lead to body image issues, using social media as part of a weight loss or fitness journey can help hold you accountable to your goals and give you the support you need to achieve them.

Instead of spending hours scrolling through your Facebook feed, now you can use social media to help transform your body and your mind. Get involved with an online community, share your goals, and you may achieve your weight loss goals faster than you thought possible.

We use a strong support system of community to support you to your weight loss goals. Our community, facebook group and personal trainer’s help support you throughout your whole journey.
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Jan 11 2016

Three Reasons your recreational activity shouldn’t be your whole routine

Tips from a career Personal Trainer.

Some of you may know this, but others may not…. I am addicted to skiing. I have loved it since I first tried it back in Junior High in DC. I not only want to do it as much as possible, but I want to get really really…. really good at it. This was one of the convincing arguments my wife used on me to get me to move from Los Angeles to Santa Fe, New Mexico. I purchased a ski pass this season, and I have already been 10 times! I plan to ski as much as I can now and in the future.

Someone recently on the ski lift, after finding out that I am a personal trainer and own a personal training company in Santa Fe asked if skiing was a good workout. Although, skiing is really a fantastic activity that works a lot of your body; legs, core, some cardio and a bit of the upper body, the skier is basically just controlling their fall down a mountain. Gravity is doing most of the propelling work.

This is why skiing can’t be my only form of exercise. Although it seems to cover the whole body and I feel good afterward, even if I could just ski all day, every day, skiing is just an activity and can not address everything I want and need in a complete fitness program.

Over the past 20 + years of being a personal trainer and now owning a personal training company here in Santa Fe, I have seen and see people mistake any activity as a complete workout program, and that is just not correct. Listen carefully, there is no single workout routine that will achieve all your goals. None! And any personal trainer, fitness trainer or group exercise class trainer who says that is either lying or is operating without all the info, and in that case should be careful of what they promise. Although this topic is complex, I am going to keep is simple for purposes of this blog.

Three Reasons your recreational activity shouldn’t be your whole routine:

It is not tailored to you! This is the most obvious answer (I hope). You may have a desire (emotional) of what you want to see happen in your body. So you go searching for an answer to this and you buy an online course, join an exercise class or find a personal trainer / fitness trainer who promises this outcome. Nothing wrong so far. But then you show up and you jump into the routine with no or very little assessment of your body (logical). And now you are trying to go from a relatively novice position to doing general routines with Olympic lifts, standing on balance balls while lifting weights, doing exercises on the TRX or pushing yourself into a yoga pose that your body isn’t ready for. You see your body will do these moves because you told it to. It’s your body, it has to listen. But more than likely it is going to do this movement horribly and chances are you won’t initially notice it at all; a slight shift here and a progressive rubbing there. Nothing that you will notice in the sort term, but in a year, five maybe ten you will have some sort of pathology that can or can not be fixed and you wont even know that it started from that routine you started in the new year.
Endorphin’s feel good! These are the positive feeling that you receive when you move around. The blood is flowing! Your muscles are working! The birds are singing! Yes! This is a great thing. It has wonderful positive effects on your psychology and to the degree of what you are doing has different physiological effects. But this should not blind you to the fact that there are imbalances within your body. If you don’t, that activity that you are doing will make that condition worse, and then you wont be able to do the activities you love and it will have a very detrimental effect on your psychology. Case in point, Patella Femoral Syndrome. One of the main causes of knee pain today. It is when the patella (knee cap) rubs over the trochlea of the femur, slowly rubbing the cartilage away on the posterior (underside) of the patella. Can’t really feel too much at the start, but after repeated rubbing of the patella over the femur and the cartilage start to wear down, pain and in some cases A LOT of pain ensues. What causes the patella to rub over the femur? Knee flexion. This is where the heal of the foot goes toward your but. What activities do this? Pretty much all of them!
You will over use your body! The body has different planes of motion, different ways that it reacts to force, different energy systems and A LOT of muscles that have A LOT of different actions. These general programs will move you only in the way that the routine is set up. Many times this means that you only move in one or two planes of motion. When you are out in life, your body will move in all the different planes of motion regardless if you are efficient in them or not. And if you aren’t, then your body will compensate (cheat) and we all know that eventually cheating in any form catches up with you. And even if your routine moves in different planes of motion but is not respecting ALL muscles of the body and how they should be balanced, then will continue to cheat. In your body you have what’s called PIT muscles and DAM muscles. The PIT muscles are the small muscles and prepare you to move properly. If they aren’t balanced or strong enough, then they can’t “communicate” to the body. Then the DAM muscles will move you, but not well.

These three “dangers” must be taken into consideration in both what you are currently doing and what you are planning to do. When you choose an exercise class, fitness trainer or personal trainer you should know exactly what you will be getting from it. And you should always be properly assessed and what’s going to happen should be explained to you. SolCore Fitness personal training Santa Fe does just that. Whether it is best for you to join our group exercise classes, semi-private personal training or private personal training, we make sure that your know where you are starting from, what’s to come and what will be required of you.

If you are in Santa Fe, NM and this sounds appealing then we offer a free consultation.

The goal is longevity. To your health!
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Dec 07 2015

Personal Training Success Story

Personal Training Success Story – John Bennett

When somebody tells you that they didn’t think they would live this long, you begin to understand their mindset and what hard living can be. It doesn’t surprise you that the activities in which they like to engage, include motorcycles and boats. And when you hear that they have had 5 spinal surgeries…five…and continue to do all these activities, who they are makes more sense to you.

Is this some mythical creature that hangs out with Santa and the Tooth Fairy riding a unicorn? Nope, it’s “just” John Bennett… and he is the member of the month and the latest personal training success story.

I hear question marks popping up in your head. Are you advocating running yourself into the ground? Nope. I have always said that our greatest strength is our greater power and John exemplifies that to a tee. John has the drive to push through just about anything! This drive, I can assume, is what he used to “retire” at an early age. This same drive also crushed his body.

Most guys in his position would do one of two things, quit or be stubborn and keep living hard and eventually kill themselves. But John has another great quality, he is open and curious. I know I just listed two, but they go together. These two qualities have allowed him to be open enough to join SolCore Fitness and trust us with his health and fitness. Because of this trust and his incredible drive, John has made amazing gains in our program.

What made you decide you wanted/needed to start a program? Pain! My back, legs, neck, hips…, everywhere!

What did you do before? I have been active my whole life and been using a gym since my mid twenties. Recently, before joining this program I was at El Gancho 3 X a week doing weights and the Stairmaster. I had surgery on my neck and low back for herniations and follow up surgery for the scar tissue. I also did some PT after the surgeries.

What results have you achieved since starting your program that you are proud of? My overall conditioning is the best it has ever been. My flexibility has improved dramatically. I am finally able to touch my toes while bending over. My respiration (breathing) is much better.

Do you have a favorite exercise? Least? What do you like or don’t like about them? Wall Squats are my favorite (of course) squats all the big muscle exercises. Actually I enjoy them all! Because of this program I can now get out of the chair without out pain or holding on to something.

What are some challenges or goals you are currently working on? The Ab roll ups are a challenge for me.

What do you like best about our program / having a trainer? The leadership and knowledge that is provided.

What advice would you give to the other SolCore Fitness members? Do your homework!

What would you say to someone on the fence about joining our program? Do it! It will definitely help you like it has helped me.

There you have it for the unicorn riding man himself…do your homework!
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Oct 21 2015

Exercise Helps Keep Your Body’s Rhythms In Check

The Power Of Consistent Exercise

There’s no doubt that getting your heart pumping and blood moving through exercise has a long list of health benefits. It controls weight, combats health conditions and diseases, improves mood, boosts energy, promotes better sleep, and more. But many people don’t realize that lack of exercise can disrupt the body’s rhythms. Each of our bodies has circadian rhythms – physical, mental and behavioral changes that follow a roughly 24-hour cycle, responding primarily to light and darkness. It’s why we naturally fall asleep during the night and rise during the daylight. But our heartbeats, hormones, hunger, alertness, digestion, fatigue and other bodily functions are also influenced by our circadian rhythms.

According to a 2009 study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, exercise may affect how and when we move, even when we aren’t exercising. The findings suggest exercise may help our bodies recognize the optimal times to move and be still. Dr. Frank Scheer, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and director of the Medical Chronobiology Program at Brigham and the Women’s Hospital in Boston, oversaw the study along with colleagues. They had a range of people from young adults to older people wear activity monitors for a week and tracked their movements as the volunteers stuck to their normal daily activities. As noted in a New York Times article, “The young people’s bodies seemed to be somehow remembering and responding to what that body had just been doing, whether sitting or moving, and then calculating a new, appropriate response – moving or sitting.

In doing so, the researchers felt, the body created a healthy, dynamic circadian pattern.” But the results weren’t the same for the older people in the study. Their memory patterns were reduced drastically with age and their movements were more random with less movement during the day and more movement at night. However, the researchers wanted to determine if these changes were caused solely by aging. Dr. Scheer and his colleagues, Kun Hu of Harvard University and Johanna Meijer of Leiden University, performed a new study this year. They monitored the movement patterns of mice ranging from six months to two years in age, which is equivalent to human young adults and aging seniors. For one month, they left a running wheel in the mice’s cage and found that the young mice often ran and developed patterns of peaks and valleys in their activity levels. The older mice had similar peaks and valleys, but they were more random. However, when the researchers removed the running wheel, all of the mice started showing more random patterns of movement, and the young mice had activity levels similar to the older mice. Once the researchers put the wheel back into the cage, all of the mice began exercising again and returned to healthy patterns of movements. According to Dr. Scheer, the finding suggests that exercise affects daily movement patterns more than age does.

Although the researchers don’t know how exercise might affect the body’s internal clocks, the study does suggest that exercise improves rhythms. Experts also note that there’s an ideal time of day to exercise based on our circadian rhythms, but many disagree on exactly when that is. Dr. Phyllis Zee of Northwestern University believes that the best time to work out is in the late afternoon because the body temperature is between one and two degrees warmer than in the morning, making muscles in the body more supple and lowering the risk of injury. Working out when the body temperature is at its peak, which is usually about 4pm or 5pm, can help people have optimal endurance, maximum flexibility and heightened injury resistance. However, some health experts argue that working out in the morning will jump start burning calories for the day and help you sustain a higher metabolic rate later in the day. Research has also shown that morning exercisers have a greater degree of consistency since afternoon and evening workouts are more likely to conflict with other responsibilities as the day progresses. But everyone’s circadian rhythm is different, and although there may be an ideal time to prevent injury and achieve peak performance, the most important thing is to exercise consistently.

Whether you need that 6am morning workout to clear your head and get ready for your day, or you prefer to wait until the afternoon because you feel most awake, just make sure you get your workout in. If you do prefer to exercise in the morning, make sure to warm up muscles that might be cool and tight from sleep to reduce the risk of injury. Try exercising at different times of day and use your body clock as a guide to determine what works best for you.
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