www.lynngrieger.com

Have you ever wanted the luxury of a personal trainer, someone who can give you individualized workouts, help you develop a healthy eating style, and works with you to meet your goals?

Now you can get all of this - online! I’m one of the trainers at www.fitorbit.com, a comprehensive website that gives you the opportunity to connect with a personal trainer without ever leaving your house. Not sure what exercises to do at the gym to maximize your time? Curious about the best way to strengthen your core? Having trouble dropping weight? All of these goals can be reached by working with me through FitOrbit.

For more info, go to http://trainers.fitorbit.com/personal-fitness/LynnGrieger

Every day someone tells me how they satisfy their emotions with food. When they’re under stress they grab chocolate; when they’re bored they munch on chips; when they’re tired they reach for the ice cream; and when they’re lonely cookies are their favorite friend.

My response is often to encourage them to ask this question:  Am I hungry? If I’m not physically hungry, what is it that I truly need?

There are several great books on the market to help you figure out how to effectively deal with emotions without using food. One of my favorite authors is Michelle May, MD, at www.amihungry.com. I love her books and her insight into how we’ve learned over the years to use food to satisfy our emotions.

If you’re trying to solve this puzzle, here is something to guide you along your way from Michelle:

When I’m hungry, I eat what I love.
When I’m bored, I do something I love.
When I’m lonely, I connect with someone I love.
When I feel sad, I remember that I am loved.

If you’ve worked through this on your own, please let us know some tips that you found especially helpful.

Have you ever set a goal, worked really hard, but fell short of your expectations?

The women in our 2009 Training for More group experienced this first hand this year. On race day the end of April, the weather was hot and humid, to protect the participants the race director did not time the race, and everyone went slower than expected. We were ready for snow, but not temperatures in the high 80’s.

Fern and Patty (in the photo with me above) decided they wanted to bring closure to their goal of running a fast half-marathon this Spring. Patty found a half-marathon in Utica, NY, only a 3-hour drive. We rearranged our schedules, drove to Utica, and completed the goal. Everything fell into place:  the weather was cool, the race was well-organized, the course was beautiful (and flat), and the volunteers were enthusiastic.

Fern and Patty smashed their goals and had an awesome race. They took a disappointing situation and turned it around, putting their goal of a fast Spring marathon behind them. We did it together, the same way we trained throughout the Winter.

Lessons learned:
-  things don’t always work out the way we want
-  there are always alternatives to consider
-  disappointments can be overcome
-  setting goals with friends makes the entire experience more fun

What goals are you working toward? How can you turn a disappointment into a victory?

We all know we’re supposed to eat lots of fruits and veggies, right? But did you know that the color of the foods you eat has a big impact on your health? That’s because different colors of foods contain various phytochemicals and antioxidants - beneficial chemicals produced by plants that give us a huge health benefit.

Here’s a wonderful video that beautifully showcases the variety of colors of foods available to us. Caution:  do NOT watch this if you’re hungry!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjHItEhvSGk

Is healthy food expensive? Is it possible to spend less money, and still choose healthy foods?

These questions are on everyone’s mind today as we figure out ways to save money. But who wants to sacrifice good health?

Check out these 9 often overlooked ways to save money at the grocery store - without scrimping on taste or health:  http://www.foodandhealth.com/cheapshop.pdf

What are your favorite ways to spend less on healthy food? Let’s share!

The More half-marathon didn’t end up to be the race we planned on.  

Temperatures in NYC were in the 70’s early on race morning, and climbed to almost 90 before noon. When the 43 women in my training group arrived in Central Park at 7am, the race directors had already cancelled the marathon portion of the races. The half-marathon was still on, but it wasn’t timed. The race director encouraged everyone walking, or who couldn’t finish the 13.1 miles in 3 hours, to do just one loop - about 7 miles - of the 2 loop course.

The weather is obviously beyond our control. We trained in below freezing weather when the roads were covered in snow and our eyelashes froze. We ran and walked in the rain. We wore face masks, 2 layers of gloves, Yak Trax, and long underwear to get in our miles. We never planned on one of the hottest days of the Spring - and we hadn’t trained in hot weather.

We were disappointed, but no one gave up. We started off at a slow pace, drank water and Gatorade at every rest stop, searched out the shady spots of the course, and encouraged each other to do our best. We can’t control the weather, but we CAN control our attitude.

I’m proud of the women in the Training for More group who stuck together through cold weather and steaming humidity. Each and every one put out her best effort that day, and while the day didn’t turn out as planned, we all met the challenge. 15 weeks of training came down to one hot morning in NYC’s Central Park. Just like every other training session, we laced up our shoes, stretched our legs, and started out for the day:  together.

About this time last year I spent a glorious week in Sicily, learning about the Mediterranean Diet by enjoying it first-hand. I’ve been a fan of the Mediterranean Diet principles:  whole grains, lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, nuts, seafood, and of course - olive oil. It’s amazing how delicious fresh asparagus dressed with only pepper and fragrant olive oil can taste.

Oldways, a group dedicated to translating nutrition science into healthy and delicious foods, pioneered the concept of encouraging Americans to adopt the Mediterranean diet principles in order to improve our health. They recently published an updated Mediterranean Food Pyramid, available at http://www.oldwayspt.org/med_pyramid.html

Here are my top 5 recommendations for bringing the Mediterranean diet, and all of its health benefits, into your kitchen:

1.  Make plants - fruit, vegetables, grains, legumes, seeds - the centerpiece of your meals. Start lunch with a tossed salad, adding in chickpeas and pumpkin seeds.
2.  Include olives or olive oil in as many foods as possible. Toss your salad with olive oil or add olives to your favorite recipes.
3.  Use nuts as part of your protein choices. Add a handful of nuts to your salad or sprinkle nuts over breakfast oatmeal.
4.  Choose fish or shellfish at least twice each week. Toss pasta with tuna and olive oil or coat salmon with crushed pistacchios.
5.  Flavor your foods with herbs and spices instead of salt.

You bet! A new study from the Division of Immunology and Rheumatology in the Department of Medicine at Stanford University in California shows that moderate to vigorous exercise decreases risk of disability and death as we age.

The researchers followed a group of age 50+ runners in California for over two decades. After only 19 years, 15% of runners had died, compared to 34% of controls. It also took longer for runners to become disabled compared to controls.

Here’s the take-home message:  get off the couch and get moving, especially as you get older. Run, walk (vigorously, meaning that you’re working hard enough that you can’t sing, but you can still talk in phrases), play basketball or hockey, hike, snowboard or ski. You get the idea. Instead of thinking of middle age as the time when you kick back and watch TV or the grandkids running around, join those grandkids and get moving!

Arch Internal Med, 2008, Vol. 168, No. 15, pp. 1638-1646

New research is just that - something new. One of the latest reports describes evidence that a common human virus may lead to obesity. It appears that 11% of lean people have antibodies to Ad-36, but nearly 30% of obese people possess these antibodies. Apparently the Ad-36 virus causes some of our body’s cells to contain more fat, leading to obesity (Medical Hypotheses, January 10, 2009).

Does that mean we should throw healthy eating and regular exercise out the window? Not yet.

This is new reserach, remember? That means it needs to be repeated, investigated, and dug into to figure out exactly what’s going on.

Plus we also know that the vast majority of us simply don’t get enough activity and eat more than we need. Wouldn’t it be great to get an annual obesity vaccine, similar to a flu vaccine? High-fat food, here we come!

But we forget that healthy eating and regular physical activity have benefits beyond just our body weight. Eating well improves our immune system, decreases our risk of heart disease, and increases our energy levels. Getting regular physical activity strengthens our muscles, including our heart, and provides a welcome stress relief.

Frequent handwashing helps prevent catching a cold or the flu. I wonder if it works for obesity? Or should we just stick with eating more fruit and vegetables and heading outside for a 30 minute walk? Stay tuned.

It seems like whenever January rolls around we’re bombarded with a slew of products promising effortless weight loss. We may suspect that the worst thing that could happen is we don’t gain weight - but think again.

The FDA recently released a report on several weight loss products that are tainted with various chemicals that have the potential to cause harm such as seizures, depression, insomnia, increased blood pressure, and increased heart rate.

We all know that losing weight involves changing our eating habits and getting more activity, yet wouldn’t we dearly love to lose weight simply by taking a pill? That’s not only a fantasy, it’s also a potential health disaster.

Check out the FDA’s information and recommendations here:  http://www.fda.gov/cder/consumerinfo/weight_loss_products.htm