The shape of things

While on vacation I found an old issue of Self Magazine in the house we were staying at (2001 issue). They had this interesting section on "pet peeves" in the gym. I read through them, shaking my head and thinking of the many times people have committed these sins in my gym, and it got me thinking.

Not all of these etiquette rules are necessarily common sense. So one more reason people might be intimidated of the gym is because of the fact that they don't know these etiquette rules and therefore get stares and glares when they go to the gym. Not good.

In order to make everyone comfortable at the gym I wanted to list a few of the common etiquette mistakes in the gym. If you are an offender of one of these, you may want to reconsider your ways. If you're a newbie, please read through these so that when you go to they gym you'll feel comfortable and at ease.

• Talking on your cell phone - many gyms ban cell phones, but a lot don't. So even if you're gym allows them, keep your phone in your locker. It's rude when you're on the treadmill chatting it up and someone next to you is doing a six mile run and trying to tune out the world. This is your down time, your "you time" so keep the calls away and get back to them when you're done.
  
  
• While waiting for cardio equimpent to free up, staring at the people on the machines - many times you'll go to the gym (especially during "peak" times) and there will be no free cardio machines, which means you have to wait. But while you wait don't stand in front of a treadmill and stare at people finishing up their workout. If you can, go and do some crunches or weight machines while you wait, or take a seat and pick up a magazine.
  
  
• Leaving your sweat all over the gym equipment - they have those paper towels and spray cans there for a reason - to wipe up all of your sweat! If you use a machine or a bench, take the minute or two to spray it down and wipe it up.
  
  
• "Hogging" a weight machine - If you've ever been using a weight machine (like the lat pull down) and notice someone waiting to use it, offer to allow them to use the machine during the breaks between your sets. It's a great way to get in a good amount of rest between sets, and it's just courteous.
  
  
• Taking dumbbells or a stability ball while someone is still using it - This happens to me a lot. I like to do a "circuit" workout a lot of times so I'll have two dumbbells and a stability ball and a mat. I'll be doing biceps curls and then get on the ball to do chest flys... but sometimes someone will come up between my biceps curls and take my ball - even though it's right next to me. Best way to avoid this is to either take equipment from the designated areas, or simply wait until the person is done with the set and ask them... which leads to the next one...
  
  
• Talking to people who are in the middle of working out - If you see someone on a treadmill or doing reps on a machine or with weights, do not talk to them. Even if you know them from an exercise class, it's ruder to start a conversation than to walk by without saying anything. If you want to talk to them, wait until their done and resting. A lot of exercises take concentration, and when someone is blabbing to you during that, you'll lose the concentration and not work as hard. (Next time you're in class, you can say something like "I saw you working out, but didn't want to interrupt you're workout, how are you doing")
  
  
• STARING - the men in my gym are infamous for this one, but the ladies do it too. Working out makes you sweat and a lot of times puts you in positions that aren't the most flattering (i.e. butt sticking out during a squat). Therefore, do not stare at people in the gym. I know that sometimes people do weird things (like walking backwards on a stair climber, saw that yesterday) but they are not doing it for your viewing pleasure, so be nice and look away. If you need to stare at something stare at the TV or at yourself in the mirror.
  
  
• Talking to friends during an exercise class - Similar to being on your cell phone, when you're in group exercise classes and people are talking to one another it's rude to the teacher and to all the students. Keep you conversations for the locker room or for the coffee shop after class.
  
  
• Not unloading the weight bar  - For some odd reason a lot of women don't use weight bars, but you should. Strength training builds up muscles, speeds up your metabolism and burns more calories while you're resting. That said, it's the worst when I go to do a leg press and some "beefhead" has left his 300 pounds of weights on the machine. I'm no lightweight and could take off all those 45 pound plates, but I shouldn't have to. So when you're done, unload the weights.
  
  
• Leaving gym equipment all over the gym - Gyms have weight racks and ball stands for a reason, to keep it tidy. So when you use some equipment be sure to return it to its home. It helps the gym stay clean and safe and it makes it faster for you next time because you won't have to search for the things you need.
  
  
• Last but not least, hogging the water fountain - This is not the place to catch your breath between sets, it's where you sip some water and move away. I regualrly use the fountain to fill up my water bottle, but if I see someone behind me I let them go first so they don't have to wait while I fill.
  

Most of these things are simple to follow once you realize the reason for them. The gym is not a scary world where people have a secret language and handshakes and only those on the "inside" are allowed. Gyms are for everyone who is a member. So use your membership, go to the gym and stop being intimidated.

 

As you all know, I was on vacation last week in the Rocky Mountains. We had a great time. We ended up not going to the winter park mountain biking extravaganza and opted for free fun of hiking all over the park.

For most of the hikes I wore my nifty GPS to track how far (and fast) we were hiking. It came in handy when you think you can't make it any more and you realize that Odessa Lake is only a half mile away! :) I love this site called "Gmaps Pedometer." If you've never played with it, you're missing out. Basically it uses Google maps to map out your run, walk or hike and it tells you the distance and the elevation gains.

So here is a quick overview of our hikes from last week. (I've included a few pictures from each hike I've mapped. Good fun. Here we go:

First Hike: To Ouzel Falls. This was our "acclimate" hike where you go out slow and easy to adjust to the high altitude. It was a very nice hike. I've included a picture of me by the falls, up close and personal. And one of my husband talking with a marmot. Very cute little furry guys found all over the park. The hike was about 6 or 7 miles there and back. We started at an elevation of 8,500 feet and got up to 9,764 feet. (Click the pictures for bigger size)

 

 

Second hike: Odessa Lake, Fern Lake and the pool. The second hike we went with our friends Justin and Erin. This was a long all-day hike. We got a late start, but had a great time and luckily no afternoon storms cut the hike short. Here's the highlights of the hike: We hiked about 8.5 to nine miles on this trail. We started at an elevation of 8,100 feet and got up to 10,045 feet. Nice elevation gain.

 

Third Hike: On our last day my husband and I got up semi-early (for vacation at least) and drove up Old Fall River Road to Chapin Pass. This trail starts at an elevation of 11,000 feet so you can only imagine how quickly you can get winded on this hike. Unlike the other trails, it was difficult to map this one because it's off the "beaten path" so I guessed and this is my estimate - we hiked about five miles up to 13,000 feet. Wow. We wanted to go farther and summit both Mount Chiquita and Mount Ypsilon, but dark storm clouds kept us away. When you're above the treeline like that you're a great big target to lightening.

This was such a great vacation. Thanks to my healthy lifestyle I was able to hike all these beautiful trails and enjoy the breathtaking views. Trips like this are the best because you're being active and having a great time doing it. Try to make your next vacation an adventure! Happy hiking.

As I'm sure you've noticed I've kept to my promise of 4-6 posts a week. I hope you all enjoy them.

For the next 8 days I will be here:

Estes Park Colorado. My husband and I leave tomorrow morning (early) and we're spending the week there hiking, biking, shopping, hanging out, kayaking, etc. Here's some of the things we'll be doing in picture form:

Our bikes will go up the chairlifts at Winter Park and then we get to ride on down. It should be amazing!  Here's a small look at the mountain we'll be riding on...

To find out mroe about Winter park click here.

I love our trips to Estes Park (we go ever summer and winter, we got married there this past winter!). We always get to do so many active things like hiking and biking etc. and they are always so much fun that you forget you're working out!  

If you cannot go that long without great health, diet and fitness information I will give you a very worthy alternative. Check fitsugar.com as often as you want. Always great content, advice and general fun. Have a great week.  

I briefly touched on this in yesterday's post about not doing one of the moves in the workout featured because it was a bit embarassing-looking for the gym.

I found this article a few days ago in Women's Health called "Pride Savers" It's funny because they recognize the same thing - a lot of people stare at the gym. They've offered three altenatives to the usual awkward exercises. If you have any please leave them in the comments.  

My favorite: "The good girl bad girl machine" (The title alone had me laughing).
"You either spread your legs as far as you can and squeeze them together (good girl) or start with your legs together and spread them as far apart as you can against resistance (bad girl)."
The correct name for that machine is the Abductor/Adductor Machine and Women's Health has you swap it for Ballet Sweep:

1. Ballet Sweep Works core and inner and outer thighs
Stand on your left foot, arms outstretched like airplane wings for balance. Sweep your right leg up and across your body, as if kicking a soccer ball with the inside of your right foot (don't lift higher than the middle of your left shin). Next, sweep your right leg out to the side, 2 to 3 feet off the floor. Return to start. Do 10 reps on your left foot, then 10 on your right. Too easy? Add a 2-pound ankle weight.

2. My swap: I'd recommend doing a pilates move just because you can add resistance to it. This move was featured in Shape Magazine August 07.
Leg raises with a band: Tie the ends of a resistance band together to make a small circle (about 12 inches in diameter), loop it around your ankles, and lie on your right side with your legs extended; use your left arm in front of you for balance. Lift your left leg up as high as you can and lower until the band is just barely taut. Do 6 sets of 8 reps per side. Click here to see a video of this

3. Want to work your inner thighs? Then add this to the leg raise. When you lift your left leg up, pick up your bottom leg (right) and meet it with the left. Bring them down together. Rotate between this move and the single leg raise to work those thighs inside and out. 

 I tried to come up with some more "embarassing moves" but couldn't think of any off the top of my head. If you know of one leave it in the comments and I'll try to swap out a move for you. :)

I love finding new workouts. I love printing them out or tearing them out of a magazine and tagging it along with me to the gym. It's always my best workouts because it's something new and challenging and fun. I try not to post workouts in the blog until I've tested them, because I'd hate for one of you to go to the gym with it and it be a waste of your time.

I've been doing this "butt" workout a couple of times and I really like it. My favorite part of it is that it has 10 different moves so each time you go you can pick and choose. (Don't do all ten, you'd be in the gym for a long time).

I've tried all the moves except number 7 and 9. The reason being because move number nine just looks a little strange, and with the amount of men who stare in the weight room of my gym, I'd be completely uncomfortable (for goodness sake you're pulling a cable through your squatting legs!). I haven't tried number 7 but I want to and I will eventually.

And my favorites? This first one is great. You do a full squat (thighs parallel to the floor, the chick in picture b is not there, keep going deeper.) and then you rise up to 1/4 of a squat and then back down to a full squat. That's one rep. The second one is a dead lift. Nice. The third one takes a lot of balance, but you definitely feel it. Squat on one leg with weight in one hand.

Happy lifting. Welcome to a great back side. Download the workout and print it out.

I found a bunch of interesting articles about food today and wanted to share them with all of you (in brief format of course). So here it goes:

1. Vitamin C Can't Cure Cancer Common Cold - (Talk about an alliteration) Anyway - you know how everytime you start to get the sniffles we automatically hand you a glass of OJ. Well apparently that just doesn't work. Vitamin C taken after a cold starts does not make the cold shorter or cure the cold. If you take Vitamin C as a preventive measure it only slightly shortens the duration of a cold (about 8% in adults). So what is a better way to prevent colds?? Wash your HANDS regularly and carefully. It's so simple.

2. Fruits and Veggies Don't stop cancers return - This study tried to see if eating a "mega-diet" of fruits and veggies (well over the FDA's recommendation) would help breast cancer survivors ward off a cancer relapse. Unfortunately it did not. The next step? Try to see if exercise wards off a relapse. So if you or a loved one is a breast cancer survivor, there's no need to go "overboard on fruits and veggies"

3. Curry Ingredient may fight Alzheimer's Disease - the spice turmeric found in Curry powder appears to stimulate a specific response against Alzheimer's symptoms. Of course, the large dosages of turmeric may be more than a normal person can consume - but there is evidence that people who eat a lot of foods with curry may be less prone to cancer and Alzheimer's. Ever cooked with curry? Try these recipes:

(Pardon moi for the bad links earlier)
Wolfgang Puck's Curried Chicken Satay - yum-o
Spiced Shrimp - uses Turmeric
Middle Eastern Lamb Burgers - I haven't made this one, but I have the ingredients to make it tonight!

4. Why fruits and veggies go bad quickly - could the explanation be as simple as just placing them next to one another? Fit sugar wrote a great piece today on how some fruits and vegetables emit an odorless and colorless gas that can prematurely decay other fruits and veggies. Read about it here to find out how to make your refrigerator gas-free. :) It just may help you get your recommended daily value of fruits and veggies because it will let your produce last longer.

5. Weight training for heart disease - People with heart disease not only benefit from cardio, they also benefit from moderate weight training. Read the article for some great tips on how to get started in weight training.

Ever wonder why some of the strongest people in your spin class (you know, the ones who never slack off and are always up for another hill) rarely seem to be thinnest and youngest person in the class?

Or perhaps some of your friends (or parent's friends for that matter) talk incessantly about cycling and century rides on the weekend (100 mile rides) yet they have pudges all over and are by most people's definition slightly overweight?

Well that, my friends, is what we call the "bicycling paradox." What makes for a competitive runner (rail thin and young), is not always ideal for a good cyclist. You may be thinking well look at Lance or other professionals, but we're talking about mere mortals today.

The New York Times had an article today about this paradox. In cycling it's your weight-to-strength ratio that really matters. Sure those rail thin ones can race up the hill the fastest, but the bigger ones will go faster downhill (due to center-of-gravity) and they will also ride on flat surfaces faster. 

This is true. I used to know a few cyclists and the skinny ones always did great on hilly courses, but when it came to flat courses the bigger ones could sprint faster. (Skinny = climber, Bigger = sprinter)

And with cycling age isn't as big of a factor as running. Bicycling is a lot less grueling on the body than running, so it doesn't take its toll as hard and as soon.  

Take away - if you're a runner, cycling is a great cross training activity that will help you body last longer than competitive running. If you're a cyclist, don't fret if you're not the skinniest and youngest, you can still kick some serious skinny-butt out there. And if you're neither a runner or a cyclist, make this the week (or month) that you start trying these sports out.

I recently received a question about one of the workouts posted in this blog. It was from a young woman who had been doing the workout for a couple of days and wanted to know when she would start seeing results and how she could lose some weight.

Often I take for granted that I've done a lot of food/diet/nutrition/fitness research and forget to give the basics here in the blog. I don't want that to happen. I want this blog to help you be the healthiest you've ever been and be in the best shape of your life - no matter where you are in your health and fitness goal.

Therefore I put together a list of articles, sites and other resources that are great for newbies and beginners, but also good for those of us who sometimes forget the basics.

These range from the basics in strength training, to what is a calorie. Please visit the sites and if you have any other great resources leave them in the comments section. I wish you all the best.

 

Helpful links:

Food, Diet and Nutrition: These have answers to your questions about calories, a simple plan that helped me lose weight, online food journal tracking device, etc.

http://www.shape.com/eatright/7847 - Answers to your top ten questions about calories (GREAT, basic and easy to understand!)

http://www.self.com/challenge/welcome the self challenge – how I lost 28 pounds (a simple way to exercise correctly and eat right)

http://mypyramid.gov/ - the best way to find out what foods your body needs

http://www.fitday.com – How to track your calories easily and effortlessly with this online food journal.

http://www.calorieking.com – Online database of calorie counts, including fast food chains, restaurants, and other common foods

http://www.dietfacts.com – Great resource for calorie counts in restaurant items. Features an A-Z listing of all restaurants in their database.

 

Fitness, Exercise and Workouts:

http://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/guide/fitness-beginners-guide - Fitness 101 great advice and definitions - a great place to start if you're new to exercising or always feel like you don't know the names and definitions thrown around

http://www.self.com/fitness/calculators Once you start working out, find out how many calories you are burning with different activities (sometimes it's a lot less than you think or maybe even more). It's good to know so you don't overeat or undereat.

http://www.shape.com/tools/calc/burned/ Another place where you can calculate the amount of calories burned (based on weight, activity and length of time)

http://inshapewoman.blog.com/1832539/ - You'll soon find out that walking doesn't burn nearly as many calories as running. Get over your fears of jogging and read my post called "Beginner Runners"

http://fitsugar.com/218213 - why strength training is important for weight loss - You don't just need to do cardio, you also need to pick up the weights - and this article tells you why!

http://rodale.typepad.com/coachjenny/2007/06/losing_fat_gain.html - You might find out at first you're losing fat and gaining muscle - but don't fret if the scale actually goes up when you start this new lifestyle, it's most likely only temporary and this article explains why that is.

The New York Times featured an article recently about Alcohol on a Health Kick. I don't know about you, but when I read that I thought "oxy-moron"

Apparently the new "trend" especially in NYC is to create health-ful cocktails. Meaning using vegetables and fruits instead of high-fructose corn syrup to sweeten your drink. Some restaurants are going all out putting pomegranate and pureed cucumber into drinks.

The critics of this say it's still alcohol, it will still have the same affects as any other alcoholic beverage and that a cocktail should be "a little bit naughty" not a chore. I love that one.

But the proponents of it say it's better than having a syrup filled vodka drink. Much like it's better to have grass-fed local steak than hormone injected caged steak. And researchers found recently that adding alcohol to strawberries and blackberries actually increased their antioxidant capacity. Now that's interesting.

My view? To be honest I'd rather a glass of wine than any kind of liquor any day, but if I were at a place that was serving an interesting "antioxidant-filled" strawberry pomegranate creation, I'd order that way before I'd order some super-sweet syrupy drink.

What do you think? 

The day after I posted about all those individual diets from webmd, they featured some more diets and the benefits/research/critiques. If you're interersted click on a link below and you can read the article about these diets (which are a little more popular than the other ones).

The New Beverly Hills Diet; The Sonoma Diet; Dr. Andrew Weil Diet; South Beach Diet; Atkins Diet; Weight Watchers; Personality Type Diet; Slim Fast Plan; The 5-Factor Diet

WebMD also had a great article about "Diet Mistakes." They give 6 reasons why you might not be losing weight even though you are on a "diet." Great tips:

1. Mistake: Racing to the finish - eat more leisurely and taste every bite to avoid overeating
   
2. Mistake: Skipping meals - do not skip breakfast or any meal because you don't "save calories" because you end up eating more throughout the day
3. Mistake: Too many liquid calories - alcohol, smoothies, juice, soda, etc. One study found that Americans get 21% of their calories from LIQUID! Geez.
4. Mistake: Oversized Portions - Tricks to beat this: use smaller plates and bowls, leave a few bites on your plate, use measuring cups periodically to check your serving sizes
5. Mistake: Choosing Unhealthy Add-ons - Yeah you may order a salad but don't forget about that bacon, cheese, croutons and fat filled creamy dressing.
6. Mistake: Mindless Eating - we suffer from eating "amnesia" when we're bored or relaxing. Think about the calories of those "small bites" you are mindlessly taking.

Read more information about these common diet mistakes.