Mar 25

Struggles with Motivation: Finding Motivation to Exercise

While playing 3 hours of Pickle Ball, one of my favorite forms of physical activity, I met a gentleman who came to scope out what the game was all about.  He had his toddler with him enjoying the beautiful weather of a bright, sun-filled Sunday late morning.  My fellow Pickle Ballers invited the gentleman to join us.  Our goal as to teach him the rules and we would recruit another person to embrace this fun form of physical activity.  Being with his toddler and no one else to watch her, he had to respectfully decline.  He mentioned  that he wanted to get back in shape.  With a toddler running around, the parents out there understand the challenge of devoting attention elsewhere.  Pair that with busy work schedules, extra time for exercise, let alone recreational activity, might be  too demanding of someone’s schedule.  As a health solutions expert, I explained to him that just doing some push ups or squats in the comfort of his own home would help him to get some exercise.  My explanation was nothing new to him.  He already knew the answer to getting back in shape.  The act of putting a few hours in every week at a gym in Napa was not a mystery.  Before I got pulled into another game by my fellow Pickle Ball friends, he explained to me, “It’s just hard to find the motivation.”

This story relates to many  individuals’ current need for exercise in their lives.  If it’s important, why isn’t the need to exercise handled with a sense of urgency?  It’s no surprise that lack of exercise and sedentary lifestyles lead to metabolic diseases, cardiovascular disease and risk increase of injury.  Sometimes, the main driver for exercise comes from doctor recommendations when an individual is already critically overweight, at the risk of type 2 Diabetes, or has severe risk factors for cardiovascular disease.  Why does exercise motivation need to wait that long?

When we start our personal training clients in Napa on a new life time fitness programs, we always ask them what their main reason for exercising is.  What’s motivating them to commit themselves to get in the best shape of their lives under our professional health and longevity coaching services?  Understanding the “right whys” are critically important factors in motivation.  Perhaps the motivation to be healthier, happier and stronger is to become a better parent.  To be able to get up and down off the floor and roll around with their toddler.  Be able to engage with their kids’ friends and coach them in tee ball.  Teaching their toddler to ride their bike for the first time and avoid  joint pain or be out of breath.  Of course, these are drivers to be a better parent and supporter of our families.  We don’t want to be out of breath all time or at risk of heart surgery when supporting a family.  But what’s stopping individuals from performing exercises that are literally right in front of us?  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the equipment and setting to perform some pushups.  All you need is your self and the ground.  One of the main factors that contributes to exercise aversion is the fact that it seems like a task.  When we have time to ourselves, sometimes we just don’t want to do anymore hard work.

To help remove the idea that exercise equals work, we  ask our beginning personal training clients in Napa another critical motivational question.  What forms of physical activity are fun?  We usually get a lot of answers that relate to extracurricular activity and recreational sports.  Hiking, gardening, wood working projects, land scaping projects, water sports, mountain biking, riding bikes with the kids, adult softball, or tennis to name a few.  The gentleman that was mentioned earlier in this article was at Pickle Ball observing us because he probably thought it looked fun.  Sure, exercise is useful in preventing metabolic disease, becoming overweight and avoiding significant joint injury.  But so is getting out to play water sports, ride bikes with the kids and playing recreational sports..  An organized recreational game of tennis, softball, or shooting a few holes of golf offer increased heart rate responses.  Before you know it, participating in these forms of physical activity for a few hours will utilize a few hundred calories from fat as a fuel source.  The key point here is to find an activity that you will have fun doing to help sustain your motivation to continue being active.

When we struggle with motivation, we need to ask ourselves, “What will keep us coming back for more.”  It’s easier to stay active in an activity we enjoy than it is to go out and find one.  The critical factors of having fun, being social with others, feeling good, and just having a good time are what will help us sustain motivation and being active.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Mar 22

Take it Easy: Exercising when you’re Sick

Participating in our favorite exercise activities helps us stay in shape and have fun while we’re at it.  Getting a workout with one of our companions at the local gym, attending a group fitness class or performing a home exercise routine will improve our balance, coordination, strength and our overall mindset for the future.  While there are various benefits of regular exercise, there is an area that is overlooked when adhering to a regular exercise program.  What happens when we get sick?

Exercise induces stress on the body by way of cellular damage caused by the work we have our muscle cell and connective tissue perform throughout exercise.   Regular exercise helps improve the immune system over time, boost the metabolism by burning fat, and improves emotional and psychological wellbeing by enhancing our mood with increased dopamine coursing through our blood.  However, when the body is going through repair mode following exercise as the body is simultaneously fighting chest cold symptoms, the body works in over drive and can enter a dangerous state of distress.

As part of our life time fitness coaching efforts we offer our personal training clients in Napa, we emphasize the “less is more” principle when the body is in a state of distress.  We don’t want to be in a state of distress any longer than is necessary.  Therefore, mindful recovery and rest of the body is important when fending off illness.

When we get sick from something like a chest cold or stomach infection, a virus or bacteria enters the cells in vital organs such as the sinus, lungs, or stomach.   The cells affected by the harmful virus are damaged and go under a state of distress.  The body fights this virus by utilizing our immune system.   Similar to how the body reacts to muscle soreness following exercise and sends a signal to repair muscular damage.  The difference is that we experience the side effects of the body fighting this illness by way of mucus being distributed in our nose, throat and chest coupled with fevers and body aches.  Muscle soreness following exercise and the effects of illness are both forms of distress in the body.  During these times of distress, the body is asking for rest and recovery.  If we stack up the form of distress from exercise with the distress of illness, we can quickly over do it.  Exercising while sick can contribute to becoming even sicker than when the illness first came around.

A solution that we offer to our personal training clients in Napa is to listen to the body.  If a client tells us that they feel a cold coming on for some reason, we always err on the side of caution and inform them that the best policy is to take a day off and rest.  The last thing we want to do is to accelerate the hindered state of  body as it fends off illness.  Exercise can get us out of a funk of feeling rundown by boosting our mood and giving us more energy when minor irritations such as allergies or a runny nosed caused by cold weather have affected the body.  While there are times that exercise can help clear up the sinuses by increasing the respirations and blood flow of the exercise participant to expel excess congestion, there are some tell tale signs that you might want to take a day from training.  A strong indicator of a severe illness are body aches, fever, or a productive cough in which mucus is being expelled from the chest.  One the best ways for germs to be spread is by coughing.  When in doubt, any conditions that affect respiratory functions below the throat are usually clear signs that the body is in an advanced form of distress.  In this scenario, rest and relaxation is the best tool to get the body back to peak condition.

We want to promote a healthy lifestyle of fitness, strength and happiness.  However, by visiting the gym or your favorite group fitness activity when you’re sick, you might be spreading a bug to other gym goers around you.  For the sake of your fellow life time fitness enthusiasts, listen to your body and use your intuition.  There is a fine line between being too sick to exercise and toughing it out to ensure you are reaching your fitness goals.  However, life time fitness is a long game we play.  We want to be able to put in as much productive work as possible toward refining our fitness goals.  Sometimes taking a day off to let the body recover from sickness is the best approach we can to do get back into the gym tomorrow and chalk up another victory for our life time fitness at full power.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Mar 13

Nutrition: How much food is too much in one sitting?

The food we choose in our daily diet is a critical component to maintaining a healthy weight, staving off diseases, and optimizing the growth of lean muscle and bone strength.  A diet made up of higher concentration of plant-like foods will offer significant benefits to the functions of the body. Plant-based foods improve the immune system to fend off infections and common illnesses that cause detrimental effects to our wellbeing.   Choosing lean sources of protein that come from their most raw, denatured state will give the body an easier chance to facilitate these foods as protein for the lean muscles and connective tissue in the body to ensure a strong foundation against injuries.  Working in unison with choosing healthier food options, abstaining from processed, packaged, fat and alcohol-filled foods will support the body to not only perform efficiently, but also avoid life-threatening diseases like arteriosclerosis, arthritis and diabetes.  Practicing a balanced diet is a well-known tradition.  However, we forget about a critical facet that make a balanced diet work on all cylinders, the process of digesting your food.

Food that we eat enters a process of metabolism when it enters our gastrointestinal tract.  As the food travels through and stomach, small intestine and large intestine, the food is broken down into simple forms of proteins, carbohydrates, fats and other essential nutrients.  These substrates are transported through the body to give us energy and support our organs and connective tissue.  Each food has unique chemical properties that makes that body store fat, rebuild muscle, or support the immune system.  Food also has a unique physical structure that varies between what type of food it is.  Meats, veggies, fruits and nuts all have different textures and weights that make them break down differently when traveling through the digestive system.   When these foods are consumed in 5-7 small portion sizes throughout the day, food can be easily digested and metabolized.  However, what happens when we eat too much food in one sitting?

If we look at the digestive tract of our small intestine and large intestine, it spans about 25 feet in length.  Most research shows complete digestion of a piece of food takes about 2 to 3 days to travel through the 25-foot distance.  Now let’s compare the portion size that we eat with the amount of time it takes for a specific food product to travel through the intricate pipe system in our body to allow food to enter the intestine, metabolize the food, and then pass through the other end.  For example, compare sand passing through a funnel.  With slow, efficient distribution of sand in the funnel, sand should easily pass through the other side.  However, what happens if we were to put too much sand into the funnel?  The funnel would drain a little slower.  Additionally, sand would collect at the top of the funnel.  Take this one step further and put thicker grains of sand, or even small pebbles, into the funnel.  Now there is a possibility of clogging the funneling system and leaving product at the top of the funnel.  Things won’t move very fast.  The same thing happens to our gastrointestinal tract if we consume too much food in one sitting.  In addition, just like the example of the larger grains of sand that are harder to pass through the other end of the funnel, the structure of the food we consume can slow down our digestion as well.  However, it’s a worse for humans when food sits too long at the beginning of the GI tract and doesn’t metabolize.  The excess food has nowhere to go because of other food in the way, which means that food skips the metabolizing process of supplying the body with much needed nutrients and gets stored as fat.    As food gets caught in this limbo phase of not being digested, nutrients and substrates cannot be processed as efficiently in the small intestine.

We can help alleviate symptoms of slow digestion by becoming aware that food takes a full 3 days to metabolize and pass through the GI tract.  A steady rate of eating will ensure the digestive tract to allow food to pass through efficiently like a well operated conveyor belt.  Conveyor belts must operate not too fast, and not too slow.  Boxes that go on the conveyer belt can’t block boxes behind them that need to find their destination.  Just like boxes on conveyor belts, our portion size can’t be too big.  We coach our personal training clients in Napa to gauge a proper portion size by measuring 1 handful of a protein sours and 1 handful of a carbohydrate source in each meal.  Eating over this amount can cause a backup in the system.

Balanced diets can be applied to ensuring efficient digestion.  Make sure not to tip the scales when consuming quantities of food.  You can reference how big a proper portion size can be by imagining how much food you can fit in the palm of your hand.  In addition, ensure to be mindful of what foods you have consumed in the last 3 days.  Even though you may be eating a healthy meal, you might still have some other foods waiting in line to be metabolized.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Feb 28

How to Address Fitness Plateaus

Weight loss, injury prevention and building full body strength are popular fitness goals Napa gym goers frequently pursue.  There are obvious benefits to our everyday lives in obtaining an optimal fitness level.  Looking and feeling better, thinking clearer, and being more productive are some of the many facets of pursing life time fitness goals that motivate people to refine their exercise routines.  However, there are times where the weight just doesn’t come off as easily as it should. Availability in the schedule isn’t always open to fit physical activity in.  Injuries, tweaks, and strains can occur and deter a gym visit for a few days.  These factors lead to potential plateaus in efforts to accomplish fitness goals.  Plateaus can be frustrating be enough to discourage someone to quit working for fitness goals indefinitely.

As personal trainers in Napa, we work with cases where exercise participants experience forms of plateauing.  We commonly hear, “Nothing’s working.  I’ve been following my ketogenic diet, eating vegan, and doing my exercise DVDs.  The weight still isn’t coming off.”  To solve this issue, we always start with the question, “What does your current fitness routine look like?”  If we plan to successfully coach someone through a plateau, we need to know what their physical activity practices look like on a weekly basis.  The usual response to the weekly exercise frequency question that unveil lack luster results commonly start with, “Well, sometimes…” or “When I have time…” or “I might fit in…”  When we hear these statements at the beginning of the answer to a layout of person who is plateauing in their fitness routine, we can identify a critical piece of the puzzle that was left out in the beginning of their fitness efforts:  lack of planning, foundation, and structure.

We deal with similar barricades that hold people back form achieving their goals.   Personal trainers specialize in solving these issues by making sure to design structured, individualized programs.  What makes our fitness coaching services a unique remedy to the plateau equation is that we have clients report to us to as much as three times per week.  We ensure exercise prescriptions are not just “some exercises” that clients “sometimes” come in for.   Our personal training clients follow a specific plan to ensure they are adhering to a weekly prescription of life time fitness techniques each week involving physical activity.  As life time fitness coaches, we meticulously track and manage variables that affect their fitness goals.  For example, we need to know how many lower body and upper body movements are executed each week.  How much recreational physical activity, such as walking, hiking, or sports are being performed throughout the week?  How much cardiovascular activity is being performed each week?  In order to identify how a fitness plateau is being caused, we need to identify how much many times a person is covering these critical factors.  Usually the plateau is occurring because people have a case of the “sometimes” when approaching fitness and shoot from the hip when randomly choosing forms of physical activity to address their fitness goals.

A solution to these common plateaus is to write down how many days you are doing your favorite top three forms of exercise.  How many times are you performing resistance training at home, a gym, or with your personal trainer per week?  How many times are you performing 20 minutes of cardiovascular exercise such as going to the local gym and using the elliptical or treadmill?  How many times are you playing a recreational sport such as Bocce Ball, Pickleball, Tennis, kayaking or hiking throughout the week?  If you can create a check list on your top three favorite forms of physical activity, you can reinforce your motivation with a strong foundation of productive tactics.  Looking at this list and making efforts to complete these new found effective physical activities can integrate structure toward your goals.  With a strong foundation and structure in your game plan, plateaus in your fitness journey are less likely to occur.

When plateaus occur, we always encourage our personal training clients in Napa to take a step back and look at what they are currently doing for their fitness goals.  Avoid frustration, it’s a waste of time and energy.  We guide our personal training clients by taking that step back with them and looking at the big picture.  Surpassing fitness plateaus can be solved on your own by just taking a step back and laying out some more plans for success.  We all have the potential to live happier, stronger, and healthier lives.  We just need to lay out some plans and rigorously revise our efforts toward our life time fitness goals.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Feb 24

Life Time Fitness “To Do” and “To Don’t” Lists!

A critical factor of sustaining success in our life time fitness is to prioritize healthy daily practices.  These healthy practices can come in the form of eating healthy, having plenty of physical activity and adhering to a positive mental outlook.  A useful technique that we teach out personal training clients in Napa is hash out the most important things in their day that should take priority regarding their health and fitness.  Then put them in a check list format.  We call this a “to do list.”  While a to do list is a crucial aspect of having a successful day, we forget about the inverse part of what makes a “to do” list successful when we check off the boxes indicating we have successfully completed our task.  The much forgot about “to don’t list.”

Our personal training clients commonly ask us, “What are some things that can be done on a daily basis to positively promote living a healthier life?”  One tactic we use is to start identifying attainable goals that have a high success rate and create a “to do” list.  Some of the easily accomplished and repeatable daily “to do’s” we start with are:

  1. Drink a tall glass of water first thing in the morning.
  2. Incorporate vegetables in at least one meal every day
  3. Get some form of physical activity every day.

Putting these tactics in a check-box format on a piece of paper will help you to knock out these tactics and positively influence living a healthier daily life.  You can even put this to do list format on your smart phone and use that as a reminder to check off these healthy habits.  To make this even more effective, combine your life time fitness “to do’s” with your other common chores you need to accomplish throughout the day, like cleaning or going to the store.

We add to our personal training client’s life time fitness success factors by implementing a “to don’t” list as well.  Learning to create success in health and wellness efforts by abstaining or avoiding errors is a commonly overlooked tactic that can yield substantial success.  This is similar to the way an elite pickleball player going up against a novice.  If the novice sticks to fundamentals of keeping the ball in the court, the “to do” part has been checked off.  If the novice ensures that the ball is not hit out of bounds, now the “to don’t” has been checked off.  There is now success on both ends of the spectrum.  The things to work to accomplish, and the things to avoid.  Now the chance for the elite player to make a mistake has been revealed, and a successful point has been revealed because the player is focusing on fundamental tactics on what “to do” and “to don’t”.  By focusing on both the “to do” and “to don’t” we can practice a refined sense of control in our decision making.

We know the need to utilize control to be able to maintain or lose a certain weight, manage stress, and be productive in our daily lives.  So, a good way to support these is to investigate what we can stay away from and create a “to don’t” check off list along with our “to do” list.  Some common “to don’t” tactics we recommend to our personal training clients are to look at the things holding them back from being productive and put a limit on them.  Some examples might include:

  1. Don’t use your cell phone after dinner time unless it’s an important phone call. Stop playing games, surfing Facebook or Instagram, or checking your emails.
  2. Don’t have treats after dinner on certain nights. Put the potato chips and chocolate away after 5 PM.
  3. Don’t have that extra glass of wine or beer after dinner.

Of course, this list is subjective for everyone, but if we interact with a “to don’t” list each day, we can avoid some of the mistakes that might affect our success in the game of life time fitness.  Making this conscious effort to create a list of things that slow you down will support optimal health and productivity throughout the day.

It’s important to identify attainable goals that can jump start your success.  Starting off with modest “to do” and “to don’t” tactics is a good idea.  That way, if you fail, it won’t be that big of a failure.  You can simply make a new one tomorrow. However, the benefit of having two lists that focus on the things you are trying to do and things you are trying to avoid doubles your chances of supporting your goals to be more productive, have clear and concise thoughts, and live a healthful and happy life.

 

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Feb 14

Injury Recover Prescriptions

Aches, pains, and injuries occur as we age.   We can consider ourselves diagnosed with arthritis at age 30.  Arthritic symptoms such as pain in the neck, shoulders, back, hips, knees and wrists are prevalent in our society.  Overuse injuries from poor posture in our everyday lives can affect the health of critically significant joints in our body from sitting or standing in poor form.  Some of us must live with traumatic injuries from our past lives of athletic activities or from an accident that left us with the remnants of a surgical correction causing weakness, pain, or a dysfunction in the body’s movement.  These conditions that come along with age hamper our way of living.  Everyday hobbies can be a challenge because of the thought of pain.  Recreational physical activities such as hiking, golf, or pickle ball can lose their appeal because of how the body may feel due to the pain of arthritis and the rate of recovery.  Even helping friends and family move things can be halted by weakness from the effects of previous injuries and degenerative joint symptoms.  The traumatic physical effects of life happen regularly to the general active population.  However, all these symptoms are curable with proper awareness of treating these symptoms effectively and efficiently.

Our personal training clients in Napa frequently share how their aches and pains in their body effect their lives.  Our job as life time fitness coaches is to help them live stronger, happier and mitigate symptoms of pain in their bodies.  An important factor that we need to know first is how these pains have originated.  Questions we ask our personal training clients start with, “How are you treating this pain?”  “Are you currently doing anything to help with this pain?”  And one of the most important questions, “How often are you treating these pain-like symptoms?”  As pain management coaches, we first need to know what dose of pain management are currently being taken manage pain from injuries and degenerative joint disease.

We coach our personal training clients in Napa that treating pain and injuries is the same process as taking anti-biotics to treat strep throat.  When we are diagnosed by our doctor with a case of strep throat, we are prescribed an anti-biotic to take three times a day for a week or so.  If we don’t keep up on taking this dose of anti-biotic and complete the prescribed treatment, the strep throat infection will remain and will make our lives unpleasant.  The same procedure of having a case of debilitating joint pain or injury recovery goes for an individual seeing a physical therapist.  The physical therapist will give a 4 to 6-week protocol of coming in to perform a rehab prescription of treating the affected area of the body.  Icing, heat therapy, range of motion exercises, and massage therapy are some basic techniques applied to the affected persons injury.  If the person does not go to the physical therapist for those 4 to 6 weeks, the likelihood of that person improving their physical ailment is significantly decreased.  Just like not finishing anti-biotics for strep throat, not finishing a physical rehab prescription will lead to suboptimal recovery.

An important life time fitness coaching lesson is to become aware of the pain and discomfort we feel in our bodies and avoid letting the body get so bad that we must go to a physical therapist to receive a 4 to 6-week recovery plan.  We can use that month and a half to live a healthy and fulfilling life.  The solution to avoiding the detrimental effects of injuries and annoying arthritic conditions is to listen to the pain signal sent from that specific part of the body and apply a recovery prescription.  If your knee hurts, make sure to treat them regularly.  Perhaps wrapping ice and elevating the knee for 10 minutes in the morning and the night everyday for a week would help alleviate these pain-like symptoms.  If you have a sore neck from poor posture at your desk job, follow a prescription of stretching routine and application of a topical analgesic, such as arnica or CBD oil, every morning and every night for a week.  When you have lower back pain, perhaps swallowing some homeopathic anti-inflammatory supplements such as tart cherry extract or turmeric daily for a week could help.  These prescriptions must be executed every day, not every now and then.  If you treat your physical pains in an “every now and then” approach, you are going to get “every now and then” results.

The research is continuously being done on what the best type of rehabilitative treatment is the best to maximally help joint pain and arthritis.  However, if we treat our symptoms with a dose of a specific self-care prescription, the likelihood of feeling better and living pain free is significantly increased.   Don’t just expect pain in our bodies to go away, approach them with a consistent prescription of injury prevention techniques.

 

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Feb 05

Alcohol and Life Time Fitness: Pick you Poison

Living in one of the most beautiful areas in the world, wine is embraced a unique part of the Napa Culture.  One of the benefits Napa locals have within arm’s reach is our world class wine and food scene.  Having a drink with friends or at a networking event is an entertaining experience for many people in Napa.  A glass of wine, a beer, or a cocktail after work can also be a great way to let off steam.  As locals in Napa, we see wine as an expression of our culture.  We enjoy it on many occasions and people have integrated wine as a career path to become a significant part of their livelihood.

Our personal training clients in Napa frequently ask, “How much alcohol can I drink without ruining my fitness goals?”  The first thing we investigate to help guide people in a productive direction is looking at their decision making when choosing to consume alcohol.  While many people participate in activities centered around alcohol as a catalyst to enhance an experience, you pick your poison here.  Just like many privileges in life, it’s possible to have too much of a good thing.

After an intense, laborious day at work, it’s nice to put your feet up and open your favorite beer.  Perhaps going out to a local bar and watching the local sports team play while having some wine or a cocktail is fun.  Maybe there are social events involving your work place where a glass of wine while schmoozing with others welcomes new relationships amongst colleagues.    This can all lead to a good time.  But what happens when one glass of wine turns into two?  Or three?  Sometimes the environment that we are in can trigger us to have another serving of alcohol.

Consuming alcohol regularly can have the same effect as having regular desserts occurrence or drinking too many soft drinks.  Similar to the over abundance of guilty pleasure foods, alcohol possesses extra calories that cannot be absorbed or utilized as energy.  Eventually, this excess alcohol intake can trigger the storage of fat underneath our skin.  Additionally, the chemical breakdown of alcohol in our system takes longer to metabolize than standard food.  Excess sugars from alcohol can stay in our system longer and avoid being metabolized.  Just like any calorie in the body that doesn’t get used for energy or rebuilding lean muscle, left over calories will fluctuate toward fat cells.  Lastly, regular over consumption of alcohol is a potent diuretic.  Meaning that along with the elimination of alcohol in the digestive system, vital nutrients and hydration levels are decreased due to the powerful diuretic effects alcohol influences upon the body.

When answering the, “Can I drink alcohol?” question, we never impose a decision that is against what people want to do.  As discussed previously, wine and food are a significant portion of people’s lives.  However, as a personal trainer and nutritional consultant, promoting awareness on decisions that affect an individual’s life time fitness goals in critically important to getting the most out the journey to maintain a strong, healthful and happy life.  Light needs to be shed upon the events of regular alcohol consumption and how it’s easy to acclimate to over drinking regularly.  Alcohol is a barbiturate that has lethargic effects and dampens the desire to perform physical activity the next few days after enjoying a little too many drinks.  The desire to relax and sit down more increases when alcohol is continuously present in our social and leisure times, contributing to increased sedentary lifestyles and decrease physical activity.  Of course, indulging too much gives us nasty hangovers.  And I can’t name one person who enjoys going to work hung over let alone getting a bout of exercise in.  These are the downsides of partaking in alcohol as a priority over physical activity.

The solution we always recommend is make your life time fitness goals a priority when the opportunity to enjoy a drink is coming up.   For example, on the days that you foresee a work function including alcohol, perhaps you can focus on eating well balanced and vegetable rich meals before the event.  When the boys are out to the bar and want to watch the game, maybe you can plan a workout in the night before or even schedule a time to get a long walk in on the same day.  By prioritizing a healthy lifestyle before venturing out to enjoy some time having a few drinks, you can enhance your interaction with others.

Increasing awareness and mindfulness of physical activity, healthy eating, and plenty of sleep will improve your mood, give your more energy and help you be an fun, enjoyable person as you are having a few enjoyable drinks on your social time.

 

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Jan 30

Giving yourself permission for sustainable exercise

The final first month of the new year is coming to an end.   New year’s resolutions are thriving in abundance with the gym goers of Napa becoming happier and fitter.  As the first month of the new year finally wraps up, there is still 11 motivating months to make our lives happier, healthier, and stronger.  This healthy motivation includes increasing energy so we can enjoy time with our family and friends.  Being more active helps alleviate stress from our work lives.  As the new year offers more complexity to our lives, we can look to exercise and opportunities for movement to help us feel better and enjoy meeting our projected milestones.

Some of the stereotypical new year techniques are to “just go run,” or “all you have to do is get a gym membership”, or “just eat healthier.”  As a scholar who has made the study of living heathier and happier my life’s work, anyone who say, “just run more”, “I’m JUST going to eat healthier” or “all you have to do is…”, quite frankly does not have a grasp of the reality of sustaining life time fitness for the longevity of their lives.

We all know that the complexities of life can interfere with our plans to establish a worth-while fitness routine.  Priorities that can spoil our fitness plans might include:  picking the kids up at soccer, work calls you in on your weekend for some overtime, or you are just flat out too tired to get any physical activity after family and work obligations hit you like a ton of bricks.  If we rush into getting on track by following in the quintessential plans of “just going to the gym”, we show up to our exercise sessions unprepared.   It goes without saying that showing a lack of planning will lead to sub-optimal execution.  Which means a treacherous workout that not many people are going to want to return to.  The “all you have to do” approach rarely works and is challenging to sustain to get the life time fitness results we are striving for.

The issue of “just living healthier” leads to a lack of getting permission from yourself and significant others to start ingraining a healthy lifestyle to your wellbeing.  If we take time to look at our schedule and obstacles in our way of exercise, we can find some openings that lead to opportunities for movement.  A critical part of finding these opportunities to take time for ourselves is communication with ourselves and significant others we share commitments with.  We need to get permission and give permission to embrace in a healthy life style before we execute our game plan.

The first person we need to get permission from is the person we stare at in the mirror every morning, ourselves.  It’s a well-known fact that adhering to a healthy lifestyle will increase our energy, decrease stress, and aid us in living a longer and happier life for the people we care about.  We need to grant ourselves permission to set time aside for ourselves away from work to get some much-needed movement in.  Work isn’t going anywhere, it will be there after a 30-minute planned exercise session.  We can communicate with our spouse or a source of trusted child care to pick the kids up from soccer.  Your spouse and kids would more than likely understand and appreciate your effort for sustainable life time fitness is critical to you being a better provider.  In fact, they might even appreciate it and be glad to accommodate.  Perhaps you can tell your friends that you are making a serious effort to improve your life by adhering to some opportunities for movement that will make you a better person.  They might even want to join you in your journey for a healthier, stronger, and happier life.   Once you have permission from yourself and others, you can take a sigh of relief and dive into this healthier life you so deeply desire that you may have stated in your new year’s resolution.

It’s easy to look at some “all you have to do” strategies to become healthier before being granted permission to do so by yourself, family and friends.  However, just like going into work unprepared and acting on the fly without telling anyone elicits a lack luster work performance. The same thing applies to an unprepared, unplanned exercise session.  Arriving to work dressed sharp, your hair looking glorious, and you have debriefed with your team and boss, you will most likely have a successful day at work.  Embracing opportunities for movements is identical.

Show up prepared and limit the obstacles to have an enjoyable and successful exercise performance.  Before “just exercising more,” acquire permissions to do so.  It will be fun, healthy and sustainable when you lay out your plans.   Pick your favorite activity to reap the benefits of your new year’s resolution statement.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Jan 22

Full Body Exercise for any Fitness Level: The Plank

While having a conversation with a computer tech colleague, he inquired about what exercises would be best for him to receive benefits to his health and wellness without having to devote a lot of time to exercise.  The first thought that came to my mind was an exercise we recommend to our personal training clients in Napa who are new to exercise, the plank exercise.  When I asked my computer desk jockey friend if he knew what the plank exercise was, he replied, “The act of making one’s body look like a plank of wood.”  This is normal response from an individual foreign to regular exercise. I got a good laugh out of this response.  However, my friend’s response was an accurate.   Ensuring that the plank exercise is executed safely and effectively will reap the benefits of a full body exercise. The plank is easy to master while offering immediate improvements in fitness levels.  I asked my computer buddy, “Would you be able to devote 20 seconds of a certain exercise somewhere throughout your day to get stronger?”  My computer geek friend responded, “Sounds right down my alley.”

How can 20 seconds of exercise improve fitness levels only once a day?  And what is an exercise that makes you look like a plank of wood? As personal trainers in Napa, we teach clients in our gym two variations:  the elbow plank and the straight arm plank.  The plank is performed by laying face down on the floor, lifting the body by pushing the torso off the floor, and extending the knees to where the base of pressure is situated on the balls of the feet.  Start by holding that position for 20 seconds.  Then relax.  There are multiple variations to the plank that suffice different fitness levels.  For example, we might have clients perform planks with their knees on the ground until they are able to hold that position for 30 seconds before instructing them to bring their knees off the ground.

20 seconds of holding a plank feels like an eternity.  We have advanced exercise level clients who have a warm up routine of holding a plank for 2 minutes.  The reason the plank exercise can be help longer by someone with an advanced fitness level is like how a plank of pressure treated redwood is stronger than a plank of particle board.  The stronger and more refined that muscles are in the body, the more load the body can endure.  Just like a high quality, strong piece of wood is meant to reinforce house framing.

The plank exercise is versatile because it promotes muscular stress on multiple muscles of the body in one set.  The core musculature of the abdomen and back are engaged to ensure the spine does not sag like a bridge from an Indiana Jones movie.  The pushing muscles of the upper extremities are challenged including the triceps, pectoral, deltoids and hand muscles when ensuring the body does not plummet.  The foot muscles, quadriceps, and glutes work to ensure that the knees don’t touch the ground and the hips don’t sag.

The plank exercise is a manageable exercise for my computer nerd colleague because this exercise can be adjusted depending on where an individual is on the continuum of being a beginner or advanced exercise participant.  For example, an individual who is just starting out with the plank exercise can perform the plank by just standing in front of the wall with their body tilted at a slight angle forward and extending their arms forward to hold themselves.  After mastery and competency has been developed in this variation of planks, advancement in difficulty can be increased and the individual can perform the plank on a lower surface, such as a kitchen or bathroom counter top.  As the plank exercise performance improves, then the plank can be performed on flat ground when sufficient strength has been achieved.

A cue that we caution our regular Napa gym goers is to ensure to watch out for a few things.  When planking out, make sure to tuck the crest of the hips toward the ribs and bear down the rib cage toward the belly button.  This will flatten out the spine to ensure righty in the back and reduce the likelihood of injury.  We also recommend to slightly flex the quadriceps to protect the knee joints and limit sagging in the hips and strain in the low back.  Another helpful cue is to “screw the hands into the ground”, which activates the triceps to support the upper body and limit wrist injuries.

The plank exercise is safe, effective, and easy to learn exercise that can be applied to most individuals looking to improve their life time fitness levels.  Despite where you are in your fitness journey, 20 seconds of the simple plank exercise once a day can transform your body from a plank of balsa wood to a piece of Australian Iron wood.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

Jan 14

Balance in Nutrition: Foundation Before Supplements

Nutritional research reveals diets rich in plant-like foods offer a multitude of benefits to the wellbeing and longevity of the human body.  A diet with a strong concentration of fruits and vegetables helps decrease metabolic syndromes, offers cancer fighting properties and supports proper balance of vitamins and minerals in the body.  We are seeing more powdered “superfood” supplements on the market offering high amounts of probiotics, sugar balancing effects and anti-oxidants.  The gut health and disease prevention effects these superfood supplements are vastly beneficial.  However, foods that are right under our noses offer the same, if not better, outcomes if we simply eat more them.  You can find these superfoods at your local grocery store for less than a dollar a pound.  We call them fruits and vegetables.  We teach our personal training clients in Napa that these are more beneficial than superfood supplements because of they are less expensive, offer the rawest effect of nutrient density in any food, and unless an asteroid hit the earth, we will never run out of veggies.

We see superfood supplements in the form of powdered green food concentrate, probiotic powder, collagen and other protein supplements being marketed to us.  Local gyms, health practitioner offices and social media ads are sharing a new superfood product to consumers who are attracted to feeling healthier.  While superfood supplements offer optimal benefits, what happens when they aren’t consumed on the recommended bases?  How about when the purchasing source runs out of inventory?  Or, worst case scenario, the product is recalled or discontinued?

When we look at how much these new “cutting edge” health supplements benefit you, we see a recurring trend circulating in the health food supplement fad, it’s challenging to sustain to get the real benefits.  If health food supplements run out of stock on the shelf we got it from, the only people benefitting are the companies who make the product. Not our blood sugar concentration, gut health, or immune system.  If there is an endless supply of superfood supplements available to you, I encourage you to reap the benefits and take the recommended amount.  However, if this is not sustainable due to availability, finances, or some other barrier, perhaps it would be a better idea to try a more long-lasting approach.  Enter the game of eating plant-like foods.

As life time fitness coaches in Napa, we receive inquiries about health food supplements when people train at our gym.  We always recommend balance in the diet before turning to a supplement to achieve optimal health results from food.  The first plan of attack is to look at what our clients currently eat in an average day for them.  We can see if there is enough nutrient density and balance in their diet.  A great lesson to start from is to coach the regular consumption of veggies, protein and carbohydrate in each meal.  We coach that identifying aa good portion size is to use the palm of the hand as a measuring device.  This means a palm full of “fruity” or “planty” carbohydrate, such as oats, fruit, or starchy veggies.   Avoid the “bready” carbs.  A palmful of protein such as eggs, nuts, or meat.  A palmful of veggies such as salad, carrots to snack on, or creatively incorporated into your dish.  Building balanced meals throughout your day with a healthy carbohydrate, protein and veggies at each meal will ensure you receive similar benefits to what superfood supplements offer.  This way the body receives adequate protein for muscle repair, adequate carbohydrate for energy without insulin fluctuations, and enough veggies to offer probiotics, anti-inflammatories and nutrients to fend off disease.

A problem we see with supplements is the new “cutting edge” products that are offered by the gyms and other fitness professionals looking to sell products.  While we can never discount the benefits health supplements offer, the supplement world is not for everyone.  Finances and availability of the products will come and go, making it a challenge to adhere to consistently consuming the supplement.  However, once the knowledge of how to consume nutrient dense foods is obtained, the awareness that we obtain from practicing healthy eating habits and identifying healthy foods will never cease.  We just must remember that fruits, veggies, nuts and water are ever-present in our culture.

Supplement is defined as “something that completes something when added to it.”  A foundation needs to be built first to supplement it to make it better.  Perhaps we should build a strong foundation utilizing nutritional awareness of how much food to eat and identifying what foods to eat.  Reinforce a strong foundation of consuming veggies, healthy carbs and adequate protein.  After we master a strong foundation of nutritional awareness, we can start reinforcing the foundation with healthy supplements.

Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.

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