Corporate Fitness Products

Eat healthy

Consume a healthy diet consisting of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat dairy, fish, poultry, lean meats, eggs, and beans.  Limit your cholesterol, trans fat, saturated fat, and sugar intake.  Trans fats are found in fried food, cookies, and stick margarine.  Saturated fats come from animal products like cheese, fatty meats, whole milk, and butter.  Not only will a healthy diet keep you strong and active, but it can also protect you from heart disease, bone loss, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and some cancers.

Keep your mind and body active

Performing regular physical activity, like gardening, walking the dog, or taking the stairs instead of the elevator, can help you continue to do things you enjoy and stay independent.  Studies have shown that individuals who are involved in hobbies and social and leisure activities live longer, healthier, and happier lives.   

Get regular check ups

Even if you feel perfectly healthy, you should still see your doctor every year if you are over 65.  This will help you stay on top of important health screenings, like blood pressure and cholesterol checks.  Talk with your doctor if you are having any problems with your medications or any other concerns you may have.

Take steps to prevent accidents

Falls are a major cause of injury for older adults.  You can help reduce your risk of falling by exercising to improve your balance and leg strength.  Get your vision checked regularly and make sure your home is free from any hazards that may cause a fall.  If you are taking a medication that makes you feel dizzy, talk to your doctor about other options. 

Watch your weight

As you age, your body composition and location of fat on your body becomes increasingly important.  Excess fat around the waist can increase your risk for heart disease and possibly breast cancer.  Talk with your doctor about your weight or if you noticed any sudden, unexplained weight changes.

Practicing relaxation techniques are an important part of your quest for stress management.  If your stress is spinning out of control or if you’ve got it under control, you can benefit from learning and using relaxation techniques. 

Visualization: Form mental images to take a visual journey to a peaceful, calming place or situation.

Yoga or Tai Chi: Quiet, precise movements draw focus away from your busy, chaotic day and toward calmness.

Exercise: You will likely find that you’ve forgotten the day’s dilemmas and irritations and concentrate only on your body’s movement

Massage: Helps relax the mind, body and spirit by providing time and space for self.  

 Osteoporosis is estimated to be a major public health threat for nearly 44 million Americans, or 55 percent of people age 50 and older.  If left untreated or not prevented, it can progress painlessly until a bone breaks.

Osteoporosis, or porous bone, is a condition is which there is low bone mass and deterioration of bone tissues.  The bones become weak and very fragile, which increases the susceptibility to fractures and breaks, especially of the hip, spine and wrist.

Osteoporosis is thought of as an old persons disease, however, it can strike at any age.  About 85-90% of our adult bone mass is acquired by the age of 18 in girls and 20 in boys.  By building strong bones during the adolescent years, osteoporosis can be prevented later in life.

There are certain risk factors that make some people more prone to developing osteoporosis.  Many of these risk factors include:

¨ Being female

¨ Older age

¨ Family history of osteoporosis

¨ Being small and thin

¨ Certain race/ethnicities

¨ History of broken bones

¨ Low sex hormones

¨ Diet low in calcium and vitamin D

¨ Inactive lifestyles

¨ Smoking

¨ Alcohol abuse

People cannot feel their bones getting weaker, and they may not know that they have osteoporosis until something breaks.  A bone mineral density (BMD) test can be used to measure a persons bone density in various sites of the body.  People with a high number of the risk factors listed above should consult a doctor for further advice.

Osteoporosis is a major health threat.  Following the recommended five steps can optimize bone health and help prevent the disease:

¨ Get the daily recommended amounts of calcium and vitamin D

¨ Engage in regular weight-bearing and muscle-strengthening exercise

¨ Avoid smoking and excessive alcohol

¨ Talk to your healthcare provider about bone health

¨ Have a bone density test and take medication when needed

Source: www.nof.org

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Stroke is the number 3 cause of death in the United States.  This disease affects the arteries leading to and within the brain.  The blood vessels that carry oxygen and nutrients to the brain are either blocked by a clot or bursts.  When this happens, that part of the brain is not getting the blood and oxygen that it needs, so it starts to die.

Some stroke risk factors are hereditary, some are a function of a natural process and others may result from a person’s lifestyle.  You are not able to change those risk factors that are associated to hereditary or natural processes, but those that result from lifestyle or environment can be modified.

What are the risk factors that cannot be changed?

¨ Age—After the age of 55 the chance of having a stroke doubles for each decade of life.

¨ Hereditary and race—Your risk is going to be higher if a parent, grandparent, sister or brother has experienced a stroke.  African Americans also have a much higher risk.

¨ Gender—Stroke is more common in men than in women.

¨ Prior stroke or heart attack— For someone that has already had a stroke, the risk of having another becomes 10 times more likely.

What are the risk factors that can be changed, treated or controlled?

¨ High blood pressure—This risk factor is the leading cause of stoke but it is also the most important controllable risk factor of a stroke.

¨ Cigarette smoking—The nicotine and carbon monoxide is cigarette smoke damages the cardiovascular system increasing the risk of a stroke.

¨ Diabetes mellitus—Many people with diabetes also have high blood pressure, high cholesterol and are overweight, increasing their risk of stroke.

¨ Carotid or other artery disease

¨ Atrial fibrillation

¨ High blood cholesterol

¨ Poor diet—Diets high in saturated fats, trans fat and cholesterol can raise the blood cholesterol levels.  Also, diets high in sodium can increase blood pressure, elevating the risk.

¨ Physical inactivity and obesity—Being inactive can increase your risk of high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.

Source: www.strokeassociation.org

Do you need to eat less at night?  The simple answer is no, you do not.  Just make sure that if you are eating at night that you are not overeating.  Over consuming any food late in the day is likely to cause weight gain related to nighttime eating.

Your metabolism does drop when you are sleeping, but that simply lowers your daily energy expenditure and it is your 24 hour energy balance that really matters for weight gain and weight loss. 

Studies have shown that there is no real difference in successful weight loss when eating three square meals or eating more often.  The catch is that total energy intake must remain the same whether you have 3 or 6 meals throughout the day.  The benefit of eating 5 to 6 smaller meals instead of 3 larger meals throughout the day is that the smaller meals may assist in appetite management.  This means that you will be less likely to overeat at meals.

The choice of how much to eat at night all depends on what you have eaten up until that time.  If you are below the recommended calorie intake for that day, you can afford to be more flexible and eat more at night.  If you have consumed over the amount of calories you need in one day from your morning and afternoon meals, eating at night will need to be limited.

Guidelines to follow when eating at night to prevent overeating are:

¨ Focus on planning your meals during the day so you feel less hungry at night.

¨ Break social pressure of going out for late night drinks and snacks.

¨ Break negative eating habits, such as emotional eating as an escape from a stressful day.

Source: www.ptonthenet.com

When it comes to weight loss, it is a balancing act, and calories are the main contender.  Fad diets, weight loss pills, or eating mountains of grapefruit may promise that they will drop the pounds; but when it really comes down to weight loss, it is the calories that count.  Burning more calories than what you bring in results in weight loss.  It can be easy to do by reducing extra calories from food and beverages and increasing calories burned through exercise.

Once the equation of calories in versus calories out is understood, you are ready to set your weight loss goal and make a plan for reaching them.  So, how do you lose weight?  Through diet and exercise.  You may be thinking you do not like those words - diet and exercise, but try not to get too hung up on them.  Think of diet as just eating healthy, lower calorie meals, and exercising meaning being more active.  Cleaning, yard work, laundry and shopping are all forms of physical activity and they all burn extra calories.  Whatever you choose for your activity, make sure to do it regularly.  Shoot for 30 to 60 minutes of moderate intense physical activity most days of the week.

Your body constantly needs energy for functioning and it uses the calories from food to do this.  Carbohydrates, fats and proteins that make up food contain calories, and each of these nutrients contain different calorie amounts per gram.  Carbohydrates and proteins have about 4 calories per gram.  Fats have about 9 calories per gram, and alcohol, which is also a source of calories, contains about 7 calories per gram.

No matter where the calories come from, they are either converted and used for physical activity or stored within your body as fat.  These stored calories will remain in your body as fat unless you use them up.  This can be done by either reducing calorie intake so that your body must use the reserves for energy, or by increasing your physical activity so that you burn more calories.

To lose weight your body needs to burn more calories than it would typically take in.  Because 3,500 calories equals 1 pound of fat, you need to burn an extra 3,500 calories to lose 1 pound.  The most manageable way to do this would be to cut 500 calories from your typical diet each day.  Here are some helpful hits to cut calories:

• Skip one high-calorie indulgence a day
• Swap high calorie foods for lower calorie options
• Reduce portion sizes
• Replace evening dessert with a piece of fruit

What happens when the scale is not changing anymore?  You have been working hard to improve your diet and exercise habits, and you are seeing the weight beginning to drop.  After an amount of time the weight loss may start to slow down and may even come to a halt.  You have most likely hit a weight-loss plateau.

Hitting a weight loss plateau eventually happens to everyone.  During the first few weeks of losing weight, there may be a rapid drop of pounds.  Because calories from food are reduced, the body is getting the needed energy from stores of glycogen, which is type of carbohydrate that is found in the muscles and liver.  Because glycogen holds onto water, when it is burned it also releases that water, which is about 4 grams of water for every gram of glycogen.  This results in a substantial weight loss at first that is mostly due to the release of water.

When you lose weight you lose both fat and lean tissue.  Because of the decreased lean tissue within the body after weight loss, the  process of burning calories for energy slows.  This means that in order for you to lose more weight, you must increase activity or decrease the calories you eat even more.  If you use the same approach as before that helped you see weight loss, you will only be maintaining that current weight.

To overcome a weight-loss plateau you need to reassess you weight loss program.  Here are some tips for getting past the plateau:

• Reassess your habits
• Cut more calories
• Rev up your workouts
• Pack more activity into your day

Weight loss is work and takes constant change and reassessing to see the results that you want.  Make sure not to forget the bottom line, that the key to successful weight loss is a life long commitment of making permanent changes in your diet and exercise habits.

source: www.mayoclinic.com

May is National Bike Month.  It’s the perfect time to get out and ride with your family, co-workers and friends.  The League of American Bicyclists is promoting Bike-to-Work Week 2010 from May 17th-21st and Bike-to-Work Day on Friday, May 21st. 

For more information check out www.bikeleague.org

For many Americans, summer means fun in the sun. However, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) warns that summer is also the time of year that consumers are most likely to be injured.

Check out the following summer safety tips:

• Wear a helmet and other safety gear when biking, skating, riding scooters, ATV’s and horses. Studies have shown that helmets can reduce the risk of head injury by 85 percent.
• Stay safe around the pool by closely supervising your child and being prepared in case of an emergency.
• When cooking outdoors with a gas grill, check grill hoses for cracking and leaks. If you ever detect a leak, immediately turn off the gas at the tank and do not attempt to light the grill until the leak is fixed.
• Install window guards to prevent children from falling out of open windows. Guards should be installed in any room where young children spend time. Whenever possible, open windows from the top instead of the bottom.
• Make sure your home playground is safe. Falls cause 60 percent of playground injuries, so a safe surface is critical. Use at least 9 inches of wood chips or mulch.
• To prevent serious injuries while using a trampoline, use a shock-absorbing pad that completely covers the springs and place the trampoline away from structures and other play areas.
• Use softer-than-standard baseballs, safety-release bases and batting helmets with face guards to reduce baseball-related injuries to children.
• Do not allow a game of hide-n-seek to become deadly. CPSC has received reports of numerous suffocation deaths involving children who crawled inside old cedar chests or appliances. Warn children not to play inside them.
• If summer plans include camping, use one of the new portable heaters that are equipped with an oxygen depletion sensor (ODS). If oxygen levels start to fall inside your tent or camper, the ODS automatically shuts off the heater before it can produce deadly levels of carbon monoxide.

Source: http://www.cpsc.gov/

 Diabetes is a disease in which the body does not produce or properly use insulin. Insulin is a hormone that is needed to convert carbohydrates into energy needed for daily life. Both genetics and environmental factors such as obesity and lack of exercise play roles in diabetes.

Over 7% of the United States population have diabetes. Nearly one-third are unaware that they have the disease—that’s 6.2 million people!

There are several types of diabetes. Type 1 diabetes results from the body’s failure to produce insulin, the hormone that “unlocks” the cells of the body, allowing glucose to enter and fuel them. It is estimated that 5-10% of Americans who are diagnosed with diabetes have type 1 diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of diabetes, results from insulin resistance (a condition in which the body fails to properly use insulin), combined with relative insulin deficiency.

Gestational diabetes affects about 4% of all pregnant women - about 135,000 cases in the United States each year. 

Pre-diabetes is a condition that occurs when a person’s blood glucose levels are higher than normal, but not high enough for a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. In addition to the 20.8 million Americans with diabetes. 54 million have pre-diabetes.

Source: www.diabetes.org/about-diabetes.jsp

Experts believe that nearly 4 million American have glaucoma but only half realize it.  Glaucoma is a group of eye diseases that slowly decreases a persons vision without warning.  The cause: damage to the optic nerve.  The optic nerve is responsible for carrying images from the eye to the brain, when this is damaged, vision loss will be a result.

There is currently no cure for glaucoma and vision loss cannot be regained once the damage has begun.  However, depending on the type of glaucoma, treatment with medication or surgery can stop or slow further vision loss. 

Everyone is at risk for glaucoma.  Older adults are at a higher risk, however, babies, young children, and young adults can also get glaucoma at anytime. 

There are certain populations that are at a higher risk of developing glaucoma than others.  The people that are at a higher risk should get complete eye exams, including eye dilation, every one to two years.  The groups that are at a higher risk are the following:

¨ African-American

¨ People over the age of 60

¨ People with a family history of glaucoma

¨ Hispanics in Older Age Groups

¨ Asians

¨ Steroid Users

¨ People that have had an injury to the eye

A diagnosis of glaucoma should not stop you from enjoying life, but when you get the facts, make sure to take them seriously and proceed with proper action to slow  the process.

Source: www.glaucoma.org