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Secrets to a Healthy Holiday
- You can make up for a feast of rich, higher-fat foods with
lighter, lower-fat meals for the next couple of days. Or plan
for tomorrow night's party with a low-calorie, low-fat breakfast
and lunch.
- Look back and assess your diet over the past few days. Were
you on the party circuit last weekend? Then look ahead. Are
there celebrations looming?
- Don't panic or feel guilty if your diet seems to have gotten
out of hand. When you balance your intake over several days,
you have the time to regain control.
- Make physical activity a regular habit. Beyond burning calories,
exercise is essential for good health and well-being.
- Have a salad, light soup or fruit before leaving home or prior
to your meal.
- Select only “special” or favorite foods at a holiday
buffet – leave standard fare like potato chips, nuts and
rolls for the other guests.
- Space the party beverages – have a glass of sparkling
water after a glass of wine or cup of eggnog.
- Practice portion control. A smaller serving of the real thing
can be very satisfying.
Sports Specific Training
This is where sports-specific training comes in. Generally speaking,
sports-specific training programs involve focusing on the various
skills associated with a particular activity. Depending on the
sport, this may include health-related fitness components such
as cardio respiratory endurance, muscular strength and endurance,
and flexibility. A specific program may also take into account
skill-related measures of fitness such as agility, balance, coordination,
power, speed and reaction time. Most sports require a mixture
of these components. A great way to integrate these elements into
your existing routine is to create a circuit training program,
which involves rapidly moving from one exercise to the next. You
can set up a circuit in any large room, or at your club's aerobic
studio. Be sure and place all of your stations before beginning
your workout so you don't have to stop in the middle. Set a specific
time limit for each exercise, as well as a set period of breaks
between each station. Thirty seconds of work followed by 30 seconds
of rest are common interval periods. Then, simply turn up the
music and make your way around the circuit. You might even want
to create your own music tape with timed intervals of music for
exercise and silence for rest periods.
The biggest concern for exercising in the cold is hypothermia,
or too much heat loss. When you exercise in a cold environment
you must consider one primary factor: how much heat will your
body lose during exercise?
Heat Loss is Controlled in Two Ways:
- Insulation, consisting of body fat plus clothing; and
- Environmental factors, including temperature, wind and whether
you're exercising in the air or in the water. Each of these
factors plays a role in the body's ability to maintain a comfortable
temperature during exercise.
Insulation
Although many people aspire to have a lean figure, people with
a little more body fat are better insulated and will lose less
heat. Clothing adds to the insulation barrier and is clearly the
most important element in performance and comfort while exercising
in the cold. One study showed that heat loss from the head alone
was about 50 percent at the freezing mark, and by simply wearing
a helmet, subjects were able to stay outside indefinitely.
Clothing is generally a good insulator because it has the ability
to trap air, a poor conductor of heat. If the air trapped by the
clothing cannot conduct the heat away from the body, temperature
will be maintained. Unlike air, however, water is a rapid conductor
of heat and even in the coldest of temperatures, people will sweat
and risk significant heat loss. With this in mind, you want to
choose clothing that can trap air but allow sweat to pass through,
away from the body.
By wearing clothing in layers, you have the ability to change
the amount of insulation that is needed while many new products
can provide such a layered barrier, it is important to avoid heavy
cotton sweats or tightly woven material that will absorb and retain
water. Because these materials cannot provide a layer of dry air
near the skin, they can increase the amount of heat your body
loses as you exercise.
Keeping the hands and feet warm is a common concern when exercising
in the cold. Lower temperatures cause blood to be shunted away
from the hands and feet to the center of the body to keep the
internal organs warm and protected. Superficial warming of the
hands will return blood flow to prevent tissue damage. Blood flow
will not return to the feet unless the temperature of the torso
is normal or slightly higher (.5-1.0 degree Fahrenheit (F) above
normal). So, to keep your feet warm you must also keep the rest
of your body warm at all times.
Check with the Weatherman
Always check the air temperature and wind chill factor before
exercising in the cold. Data from the National Safety Council
suggest little danger to individuals with properly clothed skin
exposed at 20° F, even with a 30 mph wind. A danger does exist
for individuals with exposed skin when the wind chill factor (combined
effect of temperature and wind) balls below minus 20° F. That
can be achieved by any combination of temperatures below 20° F
with a wind of 40 mph and temperatures below minus 20° F with
no wind. If you are exercising near the danger zone for skin exposure,
it also is advisable to warm the air being inhaled by wearing
a scarf or mask over your nose and mouth to warm the air being
inhaled.
Rules for Exercising in the Cold
Check the temperature and wind conditions before you go out and
do not exercise if conditions are dangerous. Keep your head, hands
and feet warm. Dress in layers that can provide a trapped layer
of dry air near the skin (avoid cotton sweats and other similar
materials). Warm the air you are breathing if temperatures are
below your comfort level (usually around 0° F).
NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS :
- advocate a healthy, safe and lifelong commitment to exercise
- carefully setting realistic goals after meeting with your
doctor
- don't skip a chance to exercise
- include parents and family members to exercise
- use public relations as a way to increase importance of exercise
- Watch less TV and computer games
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