Lifestyle Choice

On Friday I took my 13 year old to his yearly checkup and his pediatrician asked him if he enjoyed coming to the doctor to which he responded with a serious head shake no.  She then asked him if he wanted to know how to avoid having to go to the doctor’s office to which he silently nodded.  She offered him these words of wisdom, “eat a diet with lots of fruits and vegetables and little processed foods, exercise often, and make sure and get plenty of sleep.”  This happens to be the same advice I offer my kids, but I have not been clever enough to offer it up after asking if they enjoy going to the doctor’s office! Obviously, you can follow this advice and still get ill, but I loved that my new pediatrician seems to have a mission to help kids understand that their health habits (eating, exercising, sleeping) have a direct relationship to the amount of time they spend in the doctor’s office.

On the topic of eating, we are now in week three of our Back to Basics Shape Up Challenge.  I hope you are all enjoying your glass or two of wine (or other cocktail choice) this weekend and are continuing to get through your days without white flour and sugar (this should have eliminated most if not all processed foods).  How did you do with your extra workout?  Please let me know if you have any feedback or questions! This week, you need to continue with the no alcohol during the week (Sun-Thurs), no white flour and sugar, one extra workout, and now you are going to add drinking one glass of water upon rising in the morning.  This can be a glass of warm water with lemon or a glass of cold water, just add one glass of water before drinking your coffee or tea in the mornings!

I hope you are all managing to get in your workouts!  We have a fabulous group training for the Big Sur Half Marathon in November.  We officially start our training this week!!  I also have a group of teens who are going to train for the Theta Breakers Run at Stanford on October 26th.  If your child is interested in joining this group, please let me know.  We will officially start our training next Sunday, the 14th.  I will be sending final instructions to everyone who is interested this week, so make sure and email me soon!

There is a great article from Tuesday’s WSJ that explains why we all have “off days” in our training programs.  My favorite quote from the article is, “you should train to recover, not recover to train.”  Recovery is when your tissues repair themselves, it is the time when the magic happens!  So make sure you not only get plenty of sleep for your health and recovery, you need to listen to your body and mix in some lighter days during your training week.

Here is the link for the WSJ article:  http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-ways-to-avoid-feeling-off-during-workouts-1409602283

It’s going to be a fabulous week of Perfectly Fit workouts!!!  Please let me know what days you will be coming to class.