The Do’s and Dont’s of Holiday Eating

By: Dr. Robert Carter

Each holiday season million of Americans over eat and lose focus on maintaining a healthy BMI.  There are several factors that can be used to assist you in maintaining your healthy BMI that you have worked so hard over the year to achieve.

It is important to have a great time during the holiday season but not over do it and gain excess body weight and destroy that awesome BMI.  Small things such as drinking plenty of water; too much alcohol and coffee can dehydrate your body. Drink calorie-free water to help fill up your stomach and keep you hydrated.

Do not attend Holiday dinners and seasonal parties hungry. Hungry, not a good idea for a healthy BMI!  Too many of us eat faster and more when we are hungry - therefore go for a wholesome breakfast on that day to avoid overeating at dinner or lunch time.

Holiday dinners and dinner parties are not an all-you-can-eat buffet: Fill your plate half with vegetables, one quarter with a lean meat and the rest with a starch of your choice. Eat slowly and stop when you are full.

Side Dishes - watch your portion size: go for smaller portions. This way you can sample all the different foods. Moderation is always the key. Make a conscious choice to limit high fat items: high fat food items can be found in fried and creamy dishes as well as cheese-filled casseroles in a traditional Thanksgiving and Christmas meals.  If you cannot control the ingredients that go in to a dish, simply limit yourself to a smaller helping size. Again moderation is the key to developing and maintaining a healthy figure and BMI.

Is Stress Affecting Effecting Your BMI Score?

By: Dr. Robert Carter

Have you ever experienced changes in body weight (i.e., BMI) in response to how you feel or during stressful periods in your life?  Recent studies have demonstrated that eating habits often change in response to how we feel and whether or not we are happy or sad.  During the holiday season, many of us experience periods of emotion stress due to family, financial, and other personal issues, which can lead to increases or decreases in food intake and unwanted BMI changes.  Changes in BMI should gradual; thus we should try to resist using dietary habits and food intake to buffer our emotional and psychological stressors.

I had a recent discussion with a colleague who noticed that his body weight seems to track my overall level of happiness.  When he get stressed out, he turns to food for comfort.  For many people food and alcohol consumption are comforting.  Food for some people is like a drug or alcohol, and maybe used as a band-aid to patch a broken heart or emotional   feeling. Food is love for some people!

During the holiday season it is important use to maintain a healthy BMI and use exercise, yoga (www.ShopMAXNYC.com) and laughter to buffer our emotional stress, not food!  Start tracking your BMI today and see how it compares with your emotional stressful periods during the holiday season.  It is a great exercise to help track both your emotions and BMI this holiday period!

Everyone Says “Exercise” But What is “Exercise”?

By: Camille Eroy-Reveles, AAPT Instructor 

Oscar Wilde once said, “Be yourself because everyone else is taken.”  This quote probably resonates with how you choose your clothes in the morning and what constitutes a fun Friday night. It is based on your own unique life recipe- your style and preferences. A successful exercise program is no different. It should be based on your own unique goals and conducted in a way that is enjoyable for you.

BMI.tv readers know that regular exercise is integral for weight loss and health. The Center for Disease Control recommends exercising everyday for at least 30 minutes. Exercise has a protective role against heart disease, type 2 diabetes, depression, and some cancers. A regular daily exercise program is the greatest predictor of maintaining your BMI and preventing weight regain. Recent studies reveal that a minimum of 60 minutes of exercise is needed each to day to prevent weight regain after significant weight loss, assuming diet does not change (Jakicic, 2008).

Thousands of people begin exercise programs each year, but less than half are successful in sticking to them. Therefore doing what you like becomes an important predictor of health and weight maintenance. Some of my personal training clients hate the gym, but love playing outdoor sports. Therefore, their exercise programs are designed around what they love so they can get better at the sports and play even harder.

The big question then becomes- what is considered exercise?

Exercise is basically any physical movement, but the catch is we have to sustain this movement over time. How successful we are at sustaining this movement over time has to do with intensity.

Intensity is a reference for how hard your body is working. In cardiovascular workouts, intensity is typically measured by your heart rate. The higher your heart rate, the higher the intensity you are working. But remember, the higher the intensity, the faster you will get tired and have to stop. Therefore, the trick is to choose enjoyable movement (dancing, basketball, gardening. karate) that stresses your body but you are able to sustain for at least 30 minutes.

Reduce Your BMI, The Weight Loss

By: Camille Eroy-Reveles, AAPT Instructor

There is a constant argument on what is the best way to lose weight. As a fitness industry veteran, I have experienced the angst and confusion firsthand of this argument with my clients as they navigate through the promises of popular diets and new fitness trends. You may have also experienced your share of diets that  “promise immediate weight loss if you only eat green colored foods. “  You may remember the fitness trend pendulum that has swung in the last decade from high intensity boot camp workouts to exercising at a low intensity to ensure that you are in the “fat burning zone.” It is no wonder that Americans are so confused about the best strategy to reduce their BMIs.

So what are the secrets of fitness professionals?

Our only secret is that we KNOW what needs to happen in our body in order to lose fat weight: to lose fat weight, you must be in a negative caloric balance.

What does this mean? Well, the reason that we eat is to provide our body with energy (calories) in order to sustain itself and do activities associated with living. To maintain body weight, there must be a balance of the calories you eat and drink each day with the calories you use to live and move around each day.

Realistic weight loss is a half a pound to two pounds each week. A pound of fat has 3500 calories. Therefore, to lose a pound of fat you would need to be in a negative caloric balance of 500 fewer calories/day and to lose two pounds a week you would need to be in a negative caloric balance of 1000 calories/day.

So to lose weight a few strategies will work. Strategy one is to eat fewer calories. Strategy two is to do more physically activity (exercise). And strategy three is a combination of eating fewer calories and doing more physical activity.

So what do fitness professionals recommend?

You may think that I would rely on strategy 2, since my livelihood depends on promoting physical activity. But first take into account John Jakicic’s research on the role of exercise in weight loss (recently one of Jakicic’s studies was featured in Time Magazine 8/08).

Jakicic points out that if we only focus on physical activity and do not control for diet, a 200 lb person would have to walk briskly for an 1hour and 23 minutes each day to lose 1 pound of fat/wk and almost three hours of walking each day to lose 2 pounds of fat/wk.  Jakicic argued that it is not realistic to incorporate this amount of physically activity into most people’s daily lives.

Having worked with hundreds of clients on weight loss, my secret is that I always choose strategy 3. I reduce the caloric intake of my clients and increase their use of these calories by doing more exercise.

BMI.tv readers try to lose a pound of fat this week by exercising for 30 minutes/day (moderate intensity) and reducing your calories by 200/day.

If you do not have time to set aside for exercise this amount roughly translates to 10,000 steps/day on a pedometer (pedometer prices range but are usually pretty cheap).

The easiest way to reduce your calories is to switch to water instead of drinking juices and sodas. Also note that a McDonald’s Big Mac is 560 calories, a cup of peanut M&M’s have more than 800 calories, and a normal size bagel may have around 300 calories even before you put any toppings on them.

Good luck with your new secret.

Down in Alabama, BMI Discrimination Finds A Home

By: Camille Eroy-Reveles, AAPT Instructor

When the country music group Alabama wrote “Down Home” a song celebrating a state best known for it’s slow pace and treating everyone like family, they probably never thought that their proud state would also represent the fourth largest type of discrimination against those with elevated BMI’s. In a shocking corporate move, Alabama is now charging overweight state employees extra insurance fees for higher BMI’s.

Interestingly enough, legislators last year attempted to pass an extremely controversial law banning obese citizens of Mississippi from eating in restaurants. It did not pass, but it forecasted future discriminatory policy. Now Alabama, the state with the second highest obesity rates behind Mississippi, has gone ahead with stigmatizing policy.

Alabama State Employees’ Insurance Board notes that their motivation is to make employees aware of their health (employer related obesity costs have been escalating this past decade). However, research demonstrates that stigmatization based on BMI actually has the opposite effect of escalating obesity rates. For example, when obese patients in medical settings receive negative treatment they actually have a lower adherence to their treatment plans and do not return for scheduled visits. When children fall victim to BMI-related teasing and stigmatization in physical education class they actually have lower participation in physical activity as children and as adults.

Removing vending machines, increasing opportunities for workplace physical activity and increasing the availability of healthy and affordable food in the workplace have all worked to decrease obesity costs for employers. Instead, why not tax the state agencies collectively for not promoting health at the workplace?

If this trend continues you’ll need to keep in mind that a maintaining a lower BMI may be about more than just your health.

Children’s BMI Score: More Than Just A Passing Concern

By: Camille Eroy-Reveles, AAPT Instructor

When discussing the future of the fitness industry, obesity - especially in younger populations - is always the best place to start. It is a topic that is of growing concern to my students at The American Academy of Personal Training and of growing concern to our global economy.

Statistics from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) reveal that 30% of children are overweight (compared to 65% of adults) and 17% are obese (compared to 33% of adults). Interestingly, 80% of children ages 10-15 who are obese will continue to be obese as adults.

As a reader of BMI.TV, you already know that a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or above significantly raises your risk for heart disease, sleep apnea, depression, osteoarthritis, and some forms of cancer. But were you aware that for children born after 2000 1 out of 3 boys and 1 out of 4 girls born will develop type 2 diabetes, a disease so vicious that it is the leading cause of lower limb amputation? Type 2 Diabetes, previously known as adult-onset diabetes, is largely caused by sedentary lifestyle. Now more than ever, children are fighting an uphill battle as a result of increased sedentary behavior and high caloric intake.

As reported in the New York Times (May 2008) after a steady incline of childhood obesity rates over the past 2 decades, the numbers have hit an outrageously high plateau. When we speak about obesity and BMI’s it is always important to start with the population most in need of intervention- our kids. Addressing the risks associated with our kids having excess body fat and solutions to turn back the clock is critical. But how?

The American Academy of Pediatrics expert committee on prevention, assessment, and treatment of child and adolescent overweight and obesity came up with the following recommendations:

To improve nutritional habits the committee recommends limiting the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages. These beverages are sodas, fruit juices, and sweetened waters such as Vitamin Water and Gatorade. Instead, get the vitamins from consuming 9 servings of fruits and vegetables each day. An added benefit to eating that many fruits and vegetables will be the fiber content that will keep the children full and prevent high cholesterol from developing in their arteries. Another nutritional recommendation is a diet high in calcium. Research has shown that by providing school-age children with 2 glasses of non-fat milk per day, their obesity rates were drastically reduced. Although, calcium is abundant in dairy products, be careful about the consumption of cheese as a small serving contains a tremendous amount of fat. The committee also recommends that the children always consume breakfast, limit eating out, and to always consume one family meal with parents per day.

In order to decrease sedentary behaviors the committee recommends limiting television and other screen time to a maximum of 2 hours per day and no television should be shown to kids 2 years and younger. They also recommend removing screens (television and computer monitors) from children’s rooms. The committee recommends that children should engage in moderate to vigorous physical activity for at least 60 minutes each day. For younger children this physical activity should not be organized and be more like fun recess time at the park.

Finally, remember that nothing about changing lifestyle habits is ever easy. But by encouraging healthier behavior for our kids, the negative outcomes associated with high BMI’s may be avoided.

Kettlebells Are More Than A Trend

By: Carl Wilson

“What do kettlebells do?” is a question I am frequently asked when teaching cettlebell certification classes. Well, they are inanimate objects, so they don’t do anything, it’s how you move them that provides the training effect.

If they are used like dumbbells then the results will be the same as using dumbbells however if they are used like kettlebells then the results will be different.

The real difference is that KBs are moved with velocity (essentially speed with direction) which results in momentum (mass times velocity).  So, this is what is being manipulated when training with kettlebell-mass (essentially the weight of the bell) and movement speed.  The goal is to move the kettlebell with speed, which gives a very different training effect that training without momentum.

The rate of force development (time it takes a muscle to contract maximally) is trained, thus improving power.  Also, as momentum is high, the kettlebell is moving with speed which means that it has to be slowed down at some point-this slowing down is done via eccentric (muscle lengthening) contractions, which are responsible for deceleration.

Developing power and the ability to decelerate are components of athletic movements which is why kettle bells are part of many sport-specific training programs, also this powerful training style promotes high-intensity, which gives a highly anaerobic training stimulus, also essential to performance.

So, kettlebells work best when they are used with high intensity and velocity.  If this is not part of your kettlebell program then you could probably used dumbbells instead!

Editor’s Note: Carl Wilson has written Crunch gym’s kettlbell certification program which is currently being taught nationwide.

Same Formula Different Utilization of Results

By: The BMI Producers

BMI formula is a numerically calculated index which compares hight to that of weight in determining if a person is considered normal weight, underweight, obese, or overweight.

While the BMI formula is the same for children, how the results are read differers for those between the ages of two and twenty from that of adults. Even more, young men and women’s scores differ further do to their gender. A lot of BMI calculators on the Internet today do not factor in results tailored to children.

On BMI.tv, our Body Mass Index calculator, we are one of the only ones who take into consideration age and sex in providing the most accurate BMI score for you and your family.

BMI Formula Differs For Children

By: The BMI Producers

With the rise of child obesity, the BMI formula is used as a tool to identify children who may be considered overweight.  The CDC and partners recommend the use of the children’s BMI calculation on children of two years of age and above.

It is important to not use the BMI formula on children as a clinical absolute to identify if a child is obese or overweight. A child may have a high BMI score for their age but still may be considered healthy when it comes to analyzing their diet and physical activity.

To calculate a child’s BMI score, first accurately measure their height and weight. Then input their those numbers, along with their age in the BMI.tv calculator. This will give you the child’s BMI score. Note that the formula for calculating a child’s BMI score is the same as calculating an adults, but the information from that calculation is read differently. It is not adequate to determine if a child is obese by simply using the calculator.

When A BMI Score Is Too Low

By: The BMI Producers

Sometimes the goals for the perfect body and BMI score go too far. Particularly amongst women, eating disorders can develop for many reasons. Generally a BMI score of less than 18.5 considers a person as underweight and an eating disorder could be to blame.

Eating disorders are caused by a mixture of factors. As obesity (a BMI score of over 30) is considered a new epidemic, eating disorders are part of history dating back to the medieval times.

As you see in the above video, eating disorders are very serious and you should see your medical health professional if you feel you or a loved one has an eating disorder.

Remember, a healthy BMI score is that of 18.5 to 24.9 and should be the target for young men or women who suffer from an eating disorder.