New Year Fitness Tips
Fitness Tips – January 2017
I love the start of a new year! It’s the chance to set up your life for the year ahead. Out with the old in with the new, resolutions, change, a fresh start.
Here’s your chance to get on track. Everyone is thinking this way. Everyone wants to be healthier don’t they? I do, I need to put my own fitness first consistently. I’m the same as most people, kids, food, work, housework, fun, beach, pressing appointments, these are all things that stand in my way to putting time in at the gym (and that’s where I want to do the work as it’s where I am going to make the most gains for what I’m looking for).
I’m going to put down my tips for myself getting in the workouts I need to improve my strength, and health. But before I do I want you to read through these statistics from the Australian Government Report “Australia’s Health 2016: in brief”. In my opinion the statistics on weight and quality food intake are disgusting. With all the education and knowledge we have nowadays why are we overweight? Why are you feeding your children and families crappy fast food, softdrinks, chips, sugar, prepackaged meals? I’m sorry to be so blunt, but seriously, why? It’s not okay, it’s not health supporting, it’s health degrading, and here are the statistics:
· In 2014-15, almost half (45%) of adults aged 18-64 were inactive or insufficiently active for health benefits, which was similar to the proportion in 2011-12.
In 2014-15:
Food – Fruit & Vegetables:
· the vast majority (97%) of children aged 5-14 did not eat the recommended daily serves of vegetables, while almost a third (30%) did not eat the recommended daily serves of fruit.
· the vast majority of adults did not eat the recommended 5 daily serves of vegetables (93%) and half (50%) did not eat the recommended 2 daily serves of fruit. These rates were similar to 2011-12
Obesity:
· The proportion of overweight or obese adults increased from 56% to 63% between 1995 and 2014-15—an average increase of 4.4 kg for both men and women. Of the estimated 11.2 million adults who were overweight or obese in 2014-15, 4.9 million were obese.
· In 2014-15, just over 1 in 4 (26% or 750,000) children aged 5-14, and nearly 4 in 10 (37% or 1.1 million) young people aged 15-24 were overweight or obese.
· Australia has the fifth-highest rate of obesity for people aged 15 and over (or 30th among 34 OECD countries), with rates almost 1.5 times as high as the OECD average.
· An estimated 1.2 million Australians (5.1%) had diabetes in 2014-15, most of whom (85%) had type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is largely preventable: risk factors that can lead to type 2 diabetes include insufficient physical activity; fat intake; obesity; and tobacco smoking.
1. So if obesity and type 2 diabetes is largely preventable by diet and exercise changes, get going folks. Start with eating real food right now. Do not buy or have in your house anything that comes in a packet. Go and stock up on fruit and vegetables and actually eat them. Grab some good quality but basic meat or chicken or fish to add to your veges or salads. Need help? Ask for a dieticitian referral and do what they say.
2. Start your physical activity today. You can make it easy – go for a walk, or a swim or ride a bike, or dance, basically anything where you are moving. Just start there, then increase your intensity as you are able to.
3. What if it doesn’t work in a week? Keep going!!!! Conisistency is the key. Consistently good eating, consistent exercise and incidental movement. Good quality sleep. Need advice? Get in touch with your GP, Exercise Physiologist, Exercise Professional or Allied Health Professional.
By the way, my plan is: Schedule my workouts for two gym sessions per week, I’m booking them into my diary and organising babysitting so I can go. I’ll work on strength training, core and some higher intensity cardio on the treadmill and the rowing machine. I like interval training in the gym and working with heavier weights so I am reaching failure point within 10 reps of an exercise.
I’ll take the kids and dog for daily walks and bike rides around our neighbourhood or to the beach for movement and incidental exercise, most days we can all handle 30 minutes. Admittedly the intensity is a little low for my fitness but we are all getting out there and enjoying the environment. We might even take a bushwalk to one of the local lakes over the holidays too.
My new hobby is learning to surf, so each time I go to the beach I’m getting more incidental exercise by learning these skills, mostly paddling! I’m trying to have a go at it twice a week. When I have the kids I try to go with a friend who has kids too and we swap turns child minding.
I’m lucky at work, I have high levels of physical movement, but again the intensity is low for my fitness, so I treat it as a time to practice technique skills while I’m teaching my clients (they need to know good technique too). But if you’re in a sedentary job, try to work in the SWAP principles: Stand Walk and Push. Stand up and move around every 50 minutes for at least 5 minutes, go to the toilet, do some squats, reach to the sky, move your arms, do some wall push ups and even take an exercise band to work so you can do some rowing work somewhere inconspicuous.
This is a heavy article with a few home truths in it. Sometimes we all need to hear the truth and be told to sort ourselves out. Doesn’t mean there’s no compassion or understanding from my end, simply that a change needs to be made.
If you need any help to get on track this year, please call or check our website for more information.
Yours sincerely in health, fitness and happiness,
Sarah Booth
Cooloola Coast Pilates & Personal Training
0432690194
www.cooloolacoastpilates.com
reference: http://www.aihw.gov.au/australias-health/2016/in-brief/
