Archive for the ‘Healthy Lifestyle’ Category

by Adam Martin

March 20

12:08 pm

Could A Diabetic Amputee End Up On A Soda Bottle?

In 2009, Congress passed a law requiring the FDA to implement the printing of graphic warning labels on cigarette packaging and advertising. In 2011, the FDA unveiled numerous color images required to cover the top fifty percent of the cigarette pack’s front and back panels. The tobacco industry has filed two major appeals to the congressional law. Yesterday, the Cincinnati U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the majority of the FDA’s new regulatory framework; however, the ruling opposes the court’s decision in the case filed within the Washington-based appeals court, setting up a fierce clash over constitutionality that will likely end up in the Supreme Court. The federal regulation of ‘legal’, yet openly unhealthy, tobacco products seems to create major contention within the legal world. But, how might this affect the regulation of other notably unhealthy products. Could you imagine a 2-liter soda bottle with a vivid warning label depicting a diabetic amputee?

Personally, I’m conflicted on the issue. The representatives of the tobacco industry exclaim that this violates a central tenet of the U.S. constitution, Free Speech. But, the cry for foul play is falling on many deaf ears since R.J. Reynolds and their cronies have practiced deception for many years. Can these recent quarrels parallel attempts by the corn refiners association to falsely advertise high fructose corn syrup as ‘corn sugar’? The FDA put the kibosh on that one. Could sugar be as dangerous for your health as tobacco usage? Some prominent doctors and scientists believe it is just as “toxic”. And, if that’s the case should it be regulated in the same manor?

This entry is filed under Healthy Lifestyle.

by Chef Jen Welper

March 17

12:30 pm

1 Comment

Eating While Traveling or Vacationing

Traveling for work or pleasure can be so much fun but can also be so taxing on the body, and probably the pocket book too. We want to be able to set ourselves up for success in either situation. If you are traveling for work purposes make sure that you are finding a room that may have a mini fridge and microwave. To some of you, you might be shaking your head and wonder where in the world am I going with this. Hold onJ Becoming more practical in what we actually need in our suitcases might be the first start, but I won’t spend much time on that. Let’s look at what are foods that I could bring that I can cook in my room or just have prepared and able to heat up. Yes I am suggesting a mini cooler. Ice packs can go through security and they can go in checked luggage, so your food can be kept cold. Such things that I could bring would be perhaps tuna salad, chicken salad, grilled chicken breast, spaghetti and meat sauce, frozen bags of vegetables, H3 prepared salad dressings. Now, again I am sure some of you are shaking your head and thinking I’m crazy…..but remember all of this is doable you just have to make it a priority and plan for it.

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This entry is filed under Healthy Lifestyle, Nutrition.

by Amy Kelderhouse

March 16

3:37 pm

No Comments

10 Tips for Making the Most of Your Gym Time

Spring is right around the corner and for many people work is picking up, holidays are on the horizon and time to make it to the gym can be more challenging to find. Remember it is not all or nothing! Here are 10 tips for getting the most from your work out when we are pressed for time:

Pack your gym bag the night before. Have everything ready to go in morning or right from work. Keep it organized so that finding those head phones and socks don’t require turning the bag inside out!
Turn off your cell phone or leave it in your car. You gym time is YOUR time; don’t worry about responding to emails or calls.
Have your plan in place; know what your workout is going to look like. This can save time by going right to the machines you want to work with.
Don’t go to the gym during peak fitness hours. Find out the slower hours at your gym and try to make it during those times. This cuts back on the time you spend waiting for a machine or moving around other exercisers.
Go to a circuit class such as ULTRA circuit or a bootcamp at your gym. For a 1 hour investment, you can get a full body strength routine in and cardio all at once! Talk about making the most of your time!
Use that talk test. Invest in a more intense workout and cut back on workout time. Increase the intensity of your work out by increasing the speed/resistance/incline so that you are able to “chat” with the person next to you but talking is a challenge.
Combine exercises. Use this method when lifting weights, by combining more than one strength exercise you get 2 for 1 and are done in half the time! Check out a few ideas here.
Work out on your lunch break. The gym has a light crowd, it will give you more energy in afternoon and bonus you can sleep in and go right home after work. Awesome!!
Increase intensity and decrease workout time. Try using the principles from high-intensity interval training or the tabata method to get the most from your time. You can read more about it here. Here is a video of a great 15 min workout you can do and be done with your day!
Cut out the time commuting and work out at home! There are so many great exercises you can do without equipment. Check out a few options of simple body weight exercises here!

Try out a few of these and know that you can make the most of whatever time you have available. Every minute is bringing you closer to achieving your goals and is a true investment in your health and future. Let’s make it a priority!

This entry is filed under Activities, Fitness, Healthy Lifestyle.

by Alicea Glover

March 14

8:00 am

1 Comment

Get H3 Inspired: From Simple to Souffle in Three Days

From Ron Gerhart; Churcville, VA

A little over a year ago, I visited Hilton Head Health for two weeks. I spent more time on the health and fitness aspects of the program. While last year I attended some cooking classes, I felt my diet lacked variety and I lacked the skills to move up to the next level of cooking. My second time around (in January of this year), I attended the H3 Cooking Healthy:Recipe for Success workshop. It was informative, fun and gave me the courage to elevate my cooking skills, as well as tackle some of the more challenging tasty recipes.

The new cooking school is brilliantly designed for both comfortably observing an instructor demonstrating cooking, and for cooking yourself at you own personal station. Your station has an individual Wolf gas stove-top and oven, refrigerator, sink and all the cooking utensils and small appliances you need. Believe me, there is a huge difference between watching someone make it and actually cooking it yourself.

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This entry is filed under Healthy Lifestyle.

by Jessica Lynn

March 8

1:30 pm

1 Comment

Making Change Stick

When many of us have a desire to make change, it’s easy to go straight to the Nike mentality of “Just Do It”; however, when we look at models for successful and lasting change, there are many other components. Behavioral steps are just one building block of fifteen, for example, in the model for Mount Lasting Change.

As you think back to your efforts for making behavioral changes and it seems that you always fall short, or the change is short-lived, I would encourage you to take a look at some of the other building blocks for making successful change. Looking at it 360 degrees can really help identify some areas for improvement, which is much more beneficial in the long run than the guilt and self-loathing we run ourselves through. Here are a couple of those blocks to start with:

Responsibility & Self-discovery – You have to be ready, willing and able to make change. Spend some time thinking about your level of motivation, your feelings about getting started and your confidence that you will succeed. What can you do to help bolster your readiness, willingness and ability to make the change you are seeking?
Strengths – What are you really good at? What about you has made you successful in other areas of your life? How can you use these skills/talents to increase your ability to make the change you want?
Values & Meaning – What do you value most as you envision your life having made this change? What are some ways you can kindle that motivation to help you in times where your mind/emotions begin to pull you off course?
Benefits & Information – What are the pros of making this change last? What information would be helpful?
Challenges & Strategies – What are the cons of the change? Whether these things are actual negatives, or they just seem negative for our selfish, defiant nature, they are still real feelings we experience due to the change. If you can really decipher how you truly feel about making a change, it will lead you to coming up with realistic strategies for dealing with those challenges

Take your time with these steps. Don’t rush through and move straight into action as we do over and over and over again. What is going to be different this time? It’s not the behavior goal that really changes… it’s the support you build around making that behavior more meaningful, more do-able and with more confidence.

What have you discovered about yourself today?

This entry is filed under Healthy Lifestyle.

by Amber Shadwick

February 28

9:00 am

2 Comments

I Am An Iron Man

I just couldn’t help myself, Jeff shared this video with me several weeks ago and I thought it appropriate to share with all of you H3 blog readers. At first, the video may trigger a few LOL’s (laughs out loud according to techno lingo), but in addition to the chuckles there resides a huge subliminal message.

Please note (DISCLAIMER): I apologize as the video itself contains profanity; therefore if you may be offended, please decline viewing.

If you are to view the video, I feel it speaks volumes to all individuals who are engaging in any type of training. Whether training for an iron man or better health, the revelation is balance.

So, what does balance mean to you? Are you so strictly driven in your regiments that you have no time to enjoy life? Are you eliminating your social life in efforts to become fit? Is the lack of social life and or social interaction contributing positively or negatively to your overall happiness? Is the lack of overall happiness harmful to your health? These are all questions we as fitness coinsures should be asking ourselves. Are we allowing a balance between work, fitness, family and friends? Even deeper, are we allowing room for balance within our own fitness regiments? (i.e. are we switching up our regiments by adding variety or are we simply staying rigid and blasé?). Remember, too much of anything is not good. As Bob would say “everything in moderation.” Let this video be a simple reminder to balance your wellbeing.

“Be moderate in order to taste the joys of life in abundance.” ~Epicurus

This entry is filed under Healthy Lifestyle.

by Jeff Ford

February 12

9:03 am

5 Comments

Sharing Success: Lyle Orr

I often ask guests, “What makes this important to you?” Lyle, unwavering said, “This is for my kids, my wife, not to wear a seatbelt extender on an airplane; this is so I can change my life and then be compassionate towards others.” To narrow down the motivators and the vision is the first step, but would he translate this over? I had no doubt in my mind and here is his story…

Lyle Orr checked into Hilton Head Health in late April and stayed for the entire month. During his program, Lyle was a ball of energy that spurred everyone to push harder and motivated everyone alike in our patented Hilton Head Health Treading Class. His yips and yells could spook even the most fearless, but the fight and motivation he showed during his H3 Journey was rare and infectious. Day in and day out, Lyle would come into every fitness class and lifestyle lecture ready to work, ready to commit to a new way of living. After successfully losing 23 pounds and 8 inches there was no stopping Lyle, he signed up for the H3@Home Coaching.

To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure how he was going to do it. Leading a busy work life, caring for two kids, DJing on the weekends, finding time to spend with his wife Jess — Oh, and knowing he’d be flying to Fort Lauderdale every week, how was he going to make this work? Well he did and below are only a few of the incredible strategies he came up with dating, all the way back to his first day outside the H3 bubble.

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This entry is filed under Healthy Lifestyle.

by Jessica Lynn

February 9

3:06 pm

5 Comments

Strategies To Step Back Into Meal Planning

While meal planning is essential to weight loss or weight management, it can be challenging for many. There is no single right way to meal plan and many factors affect how we do it and how consistent we are. Our palettes change, life demands more time in other areas, travel, motivation, levels shift… whatever the reason, if we look at meal planning from an “all or nothing” approach, we will not find success. Be realistic with your planning, even if that means starting with planning 2 meals for the week, because having success in that will only bolster your confidence to take on more the next week. If you’ve been through our program, you may likely have attended my class where we work as a group to develop a 7-day meal plan. Here are some steps to consider if a 7-day plan just seems too overwhelming for this coming week:

Break it down. Start by just planning 3 meals for the upcoming week instead of all 21. This allows for some flexibility with yourself but still moves you closer to your goal. You might even surprise yourself and eat healthier for a few more meals as well.
Develop a Routine. Give your week a basic framework that might help guide your thoughts to specific meals. For example:

Monday is Chicken Night – whether it’s grilled chicken, chicken parmesan or chicken marsala… it’s going to be chicken.
Tuesdays/Thursdays are Seafood night – one week might include H3 Shrimp Scampi and Salmon, the next week might be H3 Crab Cakes or Lemon Parmesan Tilapia.
Wednesday is Salad night – Steak Salad, Grilled Chicken Salad, Spinach Salad with Tempeh… whatever you choose, it’s going on a bed of greens.
Friday night’s “Where’s the Beef?” – Steak, lean burger, Spaghetti with meatballs… you get my drift.
Pizza Saturday and Wild Card Sunday – keep it fun on your weekend by making pita pizzas or even homemade whole wheat dough. Sunday is your wild card to be spontaneous!

Play “Go Fish” for meals out. Make a list of restaurants and what meals are “acceptable” to your healthy meal plan. You could create a card for each meal. When you choose, or need to dine out, select something from your cards.
Remove and Replace. Identify 1-2 food choices that are contributors to an unhealthy plan and replace them with a healthy alternative. Decide what your alternatives are now and make it something you can look forward to.
Portions, Portions, Portions! Get back into the habit of measuring. Even if it’s still a “bad” food, know how much you are consuming.
Write it down. If at the beginning of the week you have every intention of eating healthy, and that always seems to fade mid week, you might forget all the healthy planning you did! Don’t just plan in your head. Write it down so you can refer back to it.

This entry is filed under Healthy Lifestyle.

by Alicea Glover

February 8

11:26 am

No Comments

Turn Up The Heat!

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner; have you already made plans for you and your loved one? Our friends at Hilton Head Health would like to share a few ideas for a healthy celebration of love this year.

Make a fitness date. Spend quality time with your loved one without all the clutter of the house, cell phones, TV or internet. Leave all the stress behind and enjoy one another’s company in the great outdoors. Go for a picnic and walk in the park, a bike ride, a partner workout or a night of dancing.

Indulge in a little chocolate. If you’re trying to follow a healthy diet, you may think chocolate is out of the question. Instead of skipping the treats, allow yourself a small serving to keep from feeling deprived. With moderation, eating something sweet may actually keep you from binging later and some chocolates offer various health benefits. Seventy percent dark or organic chocolate, as well as chocolate wrapped in thick wrappers, tend to be better for you. Much of the recent research suggests that the consumption of chocolate, in moderation, may help prevent high blood pressure, improve heart health and provide a bounty of antioxidants our bodies necessitate.

Give a little self love. With busy schedules and endless responsibilities, we often tend to put ourselves last when it comes to dishing out our attention. This year, make a date with yourself by buying yourself flowers, scheduling a massage, a pedicure or manicure, a quite lunch and movie, a hot bath or a walk in a peaceful place you haven’t visited in awhile.

Since February is not only the month of love but also the month of heart health, we can’t go without suggesting taking care of your heart. If you’re in the area, let one of our H3 Chefs lead you and your date in a Valentine’s Day themed cooking class at the Culinary Arts Center, or heat things up at home by following one of the healthy recipes found right here on H3Daily.

This entry is filed under Healthy Lifestyle.

by Lisette Volz

February 7

4:51 pm

No Comments

The Effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder

When I reflected on the crankiness that characterized my last blog, it occurred to me that for months I have been sunlight-deprived. I leave my house at 8:00 am and return just as darkness has descended, around 6:00 pm. In addition, I rarely leave the Hilton Head Health campus during the workday. Thus, my daily contact with the outside world and the warmth of the sun has been minimal since late fall.

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This entry is filed under Healthy Lifestyle.

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