Month: December 2015

Categories
Wellbeing

New Year, New You – Dream Big In 2016!

As the new year approaches, one of the top things that people start to think about is their New Year’s resolutions. A lot of these New Year’s resolutions are centered around weight loss, exercising, eating better, and overall health concerns. People get super excited about figuring out what their New Year’s resolution will be, planning for it, and then January 1, putting that plan into action.
Sounds great, right? New year, new you!
As you may or may not know, I am all for encouraging YOU to be the best YOU possible. BUT…I am going to challenge you. I want to challenge you to make only one resolution this year, and that is not to make any resolutions at all.
The word “resolution” is defined as a firm decision to do or not do something. Instead of a resolution, I want you to focus not on the action of not doing something, but on setting goals that you can aim for, plan for, and achieve. The word “goal” is defined as the object of a person’s ambition or effort; an aim or desired result. This new year, instead of focusing on what you won’t do, you are going to make a list of your goals, and then create an action plan to make those goals a reality.
So, how do you go about setting goals for the new year and making sure you don’t abandon those goals?
The first thing I want you to think about is your priorities in life. Make sure that whatever goals you set and put in place line up with your priorities. Then, start thinking about what categories you want to set goals in. Create a financial goal, a health goal, a family and relationship goal, etc. This way you are improving many areas of your life, not just one. But be sure to create a realistic number of goals. You want your goals to push you and stretch you, but by the same token, you don’t want to create so many goals that they are impossible to attain.
Once you have created a list of goals you want to accomplish in 2016, the next step is to create an action plan to ensure that these goals don’t just become words on paper. I highly recommend sharing your goals with someone who can hold you accountable, like a spouse, a colleague, or a friend. Don’t laugh, but we all know a great way to keep yourself accountable is on social media, so don’t be scared to share your list on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter or whatever sites you are on, so that your social family can check in on you and your goals and keep you accountable.
Write your goals out somewhere visible where you can see them. You can put them in a note on your phone, post them on your refrigerator, or make your list the screensaver on your computer. This will be a daily reminder of what you are working toward. And as you reach certain goals throughout the year, be sure to celebrate your success and reward your hard work and effort. Sticking to goals and achieving them is something to be proud of.
Did you know that 45 percent of people make New Year’s resolutions each year, and of those, only 8 percent actually stick to them? Don’t let that be you. That is why for 2016 you are going to set goals, create a plan for those goals, and then spend the year striving to achieve them. And when you do, I cannot wait to celebrate with you.
I TRUST AND BELIEVE in who you are, and therefore, I know that you can dream big in 2016 and make it the best year ever.

Categories
Nosh

Baking, Love, And Emotions: Looking At Baking In A Whole New Light

I enjoy cooking all kinds of food, but I especially love baking. Unfortunately for me, the foods associated with the word bake aren’t on many weight loss food lists. You never see cake, pies, and cookies on the “must include” list of any diet plan. If you love to bake and are trying hard to lose weight, I want you to know you can have both: a love of baking and successful weight loss.
Losing weight is about calorie reduction, but it is also about taking a hard look at your lifestyle, your food habits, and the emotions that drive those choices. Although you may not think baking falls into one of these categories, it really does.

Baking to Show Love

For many people, baking is a way to show love. Showering family and friends with cookies, cakes, and delectable desserts is their way of giving something special to people they love. It was to me.
I baked unceasingly, one amazing dessert after another. We wouldn’t even have time to finish one dessert or give it away to friends before I’d be pulling the next one out of the oven.
It makes sense that this is a common reason to bake. Preparing and sharing food for other people is a way of creating a bond and satisfying a physical need. The famous Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving illustration that shows a loving family gathered around a Thanksgiving table depicts this perfectly.

Baking to Satisfy Emotions

When I got pregnant with my first daughter and gained 75 pounds, I drowned my stress in chocolate. I continued baking, gaining, gorging and gaining. I couldn’t seem to stop making desserts. And unfortunately for me, I couldn’t stop eating them either.
I was baking to calm myself down and then eating most of the brownies or cookies to relieve stress. Predictably, I continued to gain weight and baked all the more in a fruitless attempt to stop feeling bad about how I looked and felt.

Backward Thinking

Baking to show your family love or baking as a way to soothe your own feelings is backward thinking. It really is.
Answer this question: Are you really showing your family you love them by baking high-calorie desserts? Or are you pulling them with along with you on your unhealthy eating path one bite of brownie at a time? It’s a hard question to answer.
After a lot of soul-searching, I realized that baking didn’t equal love.
I wasn’t doing my family or friends any favors by showering them with spectacular desserts. Instead, I was adding unnecessary calories and unhealthy ingredients to their diet. I came to the point where I realized it would be more loving to focus on spending more time with the people I loved, finding nonfood ways to support them, and make healthy rather than unhealthy foods.
As far as the emotional component, baking doesn’t fix your stress, stop you from worrying about your finances, or make your life better. Instead, if you bake and then eat most of your creations as I did, you are putting a roadblock in front of your weight loss plan every time you pull cookies or cakes out of the oven.
Once I came to these realizations, I stopped baking all the time, and I hope you will as well. I still bake on occasion. I make amazing birthday cakes for family, have made a few wedding cakes, and occasionally make a homemade dessert just because it’s Tuesday. But gone are the days when I made cookies for the neighbors and ate half, created huge homemade desserts every night for us, and a cooked a pan of brownies on the side just for me.
What a relief those days are gone forever.
If you enjoy baking and end up eating more of your creations than you should, be honest with yourself. Put a moratorium on everyday baking and see if your family and friends love you any less. After a few weeks, you might notice you have less of a craving for sugar and are seeing the scale move down. It’s a win-win for you and for the people you used to shower with baked goods.

Categories
Wellbeing

It's Not Easy Being Big

We’ve talked about how the size and shape of your body affect pretty much everything in your life, from your risk of developing a variety of diseases and your life expectancy, to your salary and the quantity and quality of your romantic relationships. If you’re overweight or obese, several new studies add more doom and gloom to an already bleak picture: Overweight men face discrimination both as job applicants and retail customers. And if they’re interested in politics, they’re less likely to appear on ballots and, when they do, they’re less likely to win.
The first two studies—the ones that measured discrimination in hiring as well as in customer service—were conducted by Enrica Ruggs, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. The study was published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.
Ruggs and her team had a number of non-overweight male actors apply for a variety of retail jobs. Then, they had those same men wear prosthetics to make them appear overweight and sent them out to apply for similar jobs at other stores.
Those same men–both in their natural state and disguised as overweight–also shopped at retail stores. The goal of these experiments, says Ruggs, was “to see if there were differences in the treatment they received when they were not heavy versus heavy.” In all cases, the “overweight” men were subjected to what Ruggs calls “interpersonal discrimination.”
The men were asked to rate how they were treated on a 0 to 6 scale, with 0 meaning they felt no discrimination and 6 meaning that they felt quite a lot of it. In the retail settings, Ruggs also had observers who were pretending to shop but were actually watching the interactions between the store staff and the actors/customers and taking notes.
The observers and the “customers” reached the same conclusions: “Overweight” customers did, in fact, “experience greater amounts of interpersonal discrimination or subtle negative behavior toward them,” says Rugs. “Employees they interacted with would try to end the interaction early, there was less affirmative behavior like less nodding or smiling; there were more avoidance types of behavior like frowning and trying to get out of the interaction.”
There was a third component to these studies as well, and this time, it turned out that real customers may discriminate against overweight employees. The researchers filmed a series of fake marketing videos for several rather generic products, such as coffee mugs and suitcases. The actors in these videos were sometimes overweight, sometimes not. Actual customers watched those videos, which they were told would be used in online ad campaigns.
After watching the counterfeit ads, the customers filled out a questionnaire. The results were depressing, but not terribly surprising: People who watched the “overweight” employees saw them as less professional, less neat, less clean, and more careless. According to Ruggs, those perceptions spilled over into the viewer’s overall impression of the products and the manufacturers as well.
The same type of subtle discrimination rears its ugly head in elections too.
Mark Roehling, a professor of human resources at Michigan State University, and his wife, Patricia Roehling, a psychology professor at Hope College, analyzed data from a number of 2008 and 2012 U.S. senate elections. Their research assistants obtained color photos of candidates in 126 primary and general elections and categorized them as either normal weight, obese, or overweight.
One especially interesting aspect of both Ruggs’ and the Roehling’s studies is that they turn gender stereotypes on their head. We have a tendency to think of overweight women as more likely than men to be stigmatized or discriminated against. But it turns out that weight-related bias is pretty much gender neutral.
The exception, according to the Roehlings, is the issue of getting on the ballot in the first place. Obese candidates—male or female—were less likely than slimmer political hopefuls to appear. But when candidates were simply a little overweight, women were less likely than men to appear.
However, when it came to actual voting, the discrimination was gender neutral, with overweight or obese male and female candidates equally likely to lose to their more svelte opponents. According to Mark Roehling, there’s no question that heavier candidates didn’t do as well as slimmer ones (New Jersey Governor and one-time presidential candidate Chris Christie being a notable exception). And as if that wasn’t bad enough, “the greater size disparity between candidates, the greater the vote share of the more slender candidate,” adds Roehling.
The Roehlings’s study was published in the journal Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.

Categories
Wellbeing

No Excuses Needed—It's Time For A Vacation

Scientists tell us that money alone doesn’t make us happy—it’s what we spend it on that matters. Although buying things can make us feel good for a while, buying an experience—like a vacation—tends to make us feel even better for a longer period of time. Why? Because we can take a much longer time planning it, and more importantly, we can savor the memory of the experience forever.

Planning a vacation begins with thinking about the occasion you want to have rather than the kind of satisfaction that comes from acquiring objects. Haven’t you had this happen to you before? You thought those shoes, or that sweater, or those earrings would make you feel good for a longer time than they did? 

Things tend to give us a boost when we first acquire them—but typically this fades once we’ve had them for a while. Materialists get caught in this trap. They will often put very high hopes on what a thing will help them feel only to become disappointed when it doesn’t live up to their expectations. The emptiness is fueled by a cycle that begins with an unrealistically high expectation of what a new possession will bring.

Planning a vacation starts in a different place. 

First, it typically isn’t an impulse. So much of shopping for things has the emphasis on an urge or a whim. The immediacy of the purchase and payoff nudge us to the next desire. Thinking about what we would like to experience in planning a vacation ushers us into the future in a different way. We begin thinking about what we want to feel and what other experiences we want to have. The anticipated excitement generates good feelings now about the future. When we think about an upcoming break in this way our anticipated enjoyment pays off immediately—and draws that good feeling into the future.

Then there is the vacation experience itself. For most of us the occasion generates good feelings, even if it wasn’t perfect; it provides a break in our routine because we’re engaged in different activities than usual. We now have three features going into the payoff of feeling good: First we have the planning, followed by the anticipation, and then the actual holiday. The event has already given us more than what we would have gotten from buying some gadget or article of clothing.

The big payoff comes with our forever memories, photographs, recollections, and discussions. What comes after the vacation is savoring a positive rumination about what took place and the excitement that went into it. From the beginning plans to the savoring we create an extended time of feeling good. Rarely can the purchase of an object give us this kind of sustainable joy.

Of course, there are exceptions: The new car we’ve been waiting for, the unique piece of furniture we found in an antique shop—many things can repay us every time we encounter them. However, in general, our money is often better invested in experiences rather than belongings.

Ultimately, the distinction between what makes us happy and what doesn’t tends to be about how much gratitude we have for something. If we buy an object and our gratitude for it fades rapidly, so will our sense of how pleased it makes us. We are inclined to give vacations a higher ranking on our gratitude list. In this way they tend to move to the top of our mind when we think about what we appreciate—and what brings us delight when we recall it.

Categories
Lifestyle

Fun Gifts For Your Favorite Runner

There’s a joke that I always see going around social media that says something along the lines of “How do you know someone is a runner?” and the punchline is “wait a few seconds, they’ll let you know.”

I won’t even try to argue, as this fact is often true.

Most runners are so fanatical about our sport, that we will be the first to tell you alllll about running if you take the time to ask.

Or sometimes, even if you don’t ask.

While most of us have careers and families that don’t involve running, our passion for the sport runs so deep that we like to talk about running, read about running, watch documentaries about running, even cover our cars with running stickers…anything to display our enthusiasm for the hobby we love.

So if you are wondering what sort of gift to get for the runner in your life this holiday season, the answer is pretty simple: something running related.

The trick, however, is finding something unique that they don’t already have. You see, in addition to talking about all things running, we also like to shop for all things running. When it comes to the necessities: shoes, shorts, socks, water bottles, technology…we’ve got it already covered.

But there are a ton of fantastic, thoughtful, and unique gifts out there for runners; items that we’d love to have, but are unlikely to buy for ourselves…because we’d rather spend our money on more shoes, gels, or race registrations. Here are a few ideas:

Medal Display

Does your runner have all of their hard earned medals stuffed into a drawer or a shoebox? Or are they hanging haphazardly on a doorknob or curtain rod? Why not get them a unique, or even custom, medal holder or display. The options are limitless to match the personality of your runner or the interior decor of their home. From laser cut hangers made from metal to crafty hand painted, wood options…and everything in between, there is something for everyone. Check out Allied Medal Hangers, or the popular craft website Etsy for some ideas.

Turn our Bibs into Something Cool

You know those wrinkled pieces of paper we pin to our shirts or shorts before each race? Each one holds a memory, and chances are, your runner has a box or drawer full of them somewhere. But many creative individuals have come up with ideas on how to display those bibs. From custom made handbags, to coasters, to framed artwork, the internet is full of ideas and suggestions.

Jewelry

From commemorating accomplishments, providing motivation, to simply declaring our love for the sport, there are a number of handmade jewelry items out there designed specifically for runners. They range from affordable, workout friendly options, all the way to designer pieces with precious metals and jewels, and everything in between. Check out Momentum Jewelry for their sweat ready Motivate wraps, or Endure Jewelry Co. for something with a little more “bling”.

Box Subscription

At some point in the last few years, subscription boxes have become all the rage. The concept is this: you subscribe to a box with a theme that appeals to you and every month you receive a box full of samples that relate to that theme. The idea is that you get to try a wide variety of new products, without having to commit to a standard full-size item. Of course, the running world is no exception! Subscription boxes like StrideBox and RunnerBox send a monthly package to subscribers full of things like endurance fuels and snacks, electrolyte drinks, anti-blister cream, headbands, electronics, and any other type of accessory that may appeal to runners. Give your runner a gift subscription, and they will continue to receive the gift all year long!

Framed race photo

Every now and then someone actually captures a GOOD race photo and not one that looks like we are minutes from passing out, throwing up, or worse. Yet we are often hesitant to buy them for ourselves because they can be pricey. Did your runner recently set a PR, run a bucket list race, or some other awesome accomplishment? Why not check out the event’s website for race photos, search for your runner, and purchase a print.

Voucher for a Race Registration

When in doubt? Ask us what race we are really hoping to run next year…and buy or contribute to our race entry! Sure it may not be a surprise, and it might feel slightly impersonal, but your support of our running and racing is much appreciated.

Categories
Sweat

Pole Dancing Woman Loses 65 Pounds and Finds Her Inner Diva

There might be a stigma attached to pole dancing, but it helped Eda Marbury, of St. Louis, lose 65 pounds recently. She plans to lose more, too!

When she was younger, Eda struggled with anorexia for eight years. She would rarely eat and consumed numerous energy drinks that were high in caffeine, a natural appetite suppressant. Eventually, she only weighed 135 pounds. 

During this period, Eda met her husband, Terrik. He helped her overcome her eating disorder. Unfortunately, she traded one problem for another. Able to eat again, she started binging on food. 

Her weight started to balloon. 

After years filled with junk food and absent of exercise, Eda tipped the scales at 330 pounds. Terrik reassured her that she was beautiful, but she was having image issues again. She went around a year without looking in the mirror.

“I was in denial about how much weight I had put on and how I looked,” she told the Mirror.

Eda knew she needed a change, but she wasn’t sure where to start. There are numerous gyms in the St. Louis, but she didn’t want to deal with strange equipment she had never used. She wasn’t thrilled about testosterone-fueled weight lifters either. 

Pink Lemon Studio was her answer. 

The local studio is women only and teaches classes in pole dancing. It was challenging at first. The studio is filled with mirrors, and Eda is afraid of heights. Initially, she was scared to even take her feet off the ground. 

“It took me a year and three months to climb the pole because I’m afraid of heights,” she said.

Despite her fear of heights, Eda was hooked on the classes. Now she can climb to the top of the 11-foot pole and twirl with incredible grace. She even had a pole installed at home to practice whenever she pleases. 

As Eda has progressed as a pole dancer, her weight has been steadily decreasing. She’s lost 65 pounds and hopes to lose 35 more. The long-term goal is to weigh less than 200 pounds. 

It has been good for her self-esteem and confidence, too. 

“I felt more confident, and I have friends. The way I dressed changed, I started to care a little bit more about what I was wearing and how I would do my hair,” Eda said. “Before I started pole dancing I wouldn’t wear make-up, I didn’t like to take the time to look after myself.”

Terrik has noticed a change, too. 

“It makes her feel sexy, it makes her feel happy and that’s what I like about it,” he said. 

Eda started a Facebook page, Eda Marbury’s Climb to the Top, to document her progress. After a video of a pole dancing routine went viral, she was inundated with positive messages. Now, thousands of people follow the page and her journey. She’s taken the positivity to heart. 

“I’ve come so far in the past two years. I feel way more confident, way more sexy, way more beautiful,” she said. “I feel like I’m worth it. I never thought I would be capable of the things I have achieved.”

Categories
Sweat

Tips For Tackling A New Sport That'll Make You Wonder Why You Didn't Start Sooner

Have you ever tagged along with friends for a round of golf but were the designated golf cart driver simply because you couldn’t hit a ball to save your life? Don’t get me wrong–being the driver is freaking awesome, but sometimes you just want to be like the other guys.
You know that phrase “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”? The same applies to sports, right? WRONG!
More and more people are engaging in fitness boutiques, boot camps, and group intramurals. From Pure Barre to rock wall climbing, various athletic pursuits are supplementing the in-person connections that we have lost through the advent of social media.
The point is, people are building up their repertoire of “sports tried”–and you should too!
Have you ever imagined what it’d be like to sink a slam dunk? How about serving up a killer spike, leaving your opponent floundering in the sand? Just because you’re out of your teens and into adulthood doesn’t mean you can’t find out.
Tip #1: Private Lessons
It’s pretty unrealistic to go into an activity believing you’ll be an A+ winner, but it’s also unproductive to think your feet will be glued to the ground. Best advice? Hire a private instructor. Whether you’re learning how to paddleboard on a girls’ trip or scaling Colorado’s peaks with your bros, it’s crucial that you learn the appropriate skill sets. You’ll have a far more enjoyable time and be less likely to have an injury or other mishap.
And quite frankly, group lessons can be a trip. Wouldn’t you rather fall down a bunny slope with your friends than get stuck on a black diamond with adventure lords? You’ll build confidence, and it could quite possibly turn into a new hobby.
Tip #2: The Sky’s The Limit
So you’re poised and ready to take the plunge, but which route to take? Don’t settle for kickball–unless that’s what you want! Go ahead and take a kick at soccer or a whack at baseball. Why not try skydiving or deep-sea fishing? One tiny yet crucial detail: Let us not forget our athleticism and age.
Completing a triathlon is unrealistic for some of us, but for others a triathlon may be a pregame. There’s no reason you can’t engage in competitive cycling at the age of 45, but that may be unappealing from an enjoyment standpoint. It’s a combination of factors that’ll be specific for you.
If you’re hoping for more of a group friendly and lighthearted fitness plan, some options are:
-Water aerobics-Tennis-Golf-Yoga-Sailing-Biking-Kayaking
Whether you decide to go for adrenaline junkie status or zen, you do you.
#3: Health Perks
Not only are sports entertaining, they also do wonders for the heart and soul. They serve as a release, helping to alleviate emotional and mental stress. Plus physical activity prevents muscle and bone loss. Engaging in any sport helps boost confidence, improve teamwork, and enhance communication skills. And you know what that means: These benefits can transfer easily into your work and personal life.
#4: Social Perks
Have you ever been in a job interview and wished that you had something that would really set you apart from the masses? How about instead of mentioning your latest trip overseas, you discuss your tennis league? Not only does it show that you’re health-conscious (so you’re less of an expense to a company), it reveals that your skill sets span beyond the workforce. Plus, you may just find a mate at your next playoffs conference!
You get to know more about a person on a field than across a bar or computer screen. Whatever your motivations are for checking out a sport, be sure it’s something that will be personally fulfilling and quench a fire that you’ve had burning for quite some time.

Categories
Sweat

Could Fasting Be The Fast-Track to Recovery?

For years, I’ve written about the lunacy of fasting. How it messes up your body. Messes with your blood sugar. Messes with your brain. Messes with your metabolism. But I may not have been totally on target because apparently fasting messes with your stem cells too…..but in a good way.

A study in the issue of Cell Stem Cell shockingly showed that fasting not only protected against immune system damage (a major side effect of chemotherapy) but caused the immune system to regenerate. Scientists studied mice and patients receiving chemotherapy, and found that after long periods of not eating their white blood cell counts were significantly lowered and the stem cells that are responsible for the generation of blood and immunity, were renewed! These studies are important not only to people undergoing chemotherapy but should offer hope to the elderly and also to those who experience complications due to compromised immune systems (like people with autoimmune diseases.) It’s possible that fasting for 2-4 days could potentially provide the immune boost they may need to fight off big infections, or smaller inflictions that have a tendency to become bigger. This would mean huge things for their quality of life and life expectancy. And to the strain that these complications put on caregivers and our health care system. This is pretty ground-breaking stuff! Science has long studied ways to super supplement patients to help boost immune systems, when in actuality, taking away nutrition could help them, even more.

Basically, this is what happens. When a person starves, their body tries to save energy and one of the main ways it does this it to recycle the immune cells that are damaged and not needed. During each cycle of fasting, the enzyme PKA is reduced and stem cells are ordered to self-renew. Additional research also found that prolonged fasting lowered levels of IGF-1, a growth hormone that’s been linked to aging, tumor growth and cancer risk.

The research is pretty amazing because it shows that an old, damaged system can literally generate a new, young and effective immune system. Chemotherapy can save lives but sometimes at a severe cost. It can cause significant damage to the immune system and other systems of the body. The result of this study suggests that fasting may help to offset some of the harmful effects of chemotherapy.

Scientists are looking into the possibility that fasting may also help other systems of the body, and organs as well. Can you imagine being able to regenerate a new part of your liver? Or repair your arteries after blockages? Or even repair an injured limb? This is the crazy stuff of the 25th century, but researchers were pretty amazed to discover these results. They’re extremely hopeful and anxious to find ways fasting can help the body even more. As are we!

As a devout antagonist, I never thought there would be any reason to convince me that it was beneficial to “starve the body to help the body” but, in this case, this zebra’s stripes may be switching to horizontal.

Categories
Lifestyle

Bike Right: How to Pick the Perfect Bicycle for You

Riding a bike is one of the best ways to start leading a healthier lifestyle. Not only is it a great way to get some exercise, it forces you to go outside where the fresh air and warm sunshine can do wonders for your overall sense of well-being. On top of that, cycling is good for the environment and just so happens to be a lot of fun too.

But getting started in the sport can be a bit daunting for a beginner, as picking out the right bike can sometimes be a confusing affair. With so many options to choose from today, where does one even start? Here are some helpful hints to get you up and riding as soon as possible.

What Kind of Riding Do You Want to Do?

One of the first questions you’ll need to ask yourself is what kind of riding you’d most like to try. If you want to stay on paved streets and go fast, a road bike will be what you’re looking for. If you want to leave the pavement behind and hit some local trails instead, a mountain bike will be your best bet. Want to do a little of both? Then you’ll be shopping for a hybrid bike. On the other hand, if you’d like to use your new bike as a way to commute to and from work, that will open other possibilities. And if you’d just prefer to casually ride around the neighborhood, a good cruiser bike could be the answer. The point is, you can narrow down your options for the bikes are right for you simply by thinking about the style of cycling that you are most interested in.

What’s Your Budget?

Perhaps the most important factor in deciding which bike is best suited for your needs is how much money you have to spend. Bikes can range in price from as little as $100 to more than $10,000, depending on the quality of their components, style of frame, and design. Most of us won’t see the benefit from riding a top of the line bike, but it will be evident right away if you’re riding a piece of junk. Think about how much you want to spend ahead of time and then head out to your local bike shop to see which models fall into your price range.

What Size Bike Do You Need?

A lot of first-time buyers don’t realize it, but most models of bikes actually come in a variety of sizes. This makes a lot of sense when you think about it because riders come in a lot of different sizes too. In order to find the correct size for you, consult with the staff at your local bike shop. They’ll be invaluable in helping you get on a properly sized bike, and getting the proper fit. That includes adjusting the seat so that you get the most comfortable ride.

Take a Test Ride

Once you’ve determined the style of riding you’re interested in, set your budget level, and determined the size of your bike, the next step is to take a test ride or two to discover which model you actually like the best. Most bike shops will be happy to let you take a few bikes out for a spin, as that will ultimately be the deciding factor of which one is actually right for you. As you ride, test the gears and brakes to make sure they operate smoothly and responsibly. Consider your position in the saddle. Do you have to stretch to reach the handlebars? How comfortable is the seat? How smooth is the overall ride? Then compare one bike to another to help narrow down the choices.

Shop Around

Unless you find a bike that is simply perfect for you immediately, don’t be afraid to shop around a bit. Most bike shops carry different brands, and you may discover another model at a different store that fits your needs more closely. You’ll also get a better sense of the various prices for a bike and may even find a better deal. Whenever possible, stick to dedicated bike shops though, as you’ll find the staff is far more knowledgeable about the products, not to mention more dedicated to helping you find the one that is right for you.

Buying a bike is an investment, not just in money, but time too. If you plan to get serious about cycling, your bike has to be comfortable and fun to ride, so take your time in finding the one that is best suited for you. In the long run, that will determine how much you actually enjoy the sport, and ultimately how successful you are at achieving your fitness goals

Categories
Sweat

58-Year-Old Woman Tackles Insanity Workout Head On

Deborah Cavanagh is 58, but she hasn’t slowed down. She recently completed her 1000th Insanity workout session. It’s a feat that people half her age would be hard pressed to accomplish. 

Cavanagh isn’t new to working out, though. She’s a former synchronized swimmer and triathlete who happened to see a commercial for Insanity one night. The DVD workouts were created by celebrity trainer Shaun T and provide a variety of intense fitness programs. 

“The idea of trying to do something very challenging really appealed to me,” she told Women’s Health. 

She wasn’t disappointed either. The workouts were just as challenging as advertised. Cavanagh said the first couple weeks were so tough that she wanted to throw up. However, the workouts gradually became more manageable. 

She was hooked. 

The results of the hard training started to become more noticeable. Her core and upper body were stronger and the “little bit of flab” in her midsection had been toned. 

“I thought, ‘I’ve accomplished so much, why would I ever stop?'” she said. 

Cavanagh actually recorded each workout on a chart. It was only meant to track 60 days, but she kept going. Starting every weekday with a workout provided her with a goal that she could accomplish and feel good about. It was instrumental in helping her roll out of bed at 4:30 a.m. Fortunately, she’s a morning person anyway. 

“No matter how difficult my day is at work, it’s nice to know that it will never be as hard as my morning workout,” she says. 

For the last three years, Cavanagh has worked out pretty much everywhere with Insanity: on business trips, vacations, and in her driveway after Hurricane Sandy. Finishing 1,000 workouts is impressive, but Cavanagh said the most rewarding thing is the sense of confidence she has gained. 

“After this, I feel like there’s nothing that can scare me in work or in life,” she said. “By doing this workout routine, I’ve learned that you can break down a really big challenge and just do it. “