Issue 2

ISSUE 2

HEALTH & FITNESS MAKING THE CONNECTION BETWEEN MIND AND BODY

It’s not about changing your lifestyle, it’s about changing the style of your life.

P. 3

CUTTING EDGE

P. 4-5

REGENERATE

P. 8

ESTABLISH A RHYTHM

Spring Edition

PRESCRIBED PERSPECTIVE

2010

By Stephen J. Downes, Owner, Fitness Clinician

“

Q&A

The Health-Fitness Connection

The prescribed approach makes all the difference.

Our results speak

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for themselves.

D

NEW & NOW

id you know that exercise and stress are intimately related? Exercise is actually a branch of stress physiology. If your fitness professional doesn’t associate the two, they probably won’t be able to design a truly individualized exercise program that will maximize your fitness levels and positively influence your health.

If you have a connective tissue injury, for example, exercise stress will increase the architectural structure of the injured area, reducing or eliminating pain. But what kind of exercise should you do, and how much? The answer depends on the individual and the injury.

Now consider an average healthy person dealing with normal everyday stressors. How much exercise stress is required to get in the best shape of your life? The answer is less than the industry would lead you to believe, as long as it’s safe, intense exercise that takes your unique needs into account.

The prescribed approach makes all the difference. Our results speak for themselves. If you’re ready to improve the quality of your life, give us a call.

FITNESS CLINICIAN DEFINED: One who prescribes, administers, monitors, and problem-solves fitness training and nutrition relative to individual needs for the general exercise enthusiast, special populations or injury rehabilitation.

A Fitness Clinician is not a personal trainer, who works primarily as a motivational exercise coach and may not have the skills to take on the responsibilities of a Fitness Clinician.

When I’m explaining PEC’s services, I like to stress the correlation between health and fitness levels. By investing in fitness now, you’re ensuring greater health for yourself later.

And yes, I do believe that fitness is an investment.

Clients often mention that since starting at PEC they’ve cut their grocery bills in half, or reduced their alcohol consumption, saving money and justifying our service cost.

It’s not uncommon for people to spend $200-500 on hair care a month, but they hesitate to spend money to increase their fitness levels and positively influence their health. Where are you spending your money?

Are you getting a decent return on your investment?

Your investment in PEC will increase your fitness, reduce or eliminate pain or discomfort, make you feel energetic and more attractive, and most importantly keep you healthy.

What Not to Eat

Q FROM THE CUTTING EDGE Trendy Balls and Boards

You’ve seen those trendy balls and boards that purport to build stability in your core, but do they really work? Building core stability requires balance, coordination and strength, but can you get that from a ball?

To build stability, you need to practice the movements you want to improve and build strength in the areas you’re using. You need to work your muscles through their full motion range -- intensely and to full fatigue -- to force change. Bottom line: Balancing practice alone – like the kind you get from a ball-- does little more than make you better at balancing on a exercise ball or board.

Machine of the Month What’s the secret to a great abdominal workout? It’s all about working the abs – and nothing else. With most ab machines, you work your abs, but you also move your hips, back, arms and legs, allowing them to share the burden of the workout. The MedX Ab Isolator neutralizes the hip flexor muscles and restricts arching of the spinal base, ensuring that you work your abs – and only your abs.

Can you give me a quick and easy way to take off a few pounds?

Diets often fail because we tend to forget the little things. If you can cut these three little things out of your diet, you should find it easier to lose weight.

1 Sauces

Sauces add flavour to your meals, but they’re usually full of salt, sugar and fat – exactly what you don’t want when you’re dieting.

Choose lower calorie sauces at the store. In restaurants, take control of your portions by asking for sauce on the side.

2 Condiments

Condiments seem so harmless that we tend to forget them when we’re counting calories, but think about this: A three-egg veggie omelette has 250 calories. Slather it in ketchup and the calorie count almost doubles. Looking for a low-calorie alternative? Try basic mustard or red hot sauce.

3 Liquids

It’s one thing to count the calories you eat, but what about the calories you drink? Milk, fruit juices and specialty coffees may seem benign, but they’re full of calories. Replace everything you drink with water and you’ll be amazed at how many calories you’ll cut.

THE FUNDAMENTALS

THE FUNDAMENTALS

Renewable You The body faces stress at every second of every day. Our ability to adapt to that stress is what keeps us alive. In order to survive, bodies have to regenerate and even strengthen when

Words of Wisdom From Your Fitness Clinician

by Tierney Winnett You’re eating what you’ve always eaten, but you’re either ravenous or not hungry.

needed. Think of a tan or a callous. Both are adaptations to

You’re fluctuating between

stress. Inside you at every moment, chemical communications

happy to be aggravated and

allow the rebuilding of damaged tissue and adjustments in

feeling. It’s like you are stuck in

metabolism to adapt to your environment.

sweating and freezing, you’re you can’t shake that bloated a PMS nightmare. And then there’s the weight gain.

As we enter the menopausal

I

t is precisely this miracle of adaptation which we tap into for fitness. By manipulating exercise stressors, we force positive, life-affirming adjustments. Proper exercise repairs and restores our physiology. It protects us, renews us and makes us resilient.

Our tissues are durable, but over time bones thin, tendons become brittle and muscles atrophy.

Effective fitness restores balance, stimulating those amazing adaptations.

Good nutrition does the same. Processing excessive calories, unneeded nutrients and toxins leads to breakdown in the body. A proper diet doesn’t just make you look and feel better; it reduces suffering and saves.

Eating and drinking to build a healthy body should be handled with care. Dieting is hard on the system.

In nature, fat loss only occurs naturally during starvation and serious illness. This should make it

clear how important nutrition is.

years, our hormone levels plummet. The drop in estrogen causes the body to compensate by increasing

Proper fitness enhances wellness by utilizing our rejuvenating powers. For exercise and nutrition to positively affect the body, they should be prescribed and individualized. We’re here to help you take advantage of your incredible life-renewing abilities.

estrogen-containing fat cells.

Meanwhile, lowered progesterone causes the body to retain more fluid, and a drop in testosterone levels decreases your lean muscle building potential, shifting the metabolism into further decline.

Between the hormones and the uncomfortable symptoms, it’s no surprise that women have trouble staying motivated to exercise and

No one can avoid stress. The key is keeping good and bad stress in balance. P.E.C. can help you do that.

eat properly. That’s where your Certified Fitness Clinician can help. Call us and find out how.

NEXT STEPS

NEXT STEPS

A Healthy Choice

This delicious, balanced, low-calorie meal is ready to eat after a five-minute steam in the microwave. With caloric loads ranging from 210 to 300, all eight flavours provide a good serving of vegetables and a nice balance of protein and carbohydrates. But the real bonus is in the design. Each dish has an upper steamer section, which allows the food to cook quickly and thoroughly while remaining nicely fluffed and full, providing a satisfying experience while retaining the nutrients.

The Truth about

Skipping Meals I

t’s no secret that overeating puts the wrong kind of stress on your body, but did you know that undereating is just as bad?

At the first sign of starvation, our bodies’ subsystems join forces to protect us. The result is an increase in the rate at which we make and store fat: Our metabolisms downshift to burn fewer calories and conserve energy, and we send

a hormonal signal to create hunger cravings, which sets us for gorging. Going several hours without food causes a snowball effect that is practically impossible to stop, let alone ignore.

Our bodies suffer when they don’t get what they need right now. Even if you’re carrying excess fat, it doesn’t mean that in the immediate present you can skip eating. First

Are you looking for an easy, tasty option to help you keep in the diet groove while you’re building healthy habits?

While you can’t beat homemade fresh organic meals for nutrient density and bio-availability, Healthy Choice is truly a wise choice. Add two eight-ounce glasses of water (one before and one during/after) for a complete, filling meal that will keep you on track.

off, although human body fat will keep you alive when you’re sick or starving, it isn’t a good source of nutrients. Secondly, it takes a lot of biological effort to convert it into energy. Besides, would you honestly consider your body fat a reasonable snack?

There’s no excuse for skipping meals, and being overweight doesn’t justify putting your body

Regular feeding is the healthy approach

through even more negative stress. Regular feeding is the healthy approach and, as with any of our rhythmic functions, when we fall off, there’s no point in beating ourselves up over it. We all slip up from time to time.

Success comes from getting right back in the game and re-establishing the flow.

THE 90-DAY CHALLENGE

ESTABLISH A RHYTHM TO YOUR DIET of all these little tumbles is often tough to spot. Going too long without food, followed by a poor snack choice or an extra helping in an otherwise reasonable meal, is often the culprit.

Writing down what you eat and when, even for a few days, can teach you a lot.

A big step toward improving your fitness level is finding balance and rhythm in your life. A good place to start is with food.

Take the next 90 days and establish a rhythm to your diet.

A good rule of thumb is to stick to three meals and two snacks a day. At first don’t be overly concerned about food choices. Just work to keep meals and snacks reasonable in size and regular in interval.

The idea isn’t just to avoid overeating, but also to avoid setting yourself up for hunger and cravings. Keep regular nutrients flowing in and through you. Combine this with plenty of water you’ll benefit from better blood sugar levels, higher energy and better fitness levels.

Next, try tracking what you eat in a journal. Unwanted body weight is most often caused by an accumulation of small missteps, not big ones. The cause

PRESCRIBED RESULTS “I train at Prescribed Exercise Clinic and I am extremely impressed with their knowledge regarding

fitness training and nutrition, and their attention to safety. I enjoy the wide variety of exercises that are

possible with the state of the art equipment at PEC. “ - Dr. Stephen Bagg

“I frequently recommend therapeutic exercise” “Before I discovered PEC, I spent 15 hours a week training. For the past two years I have spent just 1.5 hours per week training with

PEC and am in the best physical condition of my adult life. I recently realized my goal of competing and placing well at my first

‘all-natural’ bodybuilding competition. ” -- Jeff Weston

“I am in the best physical condition of my adult life” Stephen J. Downes, MFC Clinical Director/Owner prescribedexerciseclinic.com 702 Arlington Park Place Kingston, ON K7M 7N7 613.453.6284

Do you know someone that you would like to receive this quarterly delivery, contact us at Sdownes@prescribedexerciseclinic.com, to place them on our mailing list.