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Greetings!
Fall is in full swing and with the holidays right around the corner, now is the perfect time to prioritize your health and fitness. As your calendar fills up, be sure to carve out time for your workouts. You'll look and feel so much better for it! If you are still a slave to seemingly endless sessions on cardio equipment, read on to find out how you can cut your workout time in half while burning even more calories.
In keeping with our theme of eating with the seasons, we are featuring a delicious pumpkin millet recipe. While not yet main stream, millet is one of the healthiest whole grains. Wheat and gluten free, millet is high in iron and magnesium, and healthy for your heart. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Now is the perfect time to make an appointment with your doctor for an annual breast exam if you haven't already. It is so important to get checked and to stay on top of your health. You won't regret it. Our newest team member, Megan Fitzgerald, has some spots available, so if you or a loved one are looking to shape up, now is the time! We also offer gift certificates which make great stocking stuffers.Our next boot camp series kicks off on Tuesday, November 22nd. It sells out quickly, so sign up now. It is the most effective, challenging, rewarding group workout in San Francisco. Click here for more information.
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Step Your Game Up!
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Keeping The "Work" In Your Workout
By Megan Driscoll
Right now, in gyms across the country, people are gaining
weight. They are cruising along mindlessly on an elliptical machine, many while watching television, sipping a high calorie, high sugar sports drink. While this physical activity may be better for their heart and lungs than sitting on the sofa, I'll bet none realize their trip to the gym was a net gain for their waistline. This is because they are taking in more calories (sugary sports drink) than they are actually burning. Or, they feel so righteous about this visit to the gym that they overindulge, thinking they burned off many more calories than they actually did. It happens....then people get frustrated because they aren't seeing results, so they quit. Or they keep going. Every day, at the same time, on the same piece of equipment, doing the same thing. Sure enough, despite these daily workouts, their body always looks the SAME.
If you are a slave to cardio equipment, listen up. Planting yourself on an elliptical machine for 45 minutes at a set level is not going to help you lose weight, burn body fat or improve your fitness level. Steady state exercise is not an efficient method of training, nor is it effective. It will not produce the metabolic effect you are looking for because it is not a significant enough stimulus to your system. One of the human body's main objectives is to expend as little energy as possible. In order to do this, the body readily adapts to the demands placed on it (ie: it becomes more efficient at them). So while at first this steady 45 minutes on cardio equipment may have yielded some results, (even though you are not optimizing your time), within a few weeks, your body will become more efficient and will be expending less calories. This was a useful trait for survival, when food was scarce, but not so in today's day and age.
Enter interval training. Not just for athletes and not just used on the playing field. By definition, interval training consists of short, high-intensity efforts followed by periods of recovery. It is an effective way to train for many reasons. It prevents plateaus by constantly changing the stimulus before your body can adapt. Plus you are finally working at an intensity that produces results.
Working for an hour on cardio equipment at a steady pace can degenerate joints, cause overuse injuries, decrease immune function and increase the body's inflammatory response. Interval training on the other hand trains the heart at multiple intensities, increasing its capacity. It increases immune function, reduces risk for joint wear and tear, increases the residual metabolic rate following exercise, and offers increased anti-oxidant protection.
Interval training not only burns more calories than steady state exercise during a workout, but it boosts the body's ability to burn calories and fat after the workout. This phenomenon is known as excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC), and it plays a key role in weight loss.
Click here to continue reading and for a sample workout
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Getting Your Zzzzzzzz's
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Early To Bed, Early to Rise:
Study Suggests It's Keeping Kids Leaner
"Early to bed and early to rise" appears to have helped a cross-section of early-bird Australian youths keep slimmer and more physically active than their night-owl peers, even though both groups got the same amount of sleep.
A study in the Oct. 1 issue of the journal Sleep recorded the bedtimes and wake times of 2,200 Australian participants, ages 9 to 16, and compared their weights and uses of free time over four days. Children who went to bed late and got up late were 1.5 times more likely to become obese than those who went to bed early and got up early. Furthermore, late-nighters were almost twice as likely to be physically inactive and 2.9 times more likely to sit in front of the TV and computer or play video games for more hours than guidelines recommend.
"The children who went to bed late and woke up late, and the children who went to bed early and woke up early got virtually the same amount of sleep in total," said co-author Carol Maher, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow with the University of South Australia. "Scientists have realized in recent years that children who get less sleep tend to do worse on a variety of health outcomes, including the risk of being overweight and obese. Our study suggests that the timing of sleep is even more important."
Maher said mornings are more conducive to physical activity for young people than nights, which offer prime-time TV programming and social networking opportunities. This relationship between time of day and available activities might explain why more sedentary and screen-based behaviors were observed with later bedtimes, she said. At a time when research is showing that teenagers have a natural tendency to stay up late and wake late, the results of this study could stand as a warning.
"It is widely accepted that the sleep patterns of adolescents are fundamentally different from children and adults, and that it is normal for adolescents to stay up very late and sleep in late in the morning," Maher said. "Our findings show that this sleeping pattern is associated with unfavorable activity patterns and health outcomes, and that the adolescents who don't follow this sleep pattern do better."
Other findings from the University of South Australia study:
- Early-bed/early-risers went to bed 70 to 90 minutes earlier, woke up 60 to 80 minutes earlier and accumulated 27 minutes more moderate to vigorous physical activity each day than late-risers.
- Late-bed/late-risers watched TV, played video games or were online 48 minutes longer each day than early-bed/early risers, primarily between 7 p.m. and midnight.
- Only 12 percent of late-bed/late-risers had an average of two hours or less screen time per day, which is recommended for children and teens by the Australian Department of Health and Aging. In comparison, 28 percent of early-bed/early risers met the recommendation for screen time.
- On a broad scale, late-bed/late-risers replaced about 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity with 30 minutes of sedentary behavior each day, relative to the early-bed/early-rise group.
- Body-mass index (BMI) scores were higher in late-risers than early-risers, and late-risers were more likely to be overweight or obese.
- Late-bed/late-risers tended to have few siblings, live in major cities, come from lower household incomes and have a part-time job.
Courtesy of ScienceDaily.com
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Breast Cancer Awareness Month
| | Self Breast Exams
Courtesy of USCF Medical Center
All women should check their breasts for lumps, thicknesses 
and other changes every month. By examining your breasts regularly, you will know how your breasts normally feel. If a change should happen in your breasts, you will be able to identify it and let your doctor know.
- Check your breasts about one week after your period. Checking your breasts in the shower can be a convenient way to get the self exam into your routine.
- Press firmly with the pads of your fingers. Move your left hand over your right breast in a circle. Make sure to check all over and include the armpit.
- Now check your left breast with your right hand in the same way.
- You also should look at your breasts in a mirror. Look for any changes in how your breasts look.
If you find any lumps, thickenings or changes, tell your doctor right away. Most breast lumps are not cancer, but you don't know if you don't ask. Breast cancer may be successfully treated if you find it early.
This information was contributed by the American Cancer Society (ACS). For more information visit the the ACS website.
The American Cancer Society believes the use of mammography, clinical breast examination and breast self-examination offers women the best opportunity for reducing the breast cancer death rate through early detection. This combined approach is clearly better than any one examination. The American Cancer Society does not recommend relying solely on any of these methods.
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Healthy & Delicious Recipe
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Creamy Pumpkin with Millet
Ingredients: 
- 1 can pumpkin or 2 C fresh pumpkin
- 1 C frozen spinach
- 1 can garbanzo beans
- 1/2 t cinnamon
- 1/2 t coriander
- 1 t cumin
- 1/2 t salt
- 1/2 white onion
- 1 T extra virgin olive oil
- 2 C water
- 1 C millet
Directions:
- Drain and rinse the can of garbanzo beans. Toss with the cinnamon, coriander, cumin and dash of salt.
- Put garbanzo beans on cookie sheet (parchment paper or with cookie spray) and bake at 400 for 15 minutes.
- Prepare millet according to package instructions (2 C boiled water + 1 C millet)
- Dice 1/2 onion and sauté in olive oil until tender.
- Add the pumpkin, spinach and salt to the pan with the onions. Stir and put on low heat.
- Add the cooked millet to the pumpkin mix. Add the garbanzo beans.
Courtesy of Hangrypants.com
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Stay healthy and strong!
See you in the gym,
Megan, Jakki, Jesse, Tracey, Megan F. & Simon
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