WDSU Interviews Nolan Ferraro

How to Keep Yourself From Starting The New Year As Round As Santa

Okay, here it is - part 3 of our "Battling The Holiday Bulge (and winning)" series. (see the related features section below for links to parts 1 and 2).

The Average American gains 7 - 12 pounds between Halloween and New Year's and studies show that most will abandon their fitness programs.

Yes, I know, I've already said this but it bears repeating. Between the parties, high fat foods, alcohol and hectic schedules who has the time (or the inclination for that matter) to worry about exercise, never mind healthy eating?

Most people are busy putting off their healthy eating and exercise programs "until the 1st of the year." That is, until they try to get into their clothes or get a good look in the department store mirror.

There is still time to formulate a plan that will have you closer to the fitness goals on the first of the year instead of looking at an extra 7-12 pounds of ugly fat. These easy tips will help you get through the holidays with a minimum of stress and weight gain.

1. Don't try to "diet" during the holidays. Instead set a goal of trying to maintain your present weight. This way, you have a realistic goal. Since , as I have previously mentioned, the Average American gains 7-12 pounds, you will still be ahead of the game. You can allow yourself to indulge here and there, but you won't go over the edge.

2. Pay attention to how quickly you eat and exactly what you eat and drink. Chew your food slowly and focus on your companions and the social aspects of each event .

3. Remember that alcohol is packed with calories. Choose light beer and wine over mixed drinks. A holiday-sized mixed drink can have as many a 300- 500 calories or more.

4. Offer to bring a favorite low-calorie dish to holiday parties. This way you'll know there will be at least one "safe" item.

5. Make the effort to continue a regular exercise program. Find a buddy or consult with a professional to help you keep yourself on track. Aim for 2 to 3 thirty minute sessions per week (remember - a little bit is better than none).

6. Never go to a party or event on an empty stomach. Before going out, snack on protein, like chicken or cottage cheese. Protein satisfies and will help you eat less.

7. Keep an eye on your portion sizes. In the heat of celebration, portion sizes can be quite excessive.

8. Don't let a hectic holiday schedule force you to eat fast food. Prepare and freeze several quick, healthy meals. That way, you have an option other than high-fat, fast-food meals.

9. Avoid Tasting While Cooking. You will be appalled at how quickly the calories add up. Get a family member to taste the food for you.

By, Dianne Villano
http://www.fabulousliving.com/index.php?option=com_resource&controller=article&category_id=238&article=21343

A Salire Fitness Moment - Holiday Fitness Tips

Is the Exercise Cool-Down Really Necessary?

By GINA KOLATA
Published: October 13, 2009
By: New York Times

MY husband and I were riding our bikes not long ago, and when we were about a mile from home, we did our usual thing. We call it the sprint to the finish: ride as hard and as fast as we can until we reach our driveway, racing to see who could get there first.

We pulled up, slammed on our brakes and hopped off our bikes. A neighbor was walking by and said, “How did you do that?”

“I just put on my brakes,” I told him. No, he said, he meant how could we just stop like that without cooling down?

Strange as it might seem, that had never occurred to me. But the cool-down is enshrined in training lore. It’s in physiology textbooks, personal trainers often insist on it, fitness magazines tell you that you must do it — and some exercise equipment at gyms automatically includes it. You punch in the time you want to work out on the machine and when your time is up, the machine automatically reduces the workload and continues for five minutes so you can cool down.

The problem, says Hirofumi Tanaka, an exercise physiologist at the University of Texas, Austin, is that there is pretty much no science behind the cool-down advice.

The cool-down, Dr. Tanaka said, “is an understudied topic.”

”Everyone thinks it’s an established fact,” he added, “so they don’t study it.”

It’s not even clear what a cool-down is supposed to be. Some say you just have to keep moving for a few minutes — walking to your car after you finish a run rather than stopping abruptly and standing there. Others say you have to spend 5 to 10 minutes doing the same exercise, only slowly. Jog after your run, then transition into a walk. Still others say that a cool-down should include stretching.

And it’s not clear what the cool-down is supposed to do. Some say it alleviates muscle soreness. Others say it prevents muscle tightness or relieves strain on the heart.

Exercise researchers say there is only one agreed-on fact about the possible risk of suddenly stopping intense exercise. When you exercise hard, the blood vessels in your legs are expanded to send more blood to your legs and feet. And your heart is pumping fast. If you suddenly stop, your heart slows down, your blood is pooled in your legs and feet, and you can feel dizzy, even pass out.

The best athletes are most vulnerable, said Dr. Paul Thompson, a cardiologist and marathon runner who is an exercise researcher at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut.

“If you are well trained, your heart rate is slow already, and it slows down even faster with exercise,” he said. “Also, there are bigger veins with a large capacity to pool blood in your legs.”

That effect can also be deleterious for someone with heart disease, said Carl Foster, an exercise physiologist at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, because blood vessels leading to the heart are already narrowed, making it hard for blood to get in. “That’s always a concern,” Dr. Foster said. “But to my knowledge there is not a wealth of experimental data.”

But does it matter for the ordinary, average athlete? “Probably not a great deal,” Dr. Thompson said. And, anyway, most people don’t just stand there, stock still, when their workout is over. They walk to the locker room or to their house or car, getting the cool-down benefit without officially “cooling down.”

The idea of the cool-down seems to have originated with a popular theory — now known to be wrong — that muscles become sore after exercise because they accumulate lactic acid. In fact, lactic acid is a fuel. It’s good to generate lactic acid, it’s a normal part of exercise, and it has nothing to do with muscle soreness. But the lactic acid theory led to the notion that by slowly reducing the intensity of your workout you can give lactic acid a chance to dissipate.

Yet, Dr. Foster said, even though scientists know the lactic acid theory is wrong, it remains entrenched in the public’s mind.

“It’s an idea we can’t get rid of,” he said.

In fact, Dr. Tanaka said, one study of cyclists concluded that because lactic acid is good, it is better not to cool down after intense exercise. Lactic acid was turned back into glycogen, a muscle fuel, when cyclists simply stopped. When they cooled down, it was wasted, used up to fuel their muscles.

As far as muscle soreness goes, cooling down doesn’t do anything to alleviate it, Dr. Tanaka said. And there is no physiological reason why it should.

That’s also the conclusion of a study of muscle soreness by South African researchers who asked 52 healthy adults to walk backward downhill on a treadmill for 30 minutes — an exercise that can cause sore leg muscles. The participants were randomly assigned to cool down by walking slowly uphill for 10 minutes or simply to stop exercising. The result, the researchers reported, was that cooling down did nothing to prevent sore muscles.

And muscle tightness?

“In a different generation we would have called it an old wives’ tale,” Dr. Foster said. “Now I guess I’d call it an old physiologists’ tale. There are no data to support the idea that a cool-down helps.” But, he added, once again, “it’s an idea we can’t get rid of.”

Exercise researchers say they act on their own advice.

Dr. Thompson says if he is doing a really hard track workout he will jog for a short distance when he finishes to avoid becoming dizzy. If he runs a half marathon, he will “start shuffling forward,” after he crosses the finish line, for the same reason.

As for Dr. Tanaka, he does not cool down at all. He’s a soccer player and, he says, he sees no particular reason to do anything after exercising other than just stop.

A Salire Fitness Moment - Triceps Bench Dips

New Orleans Boot Camp with Salire Fitness

The Human Body Is Built for Distance

Does running a marathon push the body further than it is meant to go?

The conventional wisdom is that distance running leads to debilitating wear and tear, especially on the joints. But that hasn’t stopped runners from flocking to starting lines in record numbers.

Last year in the United States, 425,000 marathoners crossed the finish line, an increase of 20 percent from the beginning of the decade, Running USA says. Next week about 40,000 people will take part in the New York City Marathon. Injury rates have also climbed, with some studies reporting that 90 percent of those who train for the 26.2-mile race sustain injuries in the process.

But now a best-selling book has reframed the debate about the wisdom of distance running. In “Born to Run” (Knopf), Christopher McDougall, an avid runner who had been vexed by injuries, explores the world of the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico, a tribe known for running extraordinary distances in nothing but thin-soled sandals.

Mr. McDougall makes the case that running isn’t inherently risky. Instead, he argues that the commercialization of urban marathons encourages overzealous training, while the promotion of high-tech shoes has led to poor running form and a rash of injuries.

“The sense of distance running being crazy is something new to late-20th-century America,” Mr. McDougall told me. “It’s only recently that running has become associated with pain and injury.”

The scientific evidence supports the notion that humans evolved to be runners. In a 2007 paper in the journal Sports Medicine, Daniel E. Lieberman, a Harvard evolutionary biologist, and Dennis M. Bramble, a biologist at the University of Utah, wrote that several characteristics unique to humans suggested endurance running played an important role in our evolution.

Most mammals can sprint faster than humans — having four legs gives them the advantage. But when it comes to long distances, humans can outrun almost any animal. Because we cool by sweating rather than panting, we can stay cool at speeds and distances that would overheat other animals. On a hot day, the two scientists wrote, a human could even outrun a horse in a 26.2-mile marathon.

Why would evolution favor the distance runner? The prevailing theory is that endurance running allowed primitive humans to incorporate meat into their diet. They may have watched the sky for scavenging birds and then run long distances to reach a fresh kill and steal the meat from whatever animal was there first.

Other research suggests that before the development of slingshots or bows, early hunters engaged in persistence hunting, chasing an animal for hours until it overheated, making it easy to kill at close range. A 2006 report in the journal Current Anthropology documents persistence hunting among modern hunter-gatherers, including the Bushmen in Africa.

“Ancient humans exploited the fact that humans are good runners in the heat,” Dr. Bramble said. “We have such a great cooling system” — many sweat glands, little body hair.

There is other evidence that evolution favored endurance running. A study in The Journal of Experimental Biology last February showed that the short toes of the human foot allowed for more efficient running, compared with longer-toed animals. Increasing toe length as little as 20 percent doubles the mechanical work of the foot. Even the fact that the big toe is straight, rather than to the side, suggests that our feet evolved for running.

“The big toe is lined up with the rest, not divergent, the way you see with apes and our closest nonrunning relatives,” Dr. Bramble said. “It’s the main push-off in running: the last thing to leave the ground is that big toe.”

Springlike ligaments and tendons in the feet and legs are crucial for running. (Our close relatives the chimpanzee and the ape don’t have them.) A narrow waist and a midsection that can turn allow us to swing our arms and prevent us from zigzagging on the trail. Humans also have a far more developed sense of balance, an advantage that keeps the head stable as we run. And most humans can store about 20 miles’ worth of glycogen in their muscles.

And the gluteus maximus, the largest muscle in the human body, is primarily engaged only during running. “Your butt is a running muscle; you barely use it when you walk,” Dr. Lieberman said. “There are so many features in our bodies from our heads to our toes that make us good at running.”

So if we’re born to run, why are runners so often injured? A combination of factors is likely to play a role, experts say. Exercise early in life can affect the development of tendons and muscles, but many people don’t start running until adulthood, so their bodies may not be as well developed for distance. Running on only artificial surfaces and in high-tech shoes can change the biomechanics of running, increasing the risks of injury.

What’s the solution? Slower, easier training over a long period would most likely help; so would brief walk breaks, which mimic the behavior of the persistence hunter. And running on a variety of surfaces and in simpler shoes with less cushioning can restore natural running form.

Mr. McDougall says that while researching his book, he corrected his form and stopped using thickly cushioned shoes. He has run without injury for three years.

By TARA PARKER-POPE

New York Times

Salire is Offering a Boot Camp Discount $$$!!

Hello from Salire Fitness and Pilates!

We are so excited to be offering a Fourth boot camp in Metairie starting in October!

We are also very excited that after Donating $13,500 to the susan G. Komen Foundation to combat breast cancer we will be continuing our partnership with them for quit some time!

We have now also partnered with Desire Street Ministry and will be allowing partticipants the ability to choose from 3 awesome charities/non-profits:

Susan G. Komen

Desire Street Ministry

City Park

We are also very Excited that each of our clients will have the ability to get a 50% discount off of the already discounted price of only $100 or attend for absolutely FREE!

Bring 1 friend in October and receive 50% off of your enrollment fees or bring 3 friends to boot camp in October and attend for FREE!

Your eating habits can actually reduce bad cholesterol and diminish your dependency on medication!!!

We all know animal-based and highly processed foods contain more than there fair share of sugar, salts and fats!

“Clinical indicators of heart disease — high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol (especially the 'bad' cholesterol, LDL), high blood homocysteine and a couple of other indicators — also are important to consider but these occur mostly because of a bad diet. When total blood cholesterol is under 150 mg, almost no heart disease is observed. The usual range of total cholesterol in North America and other western countries is between 160 and 260 mg, so most of us are in trouble,” say nutrition and health expert Dr. T. Colin Campbell, professor emeritus of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell University and author of The China Study, which explores the connection between disease and diet. Dr. Campbell continues and states "There is evidence that diet alone can prevent and even reverse heart disease."


Dining Out advice from Dr Campbell:

-Consume a whole foods, plant-based diet (oats, whole wheat, dried beans, tofu, eggplant and almonds are all cholesterol-lowering foods)
-Eat lots of colored vegetables and fruits
-Restrict salt, sugar (refined carbs) and fat
-Add a regular exercise program
-Drink at least two quarts of good water per day
-Get some sunlight
-Sit back and enjoy

Septemeber Boot Camp

Salire's boot camps have taken off in the last few months. We hit an all time high in August (the hottest month of the year) with attendance around 160 people. We are in the process of wrapping August camps up and expecting September to be the biggest yet! We had the honor of presenting the Susan G Komen Foundation with a $13,500 check at the end of one of our camps where Regan Forrester, the president of the board accepted the check on behalf of this amazing foundation. Below is a picture of that event as well as some great shot taken of this month’s camps.

Salire Fitness and Pilates is Offering $20 Trio Reformer Classes

Summer Special of $20 per Reformer Trio Class!!!

Salire Fitness is excited to be offering a Summer special for the months of June, July, and August!

We are offering our "Trio Reformer Pilates Classes" for a Reduced rate of Only $20 per participant per class!

Please sign up now by calling or email Salire Fitness and Pilates at:

(504) 821-4896
salirefitness@yahoo.com

also see our website at:

www,salirefitness.com

Our classes are Awesome and focus on all of the Pilates fundamentals!

Obesity: Out Of Our Control?

What if it’s not your fault? What if your particular struggle with weight has a virus as its underlying cause? Some researchers think that there may be more to the problem of obesity than meets the eye. Sometimes there seems to be as many theories about what makes us fat as there are varieties of cookies lining supermarket shelves—unregulated sweets being prominent among the usual suspects.

Dr. Nihil Dhurandhar, a leading researcher in the field, thinks that viral infection may contribute to the development of obesity in some people. At least six different pathogens appear to promote weight gain in animals.

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Excercising When Sick

You’re coughing and sneezing but your exercise routine has achieved a nice rhythm and you don’t want to lose momentum. There are two voices in your head—one encouraging you to rest—the other urging you to get up and go. Now what do you do? It’s the toughest call in sports and it’s usually made under duress.

Outdoor conditions are perfect, the temperature and air quality ideal for a vigorous training session, and you’re saddled with a cold. Fear of prolonging the illness holds you back; the desire to work up a sweat spurs you on. What should you do, heed the advice of others to rest and wait it out, or follow your instincts, and run 5k despite the congestion?

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Good Reason to Sphere

The stability ball is a fantastic fitness accessory—versatile and challenging, it is a superb resource for developing core strength, balance and coordination. Oh, and it’s fun to play with too. How can something that’s so much fun be good for you too? If you’re looking to revive and combine the pleasures of an active childhood with all the incumbent health benefits, then consider incorporating the stability ball into your regular workout regimen.

Imagine yourself in the gym, lower back pressed against the vinyl exterior of a primary-colored 65cm orb, maintaining balance you shift into position to perform a one-legged variation of the crunch. Now imagine unveiling a powerful new physique shaped by a whole new inventory of these same kinds of exercises.

The versatility of the ball is fundamental to your strength gain.

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Keeping Your Head In The Game

The mental aspect in the game of Golf is very interesting and often misunderstood. Once you know how your mind works, you can figure out what went wrong in the past and adjust your thinking for the future. I'm sure that this seems obvious, but is it?

Confidence is how you think about the way you play golf. When you're playing, what are your predominant thoughts? Do you concentrate on hitting good shots, or does your mind wander and think about the worst that can happen (e.g. knock it in the lake)?

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Balance on The Field

Lots of activity is a great boon to children physically and psychologically—the trick for parents and coaches is in knowing when to draw the line. When it comes to your child and the sporting life, vigilance and informed judgment are key. The heart of your little champion is fragile and potentially at risk. Overtraining is an issue at any age and pre-teens or adolescents that compete at intense athletic levels are especially vulnerable.

Youth doesn’t confer immunity from the perils of overuse, yet some parents and coaches demand as much from today’s young competitors as once was expected of Olympic athletes. It’s not uncommon, for example, for teenage swimmers to do 20,000 yards of pool work a day, which is double what Mark Spitz swam in preparation for the 1972 Munich games.

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5 Secrets To Keeping The Weight Off For Good

I have very little interest these days in all the media-hyped stories of dramatic, rapid losses of body weight. “Big losers” don’t impress me, for numerous reasons. For example, weight is not fat. “Weight” could be composed of mostly lean tissue, or it could be mostly water weight. In fact, I would go a step further and point out that rapid loss of bodyweight correlates very highly with a greater chance of relapse, weight re-gain and long term failure. So what does impress me? What gets my attention?

I pay attention to what the “long term maintainers” have to say - those are the people who have maintained an ideal weight for over a year… preferably even 2-5 years or more.

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Ancient Eating Habits

They may have relied on the spear instead of the supermarket but our Stone Age ancestors could probably teach us a thing or two about eating for good health.

Our primitive predecessors consumed a diet high in protein, carbohydrates and monounsaturated fats, eating lean meat, fruit, vegetables, nuts and fish. Although we live longer, they were healthier, taller, faster and physically stronger.

Ancient eating habits are currently the subject of a modern revival as advocates of hunter-gatherer-based eating, called the Paleolithic, Stone Age or Caveman Diet, cite its many health benefits, including weight reduction. “This is not a weight loss diet per se, but rather a lifetime plan of eating that will optimize health and reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and many other chronic diseases that are epidemic in the U.S. and virtually all other westernized nations,” says Dr. Loren Cordain, professor of health and exercise at Colorado State University.

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Fibromyalgi- What?

There’s good news for the more than six million sufferers of fibromyalgia, a chronic disorder that affects the muscles and skeletal system. Exercise can help relieve the pain.

You’re in a world of hurt and all you want to do is pull the covers over your head and make that world go away. Exhausted, depressed and frustrated, the last thing on your mind is exercise. Well, you know what they say about when the going gets tough—and fibromyalgia is a tough way to go.

Estimates suggest that this chronic condition affects between three to six million Americans, all but ten to twenty per cent of them women. Fibromyalgia can inflict havoc among sufferers who complain about widespread symptoms including, insomnia, depression, dizziness, anxiety, poor concentration, facial pain, irritable bowel and bladder, persistent pain in muscles, ligaments and tendons and pressure pain in the back of the head, upper back and neck, knees, elbows, hips and chest.

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Cinnamon And Your Health

Cinnamon is the elite star performer in your spice rack, which may represent exciting news for people suffering from or at risk for Type 2 Diabetes. If you hear the word cinnamon and the first thing you do is mentally pair it with the word bun—then maybe it’s time to expand your vocabulary—along with your understanding of what this ancient spice may contribute to your health.

Aromatic and flavorful, cinnamon, which contains iron, calcium, potassium, manganese, zinc, vitamins B3, A and C. and dietary fiber, is native to Sri Lanka and has been prized as a culinary treasure over much time and many cultures.

A form of peeled, dried and scraped tree bark, cinnamon is a traditional component of folk medicine used to stimulate the appetite, aid in digestion, and help relieve the symptoms of colds and flu—cinnamon oil may also prevent the growth of bacteria and fungi.

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Row Your Body into Shape

You’ve got to have both the heart and stroke if you plan to make rowing a serious part of your workout—the amazing results are well worth the intense commitment levels. Condition the whole body and engage every major muscle group and you don’t even need to get wet.

One look at the finely sculpted physique of a competitive rower tells you all you need to know about this compelling exercise, which is ideally suited to the human form. Rowers have the distinction of being, if not the fittest athletes in the world, certainly among the best proportioned. Their powerful legs are complemented by well-defined shoulders and arms, which are perfectly tapered from the smooth, rhythmic action of the stroke.

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The Pre-Workout Meal

Proper nutrition is a critical component of your fitness regimen. Understanding the physical demands of exercise is the first step to making informed choices—fueling up pre-workout is as important as choosing the right foods to guarantee a good recovery post workout.

Feeling sluggish and lightheaded before or after your workout? You may not be feeding your body properly before exercise or refueling adequately enough to be ready to hit the treadmill running the next day.

Understanding what the body needs before and after an intense workout is key to attaining an efficient balance between energy expended and energy taken in.

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Salire Fitness and Pilates and our radio interview has been chosen as a FEATURED press release! Read about it by clicking the starburst below...

Screen Saver

Just about everyone spends too much time in front of a monitor—the end result is eye strain, which can be uncomfortable and affect your ability to work. If you can’t take a break, then you can take some preventive measures to protect your vision.

Eyes may be all seeing, but they’re not all powerful, making them subject to strain, particularly after long sessions at the computer. Today the omnipresent computer screen is the single greatest source of eyestrain and chances are you’re feeling some or all of the effects—blurred vision, twitching, dry or burning eyes, headache pain, especially in the forehead, and problems focusing.

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The Sewing Circle of Life

Social scientists are talking up the benefits of gossip, arguing that idle chatter serves society in a number of ways. Do your bit for civilization by paying attention to the grapevine. Gossip: it’s a social activity as old as time, uniting human beings around the world. Men do it just as much as women and some statistics claim it accounts for as much as two-thirds of all human communication.

Though often derided as one of humanity’s most shameful modes of interaction, some anthropologists and researchers have uncovered gossip’s good side.

Believe it or not discussing a co-worker’s poor work habits or a family member’s unpleasant attitude doesn’t just provide a much-needed outlet for pent-up frustration—it’s one way we establish acceptable modes of behavior as a group and create enduring bonds.

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