I hope you are enjoying the beautiful weather this Labor Day weekend.

It’s the time of the year when many of you will be getting back to a more structured routine, and so it is a perfect time to recommit to your health and fitness. If you’ve been waiting until after Labor Day to start or resume your exercise program, well that day has arrived; give us a call at 610-35-0935 to get on the schedule.

And if you’ve made a promise to yourself to start eating healthier, then here is a web site with a great 21-day plan (starting tomorrow) to kickstart your health. The timing could not be better!

In the meantime, I hope you have the chance to spend the weekend with friends and relatives, and enjoy the unofficial end of summer.

To your health and happiness…

Brian Stelter, a writer for the New York Times, set a goal to lose 25 pounds in 25 weeks. He knew the importance of accountability in helping him achieve this goal, and he chose a unique, and as it turned out, highly effective approach to holding himself accountable.

At Fitness Together, accountability is at the heart of what we do. Whether your goal is to lose weight, increase strength and mobility, or have more energy, our personal trainers will not only design and deliver effective workouts, they will hold you accountable to your goals. As has been mentioned in previous newsletters, research has shown that people who keep some type of journal are much more successful in achieving their goals. And the results at our studio clearly support the research findings. Our most successful clients are those who are 100% committed to their goals and hold themselves accountable for achieving those goals, with the trainers playing a key supporting role in the process.

The form of accountability Brian chose was to use Twitter and to make postings of everything he ate; Brian referred to this as his “Twitter Diet”. Brian has been quite successful, losing close to 75 pounds in 25 weeks. To learn more about Brian’s weight loss journey, and to see what gadget he plans to get to help him maintain his weight loss, click here to read the story.

So if you have had trouble hitting some of your health and fitness goals, I highly recommend using some form of an Accountability Journal to keep yourself on target. Whether the journal is pen and paper or online (email exchanges with a trusted friend, blog postings, Facebook status updates, or like Brian, twitter postings), the critical point is to keep track of what you are doing, and have someone you can count on to provide support, encouragement, and sometimes, tough love, along the way. If you would like to send us an email update of what you are doing each day in terms of working towards your health and fitness goals (eating, walking, exercising, etc) we would be happy, and honored, to provide such support and encouragement to help you achieve your goals. Just hit reply on this email and we can get started!

To your health, happiness, and future tweets!

You can thank Julie for the idea for this week’s newsletter, and it’s a nice follow-up to our previous newsletter that talked about Habits as well. If you don’t know who Julie is, you can read a little bit about her here. If you don’t know who Julie is, you can . Julie has been with FT for over two years, and is not only a great trainer (she was named the top trainer by Philly Fit magazine in August 2008), but a true professional who cares deeply about her clients’ success. Julie sent me the following link, and it has some great advice related to both fitness and nutrition, so I thought I would be the middleman and pass it on to you.

10 Essential Food and Fitness Habits

The article nicely encapsulates much of the advice we have given over the past three years – proper nutrition is the key to health, strength training is essential, and food is best eaten in its natural, unprocessed state (i.e., whole foods). There’s even a nice little video clip included as part of one of the habits (hint – you can’t out-run/out-train a bad diet). I hope you enjoy the article, and once again, thank you Julie!

To your health and happiness…

One of the best books I have ever read is Stephen Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. For those of you who may not have read it, here is a quick run down of the 7 habits:

Habit 1: Be Proactive
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
Habit 3: Put First Things First
Habit 4: Think Win/Win
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood
Habit 6: Synergize
Habit 7: Sharpening the Saw

I just want to briefly talk about Habit 7, Sharpening the Saw, since it is the one that fits in most closely with what we do at Fitness Together. Here is an excerpt from Covey’s web site about this habit:

As you renew yourself in each of the four areas, you create growth and change in your life. Sharpen the Saw keeps you fresh so you can continue to practice the other six habits. You increase your capacity to produce and handle the challenges around you. Without this renewal, the body becomes weak, the mind mechanical, the emotions raw, the spirit insensitive, and the person selfish. Not a pretty picture, is it?

Feeling good doesn’t just happen. Living a life in balance means taking the necessary time to renew yourself. It’s all up to you.

I won’t even attempt to add to the brilliance of Covey’s writing, except to say I am a big believer in the power of the 7th Habit. If you would like to read another person’s take on the importance of this habit, here is a great blog posting by Steve Pavlina.

I encourage you to give some thought to what Covey and Pavlina have to say, but even more important – to act on it!

To your health and happiness…

This past week we celebrated out third anniversary, so I just want to say thanks!

Thank you to all of our friends and clients for your support of the studio and for your commitment to your health and fitness. I appreciate the trust you have shown in FT to help you achieve your health and fitness goals.

Thank you to our outstanding team of trainers; they are the ones who share their knowledge of, and passion for, fitness with our clients, and are as committed to the clients’ success as the clients are.

And finally, thank you to my family. While it has not been all smooth sailing for FT over the past three years, you have helped me to keep a positive attitude with your love and words of encouragement. Thank you for enabling me to pursue and share my passion for health and fitness, I am glad you have been on this journey with me.

To your health and happiness…

P.S. Now that I am finished teaching for the summer, I’ve spent the past few days immersed in the world of social media and updating our web sites. I will talk more about this in an upcoming newsletter, but in the meantime, feel free to check us out by clicking on any of the icons below

Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Yelp

And if you have 5 minutes, I’d be honored if you wrote a review about your experience at FT on Yelp! (You first have to sign-up for a free Yelp account, and then search for Fitness Together in Newtown Square.)

Year after year national guidelines urge Americans to do physical activity and eat a healthy plant-based diet. And year after year Americans become more sedentary and choose more highly-processed foods high in fat and calories. So what’s the disconnect? Are our healthy messages too complex? Do Americans not see the benefits of a healthy lifestyle? Or, perhaps, are Americans trying to change, but just not using the right strategies?

This week the American Heart Association released a Scientific Statement titled, “Interventions to Promote Physical Activity and Dietary Lifestyle Change for Cardiovascular Risk Factor Reduction in Adults”.

To see what the AHA identified as the most efficacious and effective strategies for lasting lifestyle change, click here to read a summary of the report from the Cooper Institute.
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If you did not get a chance to see the film Forks Over Knives this past week at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute, I just got notice that its official release will be March 11, 2011. The film provides compelling, scientifically-based, evidence on the power of a plant-based diet. The event at BMFI was a sellout, and Whole Foods the sponsor of the event, had lots of great foods to sample (including Green Smoothies!). It was a pleasure to meet Rip Esselstyn, who did some Q&A after the screening. Rip is the author of the Engine 2 Diet, and is featured in the film, along with his father, the author of “Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease: The Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven, Nutrition-Based Cure“. Colin Campbell, the author of the groundbreaking “The China Study“, is also featured prominently in the movie. If you are looking for some great reading, I highly recommend all three books!

To your health and happiness…

I hope all is well with you. I’ll keep this one short and sweet.

This Monday night (July 26) is the local premiere of the movie “Forks over Knives”. The feature film examines the profound claim that most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by being more conscious of our food choices. Here is the link to the official film web site.

The movie will be shown at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute; for details on tickets and show time, please click here.

I look forward to seeing you there!

To your health and happiness…

Although no prediction is set in stone, it is possible to estimate your life span based on certain genetic, demographic, and lifestyle factors. Each factor – and the amount of years it adds or subtracts from your baseline life expectancy – is documented by hundreds of medical studies.

To find out what your life expectancy is, click here. The longevity quiz takes less than 5 minutes.This is similar to another online quiz mentioned in a Wellness Wednesday newsletter last summer – “Living to 100“, which many of you found both enjoyable and informative.

While it is fun to try and estimate how long you may live, to me the real message is understanding what the key longevity factors are and how much of an impact they have on your life span. The two web sites mentioned are fairly consistent in identifying what those key factors are, things like smoking, nutrition, exercise, sleep, family medical history, and social habits. There’s probably not too many surprises in that list (flossing is on both lists, and it always surprises me how important it is to your overall health), but it’s always helpful to be reminded of these things on occasion and what impact they have on your health, wellness, and longevity.

If you’re curious, the first quiz predicted my life span to be 97, and the “Living to 100″ quiz estimated it to be 93. While there’s a few things I can work on (flossing…), hitting my goal of living to 100 could be a stretch, at least according to these online tools.

If you take the quiz, I’d love to know what your predicted age is, so feel free to reply via email (jamesborden@fitnesstogether.com), this blog post, or through my Facebook page.

May you live long and prosper!

We all know the benefits of eating fruits and vegetables, or as Rip Esselstyn, the author of the Engine 2 Diet calls it, “being plant strong”.

Now there is research indicating that by just being outside with nature, surrounding yourself with forests, parks and other places with plenty of trees – people can experience increased immune function.

In one study, scientists found that being among plants produced “lower concentrations of cortisol, lower pulse rate, and lower blood pressure,” among other things. Other studies have shown that visiting parks and forests seems to raise levels of white blood cells.

While I wouldn’t recommend going for a hike in the middle of the day during our current heat wave, perhaps you can squeeze in an occasional early morning walk at Ridley State Park or the trails at the Willows. It’s not only good for your heart, it’s good for your immune system!

As for the free beer, Whole Foods Market in Plymouth Meeting PA is having a beer tasting event this Friday from 5pm – 7pm. The line up includes: Kronenbourg 1664, Fuller’s ESB, Otter Creek Solstice, Abita Purple Haze, Turbodog, and Satsuma Harvest Wit! All you need is your ID – no money necessary, this event is FREE!

And speaking of Whole Foods, I want to remind you that you can arrange for a personal tour of Whole Foods in Devon by just giving them a call at 610.688.9400. And one final reminder related to Whole Foods – they are sponsoring the only area showing of the film “Forks over Knives”. The movie will be shown at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute on Monday, July 26 at 7:30. Click here for more details. We will be there taking body fat measurements prior to the screening!

In the meantime, I’d recommend you try some of Burlap and Bean’s tempting menu items, such as their chilled watermelon gazpacho, or their summer special on Izze, as a way to keep cool during this heat wave. (By the way, congratulations to B&B on their selection to the 2010 Best of the Main Line and Western Suburbs!)

To your health and happiness…

This post ended up being longer than I thought, since my original intention was to just include a couple of links to some recent news reports about the latest dietary recommendations. However, there is such a wealth of information that I wanted to share, that I just could not leave anything out! I urge all of you to read the entire newsletter and check out the links – this is valuable information that affects not only your health, but the environment as well.

As many of you know, I have been a vegan for almost four years. Initially I became a vegan because I believed it was a healthier way to eat, but over time I have broadened my reasons for being vegan to include other issues, such as animal cruelty and environmental impacts. While I am a firm believer in the vegan lifestyle, I have never tried to force my views on anyone. However, if anyone asked me questions about why I am a vegan, where do I get my protein, or what’s with those green smoothies, I was more than happy to answer such questions.

When people asked for general nutrition advice, I usually avoided suggesting things like cutting dairy and meat out of your diet, and always said, “Just eat more fruits and veggies.” It’s hard to go wrong with such advice.

However, we seem to be at a point in time when the scientific evidence is becoming pretty clear on the power of what is known as a “plant-based diet”, and as a result I am becoming more at ease at recommending a vegan approach to eating.

For example, just yesterday, the Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services released the “Report of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010“. These are critical guidelines, since they can influence such things as the food pyramid, school lunches, and make or break companies in the food industry. The report notes that vegetarian diets are associated with a lower body mass index, lower blood pressure, and improved health outcomes. If you don’t feel like reading the entire report linked to above, here is a nice summary of the report from ABC News. This link also includes a video of Robin Roberts interviewing Richard Besser, ABC News Medical Editor and former Director of the CDC. Great stuff – I highly recommend you at least take three minutes to watch the video.

And less than a month ago, a report sponsored by the UN titled “Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Consumption and Production” recommended a shift away from animal-based protein diets to more vegetable-based foods to ease pressure on the environment. If you don’t feel like reading that full 100 plus page report, here is a link to a brief news story about the report.

And if the above two reports are not enough to convince you of the merits of a plant-based diet, Bob Harper, one of the trainers on The Biggest Loser, announced this week that he has gone vegan, cutting all animal products out of his diet, and shared that the switch to a cruelty-free diet has improved his health.

If you are interested in learning more about this style of eating, there are lots of great resources to assist you. I will just mention two right now. The first is a web site, the 21-day Vegan Kickstart, which offers tips, recipes, emails, and lots of other support materials. The next 21 day program begins on September 6, and is completely free!

The second resource is a book, “The Engine 2 Diet” by Rip Esselstyn. This book is phenomenal, and offers a 28 day program, with recipes, on how to successfully adopt a plant-based diet. And to make this even better, Rip is coming to the Bryn Mawr Film Institute on July 26 to participate in the first local screening of the documentary “Forks Over Knives“!

This event is sponsored by Whole Foods, and prior to the film there will be blood pressure screenings by Bryn Mawr Hospital, and Body Fat measurements by Fitness Together. Rip, along with Dr. Joel Fuhrman, are the two partners in Whole Foods national “Health Starts Here” program. It’s no surprise that both Rip and Dr. Fuhrman recommend a plant-based diet.

And finally, the link many of you may have been waiting for – a listing of the 9 worst things to order when eating out at a restaurant. Hopefully when you see this list, you will reconsider some of your dining habits!

If you’ve gotten this far, thank you for taking the time to read the newsletter. I hope you found the information useful, and if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask!

To your health and happiness