![]() Here we are on Christmas Eve. Many of us will be traveling and visiting family we may only see once or twice a year. We all have those relatives that drive us crazy. The overbearing mother, the screw-up sibling, or the drunk grandmother. Some of us will be buying last minute gifts as we scramble to spend every last penny to fulfill our perceived duty of gift giving. Lets not forget the creation of the perfect holiday feast! All these add up to a tremendous amount of stress! The holidays do not need to be so stressful. We can turn that stress into the "joy" that everyone talks about. Here, in the last "Staying Healthy for the Holidays" installment, are five easy stress reduction tips.
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Hello all, and welcome to the second installment of Staying Healthy for the Holidays. Ahhh...holidays, endless hours spent indoors watching holiday favorites like: "It's a Wonderful life", "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", and for the more refined tastes, "Scrooged". Let's not forget that annual 24 hours of "A Christmas Story"! Today I want to discuss ways to stay active and avoid the sedentary behaviors that tend to happen in the cold winter months. Staying active can help avoid Seasonal Affective Disorder, keep the pounds from accumulating, improve your immune system, and also stave off aches and pains associated with lethargy. While it might be natural to feel like you want to hibernate like the (Chicago) bears, there is nothing in our known history where homo sapiens have ever hibernated. We hunted and foraged to stay alive in winters. Many Northern European descendants have evolved to have a natural amount of "brown fat". This is commonly found in hibernating animals and actually creates heat through a chemical process similar to muscle energy production. It is believed to be lost in most humans as we leave infancy however, and we would die in just 3 days without water, so ixnay on the ibernationhanay. Here are five easy tips to staying active this winter!!
![]() Holidays...food...cold weather...stress. How do we help ourselves stay healthy during these glutenous, often emotionally overwhelming times? In this three part blog adventure I'm going to help you to find ways to stay healthy this holiday season. Lets start with the food. The holidays are are most certainly always a time that it becomes easy to over eat, and not just over eat, but engorge on yummy fatty sugary treats, or what we lovingly refer to as "comfort food". This is a natural thing for our bodies to crave in winter. Much like a squirrel who fattens up for the winter hibernation, our bodies crave a nice layer of fat for insulation. Especially here in the bitter cold north states. What gets us in trouble is the shear amount we eat. There is nothing wrong with eating most of the "comfort food" we serve during the holidays, as long as we limit our servings. According to WebMD the average American consumes 4,500 calories at Thanksgiving dinner...scary. Here are 5 easy tricks to change how you eat.
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AuthorNicholas Garman, LMT NSCA-CPT Archives
March 2022
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Kalamazoo Athletic Wellness | tHE kaw bLOG |