Numerous medical and social studies have revealed the number 1 reason why people in the US do not engage in daily exercise. Can you guess what it is? Not surprisingly, it is a lack of time, and the kicker here is that this isn't just a lame excuse. It is actually a consequence of a decidedly American work ethic that has us spending more time at work than anyone else in the industrialized world.

Workplace wellness is a fairly new practice that’s been gaining popularity in corporate America. The result is a growing familiarity with health promotion in offices and organizations where once it was almost unheard of.

Typically, workplace wellness programs include health education seminars, medical and fitness screenings, weight loss or management challenges and on-site fitness classes or gym installations. Providing an on-site fitness program offers a solution to the lack of time for exercise and, while employees can take advantage of the health benefits from training on-site, they also experience increased job satisfaction as an added bonus.

Active employees are more energetic and productive, display job satisfaction and have reduced chances of developing a chronic diseases.

In fact, according to the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, it is a lack of exercise that is the primary cause of most chronic diseases. Based on this information, it stands to reason then that in-house fitness programs are a smart choice for business owners who want to cut expensive healthcare costs while improving company morale.

It is clear that the benefits of having workplace fitness and training programs are numerous. Below is quick list of the reasons why businesses should be taking advantage of this remarkable new health and fitness trend.

• TIME: The number 1 reason why people do not work out is a lack of time, but not working out is also the number 1 reason for chronic illnesses. Obviously people need to make time and personal training in the workplace is an easy solution.
• COST: Healthy employees cost less. A study from the University of Michigan found that employees who were at a high risk for metabolic syndrome but worked out regularly lowered their average healthcare costs to the same level as healthy employees with no risk.  Exercise provides a level of protection that can save both employer and employee from costly healthcare expenses in the long run.
• PRODUCTIVITY: Employees who are healthy and active are much more satisfied in their positions and are more productive as a result.
• EDUCATION: Some trainers have certifications to provide injury protection and rehab to employees which is another way future injuries and expensive treatments can be avoided. It also allows employees to learn proper techniques and exercising methods that they would not learn from working out alone at a gym or at home.

Other Great Benefits of a Personal Trainer that your employees could benefit from:

1. It is Educational: One of the primary reasons that someone should have a Personal Trainer is that they are trained in teaching others how to exercise.
2. Form: Having a Personal Trainer beside you to demonstrate the correct posture and technique is invaluable. A Personal Trainer will ensure clients are performing exercises correctly and efficiently, in order to maximize results.
3. Uniqueness: Trainers Can Help With Your Unique Requirements - Everybody is different, and that means everyone’s abilities and requirements are different when it comes to exercise. This could be anything from having an old injury that requires special exercises to having a phobia that may impact on where or how you workout.
4. Realistic Goals: They Help You Set Realistic Goals - Everyone wants to achieve their goals straight away, whether they be weight loss, cheese grater abs or Hulk-like strength. But these are not always achievable, and if you don’t hit them then you may be discouraged and backslide.
5. Specific Goals: They Can Help With Specific Goals, Such As Training For An Event - As well as helping their clients set realistic goals, Personal Trainers are the perfect tool to help you achieve a specific goal. This is ideal for those who are training for a specific event, or need to achieve a certain level of fitness before they are able to do something they really want.
6. Accountability: They Hold You Accountable - How many times have you gone to bed and said to yourself, "Tomorrow I’m going to wake up, go to the gym, and do an hour workout before I get ready for work", and then woken up and decided to sleep for another hour instead of exercising? This is where a Personal Trainer is critical to ensuring that you commit and stick to your fitness goals.
7. Time: No Wasted Time = Maximum Results
8. More Than Fitness - It is Not Just Fitness They Can Help With - When completing my Certificates in Fitness and Nutrition, I was required to complete many testes in both fields.
9. Mental: They Improve Your Mental Health - It has long been known that physical exercise can help with mental health issues such as depression, and that it is a recommended part of treatment by many medical health professionals. Having a Personal Trainer to help with your exercise plan when you suffer from mental health problems can help with motivation
10. Therapy: They're An Unofficial Therapist - Let's be honest, most of the time when exercising with your Personal Trainer you will be telling them about your week, how work is going, and what’s wrong with your life at the time. This is normal! A Personal Trainer is there to help with your fitness goals, yes, but they’re also there to help improve your overall well-being.
11. Habits: They Help You Form Good Habits - It can take weeks to form good habits, and even longer to break bad ones - and trying to do it on your own is hard work.
12. Personalized: Personalized Training Plan - There are always going to be some exercises that you enjoy more than others, beyond simple capability. For example, just because you can physically do burpees doesn’t mean that you always want to, but you might really like doing squat jumps and sit ups instead.
13. Scheduling: They Fit Into Your Schedule - Regardless of whether the only time you have available to train is at a ridiculously early hour before work, or on your lunch break, or mid-afternoon before the kids come home from school - a Personal Trainer is one of the most versatile professions in terms of hours.
14. Flexibility: Increased Flexibility For Location - Not everyone enjoys the atmosphere of a crowded gym, or having to wait for the machine you want to use to become available. The benefit of having a Personal Trainer is that you aren't limited to working out where equipment is available
15. Challenge: They Challenge You - Are you getting bored with your fitness routine? Have you progressed beyond the exercises you know and have plateaued in your fitness? A Personal Trainer is what you need to take you to the next level, and continuously challenge your abilities.

If a workplace wellness program or on-site personal training is on your to-do list, but you don't know where or how to get started, we can help you by getting your new health initiative off the ground. Contact us today.

What is The Single Best Thing We Can Do for Our Health?

I thought it is time to re-post one of my favorite videos from 2017. I have been noticing a few too many excuses from certain people to get back in shape, so here it goes.

What is the single best thing you can do for your health? No doubt, preventative medicine is the best. It is the key to longevity and overall good health. Weighing less, drinking less, smoking less, control cholesterol and blood pressure are all part of that. So please do not minimize your efforts in any of these categories.

BUT, what comes 1st? Where do you get the best ROI - return on your investment - in terms of your health? Think about it…What improves your overall quality of life? Anybody?

Walk for 30 min a day! Not run a marathon or triathlon…JUST WALK FOR 30 MIN EVERY DAY.

It is one of the single most important thing you can do for your health. Most of our 24 hour day is spent sitting, driving, watching TV, sleeping and so forth.

Can you invest 30 min of that for your health?

Watch the Video Illustration below:

Do I need S M A R T  Goals for my Health?

Short answer is most likely yes, it would make your life much easier. Whether you want to boost your activity levels or implement a new diet, setting SMART health goals can take you closer to success. SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

Change Is Hard - But Why?
We all know that change can be hard. Especially when it comes to transforming unhealthy habits into healthy ones. If it weren't, the chronic disease epidemic would be non-existent. We would all eat a nutrient-dense, whole-foods diet, get sufficient sleep, manage stress levels, and embrace other aspects of a healthy, primal lifestyle.
But, we as a population clearly don't do that. Only about 6% of American's actually follow these 5 basic, healthy habits:

1. Don't smoke
2. Limit alcohol
3. Maintaining a healthy BMI
4. Exercising regularly
5. Sleep enough.

A few Harvard researchers found that men who pursued these five low-risk lifestyle behaviors could add an average of 12 years to their lives; for women, that number jumped to 14.

Although there's a clear motivator to live a healthy life, many of us just don't do so. Why? Is there something fundamentally wrong with us that causes us to behave in ways that aren't in our best interests? Not at all. The fact is, we're not always ready to change and, even once we are, many of us don't know how to do it.

The change happens in multiple stages. At the beginning, most of us are not ready to take new actions. It's hard. It's inconvenient. It hurts. It feels different. We may feel doubtful or uncertain about whether we really need to change, we may not feel prepared, and we're not all that motivated to make any big shifts in our lifestyles. However, eventually, as we progress through the stages of change, that ambivalence dissolves. We make a decision and we feel motivated to follow through. Either because we had a talk with our children, we spoke to a good friend, we watched an interesting documentary, you name it. This is the stage where goal setting can help the most and it's a great time to try out the SMART methodology.
 
How to Set SMART Goals for Your Health
It matters how we define and articulate our goals to achieve them. The SMART methodology aims to help you establish and express your goals by ensuring that they're:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

 
Specific
Specific means you've targeted a precise area for improvement.
Example:

• General goal: I want to be less stressed
• Specific SMART goal: To decrease my stress levels, this month I will practice a breathing exercise every Tuesday and Thursday at 8am.

 
Measurable
Measurable means you can quantify and track your progress towards your goal. When setting your SMART goal, identify how you'll monitor your headway. Ask yourself: "How will I know when I have accomplished my goal?"
Example:

• Unattainable goal: I want to exercise more frequently, but I don't want to over-train and get injured
• Attainable SMART goal: To increase my physical activity without overtraining, I'll replace a CrossFit or HIIT routine with yoga twice a week this month.

 
Relevant
Relevant means it's a worthwhile goal that matches what you want from your life. The best goals align with your values, beliefs, desires, dreams and purpose.
Example:

• Non-relevant goal: I want to compete in a marathon in the next 4 months, but I hate running.
• Relevant SMART goal: Because I'm a supporting entrepreneur in my community, I'll exercise three days a week this month at the local personal training studio.

 
Time-bound
Time-bound means that you're setting a deadline for your goal. Without a cutoff date for completion, you’re more likely to procrastinate. The examples above all include clear timelines that orient the goal in the present, not some distant time in the future.
 
FINAL THOUGHTS: Important to remember is that the SMART approach is not a perfect fit for everyone. Around 40 percent of people do great with having objective-oriented goals (like SMART goals). The remaining 60 percent would benefit from a more directional, less specific approach. Embrace SMART goals for your health journey. If you're ready to set SMART goals, consider reach out. We can offer you one-on-one support to create and sustain steady, and even dramatic, change in your life.

Laughter is the Best Medicine
 
It's fun to share a good laugh, but did you know it can actually improve your health?

Learn how to harness the powerful benefits of laughter and humor.

It's no joke! Laughter is strong medicine. It draws people together in ways that trigger healthy physical and emotional changes in the body. Laughter strengthens your immune system, boosts mood, diminishes pain, and protects you from the damaging effects of stress. Humor lightens your burdens, inspires hope, connects you to others, and keeps you grounded, focused, and alert. It also helps you release anger and forgive sooner.

A good laugh has great short-term effects. When you start to laugh, it doesn't just lighten your load mentally, it actually induces physical changes in your body. It's also good for you over the long term.

Here is a good list of why laughter is good for your health:

• Laughter can relax the whole body
  A good, hearty laugh relieves physical tension and stress, leaving your muscles relaxed for up to 45 minutes after.
• Laughter can boost the immune system
  Laughter decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, thus improving your resistance to disease.
• Laughter can trigger the release of endorphins
  These are the body's natural feel-good chemicals. Endorphins promote an overall sense of well-being and can even temporarily relieve pain.
• Laughter can protect the heart
  Laughter improves the function of blood vessels and increases blood flow, which can help protect you against a heart attack and other cardiovascular problems.
• Laughter can burn calories
  Well, ok, so it's no substitute for going to the gym, but one study found that laughing for 10 to 15 minutes a day can burn approximately 40 calories, which could be enough to lose three or four pounds over the course of a year.
• Laughter can lighten anger’s heavy load
  Nothing diffuses anger and conflict faster than a shared laugh. Looking at the funny side can put problems into perspective and enable you to move on from confrontations without holding onto bitterness or resentment.
• Laughter may even help you to live longer
  A study in Norway found that people with a strong sense of humor outlived those who don’t laugh as much. The difference was particularly notable for those battling

How to bring more laughter into your life
Laughter is your birthright, a natural part of life that is innate and inborn. Babies begin smiling during the first weeks of life and laugh out loud within months of being born. Even if you did not grow up in a household where laughter was a common sound, you can learn to laugh at any stage of life.

Begin by setting aside special times to seek out humor and laughter, as you might with exercising, and build from there. Eventually, you'll want to incorporate humor and laughter into the fabric of your life, finding it naturally in everything.

Here some good ways you could try to start:

• Smile
  Smiling is the beginning of laughter, and like laughter, it's contagious. When you look at someone or see something even mildly pleasing, practice smiling. Instead of looking down at your phone, look up and smile at people you pass in the street, the person serving you a morning coffee, or the co-workers you share an elevator with. Notice the effect on others.
• Count your blessings
  Literally make a list. The simple act of considering the positive aspects of your life will distance you from negative thoughts that block humor and laughter. When you're in a state of sadness, you have further to travel to reach humor and laughter.
• When you hear laughter, move toward it
  Sometimes humor and laughter are private, a shared joke among a small group, but usually not. More often, people are very happy to share something funny because it gives them an opportunity to laugh again and feed off the humor you find in it. When you hear laughter, seek it out and ask, "What's funny?"
• Spend time with fun, playful people
  These are people who laugh easily, both at themselves and at life's absurdities, and who routinely find the humor in everyday events. Their playful point of view and laughter are contagious. Even if you don't consider yourself a lighthearted, humorous person, you can still seek out people who like to laugh and make others laugh. Every comedian appreciates an audience.
• Bring humor into conversations
  Ask people, "What's the funniest thing that happened to you today? This week? In your life?"

 
And here a great list to create opportunities to laugh

• Watch a funny movie, TV show, or go on YouTube
• Invite friends or co-workers out to a comedy club
• Read the funny pages
• Seek out funny people
• Share a good joke or a funny story
• Check out your bookstore's humor section
• Host game night with friends & family
• Play with a pet
• Go to a "laughter yoga" class
• Goof around with children
• Do something silly
• Make time for fun activities (e.g. bowling, miniature golfing, karaoke)

 
No go out and laugh, have fun, life is not that serious.

Sources:

• HelpGuide article
  
• Mayo Clinic article