Fitness Food and You

Years ago, when I was training to become a personal trainer, one of the things that I learned was a great technique for goal setting: Use SMART. The acronym stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-framed.  So, instead of saying something like, “ I want to eat healthier,”  a SMART goal would be, “I want to start eating two servings of vegetables, five days a week for a month.” You can clearly see the difference between the two.

Recently, I set a SMART goal for myself that turned out to be really DUMB. 🙄

In mid-July, I had a horrible bike accident. I flew off my bike, landed on my left shoulder, shattered the head of my humerus, needed extensive surgery, and walked out of HSS (The Hospital for Special Surgery in New York), with two plates, and 22 screws in my shoulder.  Since I had all of this hardware in my shoulder, formal physical therapy would not start for at least 5-6 weeks post-surgery. However, before I left the hospital, I was given 5 basic exercises to do on my own. I had to do 10 reps each, three times a day. I was on board!

Two weeks after my surgery, I met with the PA, who removed my stitches. He told me that he wanted me to add another exercise when I was 3-4 weeks post-surgery. This one would be challenging. I would have to put my hand on the wall and try to walk it up as high as I could. THE DREADED WALL CRAWLS. I cringed just hearing about this.

When the time came, I was ready. I even had a friend with me for added support. Of course, I was going to make this SMART. I was going to do my wall crawls three times in a row twice a day. In addition, I had my friend mark the wall with tape, so I could make sure I would go a tiny bit higher each time. I would be able to see my progress! I felt so good about this plan.

To make a long story short,  after two days of this, I was in a lot of pain. I wrote the PA for some guidance, which, of course, I should have done BEFORE I started.  He told me that he wanted me to do about TWO of these a day, otherwise, having that kind of pain would just be counterproductive.

Of course, I should’ve known this. I know all about the detriments of overtraining. I immediately marched to that wall and removed all the tape. No more! I was unable to do two wall crawls for days and days because I was so uncomfortable. 

I constantly preach to my clients, the importance of listening to your body. Overall, I think I’m very good at this. However, when it comes to physical challenges, I clearly have some blind spots. Listening to your body is crucial in all aspects of your life from eating, to sleeping, to moving your body and beyond. You might me ignoring the need to be more intimate with your partner, or connecting with a friend. Our bodies tell us everything, if we would just listen. 

Knowing this, if I were to rewrite the SMART acronym, I would somewhere add the letter L for LISTEN. Listen to your body. Let’s go back to that first example I made about eating more vegetables. Let’s say, that you added two vegetables every day for five days for a month. And during that time you were bloated, had a lot of gas, and were uncomfortable. Clearly, you would need to adjust the goal! I had no business pushing through that kind of discomfort. But I fell into the trap because I was looking at the tape on the wall instead of listening. 

Lesson learned! Don’t be DUMB about being SMART!

Imagine this scenario: You go to the doctor for your annual physical. While at the appointment, they take a routine x-ray. The doctor finds something suspicious on the x-ray and wants you to have further tests. The tests take time to schedule and then, of course, you have to wait for your next appointment. During this period, you feel nervous and anxious. You start going down the google rabbit hole, which only ignites more anxiety. You stop sleeping well, perhaps stop eating or eating well. In short, you are a nervous wreck. You are STRESSED.

I’m bringing this up because recently, three of my clients had similar situations where something looked suspicious on an initial test. In all three cases, it turned out to be a benign incidental finding. However, regardless of the medical issue, there was a lot of stress and a lot of anxiety.

Periods of stress are corrosive to the body. This is because we are, unfortunately, still operating like cave-people. When we get stressed, our sympathetic nervous system kicks in. This system wants to give our bodies sympathy by helping us when it thinks we need to flight of flee. (The good ole, “fight or flight” response is still with us!) A plethora of physiological changes take place: stress hormones are released, heart rate and blood pressure increase, pupils dilate, breathing rate goes up, blood sugar elevates, fatty acids are released into the blood stream supplying the body with extra energy so we can fight that beast. Only there is no beast to fight. Two million years ago, when there was a beast to kill, the body would return a “normal” state after the fight, because of the parasympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic nervous system does just the opposite of the sympathetic nervous system–it slows everything down because the threat is over. When we are constantly stressed, the threat is never over so we wind up staying in this “high-alert” state, which, as you can see, is not healthy place to be. Over time you will have an increase risk for hypertension, stroke or a heart attack.  Chronic stress contributes to an increase in inflammation especially in the arteries leading to the heart. 

Waiting for test results or getting a medical report that we can’t understand can trigger this same response. Given our current state of technology, it is not far-fetched to think that sooner or later, we will all be faced with something like this happening to us. The best advice that I can offer is to try hard to stay calm, since getting keyed up before you know the facts will not change a thing. I always tell myself that I can fully “freak the F out” when I know something is actually wrong. If it turns out to be nothing, you cannot undo the period of stress that you put yourself under.

To calm your chattering brain, consider using a meditation app, that will guide you along through relaxation. (There are so many good ones out there now! My personal favorite is headspace.) I find just listening to meditation music and breathing deeply works beautifully—especially in the middle of the night if I find myself awake and thinking about things I should not be. Deep breathing awakens your parasympathetic nervous system, which brings your body back to equilibrium.

Bottom line: Stress is not a good state to be in. Of course, we will all feel stressed from time to time but do your best to keep it at bay by staying in the present, calming your chattering mind, and breathing!

I have an oxalis plant that I love. Recently, it started to look a little ragged—the leaves were no longer green and robust but were wilted and spotted. So, I decided to change the way I took care of it. When the sun streamed through my sliding glass doors, I put my plant on the floor for hours so that the plant could soak up the sun. I watered it more frequently; I gave it some plant food. The more I interfered, the worse my plant responded. Whatever happened to the advice I give my clients? “Make SMALL changes one at a time so that you can see what works and don’t get overwhelmed.” I guess my brain wasn’t working.

Just when I was about to try something else, my parents brought me a gift–another plant. I put this new plant where my oxalis was and mercifully, decided to do the right thing for my decaying plant—I stopped torturing it. I moved it out of my sight to another bright place and told my husband to take care of it. After 2 weeks, my sad, languishing plant started to come back to life. More leaves popped up; it was green again and even started sprouting flowers.

The lesson is obvious. How many times are we our own worst enemy? How often do we overthink, get in our own way, and make things worse for ourselves? I see many of my clients spending way too much time overthinking about what type of exercise they should be doing, for how long and how often. A lot of contemplation and no additional exercise. This is the case, too, when trying to implement a healthier diet. A lot of ambitious ideas but no change in behavior.

Let’s learn a lesson from the mess I was making with my oxalis plant: Less is more. Less leads to better outcomes. Keep it simple and stay out of your way. Make small, consistent changes and you might be very surprised at the results.