Staying Fit for Free: Does Medicare Cover Gym Memberships?

Staying fit is important to your mental and physical wellbeing, no matter what your age. But, for seniors, neglecting your health and fitness can have even greater risks and consequences. Many health challenges tend to increase as we age. This can be true even if maintain a healthy lifestyle in our younger years.

According to the National Council on Aging, here are some of the scary statistics about senior health risks:

Approximately 80% of older adults have at least one chronic disease
Diabetes affects 23% of older adults
90% of older adults are at risk for developing high blood pressure
Depression impacts 7 million older adults

If you’re a senior, you may be able to take advantage of added benefits through a Medicare supplement plan that can help prevent health problems down the road. But, does Medicare cover gym memberships, weight loss and more?

Jan072019

How Much is Diet and How Much is Exercise?

Yesterday at the gym, in the middle of a set, a woman walked up to me and asked me if she could ask me a question… even though she already did. I nodded up and down, finished my set and took my headphones out so that I could hear her. I’ll get interrupted nearly every workout, no matter where I’m training, so it doesn’t bother me. If it did, I would use my gym at home or just ignore people. Since I designed this particular fitness center, I’m even more friendly than normal, so I decided to help her out.

Jan022019

Achieve a Lifestyle, Not a Number

Happy 2019! New year, new you, right? Great! If that’s what you want. But how are you framing it? Are you saying you want to lose x number of pounds or BMI? Are you saying you want to fit into size x? That’s all well and good, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the right way to look at it. You should never attribute your value to a number. Never ever. I love the body positivity movement that has been gaining following, but it still has a long, long way to go.

Instead of just trying to achieve a weight loss goal of thirty pounds (or whatever), why not make a resolution to change your lifestyle? I’m not saying you can’t touch a slice of pizza or bowl of ice cream again. I’m saying shifting a few things in your day-to-day life that could make a bigger impact than you might first think. I’m not going to give a direct list of what you need to do because everyone will need a different plan of action, but let me give some overall advice.

Dec282018

4 Tips To Playing Basketball For The First Time

Basketball is a great sport that is loved by people of all ages and abilities. This sport can be played all year round as a competitive game or casually at a local court. Basketball is great for your health and it’s a perfect workout since it involves your entire body. The jumping and running aspect of the game will help you stay fit, shed a few extra kilos and boost mental development.

Playing basketball for the first time can be both challenging and exciting. As a beginner, where do you start? How do you prepare?

Here are 4 tips to playing basketball for the first time.

Dec012018

The Push Up & Plank Challenge

While many of you are probably preparing for Freeform’s (although we all know it as ABC Family) 25 Days of Christmas, which starts today with Kittens vs Christmas Trees, there are others stressing about their physical health during the month of Thanksgiving all the way to Christmas. While we spoke about optimizing your health from a food and fuel point of view yesterday, we have a simple, yet rewarding challenge to issue for this month… starting today!

Everyone can do push ups and planks. By that, I mean, there are a lot of people who cannot swim because they do not have access to a pool or body of water. There are people who cannot cycle because they do not have a bike and cannot afford a membership to a gym. Nearly everyone can roll out of bed in the morning and get on the floor to put down a set of push ups and a plank.

Nov302018

The Optimal Holiday Season

Thanksgiving is over and you’ve probably just stopped feeling full from what was surely a gluttonous night. Preparing for the madness and chaos between Christmas and New Year’s, we are all trying to stay in the best physical and mental state possible. After all, we need to hit some of our 2018 resolutions and prepare ourselves for 2019. Instead of just giving up entirely and letting yourself go, give December your absolute best effort. We already threw some tips out for Black Friday shopping, which are still somewhat useful now. Even if you missed out on all of the sales, focus your mind and be an absolute beast this last month of the year.

In order to keep your mind in the best possible place and minimize the stress that is associated with this time of year, we need to keep our bodies in great shape. We need to stay healthy and fight off colds or flus that notoriously wreck us at the worst time possible. (I remember having a 106 degree fever while recovering from Bells Palsy a few years ago, at our family Christmas celebration… it was the worst!) Regularly exercising and eating well will put you in a good place and set you up for success, but everyone can use some help. Fortunately for all of us, one of our absolute favorite companies in the health and wellness space just came out with some new products and after trying them for a few weeks, we have to share!

Nov272018

A Beginner’s Guide to Counting Macros

[Please enjoy a guest article from former NFL player, Chris Gronkowski!]

Starting a new diet can be a difficult adjustment and part of the change involves becoming accustomed to a new routine and way of thinking about food. Counting calories is an accurate but sometimes challenging method for tracking what you consume each day. If your goal is to lose weight, you’ll want to record how many calories you eat and work to burn off more calories. For some people, this dieting method is tedious and easy to forget about. But those willing to stick to a strict approach may want to take it one step further and experiment with counting their macro calories.

What Is a Macro Diet?

Following a macro diet is similar to the process of counting calories but, instead, you must focus on tracking how much you consume of the three macronutrients—protein, carbohydrates and fats. One of the major benefits of counting macros is that you are compelled to consume only foods that are fueling your body in some respect. For example, if you were on a calorie-counting diet, you could eat a bag of potato chips as long as you write down the calorie count. But, with a macro-counting diet, you would want to replace the chips with a food heavier in protein, carbs or fats.

Macronutrients are vital to our body’s well-being, and they can be found in nearly every food. Most items though are classified by whichever macronutrient they have the most of—for example, beef is considered a protein even though it also contains fats. Counting macros has been a popular practice amongst athletes for many years but, as of late, people have found this method to be a beneficial way to hold themselves to healthy eating habits.

May302018

Lunch Break Meditation

Hooray! It’s lunch time! Or even if it’s not, hopefully you have some break throughout your day for a bite to eat and a breather. You might have five minutes, thirty minutes, or an hour. Use some of that time to nourish your body with filling, healthy food. On top of that, I’m challenging you to also nourish your soul with a lunch break meditation. The day’s event can sweep you up into a tide of stress and imbalance. Maybe you haven’t really taken a second to step back and catch your breath or allow your shoulders to lower from your ear lobes.

Whatever your day is–work or not–it’s important to take a break. And one of the most productive breaks you can take is a meditation break. It will refresh mind and body. You don’t need to sit in the middle of your office floor, legs crossed, shoes off, and be humming an ‘om.’ You just need a quiet place where you won’t be bothered for a few minutes. Maybe that’s your desk, a conference room, a table outside, even the bathroom. Find a spot. You don’t even have to be seated. If it’s loud around you and you can’t escape the sound, listen to some calming music. I have a “yoga” Spotify playlist that has some wonderfully soothing tracks (such as Home Again by Drala). Try to block out the outside noise, but don’t stress if you can’t. This will only take a few minutes, but try to give it your full attention.

Nature is always a great place to find some peace

Apr182018

Investing in Your Health (featuring Ortho Mattress)

I was scrolling through my Instagram feed the other day when I saw Jesse Itzler (entrepreneur and author of one of my favorite books, Living With a Seal) encourage his followers to look at their spending habits differently. A lot of people see the amount that they spend on the gym, supplements, organic produce, free-range meat and quickly reconsider their positive lifestyle changes. They tell themselves that all these things don’t matter as they make up excuses to justify their lack of progress. Whether it is bad genetics, an old injury or they can’t afford it, people are constantly creating barriers for themselves. Still, like in business, you need to invest to see some serious returns!

Apr172018

Should You Shop at Costco?

You’ve probably heard something like this plenty of times: losing weight is 80% diet and 20% exercise. While those numbers are just estimates, they’re not far from reality. The truth is, most goals related to health and wellness have a lot to do with what you put in your body. The number of calories you consume will have the biggest impact on whether you lose, maintain or gain weight. The types of calories you consume (not good vs. bad BUT proteins/fats/carbs) will also have a significant influence on how your body transforms, especially when paired with a physical training program.