October 6, 2008
From PCOS Health E-News
PCOS Health & Nutrition Centre
October 2008
Lifestyle changes, including diet and exercise, can significantly improve all or most of the symptoms of PCOS. In fact research has shown that losing as little as 5% of your weight through diet and exercise can restore ovulation, improve fertility and reduce many of the symptoms of this condition. And if you have PCOS, eating well and exercising regularly also helps regulate your blood glucose levels, improve your energylevels and reduce your risk of diabetes and heart disease.
PCOS Made Easy is an audio CD designed specifically for women with PCOS, to help them in making the lifestyle changes needed to manage their condition. It will provide you with:
- an explanation of PCOS and its symptoms
- information on the link between PCOS and insulin resistance and why this is important
- an understanding of the importance of lifestyle changes in managing PCOS
- everything you need to know about eating well with PCOS, including practical
- tips you can implement right now
- a 6-point exercise plan for managing insulin levels
- tips on getting started with exercise
- the truth about those common exercise myths
- a comprehensive range of fact sheets covering all the main points in the audio CD
For further information:
www.pcoshealth.com.au
September 22, 2008
By Judy Fortin
CNN Medical Correspondent
ALPHARETTA, Georgia (CNN) — Latin music pulses from the stereo as 40 women jump, shimmy and sway to the beat.
It’s not a dance club. This is a regular morning exercise class at the YMCA in Alpharetta, Georgia. It’s called Zumba.
Part dance, part aerobics, Zumba is an hourlong routine that works almost every muscle in the body.
“It is dance fitness,” explained Stephanie Maxim, one of two class instructors. “We teach them moves that you can see on ‘Dancing with the Stars’: salsa, mambo, cha-cha, and we put it into a group fitness format.”
“It’s not like a workout,” explained Diane Walterstiel, 55, of Alpharetta. “Before I come, I’m tense, but when I leave, I could kiss the world.”
Nearly a year after being introduced at the YMCA in suburban Atlanta, Zumba is the most popular exercise offering at the facility.
Alberto Perlman, co-founder and CEO of Zumba Fitness in Hollywood, Florida, wasn’t surprised when the concept took off not just in the United States but around the world.
“We turned exercise into a party,” Perlman declared. “Zumba broke some of the rules of fitness. We used music in the original form instead of using step counts.”
Perlman, whose background is in marketing, teamed up with Colombian dancer and choreographer Alberto “Beto” Perez in Miami in 2001.
“One day, Beto forgot his aerobics tapes, so he played his salsa and meringue songs during class in their original form,” Perlman said. “People went crazy. They didn’t feel like they were in a class with a drill sergeant.”
Perlman said Perez decided to call the exercise Zumba, after the Colombian slang word meaning to buzz like a bee or move fast.
Zumba is now a brand name. Since 2003, Perlman’s group has trained 20,000 instructors around the world and sold more than 3 million DVDs on the Internet and through infomercials, he said.
Heather Bleakman teamed up with Maxim to teach the Georgia YMCA session. She called the class a form of therapy.
“We see women change,” she said. “We see their faces light up.”
Bleakman stood at the front of the room and offered a high-impact version of Zumba for those who could keep up while Maxim focused on a slower low-impact routine.
Maxim warned participants at the beginning of class to modify the exercise to fit their needs. She added that wearing proper footwear is one of the best ways to guard against injury.
“In Zumba, we do a lot of pivoting, so you’ve got to have a shoe that has more of a flat base so you can move, or you’ll feel the torque in the knee,” Maxim cautioned.
Lilieth Burke, 48, of Alpharetta started attending Zumba classes a year ago and kept coming back because she appreciated “the simple composition of dance moves.”
Unlike other exercise workouts she’s tried, “Zumba is not a punishment,” she said.
Burke summed up the benefits: “I feel fit, I sleep better, I feel better, I feel younger, and I feel I can live another 48 years.”
September 16, 2008
By COLE KAZDIN and THEA TRACHTENBERG
Sept. 15, 2008
ABCNews.com
Cheryl Kain Credits the Exercise With Controlling Her Type 2 Diabetes
Cheryl Kain says she has battled her weight and mood her entire life.
Can a visit to the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health transform your life?
“Weight’s been on my mind since I came out of the womb,” Kain said. “You lose the weight and then you gain that and more.”
To drop pounds, she tried a variety of options, including ditching carbs, trimming fat and eliminating specific foods from her daily intake.
“I’d tried everything,” she said.
But her weight worries reached a poignant point when she was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes 2½ years ago.
“My body was in a state of emergency all the time,” Kain said.
So she turned to Dr. Mark Pettus, who runs the health for life program at the Kripalu center in Stockbridge, Mass., where people like Kain come to transform their health.
“If someone were to hand me a blank piece of paper and say, ‘Mark, you know, put down something on that paper that would have an impact more than anything on potential to reduce disease risk, to improve health and vitality,’ it would be yoga,” Pettus said.
“Yoga’s one of the few things that enlivens almost every system in the body,” said Garrett Sarley, chief of the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health.
Medical studies show the poses, along with meditation and specific yoga breathing techniques, reduce stress responses, which significantly influences health.
Yoga has been shown to help insomnia and relieve chronic pain conditions. In Kripalu’s program, Kain began to cultivate a yoga practice, and she studied nutrition and food preparations. She practiced meditating and went on 4-mile hikes.
To continue reading:
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/story?id=5805800&page=1
August 26, 2008
By Jeanne Smith
So you need to lose 10 (or 20 or 30) pounds - or think you do – but we’ll get to that later, missy. Well what is so hard about that? All you need is a little self discipline. After all, you only need to eliminate 3,500 calories from your intake, and whoosh – it’s gone. A one time deal and you never have to think about it again, Right? Right?? Don’t I wish!!
Why is it that I don’t hear cheers and the sound of high fives from around the room? What I do hear is the sneaky rustle of potato chip bags and Twinkie’s wrappings. Ah, you say, I could stick to a diet if it weren’t for those nasty food cravings.
All right, I hear you, and yes, I’ll admit that food cravings are real, and the good news is that there could be medical reasons for these cravings.
Are you pregnant? If you think you could be, please get tested. Don’t wait for nine months to find out, girls. That kid needs to be fed right, and fed right NOW. (You want a pickle? Go for it, mom! Just don’t use pregnancy to justify stuffing your tummy with everything you have tried to deny yourself for the past 15 years. )
Premenstrual? Look at the calendar. Does simply being a woman make you want a candy bar? (Or several candy bars? I’ll take two plain chocolate, one with almonds, and a little bag of…but you get the point.)
Low insulin levels? Yes, lack of insulin could be driving your irrational desire for Real Food, i.e., lots of carbohydrates. If you have low blood sugar or if there is diabetes in your family, your body will try to protect itself by storing every calorie within reach. Go to a doctor immediately, and get this checked out, will you?
Low Serotonin? So your boss hates you, your mom won’t get off your back about your messy living room, and your guy is the reason for the messy living room, in the first place. Sure, everybody wants to feel good, and if you are under a lot of stress, your body may start to holler for a one pound bag of chocolate chip cookies, fudge-ripple ice cream or three Margaritas. Are you going to give in?
Yes, food cravings are out there, but the question is, ‘What can you do about them?’ Well, apart from the very real medical issues that some women face, you can do a lot.
Now I know that some of you do not want to go the gym, but exercise really helps. Not only does it elevate the level of those natural feel-good chemicals, it tones your muscles (making the body you have look better, even if it weighs the same), it reduces the number of calories that are available for storage on your inner thighs, and gets you out of harm’s way (that bag of potato chips can’t see you when you are at the gym). Now that’s not just a two-fer, it’s a four-fer! Of course, you don’t have to go to the gym to exercise. You can take long walks with a friend, go bowling, or swim at your local pool - better than watching TV any day.
Meditation and yoga help, too, and yoga helps keep you flexible, as well as calming your nerves (the ones that are frayed because of your guy, your boss, and your mother: see above). Sex and a bath with candles can help, too. The point is that we do have a lot of control over our lives, so let’s go girls!
